Museums in the News

I'm enjoying the motivation that the Museum Daily series provides me, but as I've been off work this week, there's not so much daily museum stuff going on!  And sometimes, I like to go back to my old standard, Museums in the News.  Besides, there have been some really interesting stories from the last few months in the NY Times.  Enjoy!

• Noel in the Museum, Medieval Edition
• Reconsidered, a Met Velázquez Is Vindicated
• Museums Should Dig In

• And a letter from the director of the Met in response to the previous article: Museum as Archaeologist

• To Each His Own Museum, as Identity Goes on Display

• The City as It Was, A Web Site Away  

• Toledo Museum to Return Stolen Artwork
  

And Happy New Year!

Modern Inspiration

So, this should have been my Museum Daily on Thursday, because that's when I actually found out about it at work. One of my museums is in a city where shoes were produced, in large quantities, in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hence, my museum has a very large & very interesting collection of locally made shoes. Over the summer, the curator had a visit from Penelope Guerrero, Women's Senior Shoe Designer at Timberland. They spent some time talking about the shoe industry and looking through our shoe collection.

I wasn't around the day she visited, but the curator received an email from Ms. Guerrero last week saying that she had designed a collection of shoes inspired by my museum's collection! Very cool. Even cooler, she attached a few photos of the shoe design she thought "most reflects the inspiration" she received at the museum. The photos are below.

Isn't the shoe gorgeous? And yes, I went straight to Timberland's website to see if they were available for purchase yet. Couldn't find them, so perhaps they're a 2011 model. Keep your eyes peeled for these shoes!

UPDATE: Just found this video on the website, featuring Ms. Guerrero talking about how she finds inspiration for her shoe designs. Very, very cool to think that our collection was part of her design process.

Christmas Spirit

Love this wreath gracing the door of one of my historic houses. The real front door, a fifteen-panel, mostly-original one from the mid-18th century, is behind the door you see here, installed for protection from the wintry elements. I really like how the wreath, put up by the caretaker, adds a little seasonal charm.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . .

Christmas at the Museum!

A jaunty 19th century marble bust at one of my museums.

The Many Faces of Museum Work

Many days, I spend my time scheduling field trips with teachers and volunteers, researching grant possibilities, developing future programming, supervising interns, researching elements of local history, responding to phone calls & emails about two of the historic houses I manage, and teaching school age kids about their town's history.

But, the above is museum work, too. One of my museums hosted a gingerbread cookie decorating workshop as part of its holiday offerings last weekend. So, I spent a few hours last Saturday making & rolling out dough, cutting bear shapes, and baking the cookies. It's nice to have a little variety!

Appreciation

No photo today, but something happened as I was leaving a classroom of school kids that made me smile and I thought I'd share it. I'd just spent an hour talking with the students about how the Native Americans in the area lived - how they built homes, hunted game, caught fish. I passed around reproduction stone fishing plummets & spear points and real antlers & animal skins. Then I finished up with a snack of corn bread, dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds. All standard fare for me - this was the second class of the day at this particular school and probably the ninth time I'd given this spiel in the last few weeks.

As the kids munched their snack, I asked them if they had any final questions about Native Americans in the area. A few raised their hands and we talked about a couple of aspects of native life not yet covered. Then, a small boy near the front stuck up his hand and I called on him. His words? "I don't have a question, but today was awesome!"

Things like that remind me what it's all about. :)

Off work most of this week . . .

for Thanksgiving! However, wanted to leave you with this unbearably clever video about the shortage in arts funding in the UK, via Museos Unite. Be sure to check it out!

One of THOSE weeks

My apologies for no Museum Dailies this week, but it was just one of those weeks. As of today at noon, I taught/survived over 200 school children since Monday (and that's with no kids on Wednesday!). Whew - I need a breather.

However, I wanted to give you something to look at, so here are some amazing bedhangings that I saw last week at the Museums of Old York. I promise a longer post about the hangings soon!

