General – Page 17 – Smithsonian Affiliations

call for ideas for the 2015 Affiliations Conference

October 29, 2014/in Behind the Scenes, Conference Ideas, enewsletter feature, General, Uncategorized /by Jennifer Brundage

Affiliate staff enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour at the 2014 Affiliations conference.

Mark your calendars now for the annual Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, June 15-17, 2015. The conference strives to engage Affiliate and Smithsonian colleagues in dialogues about current issues, best practices and collaboration potential.

Most conference sessions feature both Affiliate and Smithsonian staff, and highlight timely and relevant topics facing the field today. The staff of Affiliations is in full planning mode now, and would love to hear from you. Below are some topics we have been discussing as possible sessions and/or tours. What would you add to the list? Can you lend expertise or perspective to any of the topics?

Thanks in advance for helping us plan the best conference possible!

Ideas under consideration as tours or sessions:

Millenials – how to attract and engage them, and make them members.
Branding – Ideas for Affiliates as brand ambassadors, and as SI highlighted content
Visiting Professional alumni – what did they do with their SI experience?
Music Initiative – what SI and Affiliates are doing, and how can we do it together?
Connecting art and science
Mentorship writ large
Cocktail history as a hot new programming tool
Crowdsourced projects – can we grow them together?

If you have other ideas to share for the 2015 conference, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee at bugbeee@si.edu.

coming up in affiliateland in november 2014

October 27, 2014/in Affiliates in the News, enewsletter feature, Exhibitions, General, Uncategorized, You Heard It Here First /by Jennifer Brundage

Even though the weather is turning chilly, Affiliates are keeping things hot with events from coast to coast.

CALIFORNIA
General John Dailey, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, will be inducted into the International Air and Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, 11.1.

Environmental pins on loan from the Smithsonian to an Affiliate in California

The Sonoma County Museum will present Hole in the Head: The Battle for Bodega Bay and the Birth of the Environmental Movement exhibition, featuring 13 protest buttons on loan from the National Museum of American History, in Santa Rosa, 11.2.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The National Inventors Hall of Fame will participate in the Smithsonian Innovation Festival in Washington, 11.1-2.

Organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, an exhibition titled Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College opens at the Smithsonian, presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture in their gallery at the National Museum of American History in Washington, 11.7.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Heinz History Center presents jazz innovation as part of its Places of Invention ongoing project with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center, in Pittsburgh, 11.1.

NEBRASKA
Undersecretary Richard Kurin presents a talk and booksigning on The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects at the Durham Museum in Omaha, 11.4.

Earth from Space exhibition in New Mexico

NEW MEXICO
Dr. Andrew Johnston, geographer and curator at the National Air and Space Museum, presents a public talk at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, 11.6.

VIRGINIA
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens presents The Face of the Nation: George Washington, Art, and America symposium, featuring National Portrait Gallery curator Wendy Wick Reaves and curator emerita Ellen Miles, at Mount Vernon, 11.7.

GEORGIA
National Portrait Gallery researcher and author Warren Perry presents a public lecture on Guns, Horses, Uniforms, and More Guns: Themes of American Civil War Visual Culture at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, 11.13.

Jeff Post, Curator at the National Museum of Natural History will present a public lecture on the Hope Diamond at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, 11.21.

PUERTO RICO
Affiliations Director Harold Closter leads a workshop on Designing Museum Budgets at the Museo y Centro de Estudios HumanÃsticos in Gurabo, 11.15.

25 Smithsonian artifacts from the film industry will be on view soon in North Carolina

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will present Starring North Carolina! an exhibition of the state’s role in the film industry featuring 25 artifacts on loan from the National Museum of American History, in Raleigh, 11.15.

LOUISIANA
Undersecretary Richard Kurin presents a talk and booksigning on The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, 11.18.

road report: the smithsonian in sunny california

October 14, 2014/in General, Road Reports, Uncategorized /by Laura Hansen

On the road in sunny California!

Three and a half days, 559 miles and visits to eight Smithsonian Affiliates in southern California, only just begins to describe my recent trip to the west coast. I had traveled to Los Angeles to attend the opening event for Cahuilla Continuum: TÃºku, Ãvax, TÃºleka, the Riverside Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition telling the story of a Southern California Native people, the Cahuilla. This gave me the welcome opportunity of visiting the Smithsonian Affiliates in and surrounding Los Angeles. The following is a recap of my whirlwind tour.

Cerritos Library

I should start by saying that with 23 Smithsonian Affiliates, California has more Smithsonian Affiliates than any other state in the union. Most states have three or four (and we have yet to Affiliate with a few states) but the diversity of California’s cultural landscape is certainly well represented in our west coast partners.

Cerritos Library, is a library (and Smithsonian Affiliate) like few others. There is an aquarium, reading labs, exhibition spaces and an art collection. It was terrific to see the community using this resource so thoroughly.

The garden at LA Plaza through the grey metal gates.

On day 2, I visited LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a wonderful space in a historic building- often so rare in the west. The garden takes advantage of the hot California sun to teach students about nutrition and agriculture.

