Thank you and Farewell.

....And the award goes too... (me.. insert cheesy acceptance/thank you speech here)

....But really, I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who has made this summer so amazing for me.  First and foremost Jacob, the awesome Curator of Exhibits, who has been my mentor for the last five years, and will continue to be so in the exhibits world.  Also to David our amazing director for letting Jacob take me on as an intern, and then to the entire staff of the History Museum of Mobile who helped make my internship educational, enriching, and most importantly... fun!  (You guys rock!) Thank you also to everyone has kept up with my blog, I hope you all get a chance to visit the exhibit, it really is amazing!!

Now time for the shameless plug:  If anyone needs an enthusiastic, hard-working, exhibits developer/designer- I am looking for a job to start at the earliest June 2013.  I also have friends in all areas/concentrations of museum work looking for jobs.  Just send a message or leave a comment on this blog and I can send you the information you require (per usual internet security concerns I am not posting my direct contact info here).  Thanks a million!  

Ok now back to Up, Up, & Away!  I am going to just leave you with a few final pictures from my work this last week.  The main project were the interactives I posted about in the last blog and lighting.  We also had a few smaller projects we finished up.  Most notably the final wall of the exhibit, which I have taken to call my baby.  Except for the actual words themselves (drafted by Scotty our Curator of History) The design plan and text panel design was all me (basically this whole post is going to be a shameless plug). 

Here is a picture of the final product.  Note: I designed the text panel to be a "mirror image" of Thor.  "Mirror image" in quotes because that phrase is also in the text panel. (The fact that it is a mirror image of Thor has nothing to do with my obsession, honestly)  I hope you guys like the wall!

I also spent my final day burning about 300 matches for a display case.  Now that I had a lot of fun with. 

 The mannequins that go with the drawing interactive.  You can move them to inspire your drawing of your very own superhero.  This is the one interactive we were unable to complete before I left.  But I did get to do some prep-work by drilling holes in the bases of the mannequins for mounting.

Superman comic book case.  That is actually four comic books, which when aligned make out the "S" from his uniform.  We had to do some brainstorming of how to safely mount these without major obstructions to the design.  The final solution came in clear plastic mounts the books sit on, and a bar at the top of each.  You can barely see the mounts! I think it turned out great.

The result of my match burning venture from earlier that day.  300+ matches scattered on the display case to give emphasis to the fact comic books were burned back in the day.  This case is in our censorship section.

Well that is all folks!  I have really enjoyed my summer and also getting to share my adventures at HMOM with you guys!  Stay tuned later in the semester.  I hope to update you all on my work from my final year of graduate school.  In the meantime have a safe, wonderful time the rest of your summer and year!

-Christina

Interactives, Interactives, and more Interactives!!

Hello!  Exciting things have been going on the last two weeks.  Jacob and I have built two new interactives for Up, Up & Away.  The first one in pictures is a box for a glow in the dark comic book.  (Cool, huh?) 

We started by cutting the wood at an angle and assembling the box.  What you can't see is that we also installed an area inside to put the comic book at an angle for visitors to see it.  Here is the box prior gluing and hammering together.

Guess what! I wasn't done using new power tools!  Got to use a sander to round out the edges.  

We then stained the inside of the box black and then wrapped the outside with black vinyl to give it a more shiny surface.  After that we built the lid.  The picture below is pre-staining of the lid.  After we stained the lid we covered it with plexi-glass and installed the light and light switch. 

Testing out the box: it works!! We also decided to attach a hood to the wall to help shield the box from light.  When you come to visit the exhibit, here is how it will work.  You will have to flip the switch on the box to turn the light on for a few seconds to give the glow-in-the-dark elements some light, and then turn off the light to see the comic glow!  Unfortunately glow-in-the-dark does not show up well on camera :(.

Here is the box pre-hood installation in the Anti-Hero/True Villainy area of the exhibit.  Be sure to look for it when you visit the exhibit!

Next interactive!  This one will be in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.  It is a flip-rail.  We took an existing table element from the Gadgets exhibit that used to be in the room and converted it.  Jacob built in supports for each comic book and then covered it with plexi-glass.  Then installed the hinges for the flip covers.

Each flipcover will have a comic book with a villain in it, so the flip cover had to be built with supports as well.

After building the supports we cleaned it, installed the comic book , covered it with plexi, and then installed the knob.  Here is a sample of three villains.

Post-construction.  Isn't it pretty!?

The interactive in its final place in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.

Be sure to come and visit these interactives and more when the exhibit opens October 20!  And stay tuned for my last post!

-Christina