Last weekend’s suggestion-box entry regarding possible economic improvement measures at the Indianapolis Museum of Art wasn’t intended as the launch of a new MCC series, merely a one-off, tongue-in-cheek response to other online reactions. Then again, I wasn’t expecting to see the IMA recapture the headlines this soon.

On Monday local news sources confirmed that our city’s largest art museum has eliminated twenty-nine employees (11% of the total staff) as part of their ongoing efforts to stem the losses from previous years’ shortfalls, and as part of new director/CEO Charles Venable’s plan to minimize budgetary dependence on the museum’s endowment fund, which weathered considerable battle damage during the 2008 recession. I don’t envy the position in which Venable and his survivors now find themselves, though I’m a little bitter that they didn’t even try any of my awesome ideas before swinging the axe of doom.

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