I know I was supposed to write a blog post today to make up for about two weeks worth of backlogged experience. However, this morning I found out my oldest dog might have bone cancer. Its probably spread to her lungs and even though its in the early stages she will most likely have to be put down. We lost our 14 year old German Shepard last October so I'm a little raw about her death and now we will be losing another dog. So, honestly I'm not in the mood to write today and I don't know if I'll be in the mood to write by Thursday.
What I'll tell you right now is my friend did go with me on Saturday, like planned. She had a blast so you can expect to hear more about her in the future. The next time I do write you'll get to hear about George Wallace Junior, a 1930s-1950s flapper dress we found that was used on stage for that time period, found teapots that weren't very interesting, a turn of the 20th century nutcracker, and several other things.
Have a good week.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Exhibition Mondays
So,
I've decided that instead of writing about random stuff on Monday, I will instead write about the Exhibit I'm building. That way my inventorying posts don't get to be quite so long as the last one. Though, that was mostly about car trouble than the exhibit. Also. I really suck at writing random stuff that doesn't relate to the museum.
Last Thursday I wrote that I was going to the museum with a friend on Saturday. Unfortunately, my friend cancelled Friday night so I went to the museum alone on Saturday. It was a really busy day too! That flintknapper was there but because I was so focused on upstairs I actually never saw his demonstration. : (
However! Thanks to my excitement about playing upstairs I did find those cameras I was looking for! As well as a bunch of other stuff I can possibly use. I won't go too into the inventorying bit, but I will list off what I found. I found: over 20 barbies and 8 kens, some kitchen equipment, and a couple of old toys. Not to mention the cameras.
These cameras are fantastic too. We have some old box cameras. A Brownie, a Brownie Junior, a Kewpie. There were at least two polaroids, a box of kodak film, and a nice Argus 75. So pretty much, its a good range of age for the cameras and I'll be able to exhibit the progression of technology nicely. But even cooler than the cameras was the picture that was taped to the Kewpie.
The picture taped to the Kewpie was a picture taken in 1915 of Mr. Dewey Parker. His daughter, in her 90s, was a prominent figure of a nearby town ( I think Ceder Bluff but I may be wrong) because her husband used to own the bank. Until it crashed at least. Anyway. I showed the Director the picture and he saw the name Dewey Parker and got to thinking.
In the Cherokee County Alabama: A Pictorial History, there is a picture of the man who discovered the complete piece of pig iron that is displayed in the museum. That man, is Dewey Parker. Now I was excited to see the picture because we know it was taken with the Kewpie because someone very nicely wrote it on the back of the picture. Now I have to tie in the pig iron with my exhibit. Luckily that should be just an easy bit of added information tacked onto whatever I'll write about the camera and the picture.
It was pretty cool to see the picture of Mr. Parker at 17 and the one taken much later when he was an elderly gentleman.
Judging by what I've found in the boxes upstairs so far, I've decided to focus on inventorying all of the boxes with artifacts in them. (Quite a few have books and papers stored in them and I will most likely leave those till I'm ready to deal with the archive and library materials.)
So here's a little side note on something interesting I found in one of the boxes. In two weeks the museum will be holding a book signing for the son of Governor (?) Wallace. I actually don't know much about Wallace or any Alabama history because I spent a majority of my childhood in or around Texas. According to the director though, Wallace was shot sometime during his time in office.
Anyway, there's an old Chevy truck downstairs with a Wallace sticker on it and the director asked me if I would do some research on it. (I'll get to that in a bit) Well. I said sure and I went upstairs to inventory some more boxes. The last box of the day, which I still haven't finished inventorying, gave me a pleasant surprise. Inside the box was a record from, my guess, a speech of Wallace's. As well as, three beautiful pictures of Wallace campaigning in Centre, right by the museum! The director was really happy to see those three pictures.Since they were stored in the box, he didn't even know we had them.
Before I left that afternoon, I took the liberty of looking up the truck in Past Perfect to see if there was any information on it. The only information I got was who it had belonged to. Originally, I didn't quite know what information the director wanted. After writing this, however, I have a better idea. You see, like me, the director is not from Alabama. So he doesn't really know much about Wallace either. So I'm probably going to research information on the truck, as well as information on Wallace and then hand it to the director, hopefully by Saturday.
Well that's it for this Exhibition Monday. Bis Später!
