Found in Collections

The Life of a Museum Collections Assistant

[foundincollections]

New Beginning

Well, sorry for the silence. Shortly after the Buddhist iconography exhibit opened, my husband and I moved to Lubbock, TX.

I’ll try to post some pics of the completed exhibit soon. They’re somewhat scattered and I don’t feel like gathering them together at the moment.

No new job as of yet. Submitted an application yesterday and will be submitting another today. *crosses fingers and toes* We’ll see where life’s path takes me next.

[foundincollections]

So excited to begin to get the Buddhist altar up! It’s the final countdown to the opening!

[foundincollections]

My daughter, who is a museum volunteer, and I cleaning Avalokiteśvara for the Sacred Art exhibition. I’m the nerd in the back. Last photo is post-cleaning. This bodhisattva is ready for his close-up.

[foundincollections]

Arch is installed! Woohoo!

[foundincollections]

One thing I’m ecstatic about, regarding the upcoming Buddhist iconography exhibit, is this beauty. We’ve had him almost 20 years and he’s never been on exhibit. He’s one of my favorite artifacts in the entire museum, but he’s more than an artifact to me.

He is known by many names and is portrayed in many forms. Some know him as Padmapani. Others know him as Guanyin. To me, he is Avalokiteśvara.

Soon, he will be brought up to the gallery, into the light. There, I will gently, lovingly clean him to make him presentable for our patrons.

Something I’ve wanted to do since I began working here is to have a portrait of Avalokiteśvara digitally colorized, so our visitors could see what he would’ve looked like before time and weather wore away all his beautiful color. I told our registrar this when she was first hired. With this exhibit, my dream becomes a reality! I cried when she told me.

[foundincollections]

Buddhist Temple Arch Fabrication, Pt. 3:

Yesterday & today, the registrar & I painted the arch. We wanted to replicate the look of weathered paint/lacquer & gold gilt. We’re super happy with how it turned out & can’t wait to get it installed.

[foundincollections]

Buddhist Temple Arch Fabrication, Pt. 2:

Once I chose the boards to fill it in, they were screwed down, then cut to the shape of our support.

[foundincollections]

Buddhist Temple Arch Fabrication, Part 1:

As we get the Buddhist iconography exhibit installation underway, one of the decorative elements we’re doing is a temple arch. My father loaned us the antique lumber and did the fabrication.

[foundincollections]

Notre Dame has burned.

I am not okay.

[foundincollections]

Taking down the bronze exhibit one day. Then, starting to put up the Buddhist iconography exhibit the next!

[foundincollections]

Yes, please, do lie right in the middle of the floor in the path through which other patrons must walk to enter the galleries. Enjoy the video, while your parental unit stands by impotently, allowing you to do so.

[foundincollections]

Oh Joy

Upon my arrival at work this morning, I was greeted by a leak in the ceiling of collections.  Our collections repository has two floors.  Mine is upstairs.  

Water was actively pouring from the ceiling tiles in the African section.  Water was pooling in the two light fixtures there.  Water was running off of shelving into big, yellow puddles on the floor on either side of the shelving units.

Artifacts were wet.

My nightmare had become a reality.

I have to toot my own horn here.  I’ve received training on how to handle this type of situation, but have never had to deal with it in the 8 years I’ve been here.  But, as soon as I saw the water, everything I’d learned kicked in.

I immediately notified our CEO/Director, Curator/COO, Exhibits Manager/Head of Maintenance, and Maintenance/Custodian of the situation.  Then, I ascertained the damage, noted wet artifacts, immediately spread plastic, and began to move the wet artifacts to the plastic.  Our EM and maintenance arrived super fast, who helped me move remaining artifacts out of the danger zone to prevent them from getting wet.  Soon, the director and curator arrived and the director had already called the city’s public works guys (we’re a city department).  Those guys arrived super fast, too.

Fortunately, most of the artifacts in that area had already been moved to our changing gallery for an exhibit, so the shelves were mostly empty.  What could’ve been a horrendous thing ended up being “not so bad”.  *wipes brow*  We ended up with only one permanently damaged artifact.

[foundincollections]

“Things I Never Thought I’d Say” No. 562

Today, I dusted a baboon’s butt.

[foundincollections]

The new aquarium installation is almost finished. They’ve got some lighting to do before we can say it’s done, but the children are happy. Our regulars were sad when we ended the marine exhibit in our changing gallery, so they were excited to see the fish back & in a bigger aquarium.

[foundincollections]

Last week, we moved the hammerhead shark (that we had in our Live Salty exhibition) into the coastal area of the Alabama hall. In a few weeks, they’ll add wavy underwater lighting.

[foundincollections]

A sneak peek at the exhibition that opens in February. We’ve moved the cases around to their general locations. Script has been written and is currently being mounted on substrate. Artifact labels are printed. Fabric for case skirts should be in on Thursday. Then, it’ll be time to sew, sew, sew.

[foundincollections]

Close-ups of some of the newly-installed specimens