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Resident launches feasibility campaign to study converting Agnes Pelton cottage into museum in Cathedral City
Summary
Erie Knox told the Public Arts Commission Jan. 14 he and collaborators are forming a feasibility and capital campaign to explore purchasing the Agnes Pelton cottage in Cathedral Cove and creating a museum or broader desert‑women art institution.
A Cathedral City resident told the Public Arts Commission Jan. 14 that he has begun a feasibility campaign to explore buying the Agnes Pelton cottage in Cathedral Cove and turning it into a museum or a broader regional institution celebrating desert women artists.
Erie Knox, who described himself as a playwright and fundraiser, asked commissioners to attend a February 22 informational meeting at 5 p.m. and said he and collaborator Peter Paladino are starting community outreach to determine whether they can raise funds and assemble a governing board. "We're just now starting to reach out to the community," Knox said.
Knox described an initial fundraising target of $1,500,000 and said the committee will test how much could be accomplished with smaller sums, noting that getting started might include fiscal sponsorship instead of immediate incorporation as a 501(c)(3). He said a one‑year timeline is planned for determining whether to incorporate, form a board and secure seed funding. Knox also said Peter Paladino, the cottage owner, holds 19 of Agnes Pelton’s paintings and that the collection could form the original core of any museum display.
Commissioners asked clarifying questions about structure, costs and logistics; staff reminded commissioners that public comment cannot become formal agenda discussion at the meeting. No formal action or city funding request was taken Jan. 14; Knox said he anticipates returning to the commission if the project seeks municipal support.
Agnes Pelton, discussed by Knox, is a modernist painter associated with the Desert Art Center and the Palm Springs area; Knox said some of Pelton’s surrealist works appear in the Palm Springs Art Museum and that a local museum could enable loans and local exhibitions. Knox said the committee is considering accessibility upgrades to the cottage, parking issues, and the need for at least one administrator and a board if the project proceeds.
