What AM I doing?

In a conversation with my great Take 5 colleagues the other day, we were talking about the shape of our days, our weeks and our months as independent professionals.  It's fairly often that I get asked questions about what I do, either by people interesting in becoming freelancers (by choice or not), people beginning their career and wondering how I got from there to here; and even people I met on airplanes, who ask things like, "so you pick the stuff on display?"  I thought I'd give a one-month (slightly longer) recap, to give a sense of what independent consulting means, at least in my case. Here goes:

In mid-July, I headed off to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, where I'm in the final stages of an managing and curating an exhibit for the headquarters of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.  An exhibit in a police headquarters is a first for me, and I'm working with an enthusiastic group of volunteers and designer Melanie Lethbridge.  I love St. John's, so I always make sure that my time there includes not only the archives, but also some walks out and about. This time, an evening spent watching whales cavort off Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America.  Plus, time planning a new book project with Jane Severs, checking out the new exhibit at the Rooms, and a lively lunch with Jane and Kate Wolforth, talking all things interpretation.

In late July, I was a keynote speaker at the Association of Midwest Museums conference in Minneapolis.  I got to meet tons of great people, share some ideas on creativity and innovation, hear other great ideas, eat some amazing food and see the American Swedish Institute's beautiful new building and their historic house (plus, a chance to walk my creativity walk with some on-the-fly, totally unserious, historic house tour-giving.)  I also got a chance to catch up with Barb Wieser, an American friend from Ukraine and attend an event at the Ukrainian Cultural Center.  A big shout-out to the fabulous Paige Dansiger who captured me (above) and other speakers with her great on-the-spot sketches.

In between, and during travel, I'm catching up on emails, attempting to write blog posts, checking in with various clients, and thinking about new work including writing proposals that may or may not come to fruition. Hopefully each trip home includes a bank deposit, but not always.  See risk, below. Plus of course, finding time to enjoy summer in the Catskills--it's beautiful up here.

A relatively quick turn-around and I was off to Concord, MA, where I'm working on re-interpretation of The Old Manse for the Trustees.  The Old Manse is an historic house with a fascinating complex story, and this trip was to begin the prototyping process.  I did a training session with interpreters and some actual prototyping. It's always energizing to get feedback from visitors directly. Whether prototypes are successful or not, it's a process worth embarking on to deepen our thinking and challenge our assumptions.  On that same trip, one dinner with Rainey Tisdale, planning for a trip to Columbus, as well as catching up on everythin; and another dinner with a former Fulbrighter to Ukraine.  On the way home, I visited Fruitlands, a museum I'd heard about forever but had never been to.  If you're interested in museums I visit, I actually, and nerdily, maintain a Google map of those visits.

Again, a quick turn-around at home, enjoying summer, my husband, and a homemade music festival (thanks Gohorels!); also working to line up three international museums for my Johns Hopkins course, International Experiments in Museum Engagement, starting this week. Stay tuned for more on that.  I also agreed to serve as a Fulbright reviewer and Rainey and I began work on a journal article together.  Farmers' markets, walks in the cool evenings, and appreciating other people's gardens, all a part of home.  Plus of course, bills and invoices, emails, and other writing, and a conference call or two.

Off to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center with a day-long review of our work together over the last several years, an appearance on public radio talking historic houses with Shannon Burke and Cindy Cormier, and making final plans for the exciting new visitor experience next year. Back home again after three days.  The week at home included work on the Old Manse, writing final text and reviewing designs for the Constabulary exhibit, JHU course prep, and prepping for a one-day workshop at the Ohio History Connection with Rainey. Plus a small bit of work for my ongoing client, Context Travel, commenting on a Paris walk framework and and a phone call about a possible speaking engagement.

That week also brought the start of an exciting new project.  With Lithuanian colleague Vaiva Lankeliene I am conducting an assessment of cultural heritage needs in Ukraine for the British Council/European Cultural Foundation.  There's much to dig in on and plans to make for a research visit in October. Thanks heavens for Google Translate, also getting used as I try to read French materials for another project possibility.

That Sunday we had an all-too infrequent Take 5 meeting here at my house.  Carolyn Macuga made the trek up a day early, so we jampacked Saturday with the Bovina Farm and Studio Tour and the Delaware County Fair.  Take 5 is always a wonderful time to reflect on our work, individually and collectively. Haven't checked out our website or signed up for the newsletter?  I hope you'll find them both useful and thought-provoking.  We talked ethics, book projects, SEOs, interpretation, and as always, ended with an infused vodka toast (this time, sour cherry, cucumber and basil, or blueberry).

An early morning departure once again (coupled with the desire that I could both live in a beautiful place and close to an airport), off to Columbus, Ohio,  A meet-up with Rainey and a fascinating tour of the Columbus Museum of Art, a place that has embraced creativity as a key part of their mission, followed by dinner with Megan Wood, one of my former mentees. The next day, two half-day workshops at the Ohio History Connection, trying out Creativity Karaoke (amazing job, all of you!), and some deep dives into embedding creativity into an institutional culture.