Museum Daily #24

As usual, I'm behind on Museum Dailies, but I'm not going to let it bother me. I do this in addition to working three jobs, taking care of my dog, maintaining a household while my husband is deployed with the military, and writing two other blogs. Things will get posted when they get posted and I have to be ok with that.

This lovely piece of botanical art is currently hung in an exhibit at one of my museums. The work in the exhibit is great and this detailed look at a fern is my favorite. I forget the artist's name, so I'll have to check on that this week. Lovely to look at, though!

Museum Daily #23

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but it's the start of something Christmasy at one of my museums!

Back to the Daily Grind

I'm back from Wisconsin and right back into my daily schedule. One of my field trip groups cancelled today because of the rain & wind, but as always, there were plenty of other things that needed attention. After working an 8-hour day at that museum, I headed to the annual meeting for one of my other museums.

After a pleasant and mercifully short meeting, one of our Board members presented a great illustrated talk on veneering Federal furniture. Above is the screen showing one of his slides of the shell carvings on an amazing New England secretary desk (click on the image to see some of the detail). I enjoyed the talk with a glass of Spanish red in hand. A busy day, but not a bad way to end it!

See you next week!

No posts this week, as I'll be in Wisconsin visiting my husband before he deploys to the Middle East. I'll leave you with this great photo of a 18th century tombstone to tide you over and give you a preview of the post I'll write when I get back. Catch you next week!

Museum Daily #19, 20, and 21

So, I'm quite behind on Museum Dailies this week. It was a very busy work week, then my dog ate my internet cable (again!) last night. Therefore, you will get three Dailies from this week, all in one post. Plus, I took some great photos in a 17th and 18th century graveyard for work today, so I'm planning to share those in a longer post. Huzzah!

This photo was from Monday. I spent much of the day running around buying supplies for the museum's Halloween party, so I had pumpkins on the brain. This is the kitchen table in the museum, replete with jack o' lantern tablecloth, decorative gourds, and postcards for an upcoming exhibit which feature an amazingly detailed Indian corn drawing.

This is from Tuesday. I attended a workshop at the Addison Museum at Phillips Academy in Andover. They just reopened in September after a 2-year renovation, which added storage, teaching, and administrative space to their 80-year old building. The wall drawing pictured is being done by a modern artist in their museum learning center. It's done by a sharpie pen attached to a simple machine that reads a code the artist created. Very neat!

This photo, taken on Thursday, is of the backseat of my car. I tend to collect the detritus of my jobs in my car's trunk or backseat - reproduction artifacts brought to schools, mail for the museum, etc. In this photo, all three of my jobs have deposited rubble in my backseat. On the left, a folder of archaeology worksheets for my after-school kids at one museum. In the middle and right, copies of the fall newsletter for another museum. At the bottom, a newspaper from one town being brought to another town's museum to cover tables for pumpkin painting at the kids' Halloween party. Whew!

Museum Daily #18

This is the dining room of one of the houses I manage. Isn't it stunning? A Board member and I met a few women who are involved in the local wedding industry at the house today. We're considering opening the house up to wedding photo shoots and intimate (read: small) ceremonies. And the pros loved this room the best, too!

This great shot of the room was taken by Philip Case Cohen of The Daily Portsmouth. Click on it to make it larger if you want to see some of the lovely details.

Museum Daily #17

Today's shot has no real significance - I just really like it. The green glass bottle used to hold "Emerald Oil," which I assume was some sort of patent medicine. We use it in our archaeology program sometimes, but since I brought it last week for the kids to see, I decided to bury things they haven't seen yet.

Museum Daily #16

I took a group of middle schoolers to the burial ground today and the sight of them roaming around the old stones was priceless. At first, they were nervous and made jokes about zombies (it IS close to Halloween, after all), but then they really got into it. They found children & married couples & family plots and came running to tell me about them. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get out the camera, so I have no image of them besides that in my own mind. The late afternoon sun angling through the trees, the chestnuts and crunchy leaves underfoot, the delicate slate gravestones . . . Strange as it sounds, it was really lovely.

