Far East in the Near North
A bronze Buddha
An emperor carved out of ivory
Geisha statue
A jade peacock
A zodiac monkey
At first glance, discovering a museum dedicated to Asian art and culture a few blocks from the main drag of downtown Butler seems about as likely as finding a towering palm tree in the middle of the Arctic tundra.
The Asian population in Butler County, after all, is about 1 percent, and it’s a good bet that most of Butler’s residents of Asian descent are living in the county’s southern tier around Cranberry Township, which has experienced robust residential growth in recent years. If you’re looking for a museum with a focus on places like China and Japan in Western Pennsylvania, the conventional assumption would have it that it’s probably smart to start looking in some cosmopolitan pocket of Pittsburgh, like Oakland, Squirrel Hill or the North Side.
But, believe it or not, there is indeed a museum dedicated to Asian art and culture a few doors down from a public library on a quiet, shady residential street in Butler, about 60 miles north of Washington. The Maridon Museum is now 13 years old, having been launched in 2004 at the behest of Mary Hulton Phillips, a lifelong Butler resident who married into the family that built the Phillips Oil and Gas Co., and became one of Butler’s leading philanthropists and cultural boosters. She was a volunteer and lent financial support for Butler’s symphony, library and historical society. An avid collector of Chinese and Japanese art, along with a sideline interest in German Meissen porcelain, Phillips stipulated that the collection be kept together and placed in one museum, rather than being donated to another institution or scattered to the winds.
Thus the Maridon Museum was born, its name being a portmanteau of “Mary” and her husband, Donald Phillips, who died in 1994.
“She was a collector and was raised in Butler,” says Roxanne Booser, the museum’s director. “She amassed the collection over a 40-year period, and she never had children.”
One unusual fact about Phillips: Despite her affluence and passion for Asian art, she never journeyed to China or Japan herself, either to purchase art or to get a first-hand look at the culture from which it sprang. Booser is not sure if she was leery of airplanes and overseas travel, or if she was merely too preoccupied with doings in Butler to break away for a couple of weeks.
Booser points out that before the Maridon Museum came into being, most of the roughly 800 objects in the collection were housed in a small ranch house where Phillips lived. Now spread out over four galleries, the first contains ivory and jade sculptures, with a Chinese landscape painting on silk from the 1600s. Many of the pieces in the second gallery focus on individuals, from emperors to everyday people going about their daily tasks, while the third gallery focuses on Chinese scholarship, which was rich in calligraphy, painting and poetry. A scholar’s table with brush pots, scroll boxes and a contemplative rock is there, along with scrolls crafted by Chinese scholars.
The fourth gallery houses Phillips’ collection of Meissen porcelain, with at least one item having been made more than 300 years ago. Meissen was the first porcelain maker in the world, and the Phillips collection that was bequeathed to the Maridon Museum includes about 100 Meissen figures, including animals, characters from Italian comedy and allegorical scenes.
The Maridon Museum hosts occasional special and traveling exhibits, and recently hosted a film series focusing on Asian film in conjunction with Slippery Rock University. Despite it being off the beaten path, it draws around 1,400 visitors a year. A constant refrain from visitors, Booser says, is how surprised they are that such a museum is in the heart of Butler.
The Maridon Museum is located at 322 N. McKean St. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday. It is open by special appointment only Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. For information, call 724-282-0123 or visit www.maridon.org.