Back home again, to a day full of phone calls (not as common as it once was thanks to emails): brainstorming ideas with a potential new client; talking to a professional considering career changes; catching up on prototyping at the Old Manse with Caren Ponty, one of last year's JHU students who is helping out with the project;  and trying to puzzle out the laws of Ukraine regarding museums with Vaiva. I juggled scheduling video interviews long-distance  for the Constabulary exhibit and trying to plan a few blog posts. Ended the day in a Newfoundland way by trying out one of the recipes for the Colony of Avalon's Colonial Cookoff--reasonable success with apple fritters.

What's the point of this crazy narrative?

First, if you want to be a freelancer, think about what risks you really are comfortable with.  Everyone does it differently, but for me, it means serious multi-tasking (hence why I find typos in these blog posts!)  and more than a bit of risk. There's risk in bidding new projects, and continual uncertainty in a financial sense.  I love the challenge of all that, but it's not for everyone.

Second, reflect. I've spent more time this year reflecting on my own process and the ways in which I connect with clients and audiences.  The better I understand my own process, the better I can present my work to clients.

Third, gratitude.  My career has been a complicated, sometimes surprising and circuitous line of choices, but along the way, Drew and Anna, mentors, mentees,  Rainey, my Gang of Five, other colleagues, and clients have all helped me think more deeply about the work I do, how we might do it together and what risks we might take.  I try and pass my own experiences and knowledge forward, when people ask, but I will say, honestly, the thank-yous really matter.  I'm always willing to find time for coffee or a drink to meet new people, but I've been surprised this year when I made time for a couple young professionals who never followed up with a thank-you email.  Gratitude does matter.

Fourth, network, but gently.  I don't want to be in your face or in your social media feed constantly, but I do want you to think that I'm around, that I'm doing interesting things and that you might have a good project for us together. There's a ton of advice out there about your social media presence--I just blunder my own way and I know fellow consultants who have none, but make your own decisions about it.

Fifth, keep learning.  My work is predicated on my ability to learn new things:  new tools to help me work efficiently (hello, Slack), new ways of thinking about our work (on a regular basis, hello Nina Simon),  new places to understand (hello, Latvia),  new perspectives (hello #museumsrespondto Ferguson tweetchat) and new challenges (hello, Ukrainian cultural policy).  I still think of myself as an Emerging Museum Professional, because I always think I have more to learn.

If you're interested in working with me or pondering through a new project together, be in touch!

Visitors Make Meaning: From Hilary to Elsa

As with many of you, Nina Simon's new book on relevance is on my must-read list this summer, although I haven't gotten there yet.  But I'm looking forward to digging into her thoughts on relevance, as it's something repeatedly appearing in my own work and something I want to understand more about.

Last week, in some prototyping efforts at The Old Manse, a property of the Trustees, I saw visitors' ability to make relevant connections in action and wanted to reflect on the experience. The Old Manse is a complicated property, with a long, continuous family history.  But it's not just a family site, but a house that overlooked the first battle of the American Revolution and the place where Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Nature.  There's much to think about in the house but one of our goals in rethinking the interpretation is to better connect these complex stories to visitors of all ages and interests.

What we found was that we didn't need to be explicit about content, but if conversations on a guided tour are opened up, visitors rapidly make their own relevant connections, creating a deeper experience.  Here's a few examples:

In one room, the guide plays the role of William Emerson (1743-1776)  known as the Patriot Preacher, who was chaplain of the Continental Congress. Visitors are asked to play the roles of real Concord residents, coming to ask the minister his opinion.  One twelve year old boy received the card of someone who felt it was hypocritical to own slaves and fight for freedom.  He asked the minister for his opinion and I responded, as the minister,  that I didn't see the hypocrisy, as I own slaves myself. This boy then proceeds to offer an unscripted spontaneous, passionate, articulate defense of freedom for all--no matter their race, color, religion or beliefs.  His parents looked at him surprised, but this young man made it absolutely relevant to today.

In the same space, when an introduction to the house mentioned that Emerson built the house, a visitor asked, "But who really built the house?" --  a question surely prompted by Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic convention.

Also on the tour, visitors are introduced to Sarah Ripley (1793-1867) brilliant and entirely self-educated, who read seven languages and tutored Harvard undergraduates in the parlor here.  "Today, she could have been president,"  said one older woman on the tour.  No surprise where that comment came from.

One final meaning-making story from the experiments:  in one room, we share the story of newlyweds Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, who thought of their brief time at the Old Manse as a perfect romantic time.  When I asked a tour group what kind of place was romantic to them, one nine year old girl answered quickly, "a cave behind a waterfall."  Surprised, I asked why-- evidently I have not seen Frozen, because a romantic scene happens behind a waterfall (and dating myself, I instantly thought of Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans).

In each of these situations, we didn't just share information, nor did we make the explicit connection--we provided space for meaning-making.  This means we have to give up the urge to share everything we know, and it also means that we have to be okay with uncertainty--and sometimes discomfort. It also means that current events may always be a part of the interpretive experience, because it's what visitors are bringing with them.  For more perspective on this meaning-making, check out this post from Nicole Deufel. My time at The Old Manse was also a reminder of the value of prototyping.  Visitors love to be a part of experimentation and that experimentation enables us to refine how we do this kind of work. If we can let go of our urge to control both the narrative and our visitors experience, those visitors will surprise us on a regular basis with their passion, intelligence and curiosity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." Experiment away!

