atlawrence

Well, I have finished up my time with the museum and I must say that this experience will definitely leave an indelible mark on myself and my prospects for future careers. The ability to meld the historical, artistical, and organizational have all proved invaluable assets as I wove through the process of becoming a team member at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History. Overall I assisted in all facets of museum operation, such as sorting, re-accessioning, and digitizing historical records (the attached picture includes some of the documents which I have spent the past two weeks digitizing, primarily historical travel brochures from a Mrs. Beverley’s trip to Europe in the 1930s). The ability to work with the history, which is my favorite, alongside other ventures helped expand the breadth of knowledge and skills gained whilst at the museum, such as my involvement with both the Blue Muse and Wanderlove exhibitions. I was also glad to be the jack-of-all-trades around the museum, helping in any capacity which I was able. From helping to stake posts for a new banner outside the museum, to reorganizing the office’s and utility closet’s contents, to walking the Riverwalk to keep tabs on how Wanderlove was doing after its installation, anywhere I could be helpful was where I was. This internship has been a deeply enriching experience and I hope to continue helping out DMFAH when I am able as new exhibitions come, more installations are put up, and as reorganization continues in collections in order to achieve AAM-MAP certification. The experiences gained in my time there will definitely contribute to my future plans as I scope out the historical and archaeological fields, both of which intertwine splendidly with that of curatorial work and museums.

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Though Wanderlove has ceased its production stage and has ushered in its exhibition stage, it still necessitates our attention since it exists outdoors and is subject to the elements. Daniel, an intern, and myself were required to go down to the Riverwalk and re-attach panels of yarn that had become loose and scope out any more trouble areas that may require our attention in the near future. Other duties which we have undertaken since Wanderlove’s ceasing as our primary point of focus have involved helping Annie and Mary in collections by scouring museum past-perfect records as well as saved files on computers to try and find any accessioning information on pieces of artwork whose provenances have been lost over the years. Since MAP certification has shifted to our main focus, it is paramount that we organize collections so that we have a cohesive categorization system that is easily traversed by staff and researchers alike, instead of being a haphazard space where over the years a lot of what can only be described as stuff has accumulated. Another undertaking which we oversaw was the clearing of the tables outside of the collections room that had before been plagued with dozens of green office boxes and binders filled with old museum brochures and pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and even documents from the 19th century that had simply been sitting there without having been organized and sorted; now they are in line to be scanned and digitized.

I (as well as other interns) have also been helping Sara around the office by organizing her shelves, printing new maps for guests, and copying children’s activities booklets for use in the museum. What I am most proud of though is assisting her by using her computer to format and create new name tags for the museum’s board whereas previously they were all of different formatting and inconsistent in form, so I have effectively rectified that problem (pictured below). I have also helped her in reformatting and submitting grant forms for recompense, and providing technical advice when it is within my purview. Nearing the end of my internship, I can surely say that all of the intricacies of museum functionality and the influence of internal, and external, politics have definitely surprised me. But, what I can say is that the people have definitely made the experience memorable, along with some very interesting objects which piqued my interest. Pictured also is myself on Danville’s live-streamed River City TV news with reporter Mark Aron, Wanderlove creator Calder Brannock, and Annie and Felice from the museum; all people who made the heat on that particular day bearable. I cannot wait to see what is in store as the summer begins to wind down and what other observations I will make and relate here in my last post to come.

Wanderlove’s installation took up most of our time leading up to its launch on July 4th and meant that we spent many long days and nights working to get everything up. We yarnbombed the Riverwalk’s trestle bridge, the Worsham Street Bridge, numerous trees along the walk, as well as fences, rails, posts, and just about anything we could strew yarn on. Our time together as installers was fraught with numerous challenges, including the blistering heat, the torrential rain, as well as the city coming along and taking off some of our installations, but through it all we managed to complete installation. Now there is the come down that is felt by all after an exhibition is finished and work on it, once all consuming, suddenly ceases.

Along with all of the publicity and dialogue in the city generated by Danville’s largest art installation to date, there is the physical effect, the revival of the Riverwalk, or more so the River District as a whole as it turns into a downtown that we can claim as our own, one that has only recently become a place where people feel safe, no less inspired, to spend a beautiful day. The colorfulness presented by Wanderlove has created a more welcoming environment and has created a forthcoming attitude in the River City that screams a desire for change, particularly in the wake of investments in downtown as well as plans for a casino to come to the area in the coming years. It was truly a remarkable experience to be able to take part in this historic exhibition, working alongside many talented interns and volunteers, as well as the artist and mastermind, Calder Brannock, himself. Over dinners at night we all came to appreciate his craft and enthusiasm for our city, and are thankful for the time he spent showing us how with simple materials such as old sweaters we could create something unique and truly memorable. In the pictures you can see the yarnbombing on the Worsham Street Bridge and also a museum volunteer, Kenyon, and myself wrapping railings along the Riverwalk trail.

