New Faces in Education

If you've been following Shelburne Museum on Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, or Youtube, you know that this is an exciting time here as the Museum builds a Center for Art and Education that will transform the Museum from seasonal to year round operation. With each steel beam that goes up, fresh possibilities arise.

We're very excited to bring on board two new faces who contribute to the positive energy and forward momentum that the promise of a year-round Shelburne Museum brings. Meet Daphne and Kim! Both began jobs in the Education Department this month.

Daphne Zencey, Academic Programs Coordinator

Daphne Zencey is the Museum's new Academic Programs Coordinator. She comes to us by way of the University of Vermont and Syracuse University, where she earned her master's degree in art history. She is also a veteran of the United States Coast Guard. This spring Daphne worked as an educator for Passport to Learning, our series of interactive workshops for grades K through 8. Her favorite session was "Shop 'til You Drop" at the General Store. She loved giving students a shopping list, items to barter, and a limited amount of play money and watching the "spontaneity and hubbub" that ensued. Daphne is looking forward to seeing school-aged kids on the grounds this fall, especially the littlest ones on their very first visit to the Museum who can't help but "gawk at everything around them."

A self-described "19th-century nut" who remembers the excitement of visiting the Metropolitan Museum as a child, Daphne adores European painting and completed her master's thesis on the Pre-Raphaelites. She also has a soft spot for decorative arts such as those at the Variety Unit, especially the unique collection of sailor-carved scrimshaw. An artist herself, Daphne likes to work with pastels and charcoal. "I dabble," she explains. We know her passion for art and hands-on experience will make an impact as she takes on the Academic Programs Coordinator position!

Kim McCray, Adult Programs Coordinator

Kim McCray is Adult Programs Coordinator. She has significant experience in the museum world with positions at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum and the Nantucket Historical Association under her belt. She is currently working on a doctorate in museum education at Lesley University, having completed her undergraduate degree at St. Michael's College and her master's at Georgetown University. Her interest in museums goes back much farther. A lifelong Vermonter, she recalls a visit to the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury at age five to see dinosaur fossils as well as childhood trips to Shelburne Museum. 

As a young girl, Kim's favorite piece in the Museum's collection was Tinkle, a folk art painting of a proud-looking white cat completed in 1883 by an unknown American artist that visitors can view today in Stagecoach Inn. It still stands out to her, she explains, because Tinkle was important enough to his owner for him or her to commission a portrait. Kim's interest in American Folk Art spans many mediums, from paintings to whirligigs, but she is always inspired by stories of the unique individuals who crafted the pieces. A novice quilter, Kim also enjoys creating herself. She is excited to become part of the Shelburne Museum community and have the opportunity to put lifelong passion and academic theory into practice as our Adult Programs Coordinator.

Welcome, Daphne and Kim!

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."

Caring for your Heirloom Quilts

We get inquiries in the conservation lab fairly often about how to hang heirloom quilts. Director of Preservation and Conservation Rick Kerschner wrote up these suggestions a few years ago and we've been distributing them on request.

I have a few cautions about mounting quilts on the wall. Once a quilt is mounted on the wall, it tends to stay up for a long time. Most textile conservators recommend limiting exhibition to 6 months to a year. At Shelburne, we take our quilts down every few years (we are only open 6 months a year) and rotate new ones onto display. I would encourage homeowners to also implement some reasonable schedule to rotate a quilt back to storage for at least an equal amount of time that it is being displayed. In general, we prefer to cover our quilts with Lexan (polycarbonate), Mylar, or Melinex whenever possible to protect them from dust and handling. I am sure that you probably have good filters on your furnace to filter out dust, but dust that is kicked up from the floor that never makes it into the HVAC system can still be a problem. For that reason, I would recommend that the bottom of the quilt be at least 2 feet above the floor.

Cleaning a quilt that has been hanging
1.Obtain a piece of plastic window screen and bind the edges so that they will not snag the textile.
2. Lay quilt flat.
3. Place the window screen on top of the quilt and, using a brush attachment on a HEPA vacuum with suction control set to low suction, vacuum both sides of the quilt. Avoid rubbing the brush attachment against the screening.