Authenticity is a Lie

Like anyone who works with historic houses, sooner or later, I find myself in conversations about authenticity.  How do we know how the furniture was arranged? What exactly was that color shown in a black and white photograph?  What did it smell like?  Sound like?  At different times of year?   As insiders, we know those questions and talk about them, as we strive for something that I've now come to believe is a fiction, yet something that our visitors believe is the real deal.  So yes, the "authenicity" that visitors think they are experiencing is often a lie.

Over and over again, I read in visitor surveys or hear visitors comment, "oh, it's just like it was back then,"  when it so clearly to me, seems like it isn't.  This blog post isn't meant in any way to dismiss the work of serious historians and curators who work to know more, all the time, about these inhabited spaces, but rather to suggest that we need to be clearer in owning up to what we know, and what we don't (nor any disrespect to the Seven Gables, pictured above in an early postcard).

There's a few issues that these visitor comments really raise for me.

First, the fact that somehow we, as museum/historic site people are often unwilling to acknowledge the complicated nature of historical practice. As a result, visitors get a shocking lack of complexity in thinking about history.  For instance, do I think 19th century historic houses in the Midwest had needle-pointed bell pulls to cover all of the electric light switches in each room?  Not for a minute. Did visitors think so?  Perhaps, because they were presented as part of the historical furnishings.

Second, our adherence to earlier furnishings efforts leaves out so many people in the story of domestic places. For instance, why are servants and enslaved people only, if at all, present in the kitchen and back spaces? Long ago, participants in the Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore were tasked with developing an interpretive interactive that could illustrate how this beautiful great camp in the Adirondack wilderness only ran because of the presence of servants.  One group came up with different colored footprints on the floor to represent servants and Vanderbilts and their guests. The servants' footprints came and went in a dizzying array, all through the course of the day, into a space generally interpreted as a space for the wealthy to relax.

Third, we're not all the same.  Spinning wheels, dresses thrown artfully on beds, children's toys arranged carefully and the fake apple in the kitchen bowl.  How can we get visitors to engage in learning when it feels all the same?  Wasn't anybody a slob in the 18th or 19th century? Weren't some people lovers of technology and others not?  (see Denis Sever House, London, below, for an alternative approaches to the slob question).

Third, can we really know?  And can imagination substitute for knowledge? In houses without specific documentation, we make guesses at what kinds of furnishings would be right, but can we ever really know?  Can we know, as we do in our own homes, the emotional temperature of a space? How it feels happy on a summer evening or Christmas, but a darker emotion on a gloomy November afternoon?  Would it change the way the house was furnished?  When I worked on interpretive planning with the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site in Buffalo, the site where TR was sworn in as president, we experimented (and now made permanent) a changed breakfast table. From a formal setting, we changed it to a chair pushed out, rumpled newspapers, and a coffee cup--all, we hoped, a way of engaging visitors' imagination to wonder about the thoughts of a man completing breakfast as he just learns he's become president.  We learned that those changes helped visitors see TR as a person, rather than an abstraction.

As I'd been thinking about historic houses, I had the chance to see the exhibit Rooms:  Novel Living Concepts at the Milan XXI Triennale.  The exhibit began with an overview of Italian design in domestic spaces (above)  reinforcing the sense that the ideal is often what get's presented in history, Then I encountered an imaginative 11 rooms, designed by artists and architects, asking us conceptually to consider past, present and future. Would we think like a bear if we lived in a bear-shaped space? What do we think the future is?  What would life be like in one of these calm white rooms?  Where would the slobs keep their stuff in some of these places?

Wandering through these rooms, I wondered if we shouldn't be more willing to admit that our period rooms are artistic creations rather than exact recreations of history.  They are certainly expressions of self (and sometimes that self-identity that comes from ancestor veneration), of aesthetic taste and choices, and are designed to convey a message, oft-unspoken.  Relatedly, some recent conversations about historic houses and the nature of interpretation also sent me back to Patricia West's Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America's House Museums; well worth a read if you haven't already.

Rooms ended with a text label that said in part:

Talking about rooms inevitably brings feelings and emotions into play.  Our memories are linked with rooms, not easily described precisely by dint of being too personal.  The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space believed that rooms remain with us, but not just in our memories: they are an assemblage of organic habits and can also lose their shape.

 What's the answer?  Greater transparency about our work, for sure.  And a commitment to experimentation as we find ways to uncover and convey deeper, more inclusive meaning in our interpretive work.

Your period rooms:  sometimes misshapen organic habits, filled with memories.

Who Inspires You? Or Your Visitors?

We often think--or hope--that people are inspired when they visit our museums or historic sites. "We have great stories,"  we say, and hope that our visitors can make their way through the thickets of details and biography.  Interestingly enough, I've been working on two projects recently where I've actually been asking visitors about inspiration.  And because it's Father's Day tomorrow, it seems a particularly apt time to report back from my conversations.  Above, my own dad as a kid.  In my own childhood, he was always the one behind the camera, so rarely spotted on film!

