Who will be chosen? The decision is yours.
Thanks to Ilana Blumenthal, Public Relations Associate at the National Museum of American Jewish History, for this guest post. My first vote is going to the Marx Brothers. That’s an easy one. Their quick wits and dry humor have filled both my childhood and adulthood with laughter, and to me, humor is one […]
Let’s Eat
On Monday July 12, Smithsonian Networks launches the second season of its signature series, “Stories from the Vaults” with a look at the incredible, edible Smithsonian. It features Native cuisines and collections of the Pacific Northwest at the American Indian Museum (think: salmon!), and the origins of the American coffee break in the American History […]
Textile Revolution!
What do sheep and baseballs have in common? This is one of the many intriguing questions answered in the new permanent exhibition, Textile Revolution: An Exploration through Space and Time at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. On June 19, the Museum cut the ribbon on their own revolution. Having been closed for […]
Masterpiece on the Move
A masterpiece by one of America’s most renowned 19th-century landscape artists will soon make its way west from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, the only Smithsonian Affiliate in Wyoming. Thomas Moran’s The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1893 – 1901) will be on loan from […]
“An Open Smithsonian, all around”
An interesting blog post by Gunter Waibel of RLG Programs, (a group which supports research institutions in collaboratively designing the future) commenting on the Smithsonian’s hot topic – how to “diffuse knowledge” in the 21st century with the creation of a web and new media strategic plan: As part of the process for arriving at the Smithsonian’s Web and New Media strategic […]
Affiliates at AAM
Affiliates provided alot of insight at the recent AAM meeting in Philadelphia. Cassie Chinn, Deputy Executive Director of the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, presented in a session titled Community-Curated Exhibit Programs. She described how the process of incorporating the community into every exhibition process is time-consuming and complicated, but that the Museum has made that […]
Girl Scouts “Go the Distance” for a Merit Badge with Smithsonian American Art
Special thanks to Mike Irwin, Distance Learning Coordinator at the Durham Museum in Omaha, for this guest post. Group Programs Manager, Molly Gruber walked into the Distant Learning Coordinator’s office at the Durham Museum and asked, “Can we connect girl scouts with experts to talk about the security of rare and priceless art objects?” Two months […]
Cross Collection searching
Ever wish you could go to one place to search across the whole Smithsonian for objects? We want that for you too! and we’re getting closer and closer. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden was just added to the Smithsonian’s Cross Searching Center, along with the great collections from the National Postal Museum, the National […]
Collaborating in Pennsylvania
I just got back from a road trip to Pennsylvania, and what struck me with all the Affiliates I visited there was the various and creative ways they are all collaborating, with each other and with their greater communities. In Hershey… The Antique Automobile Club of America Museum partnered a while ago with the Museum of […]
Collaboration is Key
Thanks to Nancy Crane, Director of Education, Culture & Heritage Museums, for this guest post. After hearing Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), speak on the topic of collaboration at the 2007 Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, we knew that we would like to work and collaborate […]
Do you qualify for stimulus funding?
Searching for research funding? Grant opportunities are available! The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has budgeted for numerous grant funding opportunities representing agencies government wide. Each agency has been allocated varying amounts of money to support research in all different fields of studies. For the latest information regarding Recovery Act grant announcements please […]
Museum Transparency
SI Staff were treated last week to a lecture by Max Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He kicked off his lecture with a “memo” by President Obama urging transparency not only in government, but across all organizations. Anderson then made quite a cogent argument for greater transparency in the museum world. He argued, […]
The Other 90% in Atlanta
Thanks to Louise Shaw, Curator, Global Health Odyssey Museum, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for this guest post. As curator of the Global Health Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] in Atlanta, I had the challenging and exciting task of designing and installing Design for the Other 90%. This traveling […]
Kansas City – Jazz, BBQ and Beyond
Thanks to Andrew Zender, Director of Communications at the American Jazz Museum, for this guest post. Born in America, jazz is our nation’s only indigenous art form and one of our greatest treasures. Kansas City is one of the important incubators of jazz, and within its borders is one of the greatest crossroads of American music […]
In Plane View at Kansas Cosmosphere
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, our Smithsonian Affiliate in Hutchinson, Kansas, served as the perfect backdrop for the opening stop of the national tour of In Plane View/Abstractions of Flight, a traveling exhibit from the National Air and Space Museum, featuring the remarkable photographs of Smithsonian photographer, Carolyn Russo. As a guest attendee on January […]
Cupcake love at American Art
Our friends at the American Art Museum celebrated Valentine’s Day by inviting cupcake artist Zilly Rosen to create “A New Birth of Freedom,” a double portrait of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama made from more than 5,600 cupcakes. As you can see, each cupcake played a vital role as one “pixel” in the sugary […]
