Road Reports

"Work" in Progress (TWWW Part II)

The printers are rolling over at our fabrication unit, the Office of Exhibits Central (OEC), in Landover, MD.  Out sliding are the final graphics for “The Way We Worked,” vibrant and fresh.  Once just digital files, the designs are now becoming real.   It’s happening. 

As soon as the prints have dried and cooled, the graphics team at OEC overlays them with a protective laminate and the mounts them to our panels.  The panels are one-inch wide, and their honeycomb, cardboard center makes them lightweight, less expensive to ship, and easy to assemble.  When slotted together, the panels create free-standing “walls” adaptable to various kinds of exhibit spaces.  We ordered the panels from our supplier, MBA, in Germany, who specifically made them for “The Way We Worked.”  The width of the panels matches the graphics we’ve chosen, internal reinforcements support where we are attaching objects, and cutouts make room for our interactives.   From order to arrival, the process lasts three months, and our panel-filled packages voyaged here by boat.  Once they disembarked in D.C., Registrar Terri Cobb captained the rest of us MoMS crew in organizing the blank panels into their appropriate sections.

 

But there are plenty of other details that demand attention!  Exhibit designer Alicia Jager is making last-minute changes to the text and images.  Terri’s been ordering objects for display cases, and she receives so many shipments, you’d think every day was her birthday!  But then (working with OEC’s design and fabrication shops) these objects need to measured, assigned an accession number, arranged for each case, and then fitted for an individualized mount. 

Two, human-sized gears are going to protrude from the intro for “The Way We Worked.”  ‘Sounds heavy, right?  Nope.  These foam cutouts have been shellacked with a hard coat and are deceptively lightweight.  They will be sprayed with metallic paint—and metallic in more than just color: you will actually be able to stick a magnet to it.  OEC’s fabrication shop created a few mock-ups to test what kind of brackets will best attach the gears to the panels.  We’ve aligned every cog between OEC and MoMS, and the production for “The Way We Worked” is whirling ahead at full speed.

  

-- Alexandra Charleston, Museum on Main Street, Washington, DC

A Day in the Life of a MoMSer: Refurbishing

Exhibits need check-ups, too.  On average, there are five copies of each MoMS exhibit on the road.  Each travels for approximately six years, but we make sure to book a little R&R into their busy tour schedules—and that stands for “refurbishment and rehabilitation.”  Each copy routinely checks into our fabrication unit in Maryland, the Office of Exhibits Central (OEC), for a full inspection from the experts.

After numerous shipments and the occasional “oops” during installation, there’s always an inevitable dig or scratch in each exhibit.  Or sometimes it’s just those eager children’s handprints that need wiping off.  (We love their enthusiasm, though!)  And even though we tested substrates and laminates before the exhibit was created—leaving panels in freezing temperatures or trapped in hot cars—there’s always that pesky graphic whose corner begins to peel.

   

The graphics department at OEC fixes the major issues like punctures or fading colors, and our tech guru, Dan, makes sure the audio stations are still humming along.  For us MoMSers, it’s a day of wheeling crates back and forth, lifting heavy panels, and wiping down surfaces.  Aside from a full out brawl whether to go to Chik-Fil-A or Panera for lunch (just kidding), the day goes relatively smoothly, and it’s a nice change of scene from the usual computer screen.  It can be exhausting work, but hey, at least there’s no need to go to the gym afterward!

 

So despite an exhibit's age, we're still making sure it looks brand new when it gets to your town.

-- Alexandra Charleston, Museum on Main Street, Washington, DC

 

Our New Exhibit! (TWWW Part I)

Presenting…

“The Way We Worked!” 

As we kick off 2011, the MoMS team is excited to announce our latest exhibit.  Based on the National Archives original exhibit, “The Way We Worked” explores the nature of work in the United States throughout the past 150 years.

Even though the exhibit won’t begin its tour until September, the planning process began long beforehand.  In 2007, MoMS provided state humanities councils and the most recent 150 host sites with a few exhibit proposals, and “The Way We Worked” muscled through to claim top seat. 

And from that moment, MoMS got straight to work.  Even though the original exhibit provided a solid base, we needed to adapt the structure and content for a traveling show.  Consulting with Dr. Bruce Bustard, curator of the original National Archives exhibit, and scholars from Georgetown, American University, and the National Museum of American History, the MoMS show slowly began to take shape.  To add more variety, we’ve hunted down additional photos and objects, and we’ve decided to break down the content into 4 sections: Where We Worked, How We Worked, Who Works, and Why We Work.  And with the help of Dr. Bustard and Rosemary Reagan, Head Editor at Smithsonian fabrication unit, the Office of Exhibits Central (OEC), MoMSers Robbie and Tiffany have been whittling down pencil tips rewriting and rewriting the script, each draft becoming closer to what soon will be every final word in the titles, paragraphs, captions, and credits displayed on the panels.

Simultaneously, we’ve been hovering over the drawing board.  Sketching through a few ideas with OEC designer Alicia Jager, together we’ve conceptualized how the exhibit should look – everything from tones to typeface!  Even though these graphic design files need revision, too, the alluring, creative displays are the masterwork of Alicia’s beautiful artistry.  And they’re practical, too – meeting the size, packing, crating, and weight restrictions registrar Terri demands. 

 

And of course, where would we be without the remarkable enthusiasm of our future host sites?  Hosting a few training courses and maintaining constant communication, MoMS is working with state humanities councils to equip future venues with marketing packets, educational materials, docent handbooks, and programming ideas.