I've decided that instead of writing about random stuff on Monday, I will instead write about the Exhibit I'm building. That way my inventorying posts don't get to be quite so long as the last one. Though, that was mostly about car trouble than the exhibit. Also. I really suck at writing random stuff that doesn't relate to the museum.
Last Thursday I wrote that I was going to the museum with a friend on Saturday. Unfortunately, my friend cancelled Friday night so I went to the museum alone on Saturday. It was a really busy day too! That flintknapper was there but because I was so focused on upstairs I actually never saw his demonstration. : (
However! Thanks to my excitement about playing upstairs I did find those cameras I was looking for! As well as a bunch of other stuff I can possibly use. I won't go too into the inventorying bit, but I will list off what I found. I found: over 20 barbies and 8 kens, some kitchen equipment, and a couple of old toys. Not to mention the cameras.
These cameras are fantastic too. We have some old box cameras. A Brownie, a Brownie Junior, a Kewpie. There were at least two polaroids, a box of kodak film, and a nice Argus 75. So pretty much, its a good range of age for the cameras and I'll be able to exhibit the progression of technology nicely. But even cooler than the cameras was the picture that was taped to the Kewpie.
The picture taped to the Kewpie was a picture taken in 1915 of Mr. Dewey Parker. His daughter, in her 90s, was a prominent figure of a nearby town ( I think Ceder Bluff but I may be wrong) because her husband used to own the bank. Until it crashed at least. Anyway. I showed the Director the picture and he saw the name Dewey Parker and got to thinking.
In the Cherokee County Alabama: A Pictorial History, there is a picture of the man who discovered the complete piece of pig iron that is displayed in the museum. That man, is Dewey Parker. Now I was excited to see the picture because we know it was taken with the Kewpie because someone very nicely wrote it on the back of the picture. Now I have to tie in the pig iron with my exhibit. Luckily that should be just an easy bit of added information tacked onto whatever I'll write about the camera and the picture.
It was pretty cool to see the picture of Mr. Parker at 17 and the one taken much later when he was an elderly gentleman.
Judging by what I've found in the boxes upstairs so far, I've decided to focus on inventorying all of the boxes with artifacts in them. (Quite a few have books and papers stored in them and I will most likely leave those till I'm ready to deal with the archive and library materials.)
So here's a little side note on something interesting I found in one of the boxes. In two weeks the museum will be holding a book signing for the son of Governor (?) Wallace. I actually don't know much about Wallace or any Alabama history because I spent a majority of my childhood in or around Texas. According to the director though, Wallace was shot sometime during his time in office.
Anyway, there's an old Chevy truck downstairs with a Wallace sticker on it and the director asked me if I would do some research on it. (I'll get to that in a bit) Well. I said sure and I went upstairs to inventory some more boxes. The last box of the day, which I still haven't finished inventorying, gave me a pleasant surprise. Inside the box was a record from, my guess, a speech of Wallace's. As well as, three beautiful pictures of Wallace campaigning in Centre, right by the museum! The director was really happy to see those three pictures.Since they were stored in the box, he didn't even know we had them.
Before I left that afternoon, I took the liberty of looking up the truck in Past Perfect to see if there was any information on it. The only information I got was who it had belonged to. Originally, I didn't quite know what information the director wanted. After writing this, however, I have a better idea. You see, like me, the director is not from Alabama. So he doesn't really know much about Wallace either. So I'm probably going to research information on the truck, as well as information on Wallace and then hand it to the director, hopefully by Saturday.
Well that's it for this Exhibition Monday. Bis Später!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
A week of troubles
Hello everybody,
So I didn't post last week. I had some serious car trouble. Very serious. You see, I "used" to drive a 94' Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was a pretty good car. I had it for a little over two years. It made it up to Kentucky and it made it back (of course it only made it back from Kentucky because my dad switched cars with me while I was up there.) Its broken down a couple of times, but normally cause I was stupid or because it was old.
Well, needless to say. I'd been waiting. I had a feeling it was going to cop out on me sometime soon. So when I left Cherokee county last Tuesday I was slightly concerned when for just one second, the Transmission didn't shift gears and dragged. However, it only did it once. So I thought, "Oh. I probably didn't warm up the engine long enough." So last Thursday, the day I was supposed to write my blog post, I was going to go out with my mom to do some Antiquing about 30 minutes away. Luckily, I had to run a few errands.