At the Old Manse, a historic house in Concord, MA and a part of The Trustees, we asked people, before they visited the house, who inspired them. (a big shout-out to JHU museum studies student Caren Ponty, who's been volunteering on this project with me). This was a way of thinking about how to connect personal stories to the broader story of the house.  It was a bit of surprise that family came out way ahead. Here's what some people said about parents and grandparents:

• Folks and family—we respect ‘em---lots of influence
• Mother:  always positive, never complaining.  Shining example, always walked, saw color, religion
• My dad…despite dyslexia, taught himself to read, Ph.D in biochem,  told he would never work, did, and now 95
• Friends and families with motivating passions.  Their interests become my interests.
• My parents—role models, do a good job of Christian lifestyle
• Grandpa—always wanted to learn and wanted us to learn
• My mom, because she tried to make the world a better place—not many people let someone take things apart to see how they worked.

But a few other people (and one animal) also came in for some shout-outs:

•  People who make and do social activism, who write and do
• My dog—she’s always happy
• Communities and churches that help the less fortunate
• George Washington—smart, brave, changed the world
• William Shakespeare—loved the literature, resonates after so many years.  Still relevant
• Jane Austen—her ability to communicate understanding of human nature and Charles Dickens—for people and characters
• Resilient people, so hope for humanity

Our challenge now is to think about how we build on these responses--how we understand that the stories of family and inspiration are not limited to Emerson, Hawthorne, or those who witnessed the beginning battle of the American Revolution from the Old Manse's windows.  It's about how we share the stories of oft unsung families, such as those of Phyllis, Cesar, and Cate, the enslaved people who also lived in the house and who of course, had their own unrecorded family stories. How do we connect the stories of this house with the family stories of newcomers to this country?  Can we develop a shared well of inspiration?

In Savannah, I've been working with the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace to consider the visitor experience there.  A large percentage of their visitors are Girl Scouts, and they come ready to be inspired by Daisy (as she was known), the founder of Girl Scouts.  We've been asking them to complete, on a "Dear Daisy..." postcard, the following: "We heard about how you made a difference by founding Girl Scouts.  Here's how I would like to make a difference."  And the responses are as varied as the girls themselves:

• keep animals and humans healthy
• make sure that I am kind
• let girls do what boys do
• help people accomplish their dreams
• create self-flying cars with mini-fridges
• become President
• keep your legacy for as long as I can

These Girl Scouts get that deep connection with Daisy.  And someday I have no doubt that I'll be getting from place to place in that self-flying car with a mini-fridge! I want all our historic sites to inspire that same deep well of inspiration. Our visitors--and our communities--want us to connect with them.  They want to be inspired by place, by story, by connections to their lives.  They're not particularly inspired by old-fashioned furniture, by dates; by complicated genealogies or by what you or your guides are inspired by.  The challenge for each of us seems to be to work together to let go of what we think visitors "need to know" and to embrace personal meaning-making.

One quick note about the how and the way of these conversations.  They continue to be one of the most rewarding parts of my work.  Take a few minutes out of your day and ask visitors (or non-visitors) some questions.  But make those questions meaningful, not just informational.  I ask those informational questions too, but the great conversations come when thoughtful questions are asked. Make those evaluations fun--the Girl Scouts thought the Dear Daisy postcard was an activity, rather than a chore. Final vital piece of information: anyone will answer a survey in exchange for a box of Girl Scout cookies.

Writers at Home

While I was in Latvia I got a chance to some homes of writers and artists.  I remain struck by the reverence and affection that these houses seem to occupy in the post-Soviet world--different than in the United States in some ways. I'm always trying to puzzle out why and what lessons it might provide as many historic houses are rethinking their focus and approach.

One difference, of course, is that post-Soviet countries don't have all those houses of capitalist industrialists or political figures.  There's the Tzar of course, and some big palaces, but small towns and cities don't have those historic houses of Mr. So-and-So, who founded the So-and-So Widget Company.  Those houses are tough places to find compelling stories.  But artists and writers houses have stories already, both dramatic and homely; inward and outward looking.

So there are fewer homes, but more of these memorial museums, as they are called. I wonder whether literature is valued somewhat differently in places other than the United States Does that make it possible for people to make more direct connections with writers' homes? Does that mean that our educational system is sadly missing the chance to create new generations who care about literature and historic houses?

I'm also always puzzling about the role of creativity and narrative in such places.  As it happens, some of these places I visit, like in Latvia, are the homes of people unknown to me.  But why do I still feel connected to them?  In Jurmala, I visited the newly restored home of Aspazija, a noted Latvian poet and writer.  The best of these writers' houses have a welcoming sense to them somehow, a sense that we are not paying guests, nor tourists, nor supplicants, but rather friends coming to visit (and below, I did get to visit with friends and colleagues!)

At Aspazija's house, as in other writers' houses, attention is given to the feel of the house, but also to words as in this small exhibition of her work where books are displayed and text banners appear on the ceiling.

I also appreciate houses where you too are encouraged to embrace and build your own creative spirit. These places, around the world, go beyond the idea of "memorial museum," to the idea of a memorial being a living place. At her house, there's a library/community gathering space, used on a regular basis--and as well, currently a small exhibit where young people's drawings are exhibited.

Readers, tell me about your favorite writer's house?  Is it different than other historic houses?  Why? And what can other historic houses do to enhance that spirit of creativity and a sense of welcome?

