Too long, I'm afraid. I'm about to finish my second gig (the photo curation for the Tacoma Historical Society). I have finished curating and cataloging over 2200 images, ranging from glass negatives to prints from digital images, and am now in the process of building virtual exhibits, collections of photographs with informative captions, which will be placed online as part of the Society's website. I will post the link as soon as it becomes available. The first two virtual exhibits will be about early Tacoma schools and historic personages of Tacoma, respectively.
I have started a third, curating textiles, beginning with a collection of wedding gowns running the gamut from late 19th century to almost modern, for the Fife Historical Society. And I am in discussions with yet another local historical society for the creation of another exhibit this fall. So the freelance museum curator business seems to be keeping me in cotton gloves and acid-free tissue, at any rate.
Today I had the wonderful opportunity to go behind the scenes at the Washington State Historical Society research center, where I attended a workshop about curating baskets and other textiles. The first part of the workshop was standard lecture/question and answer (and very informative), but the second part was touring several of the textile storage rooms, including one that housed over 1500 Northwest-made Indian baskets, many of which were over 100 years old. I wish I'd brought my camera. The baskets ran the gamut from thimble-sized to one I could almost have sat in, and included materials from bark to reed to beads. I think my personal favorites were the one woven to look just like a china cup and saucer, and the collection of thimble-sized baskets. I felt about those the way I do about miniature quilts at quilt shows. Wow, that's impressive. Man, they must have been insane...
One other piece of unrelated news: I am in the process of editing, creating cover art, and formatting my historical with a whiff of fantasy novel for the Kindle and Smashwords. I hope to have it up and for sale by the end of July, and I will announce it here (and everywhere else I can think of) as soon as it becomes available.
And I'll try not to disappear into the ether on you again any time soon, too.
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Congrats on the ongoing projects--curating and publishing both!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteMeg
who is about to strangle Blogger because it won't let me comment as myself.
Of course, as soon as I complained it let me.
ReplyDeleteI first read that as "materials including ... beards", which produced a very bizarre mental picture.
ReplyDeleteI wish you'd brought your camera, too; the trip sounds very cool [something we could use really right about now].
Yay for ongoing gigs!
It was. I don't know if they'd have let me take photos, but I still wish I'd had the opportunity to ask.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, yay for ongoing gigs. I like being able to pay my bills [wry g].