If you're interested in seeing what it takes to create an exhibit, keep checking back because we’ll walk you through the production process for “The Way We Worked.”  We hope you’re just as excited as we are!

-- Alexandra Charleston, Museum on Main Street, Washington, DC

Teamwork Fuels Renton

The Renton History Museum of Renton, Washington, put a lot of hard work into their local exhibit, Sustaining a City. Built to accompany the Smithsonian’s Key Ingredients exhibit, Sustaining a City focused on the regional food customs that developed alongside immigration to the area. Museum Director, Elizabeth Stewart, explains; “Sustaining a City explored the ways in which Renton’s wave of immigrants shared food traditions, beginning with the Duwamish people through pioneer picnics, immigrant bakeries, wine-making, and groceries.”

    
 
 Renton’s exhibit is beautiful – it includes thorough research, authentic objects, and panels as tall as those from the Smithsonian exhibit. One meaningful aspect of the exhibit was the collaboration that it engendered between the Renton History Museum and the University of Washington.  Lacking a staff solely dedicated to exhibition development, the museum turned to UW’s Museology department for assistance with the expansion of their local display.  More than a year prior to Key Ingredients’ arrival in Renton, Museology students helped to develop Sustaining a City, performing tasks ranging from research and script-writing, to the exhibit’s physical assemblage. Elizabeth Stewart provides us with details about the partnership:

 

“Our Collection Manager, Sarah Iles, is a UW Museology graduate and she has maintained a close relationship with the department; in fact, she teaches for the program usually once a year…We had three interns in succession on the Sustaining A City; each position was 'advertised' internally by the UW Museology program...  The first, Jen Myers, provided preliminary research on Renton foodways by combing through our collection and identifying appropriate objects, photos, and sources. Staff started identifying appropriate themes and the objects, etc. that would support them. Our second intern, Kim Owens, built on that work by drafting the exhibit script in consultation with staff.  For Jen and Kim, these internship satisfied degree requirements. Finally, Benny Eisman, who often works here as a preparator, helped with construction, installation, and mount-making for the exhibit.”

 

What a wonderful partnership between two educational institutions -- and a partnership that was mutually beneficial; students of museum studies were able to gain hands-on experience, while the Renton History Museum was able to fabricate a significant exhibit. One visitor remarked; "It was a great pleasure to view the exhibits. You clearly care deeply about our heritage. Thank you!" We are not only proud of the high-level of work produced in Renton, but are warmed by the cooperation and community spirit that went into its creation.

 

Equally impressive were the Renton History Museum's efforts to generate press for the two exhibits. In the months leading up to the opening, Elizabeth Stewart stirred up enthusiasm for Key Ingredients by writing articles in the Renton Magazine which highlighted the history of dining in Renton. A favorite entry of ours features the logging camps of the Pacific Northwest that existed one-hundred years ago -- did you know that loggers may have required up to 7,000 calories per day to "keep going?" Opening day programming included another great press opportunity -- a live broadcast of 97.3 FM KIRO's radio show, "In the Kitchen with Tom and Thierry" occurred beside the exhibit itself!

 

  

 

All-in-all, the elbow grease that was put into the Key Ingredients exhibit in Renton is certainly worth commending.

 

“We thoroughly enjoyed hosting Key Ingredients--SITES and MoMS do such a fantastic job of making these exhibits doable for small museums, and the Smithsonian imprimatur means a lot to our visitors!” – Elizabeth Stewart, Director, Renton History Museum.

Our thanks go out to the community of Renton, the Renton History Museum, and Elizabeth Stewart for their fervent approach to the MoMS experience!

 

- Roxanne Berschler, SITES -- Washington, D.C.

New Mexico, Here We Come!

Yesterday the MoMS team worked at Office of Exhibit Central to get the latest copy of New Harmonies on the road! As I type this, the exhibit is traveling to its first stop in New Mexico.

We are looking forward to another exciting year for the New Harmonies exhibit, and can't wait to see what creative programming ideas, events, and local exhibitions will blossom out of this tour!

 

  
 
 Many thanks go out to our counterparts at OEC who helped us with some excellent exhibit refurb!

 -- Roxanne Berschler, SITES -- Washington, D.C.

Watch This Space as Journey Stories Develops

Little more than a year ago, in March 2007, New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music opened in five states. Now, we're just a few months away from the May 2009 debut of our next Museum on Main Street exhibition, Journey Stories. Whew.

Even though the exhibition does not open until next year, it has been in development for nearly three years. Back in the fall of 2005, the theme of the exhibition was selected. Later that year, the MoMS team began meeting with our curator, William Withuhn, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to map out the content of the exhibition and begin developing the script. It's been a great process every step of the way. Now, our designer at the Smithsonian's Office of Exhibits Central (OEC), Tina Lynch, is putting the finishing touches on a colorful and creative design that we're looking forward to showing visitors all over the country in the years to come.

Our colleagues at OEC are doing a masterful job of fabricating the exhibition. From designing, editing, and printing graphic panels to crafting mounts to hold objects in place to outfitting crates for traveling the exhibition, their skilled craftsmanship is critical to the success of the project. Please come back to this blog and visit the "Journey Stories Fabrication" photo album in the right column as we track the construction of the exhibition. We'll be snapping photos until every crate is filled.

Journey Stories is an incredibly rich and diverse tale of Americans, their embrace of personal mobility, and the transportation systems they developed. We hope that you'll have an opportunity to see Journey Stories in person when it debuts in 2009 in Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Oklahoma as host state humanities councils and communities add their important local stories and experiences to the exhibition.

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