Progress......

To be honest, I didn't do much involving my thesis over Winter Break. Most of my project's progress has occurred over the past two weeks. I finally have an interview Roger Remington set up, and am currently waiting for word back from Jennifer Whitlock. Both interviews I am initially conducting via email as a way to let my interviewees take the time and space they need to provide well rounded answers.

While I wait for my interviewees to respond I am gathering eclimate data for the 4th floor stacks at the Vignelli Center and filling out my thesis sections on the scope of the collections, biographical information on the Vignelli's and my conclusion and recommendation.

I currently feel very overwhelmed, but Dr. Lent says thats normal and I am actually very on track, so I will take her word for it.

Artpark Spring Season

Over the winter break, I focused on gathering the preliminary data for my relational database. I visited the Burchfield Penney archives once again to specifically examine records from 1974 and 1975, the first two years of Artpark's operation. What I learned then was that Artpark actually had a publication that ran during the years of my study. Articles featuring specific artists might be useful in the future for receiving a more complete picture of their careers prior to their residencies.

I am currently developing the database using Airtable. So far, I am finding Airtable very easy to use and it allows me to easily keep track of which artists went through the same institutions in their careers. However, gaps in the data are becoming inevitable, as the archival documents cannot provide complete exhibition history for every artist. Additionally, not all of the artists-in-residence were visual in their medium. Some were performers, some were poets, and some were even educators. I will have to determine how I would want to distinguish between these different mediums in my database.

As for figures, if I had a time machine, I could go back in time and take my own photos of the temporary land art created at Artpark. Unfortunately, I cannot and the ephemeral works no longer exist (although some were recreated recently). So I will likely stick with screenshots of the database and resulting visualization. 

Case Study Progress

Since intersession, I have decided on a film collection to pull films from for case studies, the John Allen Collection. A former student from 2000 inspected a group of films from this collection which I am now using for my case studies.

The films are silent nitrate prints and from the early 20th century. The films I am inspecting are at varying levels of decay. These films are held at the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center owned by the George Eastman Museum. I have been visiting the conservation center to inspect the films, Collection Manager, Deborah Stoiber, has been there to assist and instruct me.

As of today, I have inspected the film Garden of Allah and found that since the films have been put into the nitrate vaults the amount of decay has slowed considerably since they were last inspected in 2000. I have plans to inspect 5 titles total and compare them to each other. In the end, I hope to be able to conclude the storage conditions have slowed the rate of decomposition for all of the titles.


I am continuing to add information on current preservation practices and am deciding whether or not to add in the costs associated with preservation. 

New Semester Update!

Over the winter break, I took admittedly more of a vacation from my thesis than I was planning on, but now the new semester has started and I've jumped right back into work!

After completing a first draft, I feel much more confident in the direction that my thesis is going, as I've moved on from ideas to more hard data. In writing my proposal I focused a lot on the history and theory of public history and podcasting, and now I have transitioned to focusing on my case studies, BackStory Radio and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.

In researching and investigating these podcasts, I was fortunate enough to be able to conduct an interview with Dr. Nathan Connolly, one of the four main hosts of backstory radio. Being able to talk directly with someone in the podcasting realm, and even better on one of my case studies, will be an invaluable resource going forward and I am very excited to incorporate it into my work.

Going forward, I will be diving further into my research of these two podcasts and will work to tie together my initial research with the data I am collecting now.

Spring semester updates

Because my project is research-based, I didn't get to do anything too exciting or hands-on over the break. This format allows me to work on my thesis at more of my own pace, and not that of a more rigid project schedule, which I think is helping me a lot. I find myself writing at odd times, like during a quick 20 minute break or really late at night, but every little paragraph is still progress!

As I began writing, I started to notice a few "holes" in my research. I had originally thought some of my sources would have enough material, but I find myself wanting to add a bit more, just to improve the flow. It's difficult to know whether I'm dwelling too much on background context and the history of museum education, but I'm assuming that I'll end up cutting a decent portion of that first section of my paper. The more I write, the better idea I have of what research I still need.

After today's class, I'm now trying to think ahead to what types of images would be appropriate to include. The final "product" of my thesis will be a list of suggested applications of museum education methods to selected Common Core standards, so maybe a table would be an efficient way of listing that information.