However, the shot above is of the river we walked by on our way to the burial ground and it's a lovely thing on its own. Hope it's a decent substitute!

Museum Daily #15

Pumpkins! A fun image today, of the 89 or so (it was a rough count) little pumpkins we have stockpiled for the museum's Halloween party next week. I love how one of the staff members piled them in the nooks & crannies of the oak tree's roots. :)

Museum Daily #14

Pictured here is the newell post in the front hallway of one of the houses I manage. I'm currently editing our newsletter, and one of our Board members, who is a fine woodworker, wrote an interesting article about the post. Below is an excerpt detailing the post's construction method:

The post is constructed of at least two parts, the inside spiral turning and the cage of four vertical ribs that surrounds it. First, the cage section had to have a hole bored through it. This blank would be slid over a plain temporary spindle that would fit tightly in the hole. This spindle would be mounted on the lathe as a temporary center, and the turnings above and below the cage would be done. A fat column would be turned that corresponded to the outside curve of the cage verticals, and these would be carved by hand with the spindle in place for most of the process in order to avoid breaking the cage.

The interior spiral would then be turned in a separate operation using a specially adapted lathe for the double spiral. The temporary spindle would then be removed and replaced by the finished spiral one, which would be glued in place. The foliate carved cap covers the hole in the post at the top.

Photo and excerpt by Allan Breed.

Museum Daily #13

It doesn't look like much, I know. It looks like a wide, shallow hole in the ground, which is basically what it is. However, it's also so much more.

This is the mock archaeology pit where I will be leading my middle schoolers through a dig. At the moment, it's dug down to its lowest depths. On Tuesday, I will seed it with period-appropriate artifacts (reproduction, of course) and rebury it in layers. Then, over the next six weeks, the kids will excavate it (and hopefully learn something about archaeology in the process)!

Museum Daily #12

Today's photo is of a lovely folk art painting, being used to advertise and promote the recreation of a 17th century timber-framed house in town. The painting was done by a folk artist and I think is an excellent way to help visitors visualize the house, in its location, in the 1600s.

Museum Daily #11

Kind of a random assortment of items, but this is what I brought to one of the middle schools in town today. It was the "pitch" day for a local after-school program and I'll be doing an archaeology section with the eleven kids who chose my option. I picked out some interesting items I thought they'd like, such as the iron cannonball and the green glass bottle. I also included a fork, to remind them that archaeology is often about sorting through people's trash.

Museum Daily #10

How would you like to come home to that view every day? Pictured above is the lovely front hallway of one of the historic houses I manage. This shot doesn't even do it justice, but can you imagine arriving home each day to this hallway? It would make divinity of the banal, I think.

Museum Daily #9

Today's museum daily is a shot of the local newspaper in one of the towns where I work. And that woman on the far left? Is me! I don't think I've had my picture in the paper since senior year of high school . . . It's kind of neat.

Museum Daily #8

This is called "exhibits on the fly!" During the middle school music & history program, I've been bringing some photographs, maps, and artifacts to help illustrate the shoemaking industry in the town in which we're working.

I've set these items up in various places and on various surfaces for the students to view and handle. I think this is my most basic set-up, though. The large-scale photographs are propped against seats and held up by wooden shoe lasts. Not great for permanence, but gets the job done!

Museum Daily #7

One of the museums where I work recently acquired a 17th century wooden chest made by a local craftsman. It will join a chest made by the craftsman's father, already on display at the museum. Naturally, the museum and those interested in furniture-making and woodworking are fairly excited about all of this.

But for those of you who don't know much about 17th century craftsmanship, I thought I post this detail view of a similar chest in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The level of quality and detail is just stunning, isn't it?

Museum Daily #6

In the spirit of a behind the scenes tour, please enjoy this slanting sunlight view of the attic window at one of the houses I manage. The downstairs floors are filled with stunning Georgian lines and ornate woodwork, but somehow this simple image appeals to me today.

