Tag Archives: exhibits

Museum Monday: GWU & Textile Museum

03 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Museum Review

≈ Comments Off on Museum Monday: GWU & Textile Museum

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Friday I found myself in Foggy Bottom with time to spare on a parking meter in Alexandria, so I cast about for someplace to explore. For the first wearing of my favorite boots this season, the Mall seemed too far, so I chose the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. Once upon a time, the Textile Museum had its own home, but as with so many museums, it could not support itself, and found a new home within a university. GWU is also home to the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies, which collects Washingtonia, documenting the evolution of the District of Columbia’s landscape and built environment.

University museums make me a little nervous the same way museums associated with private hereditary-based membership organizations do– there’s an increased level of exclusivity beyond the usual white marble stairs and bronzed glass doors. Is the museum for the public, or only for the students? How well does the museum integrate with the community around it? That’s not much of a concern for the GWU Museum, given that it is embedded in a neighborhood primarily comprised of college students, but the hands-on lab is clearly oriented towards school groups of all ages, and school groups have their own (slightly half-hearted) page.  Still, it’s not like Penn’s Museum, which is embedded in a very different kind of neighborhood.

Still, the front desk staff were friendly helpful, suggesting two ways to see the museum (basement up, via the stairs or top down, via elevator). I chose the stairs. The basement level featured selections from the Textile Museum Collection, Textiles 101 and Faig Ahmed: Nonvisual Language. It’s a good thing I’ve got years of museum training because Ahmed’s work is really tactile. I wanted to plunge my hands into the first piece I saw, a luscious red wall hanging. Really: you want to get your hands in it.

Shibori in a drawer in Textiles 101

Textiles 101 provided the chance to touch, a welcome relief after looking. There were drawers to open, and a large explanation of the types of weave structures that make up textiles. A very helpful security guard recommended (insisted) that I watch the video on the 2017 Maryland Sheep to Shawl Contest,  which I did enjoy. As the only person in the galleries, my heels echoed and I attracted quite a bit of (friendly) attention.

On the second floor, I found the Alfred Small Collection of Washingtonian’s Eye of the Bird: Visions and Views of D.C.’s Past which I found incredibly helpful in understanding the evolution of the city, and in orienting myself when on the ground. The diagonal streets and circles are confusing to someone  familiar with grids, or cowpaths, or grids laid over cowpaths, so I need all the orientation I can get. An unexpected treat was a lovely 1830s dress with whitework pelerine, illustrating resident dressed for one of my favorite eras.

The Basics:

Admission:
Free (suggested donation, $8; front desk staff waved me in when I brought up AAM)

Hours:
Monday and Friday: 11 AM–5 PM
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday–Thursday: 11 AM–7 PM
Saturday: 10 AM–5 PM
Sunday: 1–5 PM

Closest Metro: Foggy Bottom (Blue, Orange, and Silver Lines)

Becoming an Exhibit Prop

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Museums

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

We all have those Hamlet-like moments, don’t we?
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable | Seem to me all the uses of this world!

But in this case, I can attest to being and not merely feeling flat: lo, I am cutout exhibition furniture.

Thanks to Mr B’s casting call on behalf of the New-York Historical Society, a number of friends and acquaintances and I are now part of the scenery of the new exhibition, Saving Washington, up through July 30.

The behind the scenes of being a prop is pretty entertaining.

Mr H
Steaming my shawl

The changeable green-red sari gown was made for this photo shoot; we were asked to wear strong colors, and since the exhibit was meant to represent one of Dolley Madison’s “squeezes,” dressing up was in order– and hard for me to do, since most of my gowns are day dresses at best.

I started this November 22, and carried it on airplanes several times.

November 22: the madness begins
Sleeve salvation

The sleeves appeared to be a complete failure at first, until I figured out I could pleat the design to form a smaller, graphic band at the bottom. Sometimes I start without knowing how a thing will turn out…including most days when I get out of bed.

December 9 completion level: wearable.

At least it was finished enough to wear to the photoshoot, and it appeared again, with a real hem and a ribbon to keep it on, in Salem last month. I’m pleased enough with the color, and how well it doesn’t go with most things to call this a success– and finished!

In situ.

Any Old Epaulet

28 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in Art Rant, Fail, History, Museums

≈ Comments Off on Any Old Epaulet

Tags

, , , ,

Details: we sweat them in our historical clothing, our impressions, our writing. I try hard to pay attention to them, but in my work, I have a lot of details to manage. Some fall away– I can no longer tell the ranks of men in daguerreotypes immediately, or recognize a Colt revolver at 10 paces, but there was a time when I could. I have managed to retain at least a general understanding of how military units are organized, a general sense of various units from my state in wars before 1939, and the uniforms associated with those units. (And I know which side a man’s coat buttons on.)

