American Family at Children's Discovery Museum

Yesterday we installed this little photography show in the art gallery at Children’s Discovery Museum and in the few hours it's been open, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Not only is the content of the show exciting to me, it was a particular pleasure to collaborate on a project that came together so quickly- just a few weeks, concept to install. With a quick timeline and the promise of a limited engagement, we were able to work in a way that felt much more experimental and responsive than what I'm used to.

I collaborated with art educator and gallery curator Lisa Ellsworth to plan, design and install American Family. She chose seven photographs from Courteney Coolidge’s American Families project to highlight one Bay Area family with two gay moms. To make sure the show felt relevant for all our visitors, Lisa developed an interpretive approach that focuses on the meaning of family and we wrote labels in the form of questions that invite visitors to talk about their own families.

The show opened just in time for San Jose Pride weekend, August 18-19. The Pride festival takes place on the Museum’s front lawn and this is the first year we’ll have Pride-related offerings in the museum itself.

The gallery is in a challenging space- it's part of a hallway that extends around a corner, framed by bathrooms and a defibrillator unit. Most visitors take a glance down the hall and if they don’t have to pee, say, “Oh, there’s nothing down this way- let’s go back downstairs.” Not exactly prime real estate.

But we made the most of it. We placed the larger photographs in strategic sight lines to draw interest from down the hall and positioned a table and chairs in the center to invite the kind of thoughtful lingering that we hoped would happen in our talk-back station. The photos are hung at kid-height so children know the photos are for them and for a bit of extra fun we extended the gallery experience into the rest of the second floor of the museum by including additional questions in places like the bathroom and the elevator.



As soon as the gallery opened, grown-ups were reading the questions on the wall to their children and the clips in the talk-back station filled up immediately. Many visitors have said they really like the photographs and Lisa and I are happy to see visitors spending more time in the art gallery. We're already talking about what's next.

Confusion, naivete, and walking through walls

On the first day of the Interactivity conference this year in Portland, I shared an elevator ride with a tall fellow with a white beard. He saw my badge and asked where the conference was being held so I told him that that's where I was headed and I'd walk him there. Trying to make friendly conversation, I asked him what museum he was from. He said he wasn't with any museum. A firm? I tried. He shook his head and smiled. On the board? Nope. I gave up. When I said I was confused he smiled again and said it was good to be in state of confusion. A half hour later I watched him give the keynote speech, introducing himself to the audience as John Seely Brown, Chief of Confusion.

Sometimes I can feel self conscious about being the new kid in a group of highly experienced professionals. But the truth was, they were all really excited to give me advice and introduce me to people I should know. The more questions I asked, the more answers I got.

As much as I look forward to gaining experience and some day becoming one of the Children's Museum Elders, I realize that I have something to bring to the field as the new kid. My naivete. And I don't mean ignorance. I think there's something valuable about not knowing your own limits.

One of my favorite science fiction novels is Robert Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. The title character is a cat named Pixel whose naivete is his power:

"...Pixel got the tag 'Schrodinger's Cat' hung on him because he walks through walls."
"How does he do that?"
Jane Libby answered, "It's impossible but he's so young he doesn't know it's impossible, so he does it anyhow."

I like that quotation so much I named my own cat after the cat who walks through walls.

Pixel

single oil painting seeks art lover for lifelong relationship

I stumbled upon this Boston start-up from an ad on Facebook and was compelled to check it out. Turning Art has been described as "NetFlix for artwork" but I'd argue it is more like an online dating service for art-lovers with commitment issues. You put together your queue and sign up to receive a print in the mail to try out on your wall. If you happen to fall in love you can choose to purchase the actual painting, but if you decide to just be friends, you can take comfort in knowing you'll have another one coming in the mail in a couple months to swap it out with. Folks who are unsure what kind of art they'd like to share their homes with can test-drive paintings with zero risk and it seems like a moderately effective way for artists to gain exposure and sell their work as well. And as incentive to continue using the service and eventually make a purchase, the longer you subscribe the more credits you accumulate toward buying an original painting. I think the "try it before you buy it" approach sounds rather clever.

While most of the artwork is hideously bad, I did manage to compile a queue that I may someday actually use:

I made my list pretty quickly using the site's "sort by color" tool and choosing orange and blue to match my living room furniture. Since I definitely have the mind of a designer rather than an artist I tend to wonder "does this match my couch?" before "does this hold deep meaning for me?" and so this feature was particularly effective for me.

