Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts (2009-2021) — Melbourne, Florida

The Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts was a museum of cloth, clothing and fiber art on the Florida Tech campus in Melbourne. According to Florida Tech News, it opened to the public on Saturday, August 29, 2009, at 10 a.m., with free admission, and it was the only textile arts center in the state of Florida. The address was the university's own, 150 W. University Boulevard, and the building stood in the heart of campus next to Evans Library.

The museum ran for a little over ten years. Florida Tech closed its two Melbourne museums in March 2020 under state coronavirus guidelines, and in May 2020 the university decided not to reopen the Funk Center at all, a decision reported by Vero News in June 2020. The building did not sit empty for long: since September 7, 2021 it has housed the Ruth Funk Esports Center, so the Funk name still marks the same two-story structure beside Evans Library. This page covers how the museum came to Florida Tech, what it held, what it showed and what happened after the closure.

Ruth E. Funk was an artist, designer and teacher originally from Texas, and her ties to Florida Tech began in 2003, when she exhibited at the campus Dream Weavers textile arts display, according to the 2015 Florida Tech notice of her death. She first gave hundreds of ethnic textiles, pieces of wearable art and cultural artifacts, and added almost 500 volumes on art and design to Evans Library.

The program grew in steps. In April 2004, a $50,000 gift from Melbourne resident Ruth Funk paid for new art and design courses and a textile arts program, half as endowment and half as seed money, and she made a further commitment of $1 million over time with a museum in mind. Among the pieces she gave then was a 19th century dowry coat from Turkistan.

In October 2006 the Funk Textiles Gallery opened in the Crawford Building, and at its gala President Anthony J. Catanese announced that Funk had donated $1.25 million toward a 10,000 square foot textiles facility. The 2006 Florida Tech release set the projected budget at $1.5 million, with the university providing the remaining $250,000. Groundbreaking for the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts was set for April 25, 2008, at 1 p.m., and the 2008 groundbreaking notice expected the museum to open in 2009. Funk joined the Florida Tech Board of Trustees in 2008 and died in March 2015 at the age of 92.

Holeman Suman Architects of Melbourne designed the building, and the 2019 anniversary release names Melbourne architect Craig Suman. The 2008 plan for the two-story center listed 3,000 square feet of exhibition space, 2,500 square feet of storage and work space, 700 square feet for a mezzanine library and 600 square feet for a lobby and grand stairway. The gallery was one stop on a short walk across the Florida Tech campus: the 2019 Florida Tech release placed it between Evans Library and the Gordon and Joy Patterson Botanical Garden.

The collection was the reason for the climate-controlled storage. The 2008 notice described traditional handmade textiles, embroidery and garments from many nations, European and North American embroidery, lace and samplers from the 17th through 20th centuries, and contemporary wearable art. By August 2013 the Ruth Funk Center permanent collection held more than 1,000 objects, and by August 2019 it had grown to over 1,600 objects from five continents representing over 500 years of history. Florida Tech named its strengths as Japanese kimono, South African beadwork, Central Asian embroidery and the Panamanian clothing called molas.

Vero News reported in 2020 that the Funk Center's permanent collection had been valued at $1.5 million, and that the Melbourne museum had run a Friends of Textiles program with seminars featuring international speakers.

The opening show, Coat Couture: Inspiration to Creation, paired the embellished coats and jackets of Ruth Funk with traditional textiles from the collection, including African mud cloth, Chinese embroidery, Panamanian molas and Asian ikats. Curated by Carla Funk (no relation) and Thea Rusch, it ran at the Florida Tech center through December 12, 2009. Hours that first season were Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Later shows rotated through the permanent collection and loans. Textiles and Culture: Highlights from the Permanent Collection ran from September 14 to December 14, 2013, with South African beadwork, Meiji era kimonos and Central American embroidery. In 2017, Space Coast Living previewed Flora and Fiber, on view in Melbourne from May 20 through August 26, 2017, and Cloth as Community: Hmong Textiles in America, from September 16 to December 16, 2017.

By its tenth anniversary in August 2019, Florida Tech counted over 50,000 patrons and more than 30 exhibits at the Funk Center, among them The Little Black Dress, Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art and Redress: Upcycled Style by Nancy Judd. Nearly 250 contemporary fiber artists from Florida, the United States and abroad had shown work there, and the staff had grown from two people to six. Vero News added a wedding dress show, Tying the Knot, to the list of exhibits that drew visitors from as far as Vero Beach.

The closure came out of the pandemic year. Both Florida Tech museums in Melbourne, the Funk Center on campus and the Foosaner Art Museum in the Eau Gallie Arts District, closed in March 2020 under state guidelines. In May 2020 the university decided to close the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts permanently in response to what it called unprecedented economic uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Foosaner reopened for a final period and closed on July 1, 2021.

The collections then needed new homes. Carla Funk, by then Florida Tech's executive director of university museums, told Vero News in 2020 that her goal was to find new homes for them and that the university was not interested in selling to private collections. In April 2021, Central Florida Public Media reported that a Florida Tech spokesman said the university was finalizing transfer agreements with the Appleton Museum of Art and the College of Central Florida in Ocala, and that the collection at the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts could be going there as well. No public source located for this page confirms where every Funk object finally went, so that question stays open here.

The building kept its name. The Florida Tech esports facility page states that esports is located at the Ruth Funk Center, which was renovated and opened on September 7, 2021. The former galleries now hold 60 gaming PCs, a competition stage with a spectator area, a console room, a student lounge and a broadcast and production room, and entry requires a valid Florida Tech ID.

For anyone tracing the museum's history in Melbourne, the surviving record is mostly in print: the Florida Tech news archive, the 2009 book Cloth and Culture: Couture Creations of Ruth E. Funk, and press coverage from 2017 through 2021. Ruth Funk's work as an artist was also shown at the Maitland Art Center, the Vero Beach Museum of Art and the Brevard Art Museum, the institution that later became the Foosaner.