Look into our eyes...

Curator of Design Arts Kory Rogers reminding himself of which pieces we've looked at.

In the course of preparing some of the objects from Shelburne's collection for Supercool Glass, curator Kory Rogers and I took a closer look at a collection of prosthetic eyes, normally on view in the doctor's office.  In particular, he was curious about how the capillaries were added to the whites of the eyes, but I found the manner in which the glass worker created the irises to be just spectacular. Here are a few examples of what we saw:

 

One example of what's referred to as a reform-style glass eye. The capillaries are applied as glass threads to the white glass.

Doesn't it look like there are butterscotch starlight candies in this iris?

Most of the eyes in this collection are of the reform style, originally developed in the 1880s by Dutch eye surgeon Hermann Snellen. Reform-style prosthetics are elliptically-shaped convex and hollow. Kory displayed one of these upside down in Supercool Glass to show how these were made. There are also a few examples of shell-style prosthetics in the group:

Two shell-style prosthetics turned upside down.

One of the reasons I find these prosthetics so interesting is that there are so many points of comparison with the dolls' eyes in the collection. Glass eye makers also made doll eyes. Perhaps the most amazing examples of glass doll eyes in Shelburne's collection are seen on the wax-over-papier mâché-headed doll by London maker Anthony Bazzoni, produced c. 1860. As gorgeous as they are, these spherical eyes just don't have the same level of realism as the prosthetics.

Not all glass doll eyes are globe-shaped or this realistic. Eighteenth-century examples of English glass doll eyes in Shelburne's collection are shaped something like cowrie shells. We get the best sense of that by looking at x-radiographs and CT scans.

I think you get the best sense of the shape of the doll's eyes in profile. The tacks around the crown of the head hold a wig in place.

Here's a frontal view radiograph. The wood doll was made in England c. 1720.

Of course, attempts at making realistic eyes in materials other than glass have a long history too. If you want to learn more, check out this post from our colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Museum's conservation lab and their recent investigations of how eyes were made in a group of Egyptian wooden sculptural heads. 

Shelburne Museum Does NEMA

Recently Burlington hosted the 94th annual New England Museum Association (NEMA) conference. Staff from Shelburne Museum participated in several sessions on a wide range of topics from new building construction to LED lighting.

Paige and I co-chaired a panel discussion called, "Open Doors, Open Minds: Serving Special Audiences on a Budget," in which we spoke about Art at Hand, our tours for visitors who are blind or visually impaired, and Mornings at the Museum for people with Alzheimer's. We also worked with Paula Rais, Director of Community Engagement at the Children's Museum of New Hampshire. She runs Exploring Our Way, an acclaimed program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Paige and I are both "Emerging Museum Professionals" or EMPs; we haven't been in the field very long, and neither of us had been to a professional conference before. Chairing a session was a true honor, and we had been preparing for it for almost nine months!


It began back in February with a call for proposals. This year's conference theme was "Pushing the Envelope: Innovation and the Future of Museums." We knew the special audiences we serve are quite unique; many institutions are just beginning to explore their potential. We also recognized that some of the museums well known for their array of accessible programming, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, have a designated "access coordinator" and corporate sponsors who facilitate and fund their tours. We wanted to show smaller institutions with more limited resources that they can offer meaningful programming to audiences with special needs.

Mornings at the Museum

Art at Hand

Throughout the spring and summer we coordinated with Paula, outlining our session and elucidating some general principles we've all learned. They included:

• Assembling a team of advisors who are experts in the audience you are engaging
• Soliciting feedback at every point in the process
• Seeing special tours and programs as stepping stones to individual museum visits; anticipating and encouraging participants to return on their own.

When the day of our presentation finally came, we were thrilled to share our experiences with forty fellow museum professionals looking to start their own access programs. We fielded questions on everything from wheelchair guidelines to staff training. I found it empowering to share both the highlights and the challenges of these programs, and came out with new energy and excitement about our special tours--which was well worth the time spent. Thank you, NEMA 2012!

i-loview, Accessible Technology!

This season Shelburne Museum received a generous gift from the Vermont-based accessible technology company, Ai Squared -- two i-loview handheld video magnifiers for  visually impaired museum visitors. Equipped with sophisticated cameras, the devices allow users to see an image up to 32 times its original size.