Underestimating Our Visitors: Part 2

It's hard to believe that it's been two years since I shared Shannon Burke's observation about visitors gained during a prototyping day at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.  She noted that we tend to both over-estimate our visitors' knowledge and underestimate what they're up for.   This past weekend I was back at Stowe Center, doing more prototyping and was reminded of the underestimating part--and why prototyping is always, always, worth it.

In the interpretive planning for the new experience at the Stowe House, we'd been struggling with how to convey the impact that Uncle Tom's Cabin made in its initial publication as a serial in the National Era.  Our designer, Roger Westerman, came up with a suggestion--an audio installation that conveyed the sense of one voice reading, then another, then an entire room filled with voices reading the book.

And here's why you prototype.  We weren't at all convinced (okay, Emily was)  that this would work so we decided to give it a try, on Stowe's birthday celebration, when there were many visitors. Rather than audio, we decided to try it as a participatory activity. After a brief (very brief--that's another lesson we're continually learning) introduction and passing out of an typed excerpt,  I read a sentence from a chapter.  I asked one person to join me in reading, and then invited the whole group to read along.  Our groups were amazingly varied that day:  from a high school basketball team, to seniors, to international visitors.  And they did!  Not only did they read along, but when we did a debrief, they talked about not only their understanding but also about what it felt like to them.

They absolutely understood, through their own voices, the sense of the words spreading across the country, from person to person.   But equally importantly, they felt valued and cared for.  One visitor said that he'd never had the opportunity to use his voice on a tour, and loved it.  Another likened it to church, in a sense of fully participating.  In that vein, a clergyman offered us some good advice about enhancing the experience from his own work.  One person said she loved to read aloud; another said she hated it, but because I didn't make anyone read but made it optional, and in a group, that she felt comfortable doing it.  

Do we still need an audio installation?  Maybe not.  Our simple prototype taught us that the collective experience is really what matters.

But here's my bigger take-aways as you work to design new experiences in museums or historic houses:

• Don't be afraid of emotional connections.  Many, if not most, visitors crave them.
• Prototype, prototype, prototype.
• Primary sources are powerful.  Don't hide them amidst your own words.
• Big ideas don't need big budgets.
• Don't be afraid of failure (we know that's an essential part of the creative process) and equally importantly, support risk-taking.  One of the great parts of the Stowe Center interpretive team is the way they support each other (and me) and encourage prototyping ideas.
• Consider ways to make your tour groups a tiny community for the length of the tour.  As one person said about the debrief of several different experiences:  "Maybe the conversation, us talking here, is really the important part."
• Celebrate success.  Yay Stowe team!

More of the Same? Different? Deeper? What Should a Museum Do?

On Easter Sunday, I visited the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in L'viv.  It's in a city park, just a short tram ride from the center.  And once there, I found an audience that any of your museums would love to have.  Who did I see?

• Young teenagers on their own
• Older teenagers, hanging out and playing the guitar
• Families
• Older couples
• Hipsters

Many of these people, as you can see from the photographs, were wearing some version of traditional Ukrainian dress, as is customary on holidays here (and to me, on some increase since the Revolution of 2014).

And what were all these people doing?  That's the interesting part.  Very few of them were doing what we think museum visitors "should" be doing--that is to say, looking at objects and learning about the past.  They were listening to music, making music, dancing, strolling around (it's a beautiful area), playing games, picnicking, talking, enjoying.   If I were categorizing them in terms of Falk and Dierking's visitor identities I would say I saw all of these:

• Explorers
• Facilitators
• Experience Seekers
• Professionals/Hobbyists 
• Rechargers 
• Cultural Affinity

I think the largest categories were facilitators (parents and grandparents), rechargers and cultural affinity.   The museum is a huge success by attendance measures:  over the three day Easter weekend, more than 25,000 people visited, a large percentage of their 125,000 annual visitation.  I loved watching the people, but I found myself on this visit frustrated (probably the only one) by wanting to know more and not getting it.  My good friend and colleague Eugene Chervony, deputy director of the museum,  and I talked about the challenge of balancing the kind of social visitor wants and needs that we can see, with the opportunity to dive a bit deeper into a more complex understanding of western Ukrainian traditional culture.  The conversation sent me back to Nina Simon's posts on the event-driven museum--her museum's process of becoming a place where people come because something is happening.  Are successful events self-fulfilling beasts, always consuming--and providing--more?  How can we deepen experiences at this kind of event, or encourage visitors to return another time for a different kind of experience?

The Museum of Folk Architecture and Life has incredible collections, and they will soon begin digitizing them and putting them on the web.  That's one way for someone like me to dive deeper. But the experience of walking into historic spaces and having conversations with interpreters is something that rarely happens here (except for this great breadmaker, below).   Eugene is beginning the process of visitor surveys to learn more to inform this process, and we both suspect that the answer is not necessarily technologically driven, but rather ways for visitors to access information through human resources (although technological solutions are surely possible).

So I hope the next time I visit (or the time after that) that I still see all of the same enjoyment that was so evident on Easter but also that learners like me and this curious girl below, who very carefully was checking out a list of objects and matching them with the object itself, can go a bit deeper.

More of the Same?  Different?  Deeper?  Perhaps all of the above.

Label? What?

