Internships Blog

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.

I worked through my 4th week at the Salem Museum. The picture is of a side project I worked on last week. It is a small exhibit in the lobby, dealing with baseball I worked on all the aspects of the exhibit, from the research to the setup to the writing. Of course, I was given some pointers from the staff, and I believe it is a much better final product because of it.

The whole thing had to fit into a small glass case, which made it a challenge to fit everything in. Minor league baseball was a subject I knew absolutely nothing about, so it was interesting to look into it. Luckily, I had the museums extensive archives to help research and construct the exhibit.

We created a military display for the Vinton History Museum to commemorate Independence Day. All three uniforms were donated to the museum. From left to right, the desert camo uniform is the most modern military uniform in the museum’s inventory and is also a women’s uniform. It was used within the last few decades. The center uniform is from the Second World War. The uniform to the right is a uniform from the Korean and Vietnam wars. The Korean Vietnam uniform was donated to the museum a month ago, while the other two uniforms were stored in a closet. All three uniforms have never been on display before. We created this display to honor the men and women who served and who are currently serving for America’s freedom. This display shows the history of American military uniforms from the 1930’s.

The month of June is known to be a very popular wedding month. We decided to do a wedding display. The dresses belonged to Doris and Helen Kasey. They were both married on July 19, 1958. The original newspaper clipping is at the center bottom of the picture. The other newspaper clipping at the lower right corner of the picture is a clipping of their fiftieth anniversary in 2008. The stain glass window in the background came from the church they were married, Vinton Baptist Church. We were interviewed by the Vinton Messenger at the Vinton History Museum’s ice cream social on June 5. We were also included in the June 10 edition of the Vinton Messenger. We also celebrated our birthdays near the end of June. In conclusion the month of June has been a busy and eventful time at the Vinton History Museum.

Since my last post on June 7th, I have been in the newspaper The Vinton Messenger, helped organize and research auction items, taken down the June wedding display, and put up a new display for the month of July. The newspaper interviewed myself and another intern, Ben, at the Ice cream social and printed it the following week. Although the paper version printed my last name incorrectly, the online version was correct. The article can be found at: https://vintonmessenger.com/vinton-history-museum-welcomes-two-summer-interns?fbclid=IwAR3xvPdD3QaB_p3S19A9Aa46qdh97CuiH-urlCsXr3lP7qi31Hld8Z81vIU and it included some personal information to introduce us to the community while it included some of the projects we have taken on at the museum. I have also helped organize items for an auction that the Vinton History Museum is planning to have soon. The items have been donated by the community for their yearly yard sale (one of the fundraisers the museum holds every year, except last year due to COVID-19), and if some of them seem to have more value the item gets held back. Some of the items that have been held back for the auction include some crystal glassware of vases, silver plated presidential spoons, imperial China, many collectable dolls, and various other items. I have research many of the items for the auction to find the items dollar values. Lastly, we had taken down the June bridal display that was in my last post and replaced it with a military uniform display in observance for Independence Day. The display shows three different uniforms ranging from World War II to more present wars in the United States. All three uniforms have never been on display before at the Vinton History Museum.

I choose this internship because it produced a flexible schedule and an opportunity to dive into the historical community. Our first project in late May was to make a historical display commemorating the graduates of William-Byrd high-school for their experience with COVID-19. The display also showed historical pictures of a senior class in the 1920s in the center and a 1950s senior class in the lower right corner. The desk also showed a 1960s senior year book and graduation programs ranging from 1970-1990. The formal blue dress was donated to the museum and the graduation gown that was probably made in the late 1960s. Overall, this display reveals the revolving history of education in Vinton.

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.

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Started my third week at the Salem Museum. I spent most of my time this past week in the library / archive section of the museum, conducting research for a new exhibit. I am looking into 14 prominent citizens of Salem throughout the ages, that provide an insight into the town at the time. It begins at the founding of Salem, and continues up to the modern day. It is a large task, but I am chipping away at it. It has been interesting to go through the archives to find information on these people. Some eras are a lot easier to find information on than others. Everything is well organized, but there are clear gaps in the archives. It was a slow process at first, but I have found it easier as the week has gone on. Next week I will be taking a break from this to work on a smaller exhibit in the lobby.

The first picture is of me standing among the archive shelves. All of the pieces are shoved into the back, so it is significantly less empty than it appears in the pictures. The second picture is of my notes at an early stage.

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.

Over these two weeks at the Vinton History Museum, I have done different jobs throughout the museum. I continued to work on the organization of the William Byrd High School clippings and finished the William Byrd Sports book. I began working on a new book dedicated to William Byrd High School clubs from the 1950’s to now. A family came into the museum and I gave them a tour while helping the little boy with a research report he was doing on the town of Vinton as a final project at Noah Christian Academy. I also took down the previous graduation display since May has come to an end, along with majority of the graduations in the area. I prepped the display area for a new display. We, myself and another intern, did a bridal display since June is popular for weddings. We put two weeding dresses from 1958 on mannequins ( the dresses were donated to the museum from two sister who has a joint wedding at Vinton Baptist Church) and dressed a cloth mannequin with a pink flower girl dress from earlier in the 1950’s. I also organized a bookshelf in the School and Church room and separated the annuals, newspaper clippings and picture between the school in the area. I also did a little cleaning around the museum to prepare for the Ice Cream Social (the museum handed out free ice cream to those in the community and it allowed the museum more publicity). At the Ice Cream Social, I handed out ice cream to guests and gave roughly 10 tours throughout the day.