Intern Nina uses an i-loview magnifier on an Art at Hand tour of the Ticonderoga

We have put the magnifiers to good use in our Art at Hand program for the visually impaired. We've used them, for example, to see the tiny anchor pattern that dots the dining room carpet on the steamboat Ticonderoga. Later this month we will employ them at the General Store for up-close look at objects behind the counter or high up on the shelves. The i-loview magnifiers have been indispensable on these special tours.
Now, the devices are even more accessible to our visitors. Through closing day on October 28th they are available to check out at the Information Desk just behind the Museum Store!

Anne displays the i-loview magnifiers now available for visitors to check out at the Information Desk

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Rebecca White, Marketing Project Manager at Ai Squared, who wrote her own article about Art at Hand on their "Zoomed In" blog. She explains that while the company's flagship product, ZoomText magnification and reading software, has been on the market for over twenty years, the i-loview is an innovative development in accessible hardware. "We do everything we can to stay on top of technology," she says. "The i-loview helps our customers on the go--whether they're at the grocery store or an art museum." The device, White emphasizes, allows people who are visually impaired to "stay connected to the world and maintain their sense of independence."

White expresses a passionate belief that cultural institutions should be accessible to the tight-knit community of visually impaired Vermonters whom Ai Squared knows well. The company moved to the southern part of the state 1992 and, as she describes, its corporate culture just "feels Vermont." Then she pauses, realizing that, "maybe that only makes sense to Vermonters!" Certainly we at Shelburne Museum take pride in our deep regional connections and are glad to establish a partnership with such an esteemed local business. Ai Squared makes it a point to give back to the state they call home, and we thank them heartily for their generosity.

Update: If you'd like to learn more about Art at Hand, check out this article published in the Burlington Free Press on Sunday, October 21st.

Art on the Edge

"Is the frame original?"

Whether carved, molded, gilded or painted, picture frames can rise to the level of  works of art in their own right, and can tell us a lot about the context in which a painting was displayed, but it's rare that we know much about how a frame came to be associated with a painting it houses. Frames are not often described or included in catalogs of paintings, and it is common for collectors to change framing when they purchase a work of art or change their decor.

Not long ago, we found ourselves asking, "Is the frame original?" when Rembrant Peale's Woman with the Tuscan Hat, c. 1847 came into the lab for conservation treatment. Both the painting and frame were in dire need of cleaning and repair, so this was an excellent opportunity to look into both of them a little more deeply.

Before Conservation Treatment

After Conservation Treatment

The painting is described in inventories of the artists' studio following his death as "Tuscan Hat, from a composition after André" but there's no indication as to whether or not the painting was framed. The painting came into Shelburne Museum's collection in 1985, and to the best of our knowledge, had only been published once before in John Mahey's 1969 article in American Art Journal in which the painting is depicted, but not the frame. 

The frame itself was made in two parts: the outer rectangular decorative moldings and the inner spandrel with  an oval opening. They're held together with nails on the reverse side of the frame. Oddly, the inner spandrel is a bit small for the outer frame; it just barely fills it so that you can see its outer edge peeking out from the opening of the outer frame. It also looks like an ornamental border had been removed from the outer edge of the spandrel. While there were a few empty nail holes that didn't match up between the spandrel and outer frame, there weren't enough for me to say that either piece had been used in some other context.

The pink arrow points to  the edge of the spandrel. The green arrow shows marks made by an ornamented border that was once on the frame and the blue arrow is pointing to cotton tulle applied to the surface of the frame before it was gilded. This image was taken before conservation treatment.

The pink arrow shows a wood splint added to the outer frame's rabbet to hold the  inner spandrel in place.
There's another splint under the spandrel too. Its just a little harder to see in this picture.

The Rococo-style ornament was made using compo, rather than plaster or carved wood. Cotton tulle netting applied to the ornament prior to gilding was a popular technique in the second quarter of the 19th century. And while the spandrel doesn't fit the outer frame perfectly, the compo ornament applied at the corners compliments the decoration on the outer frame. And so the style and materials used to make the frame suggest that it may have been produced sometime between 1825 and 1850, the same period as the Peale's Woman in the Tuscan Hat.