But I am a little skeptical of the idea of buying art when I've only ever seen it as a print. For me it's not just the imagery but the physicality of the piece that resonates with me. It's the dating site equivalent of committing to someone of whom you've only seen photos. But seriously, I get the feeling this method works better for the photography than paintings on the site. For that reason I'm a little surprised that there are so many more paintings than photographs available.

Skepticism aside, I could definitely see myself trying out a service like this some day when I'm feeling a little less broke. The subscription price is actually very affordable but adding to my art collection right now is a luxury I'm postponing for the time being. Maybe I could save up by making some paintings to sell on the site. It appears that the system works much like a gallery: artists offer their work on consignment. Instead of displaying the work in person, Turning Art creates a number of prints. The prints are loaned but not sold; they explain that the prints are actually destroyed when the original is purchased.

I think this sounds like a really accessible way to enter the world of art collecting. I maintain that gallery shows and street fairs are the ideal venues for finding artwork to fall in love with but what if the art in your town really isn't your type? This just might be the way to go. I'd love to know if anyone out there has used this site, especially if it's culminated in a purchase.

all work and plenty of play

So we just opened a big exhibition at the museum and you could say our exhibit department is suffering through the usual post-partum depression that comes with the culmination of any long-term project like this. Plus it's summertime. We're burnt out and distracted. One way we've been staying inspired is by playing. Here in Silicon Valley, the toy that we've become a little obsessed with is this technological marvel: the overhead projector.

Here we're set up in the bubble exhibit with a bucket of soapy water on the deck of the projector. It couldn't be simpler, but for some reason it's irresistible. This two-and-a-half-year-old was utterly captivated- when it was time to go his mother had to literally drag him away.

And it's just as irresistible for the grown-ups upstairs in the offices. Below, exhibit developer Sara DeAngelis has set up her overhead projector, playing patterns of light on a translucent window between her office and the education department's offices.

Each new thing she places on the projector is met with oohs and ahs and "what's that?!"s from the other side of the wall. Everyone has to come peek in and see what's going on and once they see, everyone wants to come play in Sara's office.

We each bring over all sorts of odd materials to experiment with and watch the results. We ask each other, "What do you think this is?" "Why am I getting this effect?" and "I wonder what would happen if..." It's started a playful dialogue between the departments and reminded us all of the value of curiosity and a sense of wonder.

pricey vs. priceless

Do museums have a kind of moral obligation ... to be free?
(NY Times, June 11)

Is it fair that we the public must pay to enter these temples of culture? Museums are supported by government grants after all. And museums make acquisitions with taxpayer dollars so we're basically paying to see stuff we already own anyway. Right?

Well... not really. If you want to play the "this is our public property" game, don't forget that if you want these paintings/sculptures/giant pandas/redwood forests/jelly fish tanks to be "yours", you need to be paying people to take care of them, protect them, and help you learn about why you want them to begin with. And as for the "I already paid for this with my taxes" argument goes, well that doesn't really work either. We subsidize all kinds of things with our tax dollars. You still have to buy cornflakes and gasoline and pay tolls, and yes, even admission fees. All you did was help knock the admission fee down a little for yourself. Your trip to the Met now costs you $25 instead of $25.01.

Because sure, about a couple hundred dollars of your federal income taxes went to "science/education" this year (most of which goes to the space program and Pell grants). But, divide up your remaining sum amongst 17,500 museums in the United States and you'll see just how generous that penny I gave you is. Of course this is really sloppy; I'm only using federal income taxes and neglecting state and sales tax and of course museums don't each get an annual check from the government. But I think you catch my drift. Our taxes get used for a lot of things. There are a lot of museums. Your taxes pay for plenty of things only part way and museums admission fees fall into that category (wheredidmytaxdollarsgo.com).

But it's not just about dollars and cents. We museum folks seem to have a schizophrenic relationship with the value of our collections as it relates to cost. I don't think it does us much good as museums to simultaneously explain that we are so extraordinary that we need to charge $25 to get in and that our offerings are as essential to the human experience as the very air we breathe. Hard to justify charging that much for air, y'all. Let's get our story straight.

At some point we have to decide whether the museum experience is a fancy luxury, a once-in-a-while treat, a daily expense, a subsidized staple, or a god-given right. Can't have it two ways.

Strand by Strand: Emotional Engagement at the Museum of the Earth

This is the first in a series of posts inspired by the National Research Council report Learning Science in Informal Environments: People Places and Pursuits. The report outlines Six Strands of informal science learning. Each of my posts will focus on a museum exhibit that exemplifies one of these Strands. This post also appears as a review on ExhibitFiles.

