Share Your Creative Stories

I'm just reposting the latest from Rainey Tisdale and my Museums and Creative Practice book project in the hopes that all of you will join us in sharing your stories of your own creative work.

We’ve been scribbling and revising and talking and scribbling and talking and revising away on our book manuscript.  But amidst all that, we now feel that the book will be immeasurably strengthened if we’re not just sharing our own creative stories, but also sharing more creative stories from you, our colleagues.

We’d like to hear from you about the ways in which you nurture your own creative practice.  It might be your own work—where and how you seek out inspiration,  where you find the space for creative thinking,  or the ways in which you share creative ideas with your colleagues.  It might be stories of your organization’s creative practice:  a brainstorming session that really worked;  a redo of a physical space to encourage creative work,  a hiring process that values creativity over degrees;  the ways in which an exhibit engaged visitors in creative thinking; a process that encouraged different museum departments to work together creatively solving a financial issue;  and any process that had you trying and failing, trying and failing, and trying and finally succeeding!

You can share your story anonymously if you’d like or identify yourself and your museum.  You can share it in the comments or email either Linda  (linda(at)lindabnorris.com) or Rainey (raineytisdale(at)gmail.com)  directly.  If we use the story in the book, we’ll check with you first and of course, provide appropriate credit.

But don’t hesitate!  Don’t worry if the story isn’t perfectly written, or if you’re not sure it’s what we want.   Send it along to enrich our book—and, by extension, the creative practice of your colleagues everywhere.

Image:   The Exploratorium collects stories of visitor experiences over the decades.

Where Nothing Happens: Could You Embrace It?

Could your museum promote itself with the slogan "Where nothing happens" ?  How about if you work at a historic house?  Last month I had the chance to visit an organization that proudly promotes itself that way--you can even buy the T-shirt.  It provided a compelling example of why--and perhaps how--we need to think deeply about our organizational missions and about whether the future matters more than the past.

It was a misty, rainy, day before Christmas driving down Highway 1 in Big Sur, California when we saw a big, hand-lettered sign saying,  "Henry Miller Memorial Library.  Free coffee and wifi."  Why not stop?  We parked, made our way up through the dripping trees,  were welcomed by a young woman browsing the Internet and a cat.   Inside the building,  the one-time home of Miller's close friend Emil White (at right, with Miller, above)  there were books (all kinds of books, not just Miller's work)  for sale,  busts of Miller, random letters,  typewriters, and photographs. 

It was a warm, cozy respite on a rainy day--but it made me want to find out more about this place that could have been a museum, or a historic house, but turned itself to something else, something more vital.  Miller himself wasn't interested in memorials, saying "Memorials defeated the purpose of a man’s life. Only by living your own life to the full can you honor the memory of someone.” 

The Library has an archival collection, well-preserved (and they have summer internships available) but the archives, the preservation, is only one tool in their arsenal of creating a memorial that's not really a memorial.

 

I was intrigued enough to buy the 2012 publication, Where Nothing Happens:  The Best of the Henry Miller Memorial Library where I learned a bit more about the place, including Henry Miller's life in Highly Digestible Bullet Form and his life in Highly Digestible Paragraph Form.  Different contributors talk vividly about the way that the library serves as the focus for the cultural life that's directly connected to the incredible Big Sur landscape continues to flourish.   As Christopher Lorenc writes, the library "doesn't traffic in cliches about some bygone cultural era.  It provides lifeblood for real, living, cutting-edge creative work right now."

Every historic house or museum is a memorial in some way or another,  founded and continued by the desire to commemorate something or someone.  But in far too many, we just look backward.  Not every historic house can attract the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young or Laurie Andersen to play benefit concerts.  But we can all look to the spirit of the place or people we commemorate for clues on how we might look forward ourselves.  Were those homeowners of an early time risk-takers in business or industry?  Why don't we encourage new innovations?   Were they writers or artists or social reformers?  Why not,  like the Matilda Joslyn Gage House in upstate New York,  take on today's tough conversations about reproductive rights?  Were those early house dwellers just ordinary, you say?  (really no one ever says that about their historic house inhabitants, even if they were).  Why not embrace telling the stories of all sorts of everyday people with all the courage, determination, failure and success that implies?

If we want our museums and historic sites to be the lifeblood of our communities,  we need to (paraphrasing Miller himself) live our organizational lives to the fullest.  Now there's a New Year's resolution.

Looking at Visitors

 

I spend lots of time looking at visitors in museums and sometimes, I actually get to spend some time with my husband, Drew Harty,  a photographer and videographer, looking at visitors looking.  Over the last couple years, he's been intrigued by the way people interact with art (and sometimes history and nature) in museum settings and he's finally got a Flickr feed up of some of these great images.  So here's a couple,  and head over to his Flickr page to see more. Enjoy!