We will probably never be certain when this frame was associated with the painting or whether the outer frame has been reused. If it isn't the first frame this painting ever had, the match is in keeping with the time that they both were made.

If I've whetted your appetite to learn more, you might be interested in these summaries of three thought-provoking talks from this year's American Institute for Conservation annual meeting which considered picture frames and framing and the challenges posed in researching them.

Thanks to conservation department volunteer intern Linzy Vos who performed the conservation treatment of this frame and contributed to the research. Thanks also to paintings conservator Pamela Betts who researched and performed the conservation treatment on the painting as part of an Institute for Museum and Library Services Conservation Project Support grant.

Teaching Shelburne Museum II: A Centennial Expo

A few weeks back I wrote about a partnership between Shelburne Museum, the Green Mountain Writing Project, and Turning Points in American History that encourages Vermont educators to use primary sources, including museum collections, when studying the Civil War and Reconstruction era. I promised to share more about the study group that meets at the Museum, including innovative ways that participating teachers are engaging their students with history. I had to look no further than the 1876 World's Fair, which arrived at the Museum on a sunny day this spring.

"Lamb & St. Lawrence Leech Co.," presented by Vermont educators Jennifer Theoret (pictured) and Cate Lamb, advertised historical remedies in the Apothecary Shop.

The Turning Points educators modeled their Centennial Exposition after National History Day, a competition in which students study a historic topic using a variety of primary and secondary sources and present their research in the form of a paper, performance, exhibit, website, or documentary. Our educators set up temporary exhibits around the Museum grounds on nineteenth-century topics including needlepoint samplers, the history of footwear, and Civil War-era amputation. 

They brought to life several objects that I had seen before but never studied, such as this prosthetic leg on display at the Doctor's Office upstairs in the General Store. I learned that amputations were increasingly common in the Civil War as a result of military advancements like the minie ball, a particularly destructive lead bullet used by the Union army. The Turning Points teachers also made compelling connections, as in the needlepoint display that linked the content of early American samplers to the unique roles that women played in the abolitionist movement. I was surprised to discover that explicit anti-slavery inscriptions appear on textiles dating as early as the 1830s.

A prosthetic leg at the General Store.

Each exhibit included a detailed lesson plan relating to the content of the exhibit to the elementary, middle, or high school classroom. My visit to the 1876 World's Fair was a unique opportunity to see Shelburne Museum's collection from a different angle, and it opened my mind to ever-new teaching possibilities. Stay tuned for a post about the Green Mountain Writing Project's role in this unique collaboration. Thank you, Turning Points!

A good trick

I  love working with the curatorial fellows because, invariably, they have a knack for picking objects for their exhibitions that haven't been out on view in a long time. Curatorial fellow Sara Woodbury has chosen a some truly wonderful works for her exhibition on imagined worlds, How Extraordinary! Travel, Novelty, and Time in the Permanent Collection, opening in Webb Gallery June 16.  Sara was in the lab to look at one of these, and we both were so amazed by it, we thought we should share it here too.

Maker unknown, Trompe-l'oeil map, Collection of Shelburne Museum, 27.18-6

It is unknown who made this trompe-l'oeil arrangement of a map of North America written in French and other printed matter and objects. What's so amazing is that it was executed in ink using a pen with watercolor applied with a brush. There's no printing. The support, the material that the work was produced on, is a laid paper, but what look like indentations from a printing plate aren't. They were created with watercolor and a brush. We were examining the work to see if it made sense to treat it to reduce that yellow tonality. In fact, we discovered that the paper was toned to look old. Fake age!

A real red-rimmed paper label on the back of the framing indicates that the work is French and was made in 1779.  I'll leave you with some details and photo micrographs to enjoy, but this really needs to be seen to be believed.

The artist played with depicting the distortion caused by lenses in the lunettes.

At 60x magnification you get a better sense of the rendered optical distortion through the lens. The letters get bigger and the color changes.

A better look at those fictional plate marks.

The depicted plate mark flattens out under 60x magnification. Aren't those rose-head nails lovely?

Replicating the Work of a Bygone Era: Part 1

How did we go from this:

To this?