The Apollo Boilerplate at Columbia Memorial Space Center, on loan from the National Air and Space Museum.

In the afternoon, I visited the Columbia Memorial Space Center, home to an Apollo “Boilerplate,” on loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Then I headed towards northeast toward Alta Loma to visit one of our newest Smithsonian Affiliates, the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts. The visit to this woodworker artist’s home gave me a better understanding of the huge impact his work has had in the art world.

Here I am in a Sam Maloof chair.

The next day, my morning began with a visit to a school on an Indian reservation; the Riverside Metropolitan Museum had brought two scholars from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian as part of their annual Smithsonian Week in Riverside. The students asked great questions and shared their own experiences with the visitors from DC. We stopped in at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum in Palm Springs, also a Smithsonian Affiliate, to see their latest exhibition, Through You, Our Ancient Leaders, We Became: Birth of the Agua Caliente Band.

Michael Hammond, Director of Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and Sarah Mundy, Director of Riverside Metropolitan Museum in front of the display case holding the artifacts on loan from the National Museum of the American Indian.

On the last day of my visit I

Students explore study collections after Jill Norwood and Emil Her Many Horses from the National Museum of the American Indian spoke to students during Smithsonian Week in Riverside.

stopped in on two Affiliates: Millard Sheets Art Center in Pomona and the Western Science Center in Hemet, both doing great work connecting their communities with educational resources. I ended my day with the event that had brought me to California: the Riverside Metropolitan Museum was celebrating the opening of their Cahuilla Continuum exhibition, which included three artifacts from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. They were deservedly proud of their work and we were proud of the wonderful partnership between Riverside (and all of the terrific Affiliates in California) and the Smithsonian.

Road Report: Houston, We Have Affiliate Liftoff!

October 9, 2014/in General, Road Reports, Uncategorized /by Elizabeth Bugbee

Road Report- Harold, October 8, 2014

Houston, we have liftoff!

The first thing you see when you pull into the parking lot of Space Center Houston is a full-scale space shuttle replica perched upon a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It’s a neck-stretching sight, and an awesome introduction to the many wonders of our new Smithsonian Affiliate.

Space shuttle replica atop a NASA shuttle carrier

Opened in 1992, Space Center Houston boggles your brain, tugs at your heart, and sparks your imagination at every turn – it’s the story of spaceflight under one (very large) roof, with many more roofs (and displays) next door at the Johnson Space Center.

Richard Allen, Chief Executive Officer, Space Center Houston, in front of Mercury Space Capsule on loan from the National Air and Space Museum.

Richard Allen, Space Center Houston chief executive officer, and his hard working staff have created a diverse array of engaging experiences – large-format film theaters, interactive spaces for children of all ages, demonstration stages led by knowledgeable and enthusiastic interpreters, and dramatically lit exhibitions that tell the inspiring history of the U.S. space program – its triumphs, tragedies, and enduring influence on our dreams of the future.

Mars Rover prototype on loan from NASM.

Of course, it was a pleasure to see so many artifacts on loan from our National Air and Space Museum (NASM), employed to give an accurate and detailed rendering of the history of spaceflight – command modules like the “Faith 7” Mercury capsule, Gemini 5 and Apollo 17, spacesuits worn by astronauts Michael Collins, Pete Conrad and “Wally” Schirra, a walkthrough Skylab, and a Mars rover prototype – to name just a few. If you take the tour of the Johnson Space Center, you’ll also see a lovingly restored Saturn V Rocket, also on loan from NASM, displayed horizontally in a building nearly 400 feet long. The thought of sitting atop this engineering marvel, waiting to be propelled to the moon, sends shivers down your spine.

Richard Allen and Meg Naumann, Director of Development, in front of the Saturn V rocket, also on loan from NASM.

There’s never enough time to see everything going on at an Affiliate museum or to meet all of the incredible folks who make it happen – staff, volunteers, and supporters – but after a day-and-a half in San Antonio, at The Witte Museum and the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures, and six hours at Space Center Houston, I came away with the distinct impression that “The Lone Star State” has a lot more than one star in its firmament. We are honored that so many Texas luminaries populate our galaxy of Smithsonian Affiliates.

Catch up on Harold’s Witte Museum blog here.

Guest Road Report: Canoeing in Maine

October 9, 2014/in General, Road Reports, Uncategorized /by Jennifer Brundage

Smithsonian Affiliations thanks guest author Tim Grove, Chief of Museum Learning at the National Air and Space Museum for this post, and for his support of Affiliates!

I recently had an incredible visit to the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine’s only Smithsonian Affiliate. I’ve been going on vacation to Mount Desert Island for a number of years and had been encouraging my friend, Cinnamon Catlin-Leguko, President and CEO of the Abbe, to consider the Affiliates program. The Abbe’s collection and mission focuses on the Wabanaki nations and the affiliations program seemed a good fit.

