A Short But Sweet Museum Road Trip

Hello Everyone!

I just got back from a wonderful trip, and of course there were museums involved. It inspired me to write, and hopefully you will here more about my adventure soon, but in the meantime, if you have an interest in small museums, work at a small museum, or are thinking about someday working in a small museum, get involved with the Small Museum Association.

Their annual conference was the primary reason for my trip, and I had an absolute blast. In addition to great sessions and a ton of vendors at the resource hall, there was a banquet on Monday night and people could dress in costume if they wanted to. I also met some wonderful people and made some friends. I plan to add more about what I learned at the sessions I went to in the coming days. Just do yourselves a favor and visit SMA's website follow their blog and like them on Facebook. Soon they will be posting podcasts from some of the conference sessions and I highly suggest listening to those when they are released. Go to the conference next year, it's a great value and I'll be there too!

My Road Trip:

Saturday- Cooperstown to Philadelphia, PA.
Sunday- Philadelphia, PA to Ocean City, MD.
Visited: Eastern State Penitentiary, National Constitution Center, and the President's House
Ate at: Jack's Firehouse
Monday- Ocean City, MD
Tuesday- Ocean City, MD to Philadelphia, PA.
Ate at: National Mechanics
Wednesday- Phildadelphia, PA to Cooperstown, NY.
Visited: Franklin Institute and The Woodlands Cemetery

A New Summer, A New Museum Beginning

Hello everybody. It has been over a year since I last posted on this blog. It was never my intention to leave this blog for that long. I have all of this great stuff to share! Which is possibly why I stopped writing here in the first place, I've had a crazy adventure of a year. It is my goal to update here more often throughout the summer, and I will fill you all in on the many museums I went to, my internship last summer at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and my first year at the Cooperstown Graduate Program.

On to this summer. I am interning at the Museum at Bethel Woods, in Bethel, NY. This is where Woodstock actually happened! I'm working right at the site! I'm so excited. I start on Monday. Wish me luck!

Been Busy

Hi Everyone-

No worries, I have not forgotten this blog, it has been a very crazy few weeks. So I figured I would update you all on what has been going on with me, most of which is school/museum related.

First, I will be graduating from my undergraduate college in less than two weeks as Valedictorian. It was a wonderful surprise. I just finished my speech that I will be delivering at the Honors and Awards ceremony the day before graduation.

Second, I received an internship at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I will be working for 10 weeks in the Collections Department. I am beyond excited, this is by far my favorite museum dedicated to a particular topic. Baseball is also my favorite sport. There will be numerous posts as the summer progresses on my life at the museum. Also cool? I get to help out with the baseball related events like the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

Third, I will be staying in the Cooperstown area for the next two years as I was accepted into the Cooperstown Graduate Program for History of Museum Studies. It's the only program I applied to and am so glad to be a part of it. Just think, the more I learn, the better this blog will become!

On that note I do have 3 blog posts in the works, so stay tuned.


~Maria

A Tuesday Catch Up

This week's artist is Claude Monet, an artist I consider to be an amazing Impressionist. Born in 1840, I am rather fond of him because he was the first real artist that I remember studying in school. I'll always appreciate my junior high French class for introducing me to many artists like Degas, Renoir, Manet and Cassatt. Perhaps known best for painting water lilies, he also painted people, haystacks and the Rouen Cathedral. I remember hearing about how he would move from one canvas to the next as the light on the Cathedral would change and would return to the beginning of the series the next time the lighting was right. There were more than 30 of them. I find that absolutely amazing to have that many of one subject in a series. He died in 1926. I saw some of his work in a special exhibit of Impressionist artists at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston when I was in the 10th grade. It remains one of my favorite exhibits to this day.

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I spent Thursday through Sunday in Cooperstown, New York for the Cooperstown Graduate Program's Interview Weekend. I would love to go there for Museum Studies. It is the only place I applied to. I'm crossing my fingers and wish all of those who also went the best of luck. Decisions are already in the mail and I'm anxiously awaiting to get a letter. In addition to meeting a lot of great museum oriented people, I got to go behind the scenes at the Fenimore Art Museum and the Baseball Hall of Fame and visited the Iriquois Storage Facility which also houses collections from the Farmers' Museum. I also rode the carousel at the Farmers' Museum. There really are no words to describe the weekend and everything that I got to do. So cool!!!

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I promise I will post about the now passed "pork" measures that John McCain unhappily tweeted about that first got me into twitter. I feel that it is important to still know what these things are, I know that I was introduced to a number of good cultural institutions in this way.

Also coming soon, the third post about my thesis and the ceramics that I analyzed for it.

My Favorite Living Museum

My favorite Living Museum is Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA. Meant to capture life during the 50 year period of 1790-1840, it consists of 59 buildings including homes, a traditional New England church, places of work and industry and farms with real animals. Whereas some other outdoor living museums close during the Winter, at Sturbridge, there is something to do year round.

I enjoy it for numerous reasons one of which is the personnel's ability to perform characters but step outside of the role and truly explain what one is doing with a more modern understanding ... moving beyond a scripted dialog, so to speak. This also provides a revisitability because you could walk around on numerous occasions and hear different things said each time, even from the same people.

Once upon a time I may have not chosen it because of its having moved its houses to that spot to create an artificial village that never existed. I appreciate that now, however, because although these houses have in part lost their authenticity having been moved from their original contexts, they have been saved from a much worse fate. This, I think is a very good thing.

I last went two years ago in the Fall. It was a beautiful day and Sturbridge was a great way to spend that day.

Pictures to come.

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There are a limited number of other Living Museums that could have earned the title of my current favorite Living Museum. This is due primarily to the fact that I have been less often to this type than any other and the one I have been to the most is Sturbridge Village. It apparently was also the favorite of the teachers in my elementary school and of my Girl Scout troop leaders.

Other contenders:

- Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA.
- The Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, NY. I haven't managed to go here during the museum season, missing it by only a few days the last time I went to Cooperstown. I did, however, participate in a hearth cooking demonstration here in one of the houses, which ranks among the top museum experiences that I have had. Hearth cooking is amazing and tons of fun.

I also intend on traveling to Williamsburg to visit Colonial Williamsburg. I don't know when that will happen exactly, but it is high up there on my list of places to visit.