The past two weeks at the DMFAH has seen a change in pace in our duties as interns. As we near the installation for Wanderlove, we have been diligently preparing both for the pop-up gallery’s sneak-peek preview of Wanderlove materials and for the installation itself on the Riverwalk. However, before we get to those happenings, the week prior saw us take on duties which I am more familiar with considering my time as a lifeguard. A theatre and arts camp for elementary school children was ongoing when I came in Tuesday past and immediately I was thrown to the fore of being someone that they wanted to be open and playful with, since we spent a good portion of our time playing board games, and ensuring that they were kept in line. One group of boys took a particular liking to me and I wound up playing Exploding Kittens and Life with them on the first day and the other two floated around to get a wider breadth of interaction with the kids. The latter part of our busy days was art time and we used our time to create wrapped-sticks using yarn, then building things with the sticks (one group built a dragon), also making God’s eyes (pictured, from DMFAH’s Facebook), as well as playing with yarn to create cat’s cradles. The yarn theme played into Wanderlove, with some of their crafts being displayed in the pop-up gallery, as well as an historical approach that informed them about Danville’s history as an important textile manufacturing city. Another fun craft was self-portraits using features of themselves from photographs after learning about and viewing works in the museum by a portraitist from Danville who became a founding member of the Abingdon Square Painters, Harriet Fitzgerald.

This past week saw a return to pace, although towards the end we have ramped up our efforts to prepare for Wanderlove. This past Friday was the opening of the pop-up gallery in a members-only event which saw myself manning the Craghead Street Gallery, which is conveniently located right next to the pop-up gallery (and thankfully is the one with AC). Thursday was a major preparation day and Aidan T. and myself (pictured) helped with the installation in the pop-up gallery for Friday’s event. Other noteworthy activities this past week included a gratifying, though tedious, effort on my part to find old museum listings of the items in the Stratford Collection and make copies of them for study. At first I dismissed this as busy work, but the next day a new lead led me to a trove of documents, albeit unintelligible, that makes me appreciate the new system of accessioning that streamlines an otherwise antiquated and confusing nomenclature. Next week begins the Riverwalk installation of Wanderlove, so I will be assisting Wednesday and Friday with that in time for its July 4 reveal. Many disparate groups are helping bring this together and none of it would be possible without their time, effort, and many, many sewn strands of old sweaters.

Finishing up my first two weeks with the DMFAH has certainly been an exciting and memorable experience, as I am now able to immerse myself in the hands-on dispensing of history that has always been my fascination. With my time as intern, it is imperative for the museum to undergo vast reorganization of its collections so that the museum can achieve accreditation with the American Association of Museums. To contribute to this, I have learned how to use PastPerfect as an accessioning tool and have personally entered into the museum’s database numerous entries relating primarily to material that is part of a collection of the museum’s but found recently to have been stored away without proper knowledge or accessioning. These items, which included elegant silk dresses and authentic fox and beaver furs, all belonged to the collection acquired by the museum from the estate of Danville native Camilla Williams, a famed opera singer and the first African American to receive a regular contract with an American opera company. Showing the need for reorganization if such items were in limbo since the museum’s acquisition of the collection in 2012, it is essential that this work be done, and there is much of it at that.

So too did I assist in many facets of museum operation, such as being a greeter as well as scanning historical documents and summarizing them for digitization purposes. The museum is also preparing many new avenues of outreach to get the public more involved with our community’s historical and creative heritage by planning for new and novel events and for bringing art installations to the new gallery operated by the museum on Craghead Street in Danville. These are expressed in my attached pictures, wherein the first is of myself helping to rewrap a prototype for the museum’s Wanderlove exhibition of public yarnbombing on Danville’s scenic riverwalk coming in July. The second is of myself working as a greeter at the Craghead Gallery on the opening night of Tim Duffy’s Blue Muse exhibition of tintype photographs of blues musicians, most of whom are African Americans, whose contributions to music are invaluable but whose names have often been eclipsed, among others who continue to carry on these musical traditions. In just my first two weeks all of this has been put on my plate, but with the assistance of the director, staff, and other interns I have been welcomed and cannot wait to continue helping the museum regain its footing as a beloved cultural dispenser in the region. Many disparate stories can be told in just the building alone, from the days of the Sutherlin Mansion’s use as Jefferson Davis’ last capital during the Civil War to the Civil Rights battles waged within when the building was the public, segregated library.