I'm in L'viv, Ukraine, for a month, so many posts to come from here (and if you want to see what this beautiful city looks like, you can follow me on Instagram). but first I'm trying to catch up on some other interesting things I've seen this year.  This post goes way back to January, to visits to the Dennis Severs House and to the Museum of London's Sherlock Holmes exhibit.   Both, in their ways, are works of the imagination--creative museums at work in ways that stimulate and challenge visitors.

If you haven't been to the Dennis Sever's House, it's not like any other historic house. You have to make a reservation, for the evening.  I walked down a cobbled street, knocked on the door, and a museum staffer steps outside with his Ipad in hand, welcomes me, and sends me into the house, asking for quiet.  No guided tour, no labels.  You are free to wander in silence, with just a few other visitors, through the rooms of this 18th century house, set up as if lived in by a family of silk weavers; lit by candles, surrounded by the debris and decay of everyday life.  But it's totally made up.  Dennis Sever was an artist. His goal, says the website,  "what you imagine...is his art."  No photos, not surprisingly, so the below is from their website.  But a picture really doesn't convey the sounds, the smell, the entire experience.  It really encouraged slowing down, taking your time, wondering.

But there are labels.  And that's part of what made it really interesting to me as a museum person. Here's just a few of them I scribbled down.

"Every object in this house should be seen as part of an arrangement.  Each array tells a story..." 

"What?  You're still looking at "things" instead of what things are doing?" 

"Make no mistake...in the house it is not what you see, but what you have only just missed, and are being asked to imagine."

What would happen if we wrote labels like that?  That we trusted our visitors to go for it, in terms of what they're thinking and feeling?  If we allowed their own imaginations rather than filling their heads with facts?  There's no touching in the house (and funny it seems like people don't try to) but it is a full immersion experience.  Severs has given visitors a great gift--his imagination stimulates ours. If you're in London, go!

On that same trip, I visited the Sherlock Holmes exhibit at the Museum of London.  Holmes, of course, is a great imaginative creation, who lives on in books, movies, and television (and yes, they did have Benedict Cumberbatch's coat on exhibit).   This wasn't the work of a single imagination, but rather I suspect a clear team effort--and one where a team somehow felt spurred on by each other.  I imagine a meeting where someone says, "Let's start the exhibit with a bookcase,"  and then someone else says, "Yes, and it can be a secret bookcase,"  and someone else says, "Yes, and visitors have to enter secretly," and some exhibit designer says, "sure!"

I loved the interplay of historical fact--the London of Conan Doyle's day, that he surrounded Holmes with, and the written words from the mysteries.  I loved that certain abstractions and talents of Holmes--observation and deduction, for instance, were explored through very clear installations of objects, some of them very everyday (shoes and eyeglasses, for instance).

And of course, although I didn't take one, I loved the nod to contemporary life at the final stop (and the Sherlock-shaped shortbread in the cafe)

My takeaways?  To remember that great, creative ideas sometimes come from individuals and sometimes from collective work; and to make space for both those in exhibit development; to always remember that many exhibits need a sense of humor; to understand the power of emotions; and to keep looking out for those inspiring exhibits.  What have you seen lately that inspired you?  What has brought you out of the abyss of boring exhibits?

Surrender the Chronology!

“Surrender the Chronology!”  doesn’t quite have the same stirring nature as other well-known battle cries beloved by military historians,  but in the re-interpretation of historic houses, it might be even more important.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since a meeting at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center a couple weeks ago, as we continue our work in rethinking the interpretation of Stowe’s house.   This meeting brought together historians, staff, and me.  And a very distinguished group of historians they were, with two Pulitzer-prize winners among them.  

As we thought about Stowe’s story, about the mix of her own personal story and that of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, her story that helped change our view of the world we found ourselves struggling with so many ideas about how to tell those connected stories, in a house where she lived at the end of her life, not when she was writing the book.  So there’s no shrine of room with pens and paper (I well remember the room in the Berkshires where Melville penned much of Moby Dick), there’s no great battlefield outside the door; and in fact, there’s a next-door-neighbor with a grand house and a pretty big story of his own (Hi Mark Twain!)

At one point in the process, historian  Lois Brown said, “Surrender the chronology!  What would happen if every room were not a planned sequence, but each room was its own tempest in a teapot?”   We started thinking. 

• What if we surrender the chronology of Stowe’s life, but what if we also surrendered the chronology (perhaps the tyranny) of a sequenced tour? 
• Could you start a tour anywhere? 
• End anywhere?   
• Could we create small tempests in each room? 
• What’s the balance between comfort and disruption on a tour?
• What would our visitors think?
• What will make people return?  The chance of a new disruption?How could we best create these situations?  Are the skills needed for guides not those of historians, but those of actors, facilitators, disruptors?
• Do we need not a single best answer, but a whole palette of choices and how can we build that into the re-interpreted experience both physically and conceptually?

In this and following conversations, we talked about drawing our inspiration from other models—not just historic houses.  Movies and novels both have flashbacks.  What if the house were a series of short stories, rather than a single narrative? Is it like a version of a Choose Your Own Adventure game?  What role can imagination—our own and our visitors—play in the experience? 