Who Wants a Mentor for the New Year?

I'm convinced that career paths are a mix of luck and intentionality--and as my friend Christopher reminded me the other day,  it's sometimes hard to sort out the two.  For me 2012 has reflected that same mix: ongoing planning with my great Take 5 colleagues, an intentional partnership initiated by Rainey Tisdale for our new book, and some freelance luck that has led me to both incredible places (Newfoundland and Europe) and some great new colleagues.

But in the spirit of holiday abundance, I wanted to spread a little of that luck and intentionality around to you, dear colleagues.  I've been lucky (or intentional?) enough to have some tremendous mentors over the years, from a board president who taught me the meaning of patience and negotiation;  a board treasurer who showed me how to think about financial statements as narratives;   folklorists who helped me understand the deeper meanings and values of communities;  an entire range of colleagues in Ukraine who made it possible for me to understand that complicated place; my own visual family, Drew and Anna,  who always encourage me to look closer and so many more.

Every career path is unique,  but I do think I've learned some lessons over the years that I could share one-on-one with colleagues.  So here's the deal:  I'll be choosing one person to work with as a mentor in 2013.  We'll set out a plan for the year, meet monthly via Skype,  and explore where you want to go in your career and how you might get there.  I'll make introductions as I can,  recommend resources, and provide a listening ear for those thorny work problems.  This is open to anyone at any stage in their career:  you can be a student, an emerging professional, or a mid-career staffer trying to figure out what's next.  And of course, in this ever-more global world, you can be anywhere in the world.  The only thing I ask in return is that, over the course of 2013,  you write three blog posts for the Uncataloged Museum.

If you think this could be a useful process for you,  here's what you need to do.  By January 4,  send me an email with following:

• Your current position and a brief description of how you got there
• A memorable, outside of classroom, learning experience at any point in your life
• Two or three key questions you'd like to address during the year and how you think I might be helpful
• Brief responses to these few questions below from Twyla Tharp's Creativity Inventory:

• What is the first creative moment you remember?
• When you work, do you love the process or the result?
• At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?
• What is your ideal creative activity?  

Questions?  Of course, be in touch!

Image:  Set design for Holiday (act 2). Philip Barry. ca. 1940. Peggy Clark Collection. Music Division, Library of Congress.
 

When Was the Last Time You Were Surprised at a Museum?

Can you think back to a time that you were surprised--really surprised--by the approach a museum took to its subject?  Not just interested or intrigued, or even shocked?  But surprised by the creativity and ingenuity;  the ability to see things in new ways and turn our ideas about museums on their heads?  I think of the Mikhail Bulgakov Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine as one such place but last week I discovered another one in Paris:  the Museum of Hunting and Nature.  The majority of my previous experiences in Paris museums had been pretty conventional--but several US colleagues and the well-informed docents at Context Travel recommended a visit here and so I set off on a gray afternoon to see what I could see.

You just read that museum's name and thought, hmm,  guns and dead animals, right? Boring, right, unless you're really interested in guns and/or taxidermy.  Nothing new.  Absolutely wrong.  The museum was founded by François and Jacqueline Sommer,  a wealthy couple interested in both hunting and conservation.  It's located in a majestic 17th century mansion in the Marais.  Their goal was to explore the relationship between humans and nature, through the lens of hunting.   Okay, still sounds pretty conservative in a museum sense, right?  Surprise!

The inventive installations in the museum combine contemporary art, taxidermy, the traditions of the cabinet of curiousities, historic objects, and what can only be described of as flights of fancy to create one of the most unusual museum visits I've ever been on. And by the way,  the use of media and new technologies was minimal.  Ideas, not bells and whistles, animate these spaces although the occasional roar can be heard and video unicorn spotted.

Rooms are organized in different ways--but some are organized by animals:  stags, wolves, dogs, and and bears.  In many rooms there's an exploratory cabinet, beautifully made, in keeping with the traditional furnishings of the room,  filled with skulls, art, and more.  Contemporary artists encourage the visitor to consider--and reconsider--our relationship with animals.  Historic works of art by Ruebens, Brueghel and others and artifacts create surprising juxtapositions.  

What does it mean when we encounter bar-tending tigers or human legs upon a dining table?   In each room,  clipboard labels (available in English as well) explain humans' changing views of this particular animal.  The museum was busy, but not crowded on the day I was there--and I saw looks of discovery on everyone's faces--and very nice guards who were very willing to interact with French speaking visitors,  pulling open drawers and encouraging conversation.