Vacuuming a quilt through a screen

Light and your quilt

Be sure to mount the quilt away from daylight, not just out of direct sunlight from a window, but away from any significant window light. Actually, the highest light levels are recorded in a home during the winter when the sun is low in the sky and can shoot in windows, and when there is snow on the ground to reflect the light into the house. Daylight will fade certain dyes on antique quilts very quickly, and can cause deterioration to fibers on fabrics that contain metal based mordants (iron-based mordants are found in brown-dyed cotton fabrics of the late nineteenth century). It is fine to light the quilt with track lights, but they should be mounted well back from the quilt (about 5 feet) and low wattage wide floods should be used to illuminate it (35 to 50 watt tungsten floods are best - the old fragile looking frosted kind, not the newer halogen lights, as they have too much UV radiation). If you can feel any heat on the back of your hand when it is held in front of the quilt, the lights are too close. It is better to try to get a low, even light on the entire quilt using several floods than to use one or two bright halogen bulbs and have too much light in some areas and a spotty appearance. It would be best if the light track could be on a separate switch so that it can be turned off without making the entire room dark.

Check with a conservator in your area for additional advice and ask to have light levels measured for the final installation. A conservator can be located through the American Institute for Conservation Referral Service.

Displaying quilts

Finally, there are other ways to display heirloom quilts:
1. Lightly folded at the bottom of a bed
2. Draped over a wide tube (6" diameter or more) mounted parallel to the wall (this displays half the quilt at a time and the quilt can be easily turned so that the other side is exposed to the "elements." No Velcro or other mounting mechanisms are required for this display method).
3. Very fragile and precious quilts are usually lightly folded in long and narrow acid-free storage boxes that can be stored under a bed or on a high closet shelf and brought out only occasionally for special guests. 

There are a number of other good resources on caring for heirloom textiles available on the internet. In particular, there are good general guides to caring for textiles on the American Institute for Conservation's website and the Textile Museum's website. The Philadelphia Museum of Art shares some of their techniques for storing historic garments and accessories on their site and the Minnesota  Historical Society shares their tips for storing flat textiles in boxes.

Welcome to the 2011 Season!

Shelburne Museum welcomes you to come visit during the 2011 season! Fran and I thought we would share with you some of the museum's most hospitable objects --those featuring pineapples. Pineapples have long been a symbol of hospitality and friendship in the Western hemisphere. To welcome you to the 2011 season, here are just a few of the pineapples in our collection!

This Amasa Parker target rifle is featured in Lock, Stock and Barrel: The Terry Tyler Collection of Vermont Firearms. Pay special attention to the patch box of this rifle --there's a pineapple detail on top!

This folk art sculpture features grapes, leaves, pears, apples, cherries, plums, peaches, a melon, and a PINEAPPLE!

Before the museum acquired this pineapple decoration, it welcomed visitors to a private home. Set on a wooden post at the corner of the home's exterior, this pineapple served as a warm welcome to all of the guests.

Created in New England during the late 19th century, this quilt displays 25 red pineapples with green leaves arranged on a diagonal pattern.

We encourage you to visit during the 2011 season. All are welcome!

The Presidential Suite (of objects!)

Happy Presidents Day!
Presidents de Etats Unis Print Quilt

Quilt detail: Portrait Heads of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams surrounding the eagle

I suppose the theme of this week's post is already clearly evident. What I will say, however, is that one of coolest things about our collection is that we have something for almost every occasion. I've been having a lot of fun discovering interesting objects to share on this blog, and this week is certainly no exception! At the moment, we're celebrating Presidents' Day--thank you, George Washington! Our collection certainly honors multiple presidents, but we've got several things to celebrate President Washington, specifically.

Portrait of George Washington, Oil on Canvas (Artist Unknown), 1870-1889

Folk Art Sculpture of George Washington on Horseback, circa 1785

Can anyone else tell that spring is on the way? Soon there might be loads of cherry trees in bloom. Let's just try not to cut any of them down...