As I left the gas station to go to the post office. My car started doing that dragging thing. I told my mom, who was naturally concerned, that it just needed to warm up. It did it Tuesday. I left her in the car with the engine running as I ducked into the post office to drop off a package. Oh good lord, I had just barely made it out of the parking lot when the darn thing's transmission started messing up again. I wasn't sure if we would make it home. Especially since the only way home, from the post office, is using the freeway, and my car wouldn't go above 35! No matter how hard I pressed down on the gas it stayed stuck in first gear. Luckily, I know the back way home along a little mountain road. So I got us home.
We didn't go antiquing. Which is good. See, I told my dad I was buying a new car. I couldn't use the jeep anymore. When he got home from work he checked out the car and decided that was probably a good idea. We decided to take it to the shop on Monday, which is why on Monday you also didn't get a post I was planning on writing. Then we would go car shopping over the weekend. Didn't find a car over the weekend so we decided we'd hit a few dealerships further away to find a used car. My dad drove my car to his work so he could drive it to the shop. He got it into a parking space and it quit! Wouldn't even bother going into first gear anymore. We had the shop tow the car.
Monday afternoon we went to Decatur to buy a car. I got the first one I was interested in. A 1995 (an upgrade :D) Infiniti J30. Which is a nice car, by the way. I got it for 3000 because I don't let salesmen push me around and well, that was almost all the money I had in savings. (Yeah, still jobless.) But the important thing is I have a working car. It, of course, has an idling issue and Tuesday I found out that the lock can get stuck. I'll work on those as soon as I get a job.
Now for the museum stuff! Actually, I have something very exciting to report. First, I finally got a friend to come help me out this Saturday! Yay! Even better, this Saturday they're having a guy come in to show visitors how to flintknapp. So that'll be pretty cool. It'll be the busiest day I've ever seen.
Guess what's even better though. No really. Guess.
Okay, I'll tell you. I finally figured out what I'm doing for that exhibit I'm designing. (Mentioned in last post.) And! The director approved my idea! So, this Tuesday I was looking for things to put in the exhibit. Cause, you can't have an exhibit without having artifacts. Wanna know what the exhibit's about?
A history of objects. (Oh man, just saying that makes me realize I have to come up with a title for it!) Well here's what its basically about. We're going to take everyday items. Like phones, toys, games, cameras, and household or kitchen items. (Probably household) Can any of you think up a good title for an exhibit comparing items used from the 1900s to now?
This is what I have to do to prepare for the exhibit. I have to: come up with the title, make a list of the artifacts I'm going to use, locate the artifacts that are in the museum, make a list of the artifacts I need to get a hold of, decide where to put the exhibit, decide how the exhibit is going to look, write up all of the information that will go in the exhibit, and of course put the whole exhibit together. All of this will have to be approved by the director. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Well. I've got a good idea of what artifacts I'm going to use. Except for the household items. I found board games I can use, a spinning top from the 1940s, and tons of old toys. The phones, except one, are at the director's house waiting to be put in the system. I know where the cameras are, generally. I just have to actually find them. The cameras are the frustrating part. See, I found out Tuesday that all... wait. I have to go back further.
Before the museum board hired the director (remember I just call him that, its not his actual title and he's not a museum trained person) the museum was run by a man who was also not trained, then after he died it was run by a few volunteers. The museum has these shelves mounted along both the east and west walls. I say shelves but today there are really only two left with shelves on them. The frames have been turned into wonderful exhibits. Each one of these frames had about 5 or 6 shelves on them. Each one of these shelves was crammed with no rhyme or reason. The director told me, it used to be so bad that the items actually reached up to the ceiling. Its a pretty high ceiling. Sometime in the last two years, all of the stuff cramming those shelves were boxed up and put upstairs. Or, not boxed up and put downstairs. The cameras were on one of those shelves. The cameras are in a box upstairs on a new shelf system. Each range upstairs, and I can call it that because it is the length of a single library range at New Mexico State University, has five or six sections with about 5 or 6 shelves on each section. Each shelf has two to three boxes. The ones with less than three have an artifact placed on the shelf as well. There are three of these ranges. In each box is anywhere from 2 to 20 artifacts.
I know this because I decided, since I'm looking for the cameras I might as well inventory the boxes. Tuesday I pulled down a box that had two bed pans in it, most definitely used before. The next box I opened had china from 5 different companies! Plus, a stamp holder, a tape dispenser, an unknown item, and two pieces of fleece cloth. When I asked the director if the cloth maybe had been used to protect the china, he told me nothing had been packed well. They only packed those boxes as fast as they could to clear space, so they're probably in the system. What! The fleece pieces were about the size of a handkerchief. Why in the world would you have that in a museum without any information attached to it! Gah!
