Star Gazing in the Desert

Star-gazing IV

This Saturday the museum held it's fourth star-gazing party. Over 160 people - many of them first timers to the museum - came out to enjoy a night with the stars.  Steve, our resident astronomer, gave a brief talk and showed some wonderful pictures he's taken with his telescope.  There were four telescopes for visitors to look through set up around the museum. Many got the chance to see not only a beautiful full moon rising, but also the "Dance of the Planets" when Jupiter, Mercury and Venus appeared together after sunset.  The next "Dance" won't occur until 2021.  One visitor enjoyed the event so much that she sent us an email:  "My husband and I attended your function on Saturday, May 25. I had never been to your museum  . . . What an enjoyable evening! The weather was great, we ran into old friends, saw Jupiter, Mercury and Venus and an informative presentation on asteroids. Well done! I plan on bringing my grandson to your next star gazing function. Thank you!" What worked really well was having enough volunteers that we were able to not only have Steve's talk and the telescopes outside, but also have volunteers answering questions about the Gold Rush exhibit and having volunteers working with the kids doing coiled clay- always a huge hit and always at least 25 kids seemed to be at the tables. Multiple focal points may be a little harder to prepare, but they pay off big time! We even made two of the local papers: IV Press: http://www.ivpressonline.com/news/ivp-news-community-takes-in-dance-of-the-planets-at-stargazing-event-20130527,0,1072911.story The Desert Review: http://www.thedesertreview.com/dance-of-the-planets-over-ocotillo/ Thanks also to Sobe's Restaurant in El Centro for generously sponsoring this event! People used their apps to find constellations Steve presenting NASA's "Near Earth Objects"

A Trip to Providence

Things have been pretty hectic lately. Between finishing our "Gold Fever!" exhibit, writing documents for a museum assessment program, working with people who come into the museum, and trying to fit in some archives work I've been running in circles. Not as much as Jessica has been, but I'm pretty hecitic too.  But I was excited to take a few days off and fly to Providence for a 1 day conference held at the Rhode Island School of Design, sponsored by a group called Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA).  The conference itself was called Out of the Ordinary: Preserving Paper-based Ephemera.  

I know, you just tuned out. But it was a lot of fun. I went with Chelsea Gunn, a friend from Simmons who was also nice enough to let me crash on her couch while I was in town.  We had a great time catching up with each other and listening to presentations on the more difficult aspects of archiving- those little, interesting things that are never really meant to last: ads, posters, buttons, billboards, etc.  The speakers were all very good and I came away with some good ideas- although most of them involved buying very expensive equipment that I won't get at the IVDM. Maybe at my next job.

Then to top things off, RISD had just opened an exhibit we both wanted to see: "Artist, Rebel, Dandy" 
focusing on men's fashion from the Regency and Beau Brummel up to the present.  I was surprised to see modern clothes in the exhibit as well, but it worked.  The Regency era clothes were some of what I liked best, since I like that time period, and the exhibit included newspaper cartoons of the time making fun of dandies, as well as magazines and ads in favor of the different styles of clothes.  It was a good mix and included the tux Fred Astaire wore in Top Hat and a film clip of a dance scene from the movie,  a shirt of Mark Twain's, and the only known surviving shirt belonging to Oscar Wilde (one of my favorite authors!).  It has the initials "SM" for Sebastien Melmoth, which is the name he used at the end of his life when he moved to France after being released from an English prison for being homosexual.  It was a good exhibit, with a nice mix of things.  If anyone's in the area I'd recommend checking it out!

Banyan dressing gowns worn by the Prince Regent, later George IV

Fred Astaire's Top Hat tuxedo

Oscar Wilde's shirt

Gold Fever! Exhibit opening

Rotary volunteers and Interact members

Saturday the 27th was a big day for the IVDM. In the morning, El Centro's Rotary Club and the Southwest High Interact Club spent Rotary's National Volunteer Day curating at the museum.  17 people curated 348 artifacts in 3 hours and found some cool stuff, like a fragment from a porcelain dish and an old Swiss Army knife.

One of the 348 artifacts curated by El Centro Rotary and SW Interact Club. 

Later in the afternoon, visitors from Imperial County, Jacumba and as far as San Deigo helped us celebrate the grand opening of our first traveling exhibit. "Gold Fever! Untold Stories of California's Gold Rush". It's amazing to think that last January we just finished the curation lab and today we have a full exhibit up on the walls.

A major crowd pleaser!

Exploring our new topographical map

Nearly 100 people visited throughout the afternoon to eat tacos at the cart sponsored by the El Centro Rotary Club, listen to traditional cowboy music performed by El Centro's own Jugless Jug Band, and view the exhibit. Adults and children alike enjoyed testing their knowledge of the area and identifying good hiking areas our new
topographical map of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Families enjoyed our miner's cabin and trying to identify different objects in the miner's trunk a miner would have brought with him for work and for fun. El Centro's own Jugless Jug Band played timeless favorites like "Buffalo Girls" and "Little Brown Jug" and quizzed the museum staff on the historical meaning of each verse to "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain".  We didn't know nearly as much as we expected we would. (I guessed right about the 'she' in the song being the mail coach, but who knew the white horses were because the mail coach used Percherons almost exclusively, and they are grey/white?)

Jugless Jug Band

This was really exciting for me as my first major exhibit opening and getting to see all our hard work pay off.  I learned more about the Gold Rush than I ever imagined, and even more about how to put together a fantastic exhibit with only a small starting point.  I'm going to try and write an article about it for publication and a conference- we'll see how it goes!