Hello!  I just realized I didn't update everyone on what went on last week! I am sorry you guys!
Last week:  The director, curatorial staff, a few helpers and I went to University of Mobile to accession the Caldwell Delaney collection.  I have never been apart of a collection acquisition before so it was interesting.  It took two full days to get most of the collection out of the library, packed, into our box truck, back to museum, and unpacked.  It is a massive collection with some really interesting stuff.
Here are a few pictures from the event:

Unloading the box-truck at University of Mobile

Packing up the awesome photos, maps, and pictures

Loading the box-truck

Least flattering picture ever, but gives a good idea of the room of documents we were working in.

The awesome box maker: Daniela.

all unloaded at the museum waiting to go to its storage room.  That is a lot of boxes! (and that is only half of them)

Loading boxes into the room we will use for processing.

Update on this week to come in the next post!

-Christina

We are in the Paper!

Well we are at least in the internet version of the paper!  Here is a link to the Press-Register at al.com.  Enjoy the beautiful photos! (the lighting is way better than what my camera takes)

http://photos.al.com/mobile-press-register/2012/07/history_museum_of_mobile_comic_6.html

(If it doesn't work, just go to al.com, click on entertainment, and then scroll down for at least today July 24.  After that I am sure you can just search by typing in history museum of mobile, comic.)

Enjoy!

-Christina

Good Afternoon,
I want to start this particular post off on a slightly more somber note, since my adoptive state is Colorado.  This past Friday morning, July 20, there was a massacre in a theater in Aurora, Colorado, during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises.  Waking up to this news was terrible as I have or have had friends live in Aurora (roughly 1.5 hours from Boulder where I live).  Thankfully none were in the theater during the incident.  But regardless of where I have lived or currently live, this was a terrible incident and my heart grieves for the families and community of Aurora.  This comes on the heels of all the wildfires in Colorado that have destroyed a lot of houses and communities (also coming close to entering Boulder and impacting my friends and I personally), and so I grieve for the state of Colorado.  But the people of Colorado are resilient, and just like the amazing people of our state and Gulf Coast who have to pick up after so many tornadoes and hurricanes, we will ban together and heal our communities one day at a time.  Please keep Colorado in your thoughts during this time.


And now to turn back to a topic that I hope will liven everyone's day = Thor Themed Day!!

There are only 4 more days left in my internship, and the exhibit is really coming together.  And what do we do when we are finishing an exhibit?  Put the finishing touches on with finishing nails! (Yes, I do think I am clever).  But finishing nails require a hammer - thus Thor Themed Day!

Here are some clever pictures from my morning assignment- putting up white blocks to connect the only spaced out portion of our exhibit.  The white blocks help to create "shadows" to give an illusion of a filled and connected space.  This is a deliberate design move, and an excellent idea by our Curator of Exhibits Jacob.

Pictures of installation:

Taking a break mid project to have a bit of fun posing as my favorite Thor poster:

(Not a very good impression I know, but we had fun.)

Also this morning we had a photographer from the Mobile Register, Mike Kittrell, come to take pictures of the exhibit, and of us installing the exhibit.  So keep an eye out for us in the Register some time soon Mobilians!

Picture of Mike Kittrell taking pictures (once again, yes I think I am very clever today):

  That is all for today!  I hope everyone has a great day!

** Note: In an earlier post on interactives, I had said an interactive element was called "extending the exhibit"- I meant to put "extending the experience" (not exhibit, but still same concept).  Sorry about the mis-post, I guess my brain was reading one thing and fingers typing another!  The post is now fixed!

-Christina

Good Afternoon!
Time to catch everyone up on work from last week.
Last week we installed the interactive I talked about in my last post. We also installed the Black & White and Mythos rooms. But even more exciting is that the superhero cutouts we made came in! We had a lot of fun installing those.

Here are some pictures from the week's work:

Cleaning more cases for comic books:

We took some time before installation to test the cutouts:

Several members of the staff wanted to help us test the cutouts. Here is our awesome PR officer, Daniela:

The gallery is really coming together!  Don't forget it opens October 20, 2012. Have a great week!

-Christina

Good Morning!  It has been a while since my last post, but that means we have been very busy installing the exhibit. (yay!)

The project I will be posting about in this post is unique from what we have been doing in the past few weeks.  This week we began work on an awesome interactive in the exhibit.  In my Masters program I learned there are basically two general forms of interactives: self-guided and guided.  In a guided interactive there is often a docent/volunteer or staff member who leads the visitor through the interactive, activity, or experience.  These are very popular in larger museums, with large exhibit space. My personal favorite is at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit.  At the end of the exhibit there is a window into a large room where paleontology volunteers are clearing/cleaning fossils.  There is always something being done because the Colorado region is an excellent place to find fossils.