We've identified our key idea (thanks to earlier visitor conversations)--it's the idea of courage, about how Stowe found the courage within herself to write this book--and how all of us might find the courage to seek change and social justice as well.  We'll continue to talk to visitors and non-visitors about exciting ways to present this idea--but it's very clear that we've now been challenged by historians and by audiences to think deeper about how we present ideas to visitors.  We want to have the courage to shape a historic house experience unlike any other, helping to meet these important parts of the  Stowe Center's mission, "promote vibrant discussion of her life and work, and inspire commitment to social justice and positive change."  We expect that we'll experiment, we'll fail, and we'll keep trying, failing, and experimenting, learning along the way.   In our professional lives, we hope that we inspire other historic houses to take risks as well.  Surrender the chronology!
 

Center Image: 

Participants included Joan Hedrick, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Harriet Beecher Stowe; Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Henry Ward Beecher; Susan Campbell, author of the forthcoming biography of Isabella Beecher Hooker; Lois Brown, Wesleyan professor of African American Studies and English along with museum consultant Linda Norris and Stowe staff. Courtesy of Stowe Center.

Imagine: Can Your Visitor Do It? Not Unless You Try

As I work with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center on the re-interpretation of Stowe House, I continue to be compelled and surprised by what we're finding (you can read earlier observations here and here).  On my last visit, I was struck by how willing people are to take imaginative leaps in the service of telling a moving story.   And of course, it reminded me how rarely we do this.

In earlier audience conversations, we found that an enormous percentage of visitors, when queried what question they would ask Stowe herself,  wanted to know how and where she found the courage to write Uncle Tom's Cabin.  So that framework served as the framework for our next iteration of the planning process.  The staff invited diverse groups of participants to community conversations.  These were people who knew the Stowe Center in some way but in general were far more familiar with the Center's innovative programs than the house itself.  An interpreter provided a half-hour tour of the house, and then we sat down to chat.  And as always, my thanks go to the great interpretive planning team of Shannon Burke, Beth Burgess and Brian Co-Francesco for their willingness and passion for experimentation!

In these conversations, we tried yet another experiment.  After some talk about what surprised them and what was memorable, I divided them into groups of two or three,  gave each group a room, and asked them, in ten minutes or so, to design an experience in that room that would carry the idea of courage forward for visitors to the house.   In our forthcoming book about creativity, Rainey Tisdale and I talk about the idea of constraints helping to drive creativity--and this proved absolutely true.  Our constraints here were the room and the idea of courage;  but all the rest of the framework was wide open.

The result:  some of the responses were stunning, poetic and surprising.  There were approaches we had never thought of.  The small groups buzzed with conversation and several weeks after the get-together, a staff member happened to speak with one of the participants, who was still pumped up about the process.   A few examples:

In thinking about Harriet Beecher Stowe's bedroom, which has plenty of natural light and plants, per her and her sister's advice in The American Women's Home, one group played off those ideas in terms of both her writing and activism to create metaphors. The sunlight represented how she shed light on injustice, and the plants, the ways in which she nurtured her own creativity. 

In that same conversation, our notes show a deep interest in the kinds of topics rarely addressed in historic house:

What were her “visions” around Uncle Tom's Cabin – visions while in prayer? While walking? Thoughts she referred to as visions? – What was the depth of her thinking in relation to the topic she “courageously” brought forward? The values through which we perceive reality and make decisions – as people move through the house, give them context of the general consciousness of the period, world view, Christianity, compassion, empathy – what is this all about, and what brought her to speak out? Interested in one person’s consciousness changing the consciousness of many.

In a the next day's conversation, one participant noted about the bedroom,

[It was a] sanctuary, her escape…if she had doubts, misgivings, or was in any situations in her public life that made her uncomfortable, that this would be the space where she could release all of that without being judged or could share that with her husband and get reassurance.

When was the last time you got to delve that deeply into a historic figure's thoughts?  But the ideas weren't limited to a single room.  Another group took the dining room experience somewhere surprising to us.  Their advice was to not have it be the dining room of this house, but rather, to present the dining room as the dining room in the Litchfield house where Harriet grew up in a lively, passionate, engaged big family, and that visitors would, as Harriet did as a child every evening, have the chance to sit down and talk about the big issues of the day, ask questions and learn how to take action to make a better world.  This group's work reminded me that  often we're afraid to think outside the box, to think that visitors will not get rooms of a different period, or be interested in big ideas.

But we're finding pretty clear evidence at Stowe that experimentation is what visitors want. That many long for an experience that requires imagination.  One participant noted that the room-by-room interpretation felt particularly frustrating in talking about ideas, in getting inside Stowe's head.  So when we think about courage at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, we're trying to be courageous ourselves in the new interpretive efforts,  courage we gain by listening to current and potential audiences.

A few other quick notes on historic house tours based on what we're learning:

• Play down what brings the obvious questions.  Harriet was also a hobbyist painter, like many educated women of her time.  People are surprised at that, and ask about it, but it's a bit of a distraction from the ideas we're working on. We experimented with how the paintings are approached.  When the first painting is encountered,  the interpreter mentions that she painted, as did many women of her time, and then the paintings are not highlighted in every room. This gives space for other topics and other ways to engage visitors, rather than just talking about pretty paintings.  Visitors have more, better questions when we provide more and better ways to ask those questions.