Museum Daily #5

Now for something completely different. Today's shot is from a concert I attended this morning at one of the local middle schools. The museum where I work is collaborating with a local musical group to teach middle students how to understand music & history and how the two can be related. A concert in a cafeteria - not a bad way to start your morning!

Museum Daily #4

I'm cheating a bit today, as I did not take the photo myself. However, it was a busy day, capped by staying late for an evening lecture, and this is the best I can do. See the great 17th century kitchen in the photo? I locked and alarmed that house this afternoon. :)

Museum Daily #3

For today's photo, we have a shot of the flags of various empires (French, British, etc.) that flew in New England at various times in the 17th and 18th centuries. They're currently hung in an exhibit that looks at a particular town in the period from 1640-1770.

I've noticed that these early years often get lost in the teaching of history, as many local historical narratives go right from early settlement to that town's role in the Revolution. However, there were a number of significant events during this time, both on the European continent and here in North America. "Remember the mid-17th to mid-18th century!" isn't a very catchy motto, though. ;)

Rainy Monday

Reader, I swear I did not lie to you! I came home on Friday, all ready to post the second of my "museum work dailies" (might tweak that title) and my dog had chewed my internet cord! I know, I know - it sounds like an excuse. My dog ate my homework, etc., etc. However, it's true and I'm sorry.

At any rate, since today was a rainy, rather gloomy day at one of the museums where I work, I thought I'd post a photo from last week, on a sunnier day. It features the windows of an 19th century carriage barn. Enjoy!

Neglect & A Gimmick

Did anyone see that tumbleweed go by? As you may have noticed, it's been very quiet around here lately. I've had a lot of things going on in my personal life this summer that have made it hard to keep up with professional writing. BUT. I've decided to jump back in with a fun idea.

I work at three different museums. Between them, I'm at some kind of historic site every working day (which sometimes includes the weekends). I see and work around all kinds of interesting historical objects - from small items to buildings - all the time.

So, without necessarily revealing where I work (still pondering whether that's a good idea), I'll be posting a photo every working day of "life in museums." Sometimes, they'll be intellectually compelling - sometimes, they'll be silly. Hopefully, they will all be somewhat interesting!

The first one - is just silly. Here is a portrait, thinking about a portrait, using the mosaic mode on my new phone's camera.

More News . . .

Because apparently with all I have going on now, I've become nothing more than a new aggregator. ;)

• Brooklyn Museum to Extend Hours

• Egyptian Culture Minister Talks with Prosecutors in van Gogh Theft

• Debt Problem Has Museum Scrambling

• Museum Acquires Storied Trove of Performances by Jazz Greats

Recent Finds . . .

Contemplating what I was going to post about tonight, I went to the National Trust for Historical Preservation's website to find an update on federal funding for historic preservation. Here is their most up-to-date section on the President's 2011 budget and its cuts in funding for historic preservation programs. Outlook is still unclear.

However, I did find something that cheered and intrigued me: the Slave Cabin Project. Joe McGill, who is a staffer at the National Trust and a Civil War reenactor, has decided to spend the night in a few slave cabins in South Carolina. He is trying to get a sense of what life might have been like for the people who lived in these homes and, as he says, "assist in bringing attention to an aspect of American history that is often overlooked." Very interesting!

Museums in the News

I was away for a week of vacation, but home today and browsing the New York Times. Found some interesting news stories about museums:

• Rolling Museum Casts Lights on Present-Day Forced Labor

• The Ascent of Man: Museum of Natural History Offers a New iPhone App

• Leopold Museum to Pay $19 Million for Painting Seized by the Nazis

Museums in the News

I've just ended a week of summer camp at one of my museums. Managing 10 kids under 12 and 5 CIT's aged 13-17 for 7 hours a day is in fact as exhausting as it sounds! Hence, a lazy news post. Enjoy!