Inventorying is just so much fun! < said in a sweet falsetto tone. Actually, it is. Especially because I like getting frustrated. And you really don't know what you're going to find. Which takes me to the last bit of writing of the day. So Tuesday I was entering stuff into the system. (I have a huge list that's built up and I don't want to risk losing the paper and having to redo things.) I was looking up items I knew nothing about, like this ashtray on shelf 37. Well, I went to look at it. I had a picture of it, but it was only of the front. So I turned it around and there was a maker's mark on the back. I typed that into google and came up with what it actually was.
That wasn't an ashtray! It was a porringer bowl that was eventually used as an ashtray! Don't know what a porringer bowl is? Well neither did I. A porringer bowl, which has been used since the medieval ages, is a bowl that you eat porridge or gruel out of. I got really excited. Is it pewter? Because the company on the back made pewter bowls in the 20s and that would be cool. Alas, fate is cruel. It was not pewter. I did some research, to make sure it wasn't a reproduction. You never know, also the director wanted to know its value in case we needed to lock it away. The pewter bowls from Stede (the company) have the handle soldered on. The later aluminum reproductions, probably made in the 60s (I was unclear on that), have the handle cast on. Another cool thing I learned. Pewter bends super easy. Like, really really easy. This thing, didn't bend at all. And when I looked at the handle, sure enough, it had been cast on. So we have the reproduction aluminum bowl. Which, neat fact, the aluminum bowls were used as ashtrays and various other items. Because really, who eats porridge nowadays? Not many people, that's for sure.
That's it for this Thursday. Look forward to a Manageable Monday this coming week.
84/More Thousands than I thought.
So I didn't post last week. I had some serious car trouble. Very serious. You see, I "used" to drive a 94' Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was a pretty good car. I had it for a little over two years. It made it up to Kentucky and it made it back (of course it only made it back from Kentucky because my dad switched cars with me while I was up there.) Its broken down a couple of times, but normally cause I was stupid or because it was old.
Well, needless to say. I'd been waiting. I had a feeling it was going to cop out on me sometime soon. So when I left Cherokee county last Tuesday I was slightly concerned when for just one second, the Transmission didn't shift gears and dragged. However, it only did it once. So I thought, "Oh. I probably didn't warm up the engine long enough." So last Thursday, the day I was supposed to write my blog post, I was going to go out with my mom to do some Antiquing about 30 minutes away. Luckily, I had to run a few errands.
As I left the gas station to go to the post office. My car started doing that dragging thing. I told my mom, who was naturally concerned, that it just needed to warm up. It did it Tuesday. I left her in the car with the engine running as I ducked into the post office to drop off a package. Oh good lord, I had just barely made it out of the parking lot when the darn thing's transmission started messing up again. I wasn't sure if we would make it home. Especially since the only way home, from the post office, is using the freeway, and my car wouldn't go above 35! No matter how hard I pressed down on the gas it stayed stuck in first gear. Luckily, I know the back way home along a little mountain road. So I got us home.
We didn't go antiquing. Which is good. See, I told my dad I was buying a new car. I couldn't use the jeep anymore. When he got home from work he checked out the car and decided that was probably a good idea. We decided to take it to the shop on Monday, which is why on Monday you also didn't get a post I was planning on writing. Then we would go car shopping over the weekend. Didn't find a car over the weekend so we decided we'd hit a few dealerships further away to find a used car. My dad drove my car to his work so he could drive it to the shop. He got it into a parking space and it quit! Wouldn't even bother going into first gear anymore. We had the shop tow the car.
Monday afternoon we went to Decatur to buy a car. I got the first one I was interested in. A 1995 (an upgrade :D) Infiniti J30. Which is a nice car, by the way. I got it for 3000 because I don't let salesmen push me around and well, that was almost all the money I had in savings. (Yeah, still jobless.) But the important thing is I have a working car. It, of course, has an idling issue and Tuesday I found out that the lock can get stuck. I'll work on those as soon as I get a job.
Now for the museum stuff! Actually, I have something very exciting to report. First, I finally got a friend to come help me out this Saturday! Yay! Even better, this Saturday they're having a guy come in to show visitors how to flintknapp. So that'll be pretty cool. It'll be the busiest day I've ever seen.
Guess what's even better though. No really. Guess.