A unique birch bark canoe at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine

On my visit to the Abbe last year, I was happy to see the new Smithsonian Affiliate flag flying out front. I was also intrigued to watch master canoe builder David Moses Bridges (Passamaquoddy) building a 14’ traditional birchbark canoe in the Wabanaki style. It was thought to be the first time in one hundred years that a traditional native canoe had been constructed on the island. Museum visitors could observe the process and learn about the skills involved. (Click here to see images of building the canoe.) After 200 hours of gathering and processing materials and 500 hours of building time, the work of art was completed. The Abbe staff officially launched the canoe last September and it became part of the museum’s teaching collection. In a new educational program, students could learn about traditional native craftsmanship and ingenuity.

This year on my return to the island, Cinnamon invited me to talk about my new book, A Grizzly in the Mail and Other Adventures in American History. It’s an eclectic look at some of the projects I’ve worked on during a career at some of America’s most popular history museums, including three Smithsonian museums. I used to manage the National Museum of American History’s Hands On History Room and am an experiential learner. The book is filled with examples of my hands-on adventures.

So, guess what I really wanted to do? Go for a paddle! Abbe educator George Neptune and his cousin, canoe builder David Bridges, graciously agreed to facilitate my wish. The canoe had never been on the ocean before. They brought the canoe to a dock on Somes Sound (“Pihcicihciqipisipiqe” in the Passamaquoddy language!) a long sliver of ocean slicing the island almost in two. The canoe only weighs 52 lbs. out of the water, but in the water is designed to carry 700-800 lbs of supplies. First David and I took it for a ride and then David let me go solo.

Smithsonian educator Tim Grove paddles in the Abbe Museum’s homemade canoe in Maine.

As I glided through the water I marveled at the ease of travel, while trying to stay low and maintain balance. I wasn’t used to sitting on my knees to paddle. The gray sky and placid water were perfect conditions for this new hands-on history opportunity.

I shared some of my history stories a few nights later at the museum. I talked about my experiences on the Lewis and Clark trail with native teachers, of the challenges of telling Shoshone Indian Sacagawea’s story, and of the incredible insight that tribal advisors offered about pipe ceremonies and other native customs. I shared my favorite story about the corn mill and the Mandans and cultural misinterpretation. And, Cinnamon interviewed me about working at a national museum. The audience asked fascinating questions and once again, I realized how much fun I’ve had on my history adventures.

Affiliates, if you would like to bring Tim to your museum to talk about his book and hands-on history experiences, please contact your National Outreach Manager.

A quintessential shot of the great state of Maine!

road report: Harold in San Antonio

October 8, 2014/in General, Road Reports, Uncategorized /by Elizabeth Bugbee

I had the pleasure of announcing our new Affiliation with The Witte Museum in San Antonio on October 7, 2014. By coincidence The Witte was also celebrating its 88^th birthday, so it was a double pleasure. Marise McDermott, President and CEO presided over the announcement ceremony which included San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor and City Council member Keith Toney. Kind words were spread all around; as always I was humbled and honored to represent the Smithsonian.

San Antonio River runs by the Witte Museum, creating a 13 mile trail from Breckenridge Park to downtown.

I met many wonderful people at the Witte and discovered interesting connections between the Witte and the Smithsonian, especially in the field of paleontology and archaeology. Dinosaurs once ruled south Texas, and Witte Museum Curator of Paleontology and Geology, Thomas Adams, Ph.D., is literally hot on their trail – uncovering dino tracks and other significant fossil remains. Harry Shafer, Ph.D, Witte Museum Curator of Archeology, Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University, has been studying rock art along the lower Pecos River, among the most sophisticated finds in North America.

San Antonio’s Chili Queens are alive and well (and widely appreciated) at the Witte Museum.

The Smithsonian has many long-term interests in San Antonio. The Smithsonian American Art Museum includes works by artists, Jesse Trevino and Mel Casas; Smithsonian Folkways documents the musical heritage of San Antonio, from legendary corrido singer Lydia Mendoza to Grammy Award winning Los Texmaniacs; and the Smithsonian Magazine recently paid tribute to San Antonio’s fabulous Chili Queens, 19^th century food entrepreneurs who helped make the taco the world’s favorite meal.

The new South Texas Heritage Center at the Witte Museum — a taste of more to come.

There’s a lot going on at the Witte on which to build our partnership and more to come when the museum completes Phase II of its grand expansion project in 2017.

Angelica Docog and Aaron Parks of the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures, our other Affiliate in San Antonio, joined the festivities and then brought me back to see an amazing exhibit on Texas Quilts on display in their facility in Hemisphere Park. We talked about several new exhibits they are planning to install including one on Sikh history and culture from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Angelica filled me in on the success of their Smithsonian Youth Access Grant, Young Historians/Living Histories and how it helped the Institute build bridges to San Antonio’s Korean community.

What would a Texas be without a long-horned steer? This might be one of the longest long-horns.

One cannot visit San Antonio without feeling a sense of vibrancy – a growing city with a strong economy, a major convention and tourist destination, a proud history and a bright future. How wonderful to see our Affiliate colleagues leading the charge.

Tomorrow, I get to announce another new Affiliate – Space Center Houston. It’s a good week for lifting off!