Make Your Own Greatest Circus Poster on Earth

As I spent last week working in the Circus Building writing new cards for our Dive In With Webby program, which contain fun and interactive activities for visiting families of the museum, my eyes couldn’t stop from floating over to the circus posters.

During the Golden Age of the Circus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the enormous traveling companies relied heavily upon poster distribution to announce their upcoming arrival to towns across America and Europe. While trusty locomotives hauled the 100 plus rail cars of resting animals, actors, equipment and wagons; a team of men were sent ahead to plaster the upcoming town with circus posters. It was common for a town to get covered with 5,000 to 8,000 posters!

Shelburne Museum’s large collection of posters is loaded with colorful images of great feats of daring, dangerous animals from remote parts of the world, and unbelievable sideshow characters. The sensational writing is another big selling point, as even I find myself pining to see “Goliath the Monster Sea Elephant: The Greatest Sea Monster Ever Exhibited Alive” (27.4-236), or “The Human Projectile Hugo Zacchini: A Living Person Shot Through Space with Violent Velocity from the Mouth of a Monster Cannon” (27.4-251).



Not only are these posters fun to see, they’re also fun and very easy to make! Where will your imagination take you?

To complete this activity you will need:


A Piece of Paper (8.5x11 is a fine size, but don’t be afraid to make a big poster)
Colored Pencils
Markers
Pencil
Eraser
Stencils (Optional)





The seven stencils, several of which were traced from toys made by the Holtztiger company, are spread onto two pages. Click on either page to open it in a new web browser. You might need to edit the settings on your printer to ensure a successful print.

Directions
1. Print out the stencils and cut them out (optional).
2. Map out your poster using the pencil, eraser, and the optional stencils. Ask yourself, “If I owned a circus what part of my show would be irresistible to see?” Draw lightly so you can erase if you need to.
3. Still using your pencil and eraser, write a title for your poster as well as the name for your circus.
4. Using your markers or colored pencils, fill the poster with as much color as you possibly can!

Want to really get people’s attention? Create your own circus stencils using found objects from around the house. Find other materials to decorate your poster with – like glitter, paints, macaroni, etc.

Feel free to check out these photos of the circus poster I made to help you get started. Tune in next month for another fun art project, and don’t forget to check out the Circus Building or our Dive in with Webby program when the museum opens for the season on May 13th!

Art at Hand

October is the ninth annual Art Beyond Sight awareness month, which strives to increase access to the so-called "visual" arts for people who are blind. Through programs like Art at Hand, a pilot program at the museum for visitors who are blind and visually impaired, the museum world is exploring how art encompasses far more than the eye can see.

As Betsy Zaborowski, a representative for the National Federation of the Blind, has described, a blind person's white cane has the power to inspire "a lot of assumptions...and a lot of discomfort" in others. One of these longstanding assumptions is that people who are blind or visually impaired cannot appreciate or enjoy museums.

That stigma, however, is gradually disappearing. Due in large part to the commitment and encouragement of nonprofits like Art Beyond Sight and VSA-Arts as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, institutions across the country, including Shelburne Museum, are finding creative ways to make their collections accessible to this community. Educators are bringing art vividly to life using detailed verbal descriptions, tactile materials, sounds, and smells.

During Art at Hand's pilot season, we have offered five tours and tested a combination of strategies to capture the essence of works of art for people who may not be able to see them. In one instance, museum guide Lee Dowling presented Manet's Blue Venice. She first spoke about the colors and texture of oil paint, the dimensions of the work, and the subject matter, and then continued with a sensory description--based on her own travels--of Venetian canals filled with murky waters and spirited gondaliers. On another tour, guide Elizabeth Sabens clipped fresh herbs, including chives and lemon thyme, from the Hat and Fragrance garden as an introduction to quilting and methods of quilt preservation.