In Up, Up, & Away we do not have enough space to do guided interactives, so we have several self-guided interactives, which also very successful and effective in all sizes of museums.  A self-guided interactive is when instructions or a prompt is present at an activity/interactive, allowing the visitor to become engaged in the exhibit at their leisure.  I honestly love this type of interactive, so I was very excited when I got to pitch an idea for one of the interactives in the exhibit.

This particular interactive allows the visitor to have their own superheroes to become part of the exhibit.  (This method is called extending the experience)  The idea came from a mixture of my mom's first grade class room and a dry-erase board interactive we have in the CU Museum of Natural History (the museum my masters program is based out of).

In the interactive prior to this one the visitor will be able to make their own superhero.  Then the visitor can take their superhero to this interactive and attach it to a chalkboard we have set up. Kids and grown-ups of all ages can participate and draw out their own comic strip using magnetic props and their own superhero.  Afterwards the visitor can leave their superhero for others to see or take it home.

Example of what it will look like.

Stay tuned!  Pictures of construction and installation coming soon!

-Christina

Good afternoon everyone! I hope everyone had a relaxing Fourth! Since I don't work on Thursdays and Fridays I figured I would take some time to update everyone on this week's happenings at HMOM.  The gallery is really starting to take shape.  We ended last week with script going on the wall.  This week we took installation one massive step forward and began to install artifacts, pictures, and text panels.


One of the first things we did was to install signs that would hang from the ceilings.  I helped to make the suspensions last week on what we dubbed a "Thor" themed day because there was a lot of action happening that involved a hammer and metal.   

Next we began to install the comic books into their cases and mount them to the walls. We have more than 150 comic books.  In this particular room we were also able to install one display case of some recent valuable comic books.  Be sure to visit the exhibit when it opens October 20th to see which comic books these are!

The next project was to install text panels and graphics. For many of these we want them to "float" away from the walls.  In order to do this we pre-drill holes into wood, then attach the wood to the wall and attach the text panel or graphic over that.  Below I am doing the pre-drilling for one of our final text panels.  

Another assignment I had was to arrange the entrance wall.  You can see it mid-install below.  This was a very exciting assignment for me because I love puzzles, and pre-decided design was in place.  I looked at many elements when designing this wall: the color of the comic books used, which comic book correlates to which theme, what themes a visitor may be more or less familiar with, and then the length of each theme and space provided.  We wanted a good mix, and I think that is what we achieved.  Comic books and themes visitors may not be overly familiar with are sprinkled in among the more recognizable ones such as Superman or The Hulk comics.  Also, there are no groupings of colors - all reds, blacks, and blues are spread fairly evenly throughout the design.  I also thought of age and height of the visitors.  I tried to put some comic book covers that may be more appealing to the younger visitors lower, where as some of the classics are placed higher up for the enjoyment of us older folk (note I put myself at 25 in that category).

In all the gallery is really shaping up!!

Now, I mentioned earlier I don't work on Thursdays and Fridays. So what do I do with my time?  Well, I study. To give you a little insight into graduate school, we have what are called Comprehensive Exams.  Typically, in your last or next to last semester of school and classes you take these - it varies program to program.  If you do not pass the exams you cannot move onto writing a thesis/dissertation, or graduate. The CU history department prefers us to take our exams upon completion of coursework.  I finished my last class in May, so am now studying for my exam.  My list consists of 103 books (not articles) and I am almost done!  Once I have these read I will divide them into categories and start writing essays on the different themes I found.  Hopefully by the end of September my professors will give me the go-ahead to take the four-hour written exam.  And then I will start the whole process over again for my second masters in Museum and Field Studies.  Thankfully my advisor in history sits on both Comps Committees so the second list won't be entirely new.(whew!) If all goes well I will be completely done by May of 2013!

Picture of my work station for the day.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! And tune in next week for more exciting updates on the Up, Up, & Away exhibit!

-Christina

Good Afternoon fellow History Museum of Mobile fans!  I hope everyone had a restful weekend!
Today I am going to update you all on the work we did here at History Museum of Mobile last week.
It was a very exciting week because we began the process of actually putting things up in the gallery!  The main project for me was to learn how to put RTA vinyl lettering on walls and on boards.  The trick is to be careful and measure things out ahead of time.  I think it went really well, and only a few corrections, mid-application, had to be made.  I am posting pictures below, so you can form your own opinion.

Example of the themes we are putting on the walls and text panels

Applying the RTA to panels.  The Windex allows us to clean it properly so the lettering will stick to the board.

Measuring out for the main theme panels.  These will hang from the ceiling!

A completed RTA panel on board. 

Putting a quote on the wall. 

More of said quote.  It was big enough that both Jacob and I had to work on it. 

Also this past week I laid out all the comic books we are using in the exhibit.  Here is a sampling of some that will go in the exhibit. 

So there is a quick synopsis of last week!  It is really starting to come together. If anyone has a question make sure you leave it in the comments section.  Also the museum Instagram and twitter are following the progress of the exhibit with me, so be sure to check those out! 

Have a happy 4th of July!

-Christina