Strand One: Developing Interest in Science

"... personal interest and enthusiasm are important for supporting children's participation in learning science." (Learning Science, 43)

If you're not interested in science, chances are you won't want to learn about it. And that's why Developing an Interest in Science is the first Strand in the NRC report. One of the best ways to foster an interest in science is through personal discovery. The feeling of discovery is very emotional and memorable and it helps to build deep, personal connections. Learning Science refers to this as "emotional engagement". The Museum of the Earth of Ithaca, New York knows the power of emotional engagement and invites visitors to make their own personal discoveries in their Fossil Lab.

The Fossil Lab is a facilitated table in the corner of Beneath an Ancient Sea, a gallery in the permanent exhibit Journey Through Time. There, volunteers call visitors over to a series of bins overflowing with locally found fossil-rich shale.

“If you find a fossil, you can keep it,” they say.

I can’t think of a more enticing proposition. On my recent visit to the museum I watched two kids, maybe 5 and 7, sit at this table for a good half hour, jumping up with excitement whenever they found a trilobite or a brachiopod and proudly showing their finds to their mother. The volunteer scientists behind the counter helped them identify their fossils, but of course the real prize was the thrill of discovery and taking home a special treasure.

It came as no surprise to learn from one of the scientists volunteering at the table that day that this experience is incredibly labor intensive to maintain and staff. They have to pore over most of the shale before it goes out on the table to ensure good fossil content and the table must be staffed at all times. On my rainy Saturday visit there were no staff members on the floor except for in that corner. The museum realized they had a successful, popular activity and made it their priority. At other museums, these kinds of facilitated experiences are often overlooked or ruled out for lack of resources, but even a small museum like the Museum of the Earth can maintain a docent station like the Fossil Lab if they decide it's important enough.

Judging from the squeals of excitement coming from the Fossil Lab, I’d say the Museum of the Earth made an excellent call. There’s no doubt in my mind that the children I watched will be talking about their discoveries and showing off their souvenir fossils for years to come. The highly emotional experience of discovering something for yourself not only builds strong memories, it gives you a sense of ownership and personal connection to what you're learning about. And it's through those connections that you start developing the interest in science that provides the foundation for science learning.

off the wall: pirates!

I started writing for this new blog called Off the Wall, dedicated to critical reviews of contemporary history exhibits and displays. I'll be re-publishing my posts for Off the Wall here for your reading pleasure.

A week ago I put on my boots and my puffy white shirt and sailed up to the NorCal Pirate Festival, a pirate-themed event at the docks on Mare Island in Vallejo California. There were vendors selling piratey wares, musicians playing sea shanties, games of all kinds, and more pirates than I’d ever seen! Perhaps more pirates than the world has ever seen: the festival has unofficially broken the Guinness record for the largest pirate gathering in history.

Amidst all the revelry, I spied a tent with some well-dressed looking folks who didn’t look like pirates to me. Curious, I struck up a conversation with a man who introduced himself as William Fairfax - not a pirate! He explained that I was in the Bahamas and I’d stumbled upon the Governor’s House at Nassau harbor on the island of New Providence, a British colony. The year was 1781. He introduced me to the honorable Governor Woodes Rogers who told me the story behind their camp.

According to the Governor, in the 1780s Nassau looked not unlike our 2010 Festival: a haven for all manner of pirates. These were the real pirates of the Caribbean. Many of them had once been legal privateers, and some upheld a code to only plunder ships with foreign flags, but nevertheless they were thieves and British merchants were losing most of their ships’ cargos to pirates. Something had to be done.

And that was where Governor Rogers’ plan came in. An ex-privateer himself, Rogers won the favor of pirate governor Benjamin Hornigold and together the two led a pirate recovery program.

It was refreshing to see the other side of the law represented at the Pirate Festival and I told Governor Rogers this. He nodded and said that he’d wanted to “even things out a bit” and this was his way of adding an educational dimension to the festivities. He lamented the lack of historical accuracy in popular pirate movies featuring sea monsters and zombies. “History is more interesting and fantastical than fantasy,” he said. “It’s some pretty strange stuff.”

The Governor, far right, awaits his turn to sign my pardon.

At this point, Rogers asked me if I would like to renounce my piracy and sign a pardon. I figured that it sounded better than being hanged and he even said I could keep my booty, so it seemed like a pretty good deal. The governor signed and stamped my pardon and I was no longer pirate. A good thing too because Mr. Fairfax informed me that another lady pirate, Anne Bonny, was due to be “given a fair trial and hanged” that very day.

I'm a proud reformed pirate.