Okay, I'll tell you. I finally figured out what I'm doing for that exhibit I'm designing. (Mentioned in last post.) And! The director approved my idea! So, this Tuesday I was looking for things to put in the exhibit. Cause, you can't have an exhibit without having artifacts. Wanna know what the exhibit's about?
A history of objects. (Oh man, just saying that makes me realize I have to come up with a title for it!) Well here's what its basically about. We're going to take everyday items. Like phones, toys, games, cameras, and household or kitchen items. (Probably household) Can any of you think up a good title for an exhibit comparing items used from the 1900s to now?
This is what I have to do to prepare for the exhibit. I have to: come up with the title, make a list of the artifacts I'm going to use, locate the artifacts that are in the museum, make a list of the artifacts I need to get a hold of, decide where to put the exhibit, decide how the exhibit is going to look, write up all of the information that will go in the exhibit, and of course put the whole exhibit together. All of this will have to be approved by the director. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Well. I've got a good idea of what artifacts I'm going to use. Except for the household items. I found board games I can use, a spinning top from the 1940s, and tons of old toys. The phones, except one, are at the director's house waiting to be put in the system. I know where the cameras are, generally. I just have to actually find them. The cameras are the frustrating part. See, I found out Tuesday that all... wait. I have to go back further.
Before the museum board hired the director (remember I just call him that, its not his actual title and he's not a museum trained person) the museum was run by a man who was also not trained, then after he died it was run by a few volunteers. The museum has these shelves mounted along both the east and west walls. I say shelves but today there are really only two left with shelves on them. The frames have been turned into wonderful exhibits. Each one of these frames had about 5 or 6 shelves on them. Each one of these shelves was crammed with no rhyme or reason. The director told me, it used to be so bad that the items actually reached up to the ceiling. Its a pretty high ceiling. Sometime in the last two years, all of the stuff cramming those shelves were boxed up and put upstairs. Or, not boxed up and put downstairs. The cameras were on one of those shelves. The cameras are in a box upstairs on a new shelf system. Each range upstairs, and I can call it that because it is the length of a single library range at New Mexico State University, has five or six sections with about 5 or 6 shelves on each section. Each shelf has two to three boxes. The ones with less than three have an artifact placed on the shelf as well. There are three of these ranges. In each box is anywhere from 2 to 20 artifacts.
I know this because I decided, since I'm looking for the cameras I might as well inventory the boxes. Tuesday I pulled down a box that had two bed pans in it, most definitely used before. The next box I opened had china from 5 different companies! Plus, a stamp holder, a tape dispenser, an unknown item, and two pieces of fleece cloth. When I asked the director if the cloth maybe had been used to protect the china, he told me nothing had been packed well. They only packed those boxes as fast as they could to clear space, so they're probably in the system. What! The fleece pieces were about the size of a handkerchief. Why in the world would you have that in a museum without any information attached to it! Gah!
Inventorying is just so much fun! < said in a sweet falsetto tone. Actually, it is. Especially because I like getting frustrated. And you really don't know what you're going to find. Which takes me to the last bit of writing of the day. So Tuesday I was entering stuff into the system. (I have a huge list that's built up and I don't want to risk losing the paper and having to redo things.) I was looking up items I knew nothing about, like this ashtray on shelf 37. Well, I went to look at it. I had a picture of it, but it was only of the front. So I turned it around and there was a maker's mark on the back. I typed that into google and came up with what it actually was.
That wasn't an ashtray! It was a porringer bowl that was eventually used as an ashtray! Don't know what a porringer bowl is? Well neither did I. A porringer bowl, which has been used since the medieval ages, is a bowl that you eat porridge or gruel out of. I got really excited. Is it pewter? Because the company on the back made pewter bowls in the 20s and that would be cool. Alas, fate is cruel. It was not pewter. I did some research, to make sure it wasn't a reproduction. You never know, also the director wanted to know its value in case we needed to lock it away. The pewter bowls from Stede (the company) have the handle soldered on. The later aluminum reproductions, probably made in the 60s (I was unclear on that), have the handle cast on. Another cool thing I learned. Pewter bends super easy. Like, really really easy. This thing, didn't bend at all. And when I looked at the handle, sure enough, it had been cast on. So we have the reproduction aluminum bowl. Which, neat fact, the aluminum bowls were used as ashtrays and various other items. Because really, who eats porridge nowadays? Not many people, that's for sure.
That's it for this Thursday. Look forward to a Manageable Monday this coming week.
84/More Thousands than I thought.
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