What's wrong with this image? Missouri State Guard uniform coat of Col. Austin M. Standish (Confederate). Missouri Historical Society 1916-045-0001

What’s wrong with this image?
Missouri State Guard uniform coat of Col. Austin M. Standish (Confederate). Missouri Historical Society 1916-045-0001

This helps in my work: knowing what HBT is, knowing what various patches signify, knowing how units were structured and the campaigns they were part of helps me be a better cataloger, curator, and exhibit developer. My job is take the details and make them matter by telling stories about the people who wore the HBT or the machinists’ mate patch or carried an ensign or wore an officer’s coat as part of the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored) in the Civil War.

U.S. Flag, regimental. 14th Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery. Belonged to Joseph Carey Whiting, Jr., 1st Lt., Co. B 14th R.I. Heavy Artillery. RIHS 1962.24.1

U.S. Flag, regimental. 14th Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery. Belonged to Joseph Carey Whiting, Jr., 1st Lt., Co. B 14th R.I. Heavy Artillery. RIHS 1962.24.1

People matter more than things, but 154 years later, all we have are things those people owned, used, wore, and carried. The things now represent the people. So when someone working on a exhibit says, “any epaulets will do” while pointing at the shoulder boards on a Lieutenant’s coat, I’m not just taken aback, I’m upset, and reply, “If it’s just for color, you can buy them.” Because “any old epaulet [sic]” being loaned by a museum goes through a laborious process of loan approval, packing, delivery and installation. For that time investment alone, “any old epaulet” should not do: museums are not prop closets.

General's Epaulets of William Clark. Missouri Historical Society. 1924-004-0006

General’s Epaulets of William Clark. Missouri Historical Society. 1924-004-0006

I keep saying the same thing, don’t I? There ain’t nothing like the real thing.

We can’t assume that the public doesn’t know or doesn’t care– they often know more than we do, just think of the wildly detailed knowledge some of us have about very particular things– so we owe it to them, and to the people of the past, to use museum objects as more than visual accents.

Museum Fail: Icon, not Replica

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Art Rant, Fail, History, material culture, Museums

≈ Comments Off on Museum Fail: Icon, not Replica

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

img_8606

What am I?

Do you know what this is? Do you think it’s real? Here’s a clue: it’s a relic of an iconic event in early 21st-century North America.

On the last visit to the National Marine Corps Museum, I watched the tourists circle objects at the end of the traditional galleries and displays, and overheard a woman ask her companions:

What’s this a replica of?

Reader, I cringed– and not for the sentence construction.

What's this a replica of?

What’s this a replica of?

And then I stepped back. I thought that for someone my age it would be obvious. Here, have some additional museum context.
img_8604

In a museum where everything is real, how does a visitor come to ask not only if that World Trade Center steel beam is a replica, but what is it replicating? I’m not sure semiotics can save us here. My first, New York Times-reading, media-soaked, Northeast Corridor response was, How can you miss that? How can you not recognize that, let alone mistake the steel and concrete relic for a replica?

img_8603

Ah, hubris. There is a label, though I have seen better. Would it be more helpful in a larger font, turned perpendicularly to the I-beam? Possibly. But the lesson that’s deeper than label formatting and placement is recognizing how much we take for granted. Our visitors, even those we assume to be educated consumers of media and information, may not share our knowledge base. They may not read objects or images as readily as we think they do; we certainly cannot assume they’re all taking away the same information– and that has nothing to do with education or background.

Everyone truly sees the world differently. How, and what, we choose to put on a label should always be grounded in remembering that we do not all share the same information. Context is critical, and probably would have made these relics more real, and less replica.

Blue Coats and Shiny Buttons

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in Clothing, Museums

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Once upon a time, I worked (twice) for an interim boss I called (behind his back) Shiny Buttons. You know I’m in a coastal state, so you can guess what he wore: a navy blue blazer with brass buttons. It’s a uniform of its own kind, even in civilian life. For a new show at work, one of the things we’re looking at are blue coats and shiny buttons.

It got very “Hey, sailor!” in painting storage earlier this week, as we pulled out portraits looking for gents in blue coats. Sea captains are definitely representing.

Captain John Gladding, 1810-1820. Miniature. RIHS 1980.80.1

Captain John Gladding, 1810-1820. Miniature. RIHS 1980.80.1

Philip Crapo, ca. 1801. Miniature attributed to Thomas Young. RIHS 1906.3.4

Philip Crapo, ca. 1801. Miniature attributed to Thomas Young. RIHS 1906.3.4

There are other gents in blue, and it’s interesting to see the proliferation of style across time.

Portrait of a Man in Blue Coat, French, early 19th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 48.187.735
William Man Godschall by John Russell, Pastel on paper, laid down on canvas, 1791. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 61.182.1

It’s a classic look, often seen in the preppier enclaves. It’s an easy target, but don’t you love this review of a Brooks Brothers blue blazer by Biff? Timeless.
Biff