Perhaps our most memorable moment yet was a tour of the Circus Building. Guide Georgia Pendleton brought in fresh hay to capture the atmosphere of life under the Big Top, and we received special permission for the group to feel the museum's wood-carved Dentzel carousel horses. Finally, we brought them outside for a ride on our operating carousel. One visitor wrote to us: "The best part was the Merry-Go-Round ride. It brought me back to when I was a child and could see."

The Covered Bridge Circus Saga: Part II

...I hope you haven't forgotten where I left off...

...because it's about time I finish the story of the covered bridge circus! I think you can tell why I was so fascinated by this photograph in the first place; it's a unique view that highlights two important areas of our collection--covered bridges and circus posters. As I analyzed this photo last month, I began to look more closely at the posters pasted on the inner left-hand side of the bridge. Thanks to a little careful zooming and cleaning, here's what I was able to extract:

Can you read what the posters say?

I studied these for awhile, and finally I was able to make out what they advertise! The poster on the left, closest to the viewer, advertises the Walter L. Main Circus. The one on the right announces a specific occurrence of the Walter L. Main Circus in Bellows Falls, Vermont on Wednesday, July 20th. Bellows Falls is just one of the many communities where the Walter L. Main circus performed--their route extensively covered much of New England and the mid-Atlantic.

As I continued to think about this discovery, I decided to look farther into our circus poster collection to see what I could find about Walter L. Main. Turns out, we have some Walter L. Main circus posters here at the museum! (Of course, not the ones you see in the photo but still...) Here are some examples:

3-Ring shows of "Beauty and the Beasts"

The "Main" man himself!

High-Wire artists and trained animal shows!

Speaking of circus posters, however, we've also got a lot of other great examples on display this season. The circus building is just one of our 39 exhibition buildings and it houses posters, figurines, sculptures and even a special exhibit on the circus photography of Elliot Fenander. Come check it out!

I'll leave you with one last perk about the circus building: the working Herschell-Spillman carousel!

During installation week, Monica and I were able to catch Randy, Paul and Greg setting up the carousel one morning. It's certainly a popular attraction! Maybe one of these days I'll have to take a spin...

The Covered Bridge Circus Saga: Part I

A simple trip into the records room turns into a very interesting story...

I've been working on a fascinating side project that I just have to share. Early last week, I was perusing our records to find objects given to the museum by a specific donor. During my search, I happened to pull out a card with the name and address of someone who made a gift to the museum in the 1960's. This card caught my eye because the address listed a home in my small New Jersey neighborhood, quite close to where I grew up and went to school. Quite the coincidence, right? I was extremely curious as to what this New Jersey resident gave to Shelburne Museum, so I put aside my work for a few minutes and searched for the record for this item.

When I found the card listing the familiar New Jersey address, it gave the accession number "1966-221," which told me the item was accessioned or assigned to the museum's permanent collection in 1966. I immediately went to the book for 1966 to see what the object was. The record read: "Historical photograph of covered bridge with circus lithographs inside. Catalog reference 27.12." Sounds awesome, right? I had to learn more.

Shelburne Museum also has its own completely unique catalog system--this is separate from accession records and is based on groups of objects that go together, i.e., "furniture," "horse-drawn vehicles" and "scrimshaw." The accession record for this item 1966-221 lists the catalog reference for "27.12." That points me in the direction of our historical photograph collection.

Tuesday afternoon, about two minutes before 5, I was just about to close the catalog book I had been looking through and head home for the evening. Then suddenly, I stumbled upon exactly what I wanted to find: my magical mystery photo! Here it is:

27.12-287 (1966-221): Photo of Covered Bridge

Here is a note from the donor that goes with the 1966 record:

"This photo was taken from inside a covered bridge looking out (unusual) and, at the left posted inside the bridge are two circus lithographs (posters). This photo was made from an old glass negative."

You can see why I was so excited--it is an unusual and very unique photo, but it also relates to our collection in numerous ways. We have our very own covered bridge on the grounds (as well as many photos of other examples!) and a very substantial circus poster collection. What an interesting find for the week!

This story gets even better, however. Stay tuned for Part II of the Covered Bridge Circus Saga, coming soon!