• New Museum Tells Krakow's Stories of World War II

• From Museum Basement, a "New" Dinosaur

• Metropolitan Museum Posts Best Attendance in Nearly a Decade

• Opulent and Elegant, Dresses as Art

• Organizers of Art Show Convicted in Moscow

Wedding Recess

Sorry for being AWOL for the last few weeks. I got married on June 26th, then spend the following week in Montreal for my honeymoon. However, I'm back now and promise to resume at least weekly posting.

In honor of my wedding break, I wanted to share an interesting exhibit at Ohio State University's Historical Costume & Textile Collection online: http://costume.osu.edu/exhibitions/wedding/. It was on display 12 years ago, in 1998, and showcases a sampling of wedding dresses from different eras in American history. Enjoy!

You may have also noticed a bit of a change in the blog's design. Blogger came out with new templates and I had a bit of a field day. I think I like the new brown background and map header. Hope you do too!

Museums in the News

Recent museum news from the NY Times:

• Enclosing a Frick Portico Would Create a Gallery

• Whitneys That Never Were

• Craft Shop Family Buys Up Ancient Bibles for Museum

• Brooklyn Museum’s Populism Hasn’t Lured Crowds

• And one that's not exactly about museums, but certainly about threats to cultural resources: Trophy Hunters With Their Eye on Interiors

To Tip or Not to Tip

That's not the only question.

At this point, the thread is old news, but back in March, someone began a very interesting thread on the AAM EMP* discussion board. It was about tipping and whether or not museum tour guides should accept tips. There were a wide variety of opinions and only some agreement on the question.

Then, the ladies at Museos Unite posted about the conversation twice (here and here). If you missed this very interesting foray into assessing the value of what we do as museum professionals, definitely check it out.


*American Association of Museums Emerging Museum Professional. ;)

Old Beans

This is really cool: 4,000 year old lentils ready to be planted. Scientists at a Turkish university are attempting to transfer 17 lentil plants from the lab to the outdoors. Those 17 plants? Were germinated from three - just three - seeds found during an archaeological dig. Amazing.

Museums in the News

Some interesting news stories about museums from the last week or so. From the NY Times, as usual.

• New York Museum Showcases Custom-Made Bicycles

• At a Roman Museum, Jazz Joins the Mix

• A Lower East Side History Show, in the First Person

• Melvin the Mummy's New Clothes

Radio Silence

My apologies for not checking in here for a little while. I recently had a death in the family and have been busy elsewhere. Hope to be posting again soon. Thanks for your patience!

Museums in the News

Some interesting museum stories in the last month or so:

• At Ground Zero Museum, Voices of 9/11

• And related, $2.29 Million for Ground Zero Memorial and Museum

And in international museum news:

• ‘Smurf House’? ‘Chinese Hat’? Museum Intrigues

• What to Pair With Monet? Try Classical Music

• Tulipmania at Amsterdam Museum

Save America's Historic Funding

Don't worry - I won't get too political on you. However, as a museum professional and a preservationist, I pay attention to funding sources for historic preservation and how they are doing. And at the moment, Save America's Treasures is not doing well.

It's on the chopping block for the FY 2011 proposed federal budget. You can read more about it at the National Trust's page (biased view, naturally) or read the actual proposed budget on the White House's website.

Wherever you decide you come down on the issue, I found the above map really interesting. As you can guess, it shows all of the locations across the country where Save America's Treasures (as well as Preserve America and the National Heritage Area program) has helped preserve and restore historic buildings and sites (you can see a bigger version here). Food for thought.

Spoiled for a Desk Job . . .

I spent my Thursday afternoon on the grounds of one of the museums where I work, burying reproduction artifacts in our mock archaeology pit for an upcoming program. It was tiring, heavy work, but it was glorious to be outside in the sun, with a cool breeze off the river. I came in about halfway through and the curator said, "You're spoiled for any desk job now, aren't you?"

And I suppose it's true.