Winter in Rochester

Shed A at the Rochester Public Market
Photo taken by author on Jan. 4, 2018

    A new year has started and I have continued on with my thesis research in the form of sit visits and observations at RPM. I have met some wonderful people; RPM vendors and staff members, such as Evan Lowenstein- who was incredibly helpful and welcoming in my efforts to gather information. In fact, I'd like to make a point of saying how grateful I am for everyone's patience and willingness to help me whenever I have questions or want to bounce an idea off the wall. I am always aware of how new I am to this major (this is my third semester in Museum Studies!) and it has been an incredible learning curve as I navigate through my classes and the experiences I have there in. 

 So far, this years' most rewarding moment at the RPM for me, was when I went early on Saturday morning to perform a site visit. There weren't too many people, but there was a sense of warmth and ease among the other visitors that were present. I also bought an arm full of groceries for $6 and made a meal that lasted me two days (would've lasted me more, but it was cold and I was starving).  

A lot of other things have happened, but for this post, I'd like to keep to the positive. Until next time.

~Kayla

                                

  

Draft 1 changes have commenced

The Changes that I have made to my first draft have been under way with me finding grammatical errors and removing the names of the authors from the Lit Review that I created. This has allowed me to get closer and closer to creating a final draft that I hope will have thirty pages by the end of the semester at the very least. I do intend to add certain tables and charts to show the loss of life from those who served and, or, died in Europe. The charts will also be used to show the multiple businesses that contributed to the war and what they managed to send to the front.
I hope that when we reach the next hurdle it will take more of a shape of a professional paper. While a small part of me hopes I will finish the paper before April I know this isn't going to happen so I won't get my hopes up. Can't wait to learn how to make my paper even better.

New Semester, New Progress, New Goals

This is the beginning of my final semester here at RIT, and also the beginning of the homeward stretch towards completing my thesis.  As this is my first post of the semester, I thought it would be appropriate to take this opportunity to provide an update on what I was able to accomplish over the winter break, and what I still have yet to accomplish.

To briefly review, I am exploring the ways in which the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit can be redesigned to represent native cultures more accurately and fully. This exploration will take several forms including exhibit surveys, research into the history of Native American collections and representation in American museums and suggested methods for the redesign of Native American exhibits that have been put forth by museum professionals, historians, and civil rights activists over the past 25 years, an interview with the Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits at the RMSC, and several visitor observation sessions.  The intended result of this work will be a series of recommendations for the RMSC’s collections and exhibitions staff to consider as they work to redesign Native Peoples over the next several years.

Over break I was able to return to the RMSC to speak with Kathryn Murano, Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits, in order to gain a better understanding of the thematic direction she and the RMSC see Native Peoples moving towards over the next few years.  While I was there, I also conducted a brief visitor observation session, which provided some interesting insights/considerations for me to look into as I continue my work (for example, young children need steps-ups to view the dioramas in the exhibit, however they are an impediment to people who need to use wheelchairs or walkers-- this is important to consider when making recommendations of how to better accommodate all visitors within the space, so they can all learn from and enjoy the exhibit equally).

I also visited the Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY, which I intend to compare/contrast to Native Peoples, not only because it offers an example of Native Americans representing themselves in a museum space, but because it reflects newer trends in exhibition design in general, and provides a number of interesting solutions/ideas that could be incorporated into Native Peoples.

With regards to my remaining goals, beyond the actual thesis writing process, I would like to visit the RMSC again in February in order to complete one last round of visitor observations.  I intend to visit on a weekend, as I haven’t visited the exhibit during the weekend yet (my previous visits occurred over a holiday weekend in the afternoon and on a Friday morning), and I want to see if the museum attracts a slightly different visitor pool on the weekends than during the week, and if so, what their interactions with and in the exhibit are like.

In addition, I intend to virtually “tour” several exhibits from the National Museum of the American Indian or NMAI (which has branches in both New York City and Washington, DC), in order to see how a museum focused solely on Native American representation (some might argue the museum of Native American representation) presents various themes and topics, both from an intellectual (content) and technical (design) standpoint.

I look forward to continuing the thesis process and seeing it completed in the (very) near future.