• Interpersonal relationships matter.   The current tour talks a fair amount about Harriet's marriage and about her large family, but just mentions that she had servants.  Many of our conversation participants wanted to know more about those servants and the relationship she had with them, about the way that her work as a writer was made possible by other women who did the household work.  Research has already begun to further expand our understanding of everyone in the household.

• And of course, no surprise that individual meaning-making is always important.  Many women are particularly interested in Stowe's perspective on feminism;  those from Hartford want to know more about her relationship with the city;  reflective readers want to sit on the front porch and peruse a book.   We'll continue to puzzle out the challenge of different ways to engage all of the site's visitors.

But imagine.  Ask your visitors to do the same.  When I began writing this post, I googled and watched John Lennon's Imagine,  so I'll end with that video.  Imagine what your historic house could be and invite your visitors to do the same.  Imagine.

Really? Questioning Mission Again?

Guest Post  Jason Illari is Grants Administrator at the Fire Museum of Maryland.  But he's also active in local historical societies and the Small Museum Association.  In this guest post,  he takes on the issue of mission and historic houses.  We both look forward to hearing your thoughts on this evergreen, but always important, issue.  Comment away!

"If we did not have a house, would we still have a mission?"  I know I am not the first to bring up the subject of mission in historic house museums,  but I've puzzled over this query and a curious response to that question given to me during a historic house consultancy.   It's taken me some time to formulate my thoughts about the question and why it matters. 

A dear friend and colleague met me for lunch one day to discuss the future of the house in question.  To provide some context, the organization was facing some serious challenges and we were brainstorming about mission, future plans, interpretation, etc. The colleague commented on the last of preventative maintenance afford the structure and then sincerely, lightheartedly but tellingly remarked, "well, I guess if something serious were to happen to the house, we would just eventually fold the organization and move on." 

In other words, I understood my colleague's statement to mean that the organization's mission was so intricately tied to the structure that without the original house the organization would become obsolete.  I assure readers that this colleague had no ill will fir the organization--on the contrary--they were one of the home's chief proponents.  I hemmed and hawed over the comment like any good museum professional would.  Yet, dare I say that after years of contemplation, I have begun to understand why the comment was made.  At its core, my colleague's observation speaks volumes about how stewards of  historic house museums relate to mission and also how a community views an organization charged with caring for these structures.

If mission is an institution's metaphorical pulse or heartbeat,  then I believe it must be lovingly monitored, studied and occasionally revived within the body of an institution.  I think about what doctors and nurses do every time I step into their office. Like some dull mantra, the first thing I hear is, "Time to check your pulse Mr. Illari."   I have found that asking one simple question:  "If we did not have a house would we still have a mission?"  to community members, board members, staff and volunteers and visitors is an effective way to stimulate conversation about the meaning and importance of mission.  Another thought-provoking exercise, albeit an awkward one, is to read out loud the mission statement multiple times, interspersing it with similar mission statements to drive home a particular point, like redundancy or uniqueness.   Then sit in silence for a minutes, a few days or even a few weeks before talking about it.  Meditation is not a dirty word and a period of reflection may be really useful and drive thoughtful conversations forward.  Maybe someone will say,  "why didn't I think of that?"  and help create meaningful change.

In my opinion, the reason to monitor mission and ask these tough questions is not to abruptly change an instititon's course with every fad or whim, but to ensure that the overall vitality of an organization is maintained through sustainable relevancy.  If we are constantly questioning why an organization seems lifeless, decade after decade, maybe a thorough examination of mission is in order and a change is long overdue.  To me, sustainable relevancy means striving to cultivate a mission that is designed to foster long-term relvancy based on trends, future studies, community input and other social sciences while always keeping in mind the mandate to preserve, collect and interpret.  Yes, we are in the business of caring for things that matter!

Museum thinkers have been mulling over these ideas almost ad nauseum, but we should remind ourselves that it's OK and even essential to meditate on the effectiveness of our missions and question their relevancy.  What makes them timeless or transcendent?  What about them articulates a desire for positive action or lift up a neighborhood or community of interest?  Are we really using or leveraging our mission when we ask for support?  Are we trying to over-complicate our mission and be something we're not?  Maybe our one, true purpose is to tell the story of footstools, but maybe our mission might also articulate the desire to inspire genuine laughter to uplift weary hearts and minds while telling the footstool story.

Where we run into trouble I think, is by trying so hard to find the perfect answer to the historic house "riddle"  that we lose sight of the importance of asking more creative questions. I think this is especially true for many historic house museums that are desperately trying to find their place in a world that, quite frankly, is over-saturated by houses with run-of-the-mill missions, patina-ed with uniqueness, in the same way, that the house's unprovenanced furniture carries the same dull patina.

As historic house museums become increasingly involved with the American Alliance of Museums Continuum of Excellence and their call to examine core documents, including mission--I would like to offer that staff and boards can freely use the questions above to stimulate conversation about mission.  Jot down the answers and I'm willing to admit that new ideas about mission will emerge.  Oftentimes the answers we seek are hidden in the questions we ask.  So what questions have you asked lately?

Linda's written insightfully about mission here at the Uncataloged Museum over the years--and it's certainly worth revisiting them.

Abandoned building via Flickr user takomabibelot

Footstool and dog,  Library of Congress

Pulse taking from The Welcome Collection