One of the challenges faced by the Museum carpenters is repairing the many old buildings here, and deciding when to replace, rather than repair something. Sometimes all we have to do is replicate how something was done 150 or more years ago, other times we can better preserve our buildings if we intentionally depart from the original construction. Either way requires careful study of the original to see how it was made, what made it last, and/or what made it fail. The attic vent from the Variety Unit was already severely weathered when squirrels tore through it. There was enough left of the old vent (an elliptical wooden fan) to see how it was made, but there was too much gone or worn out to repair it. I'd be practically rebuilding it, so I set out to make a replacement by copying the appearance of the old one while adding a few improvements. Here's what I learned about the old vent; in Part 2 I'll show you how I made the new one. (A note on scale: this thing is four feet wide, and 20 inches tall).

Right away I could see a few interesting details: the old vent had big square wrought nails driven through its joints as reinforcement. These were very rusty, and had clearly been in there a long time. The elliptical frame was assembled in halves, with a spline connecting them at the top of the arc. This meant that near the bottom of the arc the grain of the wood cut across the frame at a steep angle to the tenons that held it into the horizontal member--this was prone to splitting. It is easy to imagine that the frame split as it was being assembled, and rather than start over the builder just nailed it back together.

I could also see where the frame had split around the pegs that held the two halves of the ellipse to the top spline: the splits left dark marks where the spline was exposed to the weather. There were wrought nails all through this joint as well.

That spline was spiked to the center post, which filled the gap between the two topmost louvers. This meant that it was a three-dimensional wedge, wide at the top and beveled parallel to the louvers, yet thin enough at the bottom to fit between the louvers on the center hub. I think the spline was made from a separate piece because to be strongest its grain needed to be horizontal, yet had it been carved from the same stock used to make the center post the grain would have been vertical, and weak.

Despite the vintage fasteners used in its construction, the vent was attached to the building with round finish nails. Moreover, the white pine of the vent was much more deeply weathered than the surrounding clapboards and trim. This indicated that although this part of the building was built in the late 1940s, the vent was much older. Close inspection of the vent revealed why it was worth salvaging and re-using: all of its 59 separate pieces had been painstakingly cut and shaped by hand, and were held together by multiple tiny cut nails. The marks of a scratch awl (used to make layout marks instead of a pencil) were still visible, as were the marks of a very thin sawblade and a sharp knife.

Being hand cut, the elliptical frame was not a regular geometric shape, so each louver had been custom-fitted, with a slightly different length, width, and taper. To make things even more interesting, each louver was slightly twisted (maybe they were steam-bent, or perhaps the builder used green wood?). The louvers were set in narrow dados (slots) in the frame and held in by small nails and a curved trim strip that went all the way around the frame. There was another of these trim strips on the center hub, and in order to bend it to such a tight curve it had been kerfed (cut partway through with a saw) every half-inch, and each segment had a small nail in it.

The detail on the center hub looked like relief carving from the ground, but it turned out to be made up of thin diamond-shaped slivers that were also nailed on. There were only two left, but I could see the marks left by the others where the hub hadn't been worn down so much by the weather. Each of these was slightly different as well, suggesting they had simply been whittled to shape. Somebody with a lot of patience spent a long time making this thing!

Teaching Shelburne Museum



Last week I found myself  brandishing a tape measure and scale to study ceramic plates from a hundred year-old shipwreck laid out on the carpeted floor of Pleissner Gallery. This engaging, hands-on workshop was part of an ongoing partnership between Shelburne Museum and Turning Points in American History, a professional development program for Vermont educators that supports teaching in the social studies and seeks to build strong school-museum relationships.

Turning Points educators examine a ceramic plate from a canal boat "shipwreck" to review historical methods



At last week's Primary Source Study Group, Turning Points Co-Director Scott McLaughlin staged an early twentieth-century Lake Champlain canal boat wreck for a lesson in historical methods. He drew a cross section of the boat as it was found in the lake on a swath of fabric and unfurled it on the gallery floor. He then laid out artifacts that archaeologists have found in different parts of the boat, including a coin, a pipe, and a handcrafted doll. The ceramic plates that we used as primary sources were similar to artifacts that archaeologists have found in such wrecks. Primary Source Study Group participants collected data including the plates' condition, function, size, and weight, and then analyzed, synthesized, and interpreted these findings in order to date and contextualize the ceramics. By the end of the workshop, we were able to make conjectures about the family that lived on this particular canal boat based on our detailed study of the "material culture" they left behind.

