Side note.

I Have These Things in Ma Brain


So, even though I am all of a three-day-a-week intern, I'm getting a little passionate about this place. I continue to be surprised and excited by the things that I find and the people that work in the archives. 


I feel like this facility is a huge part of the culture of this city. The Public Museum itself is a simply amazing place as well, but I am a little biased. Maybe. [yes]


AND


I have been thinking and pacing and losing sleep [ok just thinking] over ways to utilize the old museum building and incorporate things that I have found in the collections that are particularly interesting or super weird or really anything. I want to show people what we are working with here and what an asset this place is. I want to put together a small, weekend exhibit showcasing these pieces of the collection, invite the public in, show 'em what we got.


I have absolutely no idea if this is even a teenie possibility but I wanted to get it out of ma brain. Before it explodes. Or something.


Happy Ferris Wheel Day!

Day 15: 10 February 2011

My My, Do We Have Military Jackets

I took a pretty epic spill yesterday on some ice after leaving the museum and was a little worried that I would be useless today. I was. But luckily, someone useless was exactly what was needed. The clothing collection is currently housed where the city archives are moving and they need to get outta there. 

Andrea, Kaila, Tim and Jon all worked at getting a start on the moving process. I was assigned task of artifact number registrar. I basically sat and wrote down each number as things were put onto a rack. I felt pretty lame all day. 

Most of what we moved were old military and other public service uniforms. Very cool. I love buttons and it is very interesting to see how they are used on these types of apparel through the years, along with badges and patches. I found an old military button in Baltimore [shout out] last summer and it was a nice little side project looking into what dates it was in use and what uniforms it  was used on. 

[This is my button from Balitmore. I know, totally amazing.]

Anyway, I promise not to fall again and to be more helpful. 

Day 14: 9 February 2011

The Netherlands and Teeny Tiny Clothes


Andrea and I inventoried a few boxes from the Netherlands Ethnological Collections. The first box was filled to the brim with patterns. Little tiny baby clothing patterns. All hand made and insanely adorbs. The box even held many of the garments made from the patterns. I absolutely love when things are in sets. So often things are acquired to museums as simply pieces and parts of things [a reason why I love the lace making tools and photo from day 8]. There were also several samplers. These made me happy I wasn't growing up in the Netherlands as a girl in the 1800s. So many tiny stitches.  


I finished the day entering accession numbers and new locations into the computer. Always a bit daunting, as the list never seems to get shorter, but I was happy to discover that the set of 106 tiles that we inventoried the other day is listed as one unit in the database. That means 105 less numbers to type in and 105 less location codes to enter. It's the little things.

These are two little gems [ducks] from the taxidermy collection. Each little treasure is neatly boxed with a backdrop that should be similar to their habitat. There is also a handle on top for easy transport. [I was simply not aware that dead, stuffed things could be so heavy. I moved a giant owl as well.]

This is a little bitty dress pattern. We also have the dress. 

I thought this was probably the cutest box of cocoa ever. 

We had an entire box of [what I was calling] lady stuffs [all day]. It was really neat to see all of the beaded purses [like this one], hat pins, jewelry and sewing supplies.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Day 13: 8 February 2011

Data entry makes my fingers numb. 






We were back at inventorying today but we are super behind on entering the locations of objects into the computer. We worked up in the collection for an hour or so and then spent the rest of the day doing data entry. We got almost completely caught up.

I want to know why this person had so many animal skeletons. 

Baby shoes. I mean, come on. So itty bitty.

Baby heels. [Why is it so cute?]

A box of boxes. I love how neatly these are packaged.

Two samurai masks from collections we are going to be inventorying later next week. They are so amazing. And super creepy. I wouldn't mess with that.

Day 12: 3 February 2011

Valenblog


Today Kaila and I started a pretty adorbs side project. We went through boxes of vintage Valentine cards, picked out a few that we liked and photographed them. They are going to go up onto a slideshow on the museum's website or their facebook page as a little Valentine Special. These were some of my favorites.

So grab your hubby and Happy Valentines Day.

Day 11: 2 February 2011

SNOWDAYYYYYY. Look out, winter is here.

Day 10: 1 February 2011

This is only mildly daunting


We have 36 more shelves to inventory. I am sure there will be more. I had several photos for today but they never arrived in my inbox and were deleted from my phone. Silly spacephone. 

Andrea and I worked on ethnological collections from Scotland, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands etc. There were so many amazing artifacts. Adorable aprons from Portugal, hand stitched and obnoxiously bright. Little plaid tams. Handmade lanterns, painted tiles. Super grand. 


I did manage to snag one photo. [A fellow from my favorite Sufjan Stevens song. Or do I have that backwards?]