How were the staff inspired to create the magical unicorn room or the small room with the ceiling covered in owl feathers to create owls staring down at you?  They worked with contemporary artists as an integral part of exhibit re-installations, but they also drew inspiration from the founders and the places they lived and loved. A little web research led me to an site where Claude d’Anthenaise, Chief Curator of the museum, described the museum as a place where:

the staged atmosphere [is] tending to give visitors an unusual experience during which they feel like they have entered the home of a mysterious host or the den of a wolf, deer or wild boar, which is due back at any moment. Kept in a state of expectation, spectators remain on their guard, as attentive as they would be if they were in a forest, watching for any sign that may reveal the presence of a wild animal, which most certainly observes them from its hide-out.

What an inventive way to put us, the visitor, on guard, to make us attentive and watchful, contemplating the meaning of our relationships to the natural world.  And how great to be surprised.

Checking out the Gallerie des Enfants: No French Needed!

I'm in Paris,  having my lunch at the Pompidou Centre's cafe and across the way,  there's the Gallerie des Enfants, the Children's Gallery, which currently has a hands-on exhibit about letters and images.  But what's particularly interesting about an exhibit on that topic is how little text in the conventional sense there is, and how successful it is nonetheless.

Like MassMOCA's children's gallery, which I also love,  the museum assumes that children deserve and should see original artwork and that interactions should spring from that experience.  Here's just a bit of what I observed.

First,  an interactive done with something many of you have in your space where you store things you want to get rid of but don't ever get around to:  an overhead projector.  Children arranged shapes on the projector,  they were projected big so they could see them--but also then,  you could view it from the back, where hands and shapes were in a mysterious dance.  What would happen next?

(This screen was almost as tall as I am).  There were big foam letters to play with.

And lots of other ways to think about letters and shapes.  A big board to flip tiles to make letters;  artwork including letter constructions under glass;  a lightbox art installation of the letter "B" which one mother was intently looking at with her son.

But here's the thing:  there were virtually no labels telling you what to do or what to learn from the experience.  When a little instruction was needed, it was provided graphically.  Below, a pattern recognition and the hot pink illustration was the only information given.

This installation really made me think about my own practice.  Could I do interactives with no instructions just symbols?  Does this require a higher level of trust in your audience?  Do we expect different kinds of learning from art and history organizations?   What do you think?

How About Some Delicious History? Our Annotated Dinner

I've been thinking about food and museums quite a bit lately.  An article on what museums can learn from the Pickle Project is forthcoming in Museums and Social Issues and I've just been accepted as a participant in the National Council on Public History's Working Group Public History and the Local Food Movement at the 2013 conference in Ottawa, where Cathy Stanton of Tufts University and Michelle Moon of the Peabody Essex Museum have put together a great group to explore ways in which those of us who work in public history can forge stronger connections and deepen conversations with local food producers and those who promote local and regional food.

But this past week I had a tremendous opportunity to see food history, the local food movement, and interpretation all wrapped up into one delicious package at an annotated dinner with the Context Travel staff in London.  Art historian and food scholar Janine Catalano worked with St. John,  one of the premier restaurants in London and a pioneer in reintroducing regional British cooking,  to produce a dinner that helped us understand the history of food in London, in a physical sense (St. John is right by Smithfield Market, a livestock or meat market for 800 years), an intellectual sense, a historical sense and a sense of what's new.

"But what is an annotated dinner?"  you may be thinking.  Exactly what it sounds like.  With each course (and there were many)  Janine (above)  artfully guided us through history, using historic images passed around,  brief readings from primary sources, while also helping us learn about the current state of the local food movement in Britain.

What did we eat? All delicious...

• Radishes and carrots
• Oysters and crabs--wrote Samuel Pepys in 1661, "I entertained them with talk and oysters until one o'clock and then we sat down to dinner." 
• Roast bone marrow and parsley salad
• Pigs head and potato pie--definitely the thing on the menu that sounds the strangest--but absolutely delicious! 
• Roast beef accompanied both by a reproduction of William Hogarth's 1748 painting The Gate of Calais or O, the Roast Beef of Old England and horseradish.
• Brussels sprouts greens and potatos 
• Eccles Cakes and Lancashire Cheese
• Poached Quince and Brioche

 

It struck me that this kind of interpretive effort, in a restaurant, is something that many of us who work in museums could undertake.  I think sometimes we're too often stuck in our own places,  worried about our own lack of kitchens, or what will happen in our historic house.  We were in the simplest of rooms,  with white butcher paper on the table,  so no worries about precious artifacts,  but the history--and current issues--came alive. 

In my conversations with Context docents we've been talking about using all of our senses, not just sight,  to convey the meaning and texture of a physical place.  The salty briny taste of oysters;  the slightly unctuous feel of the pig head and potato pie,  and the crispy sound of a radish bite, all made the heritage of British food come alive.

And what could be better than learning new things while gathered around a table with a group of friends?