Archaeologist's perspective drawing of the Sloop Island canal boat shipwreck (Adam Kane, 2004)

As a young museum professional interested in how to use art and artifacts to teach history, I have been tagging along with Turning Points study groups during their Shelburne Museum visits. I will write again soon to share the innovative ways that Primary Source Study Group participants are using what they learn at the Museum to teach with primary sources in the classroom. Hint: it involves less textbook readings and more staged shipwrecks.

Winter Sniffles Got You Feeling Down?

Like many cold-weather dwellers, I suffer from my fair share of sniffles, coughs, and colds during the  winter season. While desperately searching the local pharmacy for a wonder drug, I wondered what exciting cures from yesteryear lived in our Apothecary Shop. Here are some of my findings:

Dr. J. H. Moore Air Medicator & Injector

This clear glass vaporizer, or "Air Medicator & Injector," was patented in 1884 by Dr. J. H. Moore of Cincinnati. The globe-shaped center is topped with two smaller glass globes. A hand-compressed air pump (similar to a perfume atomizer ball) attaches to one of these small globes. When the ball is compressed, it forces medicated air from the large globe through the other small globe --the patient then inhales medicated air through a tube attached to the second small globe.  According to an advertisement from Unity, Volume 15, published by Harvard University Press in 1885, the medicator "forces or pumps Medicated Air into the most remote passages of the head or lungs." The Air Medicator was advertised as "sensible, practical, scientific and certain." Even weak lungs could benefit from the Air Medicator and Injector!

Vapo-Cresolene Vaporizer

The lamp-like Vapo-Cresolene Vaporizer "charges the atmosphere" with medicinal inhalant that combats bacteria. On the box, Vapo-Cresolene explains the Germ Theory of Diseases: "It is now an admitted fact that all Zymotic Diseases, as Scarlet, Typhoid, and Typhus Fevers, Whooping Cough, Catarrh, Asthma, Croup, Measles, Diptheria, and Hay Fever are generated by the agency of bacteria and other low forms of life." According to its label, this gold-painted iron stand with alcohol lamp disperses medicinal vapors that could cure you of all your maladies.

Blosser's Cigarettes

Marketed "for the Temporary Relief of the Paroxysms of Asthma and for the Relief of Discomforts of Minor Nasal and Bronchial Catarrhal Conditions associated with Head Colds," Blosser's Cigarettes are another example of an early medicinal cure for seasonal ailments. These cigarettes "soothe the mucous membranes of the Nasal and Bronchial Tracts" and "loosen the phlegm in the Nose and Throat," making "Breathing Easier."


Make sure to take a look at some of the other interesting pharmaceutical items on your next visit to the Apothecary Shop during the 2012 season!

It's Hammer Time

A selection of snowball hammers.

Did you know that Shelburne Museum has one of the largest collections of snowball hammers in the nation? Do you even know what a snowball hammer is? I definitely did not before I started working here.






Snowball hammers, also known as snow knockers, are used to remove excess snow and ice from horseshoes. Most hammers are made of iron and often have snap rings or hooks that can easily clip onto a horse's harness.


Our snowball hammer collection includes many varieties from early America. Blacksmiths gave snowball hammers, like the ones featured on the left, as gifts to customers. The hammers served as small tokens of appreciation for their loyal business, as well as a way for blacksmiths to practice and demonstrate their skills.






Recently, I traveled to some co-workers' houses to groom their horses and further investigate snowball hammers. While iron hammers like the ones in Shelburne Museum's collection are not often used today, you can definitely see how they would come in handy.

Habibi models a snowball stuck in her horsehoe.

Snowball hammers: Yet another example of the wonderful things you'll find at Shelburne Museum!

Sandy Sock's hooves are snow free!

Meet The Maker!

Recently, Monica and I have been cataloging furniture over here in Collections Management. If you visited the museum this past season, you may have seen the exhibit entitled Something Old, Something New: Continuity and Change in American Fine Furnishings from 1700-1820. This exhibit displayed a wonderful selection of some of our finest high-style furniture pieces. However, we've got a lot of great furniture in our collection that isn't part of this particular exhibit--much of it is also on view in our historic houses!