Highlighting Museums

A good friend passed along this link last week, to the NY Times' special section on museums. Definitely worth a click through to browse the list of interesting articles about various aspects of the museum world. My favorites at present?

• The New Guard of Curators Steps Up: "Far from the stereotype of fusty academics, curators in their 30s and 40s are bringing eclectic backgrounds and a fresh eye to Manhattan’s museums."

• Out of Ruin, Haiti's Visionaries: "Many of Haiti’s museums were damaged in the country’s earthquake, but an exhibition scheduled there for 2012 hopes to revive the fortunes of the country’s creators."

• On Safari, Off the Beaten Path in Kansas: "A museum dedicated to Martin and Osa Johnson — explorers and household names in the 1920s and ’30s — is finding relevance today."

• Don't Think of Them as Mausoleums: "Restaurants and events are attracting increasing numbers of visitors to museums despite the economic downturn."

Museums in the News

Haven't done a museum news round-up in awhile. As per usual, all news from the NY Times. Enjoy!

• Et Tu, British Museum? Coin Commemorating Caesar’s Murder Goes on Display

• Switzerland’s Quirky Transportation Museum

• Museum Sets Grand Stage for Strings and Horns

• Louisiana Museum Confronts Segregation

• Take This Museum and Shape It

Museums of Innocence and Bad Art

(Image from the collection of the Museum of Bad Art)

I found an interesting article the other day via Museumist. Called "The Museum of Innocence and Other Bizarre Art Houses," it highlights a few of the more unusual museums in the U.S., Mexico, and France. Lo and behold - it mentions the Museum of Bad Art, just down the road in Boston. Must make a trip soon . . . Work like the piece above (titled "See Battle") is not to be missed!

Photo-tastic

I love this idea - New Yorkers who own older buildings are turning to the municipal archives to help guide restoration efforts. According to this article in Preservation Nation,

in the late 1930s, city officials used Works Progress Administration funds to hire dozens of unemployed workers to photograph every single building in the city for the Department of Finance. By 1941, those photographers had taken more than 700,000 pictures.

What a wonderful resource for those who want to attempt a historically sensitive home renovation!

Creative Re-use

This post from the Smithsonian Museum of American History blog reminded me of the wedding dress exhibit I talked about last month. The Smithsonian post is about the dress above, from the costume collections at the museum.

This dress was made (by the bride) from the parachute her husband used in 1944, jumping from a plane in a night bombing raid over China! Very neat story.

Lincoln's Birthday

In honor of Lincoln's birthday today, here are some interesting news stories about him over the last year or so. Enjoy!

• December 12, 2008: The Literal Powers of Words

• May 28, 2009: Letter by Lincoln, Lost for Decades, Is Returned

• July 14, 2009: Leading Visitors Through a Historical Journey to a National Heartache

• October 8 2009: When Honest Abe Met This Querulous Metropolis

• January 15, 2010: Of Mutual Influence: The City and the 16th President

• February 7, 2010: Rare Lincoln Items at Historical Society

• UPDATE: The National Museum of American History posted today on its Facebook page about an 1860 life mask done of Lincoln. Apparently, when the great man saw it, he said "There is the animal himself!" More info here.

Dire News for State Parks & Historic Sites

This is bad: History Under Fire. According to the article, from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's magazine, the states of Pennsylvania, California, and Arizona have taken the drastic step of closing some of their state parks. Further, other states are considering the same measures in today's climate of budget tightening and slashing.

As the article describes, some of these parks and sites are being kept open by dedicated volunteers and friends organizations, but many have stayed closed. And the latter adds an unfortunate side effect to an already unfortunate situation - the cumulative effect of being closed for a year or more means that buildings fall into disrepair, staff and supporters drift away, and the community can forget about the site. The article quotes Linda Kaat, a Friend of the Brandywine Battlefield, ""Once they are closed, it is difficult to get sites reopened."

