I have just finished my second week as Intern at the Historical Society of Western Virginia. We are currently in the midst of establishing some new exhibits so I have had a lot of hands-on work these first two weeks. The first couple of times I came in to work we were adding volume to mannequins with padding for a clothing/textile exhibit, a picture of one of said mannequins can be viewed to the left. This exhibit shows various forms of textiles from the 1930s, including clothes and quilts. I also assisted my supervisor in the installation and hanging process of the quilts required for this particular exhibit, which was very fun and helpful.
This past week I have been working on a different exhibit. We will be opening a loan exhibit of antique cast iron banks in early February and I have spent the past week creating an inventory of the banks that encompasses the information given by the owners and shows just how many we have. The banks are in such a wide variety of figures, animals, buildings, etc. They need to be handled very delicately and require gloves. I have loved working on this because it is very detail oriented. The image to the right is of two banks I have inventoried; one in the shape of a cute little Scottie dog, and the other of a cat on a wash tub.