As I was working on the table collection, I came across this lovely little piece:

Mahogany Table by Nathaniel Jillson (3.6-152), ca. 1840

This small table was made in the 1840s by Nathaniel Jillson. The wood is mahogany and the table is finished with veneer. It has a four-legged pedestal base and a shallow "apron" around the top. The maker, Mr. Jillson, lived and worked in Williamstown, Vermont. He was born in 1797 and died in 1878. Small tables like this one were of great use during the 19th century, especially ones that could be easily picked up and moved from room to room. Apparently they were called "tavern tables" in some regions.

I wondered about Mr. Jillson and his furniture business. As it turns out, I didn't have to look too far to learn a little bit more about him--here at the museum we also have his portrait!

Portrait of Nathaniel Jillson (27.1.1-222) by Keane West Davis

I happened upon Nathaniel himself as I worked with our paintings collection one morning. I was so excited to see the person who crafted one of our furniture pieces. This painting was made in 1844; Nathaniel was 47 years old at the time. Our records show that the census in the mid-19th century listed Mr. Jillson as a furniture and cabinet-maker in Williamstown. The portrait-painter, Keane West Davis, also lived in Williamstown and he also painted Mr. Jillson's second wife, Amanda: 

Portrait of Amanda Ervilla Bacon Jillson (27.1.1.223) by Keane West Davis

According to the information we have about the Jillsons, Nathaniel also made the wooden frames for these two portraits. Seems like he was a man of many talents!

A Long Recovery for a Secretary

Shelburne Museum was fortunate to come through Tropical Storm Irene unscathed. Many of our neighbors, especially in the southern part of the state, were not so fortunate and our hearts go out to them as they cope with the aftermath of this disaster of historic proportions.

As Vermonters have tried to come to terms with the damage wrought by Irene, comparisons to the Great Flood of 1927 have often been made.

The 1927 storm is the stuff of legend. Over three days in November, it destroyed over 1000 bridges, miles of roadways, and countless structures. Eighty-four people died as a result, including the lieutenant governor. UVM's Landscape Change Project includes many amazing pictures of the devastation in 1927 and what those very same places looked like in 2004. It is interesting to consider those images and amazing that we can still find evidence of that disaster in a piece of furniture in our collection.

In 2000, the museum acquired a piece of furniture that still bore damage from the 1927 flood. The bookcase and drop front desk, or secretary, made c. 1820-1840 by Royalton, VT cabinetmaker John Marshall (1787-1860), was donated to the museum by a descendent of its maker.

The bookcase portion of the John Marshall secretary before treatment in 2000.

The desk portion of the John Marshall secretary before treatment in 2000.

Made of rosewood and walnut veneers on poplar and pine, almost none of the original finish remained, either having been removed by water damage or an aborted attempt at repair and refinishing. All of the glass panes on the bookcase doors, except one, were lost. Half of the green wool cover, called baize, on the desk writing surface was lost; the other half was moth-eaten and faded. More challenging was that about 15% of the veneers were lost, including a large chunk of the book matched burl was missing from the top drawer front. Burl veneer is difficult to cut and thus is thicker. The chances of finding a contemporary piece of wood veneer that would be a good match would be slight at best.

Rather than using wood to fill this loss, I worked together with then post-graduate conservation intern Michaela Niero to make laminated paper veneers painted and varnished to imitate the burl, based on a flipped digital image of the remaining burl veneer on the opposite side of the drawer. We created paper laminate veneers that replicated other veneer losses too. The paper laminate was cut to fit and adhered in place using a reversible adhesive. While it would have been wonderful to use wood, the paper laminate is a pretty good visual replacement. The curators also asked me to replace the missing glass, drawer pull, and the baize as well as refinish the piece so that its surfaces looked appropriately uniform. A local wood turner made the replacement pull for the desk, appropriate glass was found at architectural salvage shops, and green baize was acquired for the desk top. An isolating layer of varnish was applied to the wood surfaces before new layers of varnish were applied to harmonize the disparate wood colors and uneven layers of varnish.