The Curatorial Voice

The other week, I read an interesting article on AAM's website, from their March/April 2001 issue of Museum News. It was called "Reports of our Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Reconsidering the Curator" and it was written by Nancy Villa Bryk, a curator at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village.

In the article, Villa Bryk traces the evolution of the curatorial role at Greenfield Village, based on her own experiences, in the hope of finding something meaningful and helpful for the field at large. I think her analysis of how curators have moved with the tide (or not) is very interesting. It reminded me of the NEMA curatorial session I attended in November.

In the end, Villa Bryk leaves the reader with some solid advice given by a group of curators at a Michigan Museums Association Conference in the early part of this decade. I've listed that advice here and taken the liberty of bullet pointing some of the separate ideas, for clarity. Food for thought, indeed.

• Be a superior communicator; listen respectfully and speak effectively with everyone—donors, administrators, visitors, your colleagues—even if you disagree with them.
• Familiarize yourself with financial planning and marketing.
• Get to know your visitors better by learning from educators, visitors studies staff, exhibit developers, and the front-line staff. Better yet, get out of your office, help deliver a program, and discover how well it works.
• Embrace social history and think broadly about interpretation; dig deep to find objects that tell important stories about people and their experiences.
• Do not hold tenaciously to traditional roles; by moving outside of them you just might wander into exciting new ones you never thought about before. Remember, as you teach others roles you have held fast, you are infusing those skills even more deeply in the organization.
• Finally, the curatorial role will undergo more change as history museums are reshaped in this next century. Try hard not to take these changes personally.

Paris - 1962

Now, I'm not a huge Francophile. But. This set of photos, taken in Paris in 1962, is amazing. The mix of lowbrow and high fashion subjects is poignant. The set, taken as a whole, has the uncanny ability to place you in the Les Halles district of Paris almost fifty years ago.

Which is something else I love, in and of itself. As a historian, I appreciate and value old photographs. As a museum professional, I love, love, love when said photos are preserved in a way that maintains their condition but allows the public easy access to them. A Flickr photo set of scanned originals seems a perfect way to marry these two ideals.

Two Year Anniversary

As of today, it's been two years since I began Museophilia. My first post was January 23, 2008. The occasion inspires me to consider some of the following questions:

• What have I learned?
• What has changed in that time?
• My training in 2008 (and part of 2009) was a complementary blend of the practical (internships & part-time work) and the theoretical (graduate classes)
• What have I lost or gained now that my work is nearly all practical?

I'm going to ponder these questions over the next couple of days and come back with an answer. Feel free to weigh in if you want in the meantime!

Ten Percent Remains Unwritten

(source)

Upon reviewing my various published and drafted posts, I realized that I am getting behind on making post ideas into realities. At the moment, there are 95 posts of various kinds associated with this blog, but only 85 of them are actually published.

My goal in the next few weeks is to revise/edit/actually write those other ten posts and get them up here. It's not quite a New Year's resolution, but hey - it's something.

Philly Museum of Art (PMA)

A few photos from my trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Wedding History

My apologies for not checking in for awhile. After my last post, I spent a couple of weekends away, in New York and Philadelphia. I had the chance to visit the Philly Museum of Art, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell, so I'll share my impressions and photos of those places soon.

In the meantime, I found something interesting closer to home. This Sunday, the University of New Hampshire Museum is putting on an exhibit of historic wedding dresses to complement a bridal show being held on campus. According the university's press release, the exhibit was created from the Irma Bowen Textile Collection, a collection of more than 600 samples of women’s and children’s clothing from the 1700s through the early 20th century.

According to the university's press release, the dresses on display this weekend will include a "wool designer gown covered with hand stitched lace and netting from the house of Maison Rouff in Paris and a burgundy long sleeve silk taffeta. Both dresses are circa 1890." They will also include an orange flapper-style dress. As UNH Museum Curator Dale Valena says, "“The exhibit helps to show the history of wedding dresses. I think people will be surprised to find that they weren’t always long and white."

You can read more about the exhibit here and here.