Road Reports

MoMS on the Mall

The Museum on Main Street team spent Thursday out on the National Mall during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. We were part of "Smithsonian Inside Out," a special Folklife Festival program to feature all of the work that goes on behind the scenes at the Smithsonian. We were really excited to have a day to talk about the great work that our host communities do all over the country.

And, so many of you stopped by to see us! It was a beautiful, surprisingly pleasant day for a Washington, DC July. Many people were out enjoying the festival and learning more about the Smithsonian. All of our activities were inspired by our exhibitions and local programs across the nation. We invited our visitors to decorate their own "mini-picket" to help build a fence, make some musical spoons, or share their personal journey story on the Journey Stories website.

The inspiration for the fence came from the many Between Fences host communities that have asked local students and artists to decorate fence pickets. Host sites have then built their own fence sections decorated  by their communities. We wanted to do the same thing at the festival. Check out our visitors' handiwork.

   

The greatest pleasure of the day was sharing Museum on Main Street with visitors to the festival. So many were pleased to hear about the work that the Smithsonian and State Humanities Councils do to reach communities in nearly every state.

To the visitors that stopped by to say hello, thank you. We hope that you have an opportunity to visit us in your home states.

-- Robbie Davis, Museum on Main Street, SITES, Washington, DC

New Harmonies and Journey Stories Hosts Meet

MoMS takes Annapolis by storm once again! The 2011 host humanities councils for New Harmonies and Journey Stories gathered with the MoMS team April 24-26 in Annapolis, Maryland for a joint national planning meeting. Our state partners joined us to learn more about the content for both exhibitions, share information on the culture and heritage of their respective states, and to share their past MoMS experiences with one another. It was a valuable, enriching experience for everyone and we managed to have a great time in Maryland's beautiful historic capitol city.

Watch the blog for a photo album from this year's meeting. In the meantime, enjoy this video of our colleague, David Morgan with the Mississippi Humanities Council, demonstrating how to build your own diddley bow and play the blues.

-- Robbie Davis, Museum on Main Street/SITES, Washington, DC

On-Set with Mount Airy

Our own Tiffany Ruhl and Robbie Davis have recently returned from their trip to Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Ruhl and Davis are working in conjunction with Heron Media to create an orientation video for the New Harmonies exhibit, to be revealed to states at the onset of each tour. The team has been interviewing curators and humanities council representatives for the film, in addition to going on-site at various venues to capture the exhibit's strength on camera. Below, you will find Tiffany's summary of the team's experience in Mt. Airy in journal-entry format. Read on to uncover her first-hand account:

"Mount Airy, NC is known as the home of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for the town of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show, but it’s also home to music lovers! Besides Andy Griffith, it’s the home of country singer Donna Fargo.

 

On the fun side, we ate at a famous local haunt, The Snappy Lunch (founded in 1923) to try their ‘Famous Pork Chop’ sandwich. Then, it was off to the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History to start filming. The staff of the museum was wonderful. They are incredibly enthusiastic about the exhibition. Mount Airy has a great lineup of events, so New Harmonies’ stay in Mount Airy is bound to be great success.

 

On Wednesday, we filmed local blues and jazz singer Melva Houston. Melva has traveled the world teaching and spreading an appreciation of jazz and blues, but makes her home in Mount Airy. She spoke movingly of the impact music has had on her life and gave an impromptu performance at the “Lunch and Learn” session. They had a great turn out of about 50 people.

 

We then followed Melva and guests back to tour “New Harmonies” in the museum. We filmed guests there interacting with the exhibition for the video. In addition to filming the exhibition, we interviewed Darrell Stover from the North Carolina Humanities Council. Darrell is a cultural historian and Statewide Coordinator for MoMS in North Carolina. He’s also a natural on camera!

 

Darrell gave a great rundown of why North Carolina chose New Harmonies as the first MoMS exhibition to tour their state. As he put it, in terms of roots music in NC, ‘It’s all here.’”  - Tiffany Ruhl

 

Our thanks go out to Heron Media and all other persons and entities that have aided in the production of our New Harmonies orientation film!

-- Roxanne Berschler -- SITES/Museum on Main Street, Washington D.C.