The Arizona Copper Art Museum is curating a general store-themed window display to help beautify historic downtown Clarkdale’s Main Street.
The museum will be expanding to 901 Main Street, which used to be the Old General Store in Clarkdale’s copper smelting days and has stood empty for over 40 years. The phased expansion, called the Venus Tree Project, will be carried out in phases, with the window display as part of the first phase. It will feature items that would have typically been found in the window of a general store that are either made of copper or copper-colored, such as clothing, appliances, tools and household goods.
Drake Meinke, the museum’s founder, likened walking past the window display to walking past a Saks 5th Ave department store display, which was intended to showcase the latest fashions of the season and draw people into the shop, or, in this case, into the museum. Meinke said they plan to use mannequins as one way to display the copper clothing.
Meinke added that the museum wanted a catchy name to pique people’s interest in visiting Clarkdale, claiming that it is a difficult town to get people to visit since it’s off the main roadways.
The museum is aiming to finish the window display by the end of the year, when it will become a permanent exhibit. Meinke said that there will be no other exhibit like it in the U.S.
Once the window display is complete, the museum plans to expand inward with other exhibits, including the Venus Tree, a 15-foot steel tree adorned with copper flowers.
“This is going to be a major expansion of the Copper Museum,” Meinke said. “The focus is to beautify the historic downtown of Clarkdale.”
Meinke pointed out that many of the buildings on Main Street remain empty, and repurposing and using these will contribute to the welfare of the historic district.
The museum recently opened an independently run shop in Old Town Cottonwood that offers copper cookware and other tourism-related items, which joins their first copper shop in Jerome that has been open for over 20 years.
The Arizona Copper Art Museum, like many museums, was started by people who had a collection. Meinke’s parents, John and Pat Meinke of Minnesota, started collecting copper after seeing molds in an antique shop that caught their eye in 1958. Pat later opened a small antique shop that added to the family’s collection.
The family later closed the shop to focus on selling at antique shows. Drake joined the business in 1978 and started his own collection. Drake and Pat then began envisioning a museum to house their copper art collections in the early 2000s.
Mother and son pondered what would be the most fitting location in the U.S. for a copper art museum and decided on Clarkdale, given its rich history as a copper-producing community. They purchased the old high school building, which Meinke said was perfect for a museum because it will allow the school to continue being a place of education. The museum officially opened in 2012.
“People just love [the museum],” Meinke said. “Their perception changes as soon as they walk in the door.”
The museum is always seeking donations of copper items. Meinke revealed that one resident of Clarkdale recently donated a copper toaster, which will be featured in the window display.
For more information, visit arizonacopperartmuseum.com.
