Day 9: 27 January 2011

Green Team Meeting and Shoe Break


I am fortunate enough to have a supervisor that is a member of the "green team" and very invested in keeping our museum on the eco friendly track. I got to sit in on a meeting today with the team and discuss its progress, new ideas and a little contest between the departments to help motivate all museum staff to help keep the GR Public Museum a more earth friendly place.


The main topics were simple, small scale projects like switching the lightbulbs on the carousel to LED or halogen bulbs [though there are something like 25,000 bulbs at $20 a pop] or getting multiple recycling bins for the Cafe. We also discussed things like a green roof and a rain water collection system. All in all, there is so much to do but so much is already being done. I think that is just as important. 




SO, back at the CARC building.... One day a week is shoe day and today was the day. I only got through one cart of shoes but I think thats pretty good for two and a half hours. 

This drum has nothing to do with me except that it was in my workspace and totally amazing. There wasn't anyone around to ask about it so all I can tell you is that its very old and probably Civil War related [as everyone is preparing for a Civil War exhibit...]. So cool.

This was my favorite pair of shoes from today. Navy leather win tips. Let me get some. 

I loved these too. So funny. The shoes say "Genuine Shenanigan Alligator" in them. What? But they are alligator, thus I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

Side note: Eames chairs for days in this building. Gotta love it. Happy Thursday. See you next week!

Day 8: 26 January 2011

Ethnography Con't


Andrea and I spent today finishing off our artifact logging from the day before and then started the process over again. 

The coolest pieces of the day were this photograph of a woman and her lace making tools and the actual tools themselves. I forget her name now but she was referred to as the best lacemaker around on the back of the photo. Andrea and I are starring artifacts that we find particularly cool or interesting and we are going to put together an on line exhibit to show them off. This lovely lady is making the cut. Check out how cool our gloves are. Preservation can be sexy. [I need a nap]

These shoes and this painting are a part of the Spain collection. I love these shoes. Stamped and painted. No one makes things like they used to. I really love this process of locating artifacts. I get to open boxes and interact with these pieces that have been packed away for years. It's nice to know that  now people will be able to access them and use them rather than just have them floating in storage. 

Day 7: 25 January 2011

Room 207 and the Ethnographic collections

Two days a week from now until we are finished, Andrea and I are inventorying the ethnographic collections that are being moved over to room 2007. The archives building is undergoing a lot of changes to move everything into a more linear order. 

  

This is just one row of the shelves with the collections on them. There are quite a few more...

This is the ethnographic collection's new home. As of now it holds both city records and some of the museum's collections. Below are several of the boxes we worked with today, the shoes are from the Armenian collections. The ones in the plastic bag are made of straw and fur-lined, so awesome. The others are leather slipper-type shoes. 

The items in this box in plastic bags are those under observation. They are basically in quarantine to protect the other artifacts and will soon undergo more preservation measures. In the bag we have two pair of hand knit, brightly colored socks and some pretty adorable mittens. There were also textiles, scarves and bowls.

Here we have a crocheted doily, red prayer beads and a necklace with coins on it. 

On the left is a hand carved comb and the right is the base of an oil lamp. The comb is so cool! I saw a similar one when I was working at a site in Baltimore over the summer.

This is one of the inventory sheets. It has a column for the accession number, a brief description, the location code and a column for its condition and if it is to be sent to the freezer. We then took this info and went to the online database. We used it to enter in the new locations of the artifacts. It's nice to know where things are!

This is my office. Well, I share it. But I get a drawer of my own. 

SIDENOTE: the freight elevator got stuck today just as Andrea and I were about to get on it. We called it to our floor and it got stuck between ours and the one below. Super glad I wasn't in there. No thanks. 

  

Day 6: 20 January 2011

 

Shoes and Flying Solo

 This is where I get to park. Movin' on up. Today was my first real solo day. I arrived, had some coffee with Andrea and Kaila, the other intern, and arranged my workspace.

 

The shoes today were not quite as beautiful as those yesterday but I am not here to judge... These red guys, however, were amazing. 1920s red slingback pumps. Yes please. 

I measure each pair and try to figure out as much as possible about them. We have written intake records in another part of the museum and they can vary from detailed and informative to saying "red shoes". When I started on the white pair of t-strap heels I was interested in what the pattern might be called. I found out that they were decorated with "broguing" and so were the shoes I was wearing. [I liked it...] Broguing is the hole punched pattern that one finds on most oxfords and wing-tipped shoes. It originated in Scottland and was more functional that fashion. It allowed water to drain out of their shoes. 

Drawer 167/1

Drawer 167/2

This is the room where I work. It is a restoration room as well as set up with photography equipment. The artifacts on the table closest are being pulled to display in the museum president's office. [Jealous] I work in the very far right corner taking pictures and the computer I use is behind me... exciting right?