The secretary after treatment in 2000.

The secretary is now on view in the Dutton House. Though its not the same as it would have been had it not gone through the 1927 flood, it does have a very special provenance.

If you have works of art or family heirlooms that got wet during Tropical Storm Irene, there are a number of resources available to help you salvage (if they're still wet or muddy) and find help to conserve and restore them.

It's that time of year!

As we enter the month of August, I can't help but think of what's right around the corner --the beginning of school. Apologies in advance to everyone who does not enjoy this time of year as much as me.

I was one of the weird ones. I'll admit it. As soon as July 1st rolled around, I was the first in line to buy all of the my school supplies. I LOVE school supplies and since graduating from college in 2010, I am now experiencing my second period of school supply shopping withdrawal.

Luckily, Shelburne Museum has its very own school house to fulfill my classroom desires.

Built in 1840, this one room school house from Vergennes, Vermont features historic desks as well as replica desks that visitors can sit in to relive 19th century schooling. Chalkboards at the front of the classroom feature lessons typical of the time period.

Of course my favorite part is the school supplies. Fountain pens, ink wells, and adding machines line the school houses's shelves.

Next time you visit, make sure to check out the Vergennes School House and take a break in the backyard --Alyssia's Garden!

Upcycle/Downcycle

Electra Havemeyer Webb laying out flattened hatbox panels in Hat and Fragrance Gallery, c. 1953

Upcycling: transforming a useless object or material into a product of better quality or use. Downcycling: converting a useless object or material into something of lower quality or use.

There’s no doubt that Shelburne Museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb was ahead of her time in many ways. While she collected works made by everyday Americans, not all of those objects ended up being museum pieces quite in the manner we think of today. In fact, sometimes she found new uses for historic objects in her collection.

Let’s consider the hat and bandboxes. In Shelburne Museum’s collection, there are approximately 200 nineteenth-century oval lidded boxes made of wood or cardboard covered with block printed paper designed to store hats and other accessories. Mrs. Webb began collecting them early on.

"For years and years I collected hatboxes. I don’t know why, don’t ask me...I think they are so interesting in design and also I think they have great educational value," she said.

Certainly the collection contains some with great stories, such as “Peep at the Moon” as told by Curator of Design Kory Rogers:

“Peep at the Moon” retains its original form, but other hatboxes that Mrs. Webb collected found new uses. I haven't counted how many she flattened to create decorative paneling in two rooms in her home in Westbury, Long Island. Scalloped paneling in one room was constructed of yellow hatbox sides. The other room was produced from sides and lids of blue hatboxes. More panels from flattened boxes are on view in the Hatbox Room in the Hat and Fragrance Textile Gallery. She laid out the arrangement herself while the building was being constructed in 1953.

Mrs. Webb's yellow hatbox room in Westbury, Long Island

While preparing the collection during the renovation of the Hat and Fragrance building I noticed that some of the boxes had been flattened once and then returned to an oval shape later. Sadly, Mrs. Webb did not describe her criteria for conversion, but there are multiple versions of the same papers represented as both whole boxes and flattened panels.

Blue hatbox room in the process of deinstallation from J. Watson Webb's home in Los Angeles, CA, 2000.

When the Webbs moved from their Westbury residence, son J. Watson Webb, Jr. took the hatbox wall paneling - a blue room and a yellow room - and installed it in his home in Los Angeles. After his death in 2000, the paneling was donated to the museum and I was part of the crew who disassembled the paneling to send it to Vermont. Like previous Shelburne Museum workmen who moved historic structures to the museums grounds, we numbered and photodocumented the paneling as we removed it from the house.

As the conservator in the crew, my job was to record how the paneling was constructed and to ensure that the paper and moldings were sufficiently stable for travel. You’ll find the blue hatbox room panels on view in the Museum's Hat and Fragrance Gallery. But the yellow room? It became the top border and backs for the trivet cases in the Variety Unit, a decorative arts gallery next door to Hat and Fragrance. In creating these cases, the carpenters added new wood to the old and didn't alter the joinery in any way. If desired, the cases could be disassembled and reconfigured as paneling once again.

The yellow hatbox room in the Variety Unit, where trivets are on display, 2011.