This is the cage. It houses artifacts in transit. They either don't yet have a home, are in use [like mine] or are being restored. The rack of dresses was just donated by a woman and were worn by her and her sister growing up in Grand Rapids in [I believe] the 50s. Very cool. 

I think I have mastered the database! I didn't get frozen out and I didn't ruin anything. There are several different pages of information I edit for each shoe. What it looks like, who donated it, where its been, where it might go, and so many others... I think I love it here.

Day 5: 19 January 2011

Shoes and Cake


Every month at least somebody gets a year older... so we get cake. A short cake break for January birthdays was exactly what I needed [and I think everybody else did too]. It also happened to be my birthday on the third of this wintery month as well as Andrea's. Delish.


But, we also worked for our cake today. 


I started my first true day of shoe inventory today. Venturing up to the third floor of CARC, I had to take the freight elevator. That thing must have been welded by some evil genius, it sounds like it is on the verge of exploding most of the time. 


The third floor currently houses the textile and clothing collections, all so fascinating and just beautiful [until you get to the polyester years], as well as [my] the shoe collection. 

These are my lovely drawers that protect [kind of] the museum's shoe collection. I started today with cabinet 167, drawer 4. There was a slight mix up and we started the day with cabinet 166, prepped the shoes, brought them to the lab, got ready to take their pictures and write descriptions... only to find them previously completed [an intern earlier last year jumped on the shoe train too]. So we went back upstairs and went on to the next, uncatalogued shoes. 

These are some of the shoes from cabinet 166, the offending "already catalogued" shoes and some of my favorites. I want to wear these... everyday. [Not ok]

These are just a few of the dresses in the clothing collection. So beautiful.

The wedding dress collection behind plastic [we are battling a terribly unfortunate moth problem, but it is on the mend]. 

Once again, the lovely shoes of cabinet 166. Whoops.

These were the right ones. Also a favorite of mine. Sea foam green lace-up  leather heels. My my. 

For each pair of shoes I measured the length, width and height and then wrote as detailed of a condition report as I could. Then I got to describe the shoes and photograph them. Pretty fun I have to say. 

All of this information was then entered into the database on the computer along with anything else we could figure out about the shoes from their file or from the internet. We found an old ad for one of the shoe companies in an old magazine from the 1920s. Very cool.

Tomorrow will be more shoes and more photos. I simply cannot wait.

Day 4: 18 January 2011

Finishing off Amway

Today was the last day of Amway inventory & was spent in a holding room upstairs. We tracked down any last artifacts' paperwork that may have been missed and made sure everything was ready to be sent to its appropriate destinations. The oversized items were placed on skids and wrapped in bubble or foam wrap and the boxes were labeled A through Z or 1 through 22 depending on where it was meant to end up. Lots of checking boxes and reprinting box lists today. 

A few artifacts from the Nutrilite portion of the Amway exhibit and one of the Condition Reports.

Sammy the Seal of Amway pre-packing and almost ready to go.

The "Nutripet" supplement Condition Report.

"Nutripet" picture and artifact number.

Nutrilite supplements in their box.

Boxes of artifacts to be sent back to Amway.

Day 3: 13 January 2011

Amway continued


Today we continued to take out the Amway exhibit. Tons of make up, board games, household products... really everything under the sun is or was made by Amway. The products [artifacts] range from new to old and I found it interesting how the different pieces changed over time.


We will probably be back in this exhibit on Tuesday.

Day 2: 12 January 2011

Meet at Public Museum


Today we worked with the other intern & her supervisor taking down the Amway exhibit that has been in the museum for the last year. There are over 500 artifacts on display that needed to be inventoried, packed and divided into three groups: going back to Amway, going to another exhibit and artifacts to be entered into the museum's collections. 


I was first given a brief tour of the building & then I went to the exhibit to help with takedown. I helped Andrea inventory the artifacts, find and complete the condition reports on each piece, assigning them boxes & each box a number & list of artifacts & finally put all of the paperwork into a designated folder. 


We should be continuing this work tomorrow.

Day 1: 11 January 2011

Orientation, Tour, etc.   12:30 - 4:30 pm


Showed up at CARC [Community Archives & Research Center] for orientation & to meet my supervisor, Andrea. We chatted briefly about the two main projects I would be working on. 


1. Cataloguing, packing & moving a good portion of the museum's ethnographic collections.


2. Photographing & entering data into the online database for their shoe collection. 


Next, I started a tour of the collections facility - a maze of three buildings, built & acquired at different times over the last 100 years by the museum [my favorite being the "old  museum" or the Jefferson Building]. After the tour another intern and I watched an "artifact handling" video & completed the day with an introduction to using the online database.