The entire museum is in an uproar. Everybody is running around like a chicken with their head cut off...including me! Board meetings start on Thursday, and they are one of the biggest things that the museum does throughout the year. All the trustees of the various museums come in and they have really big meetings talking about what the museums are doing and what they want them to look like for the next year. Apparently Dick Cheney is one of the trustees for one of the museums, either Buffalo Bill or the Whitney, I can't remember. Anyway, he came to a meeting once while he was still VP and security was out of control. They had to build a special enclosed walkway from his car to the door and visitors to the museum could only bring in a wallet and a camera. Since there aren't any suspicious wooden structures outside the museum right now, I don't think he's coming. :)
I've been working early and late this week trying to get as many hours in as I can since I'll be missing Thursday, Friday, and Monday. In case you weren't aware, I'll be flying home early Thursday morning and back out here on Monday. One of my best friends from high school is getting married on Saturday and I'm one of her bridesmaids. I'm really looking forward to being home and seeing friends and family, but I will miss being out here. I was hoping that I would be here for the board meetings so that I could meet some of the trustees.
Today was really busy. I got through 11 pages in the scrapbook (which i've never gone through that many in 1 day before) and also spent 2 hours looking at prototypes and carpet samples. Matt and Dave, 2 of the carpenters, had built 2 display cases that they are testing for the reinstallation. They are really neat, and I got to watch them pull it apart and show how you can take off one side of it to change out artifacts or work on certain things if need be. The reader rail that is attached to one side pulls the entire side of the display case, including the plexiglass top and wooden bottom. There is a drawer that you can pull out on the other side that they are planning to use for interactive/hands-on artifacts. Nick, the display designer is in this week and has been looking at a lot of the prototype stuff and deciding what works and what doesn't. The main color theme throughout the reinstallation is going to be based on sage, so the carpet samples we've looked at are in the sage family. One of them is a really pretty color, but the pattern just makes my eyes distracted. I keep getting distracted by the pattern instead of looking inside the display case. I've been asked my opinion a couple of times about certain things which has been cool, but by no means does the final decision rest with me. I've just tried to mention practical things that they may or may not have thought of. Matt and Nick are trying to decide the best way to have the bottom of the display case look, whether to have the case on legs, which is easier, cheaper, and looks better, or to put a iron strip around the bottom so people won't kick the case and endanger the objects. I think that the legs look much better and classier, especially on the smaller cases, but I don't know how they can keep dust bunnies from collecting underneath the case, or what to do if somebody should drop something and it go under the case. They're pretty big, so they'd have to find a solution for that problem.
The things the planners think about are hilarious. They plan for people to do the craziest things, which DO happen, but it's funny to think about. They were talking about how to re-inforce the reader rail for when people sit on it to rest, when people sit on the drawers after they open them, how to make the drawers secure for when people slam them open and closed, how to make the label cards in a place that people can't slide things underneath the plastic cover trying to remove them (what they plan to do with it once they get it out, I have no idea!), how to lock the drawer in so that people can't lift them out and only the people who are allowed to lift them out for maintenance can, and other silly things like that. They also have to modify what was built so that wheelchairs can go underneath the reader rail, but not have the artifacts too high for someone in a wheelchair to see.
One funny story from today...a man and his son were looking at the prototype display cases today, and said, "But Dad! There's nothing in there!" (because we don't actually have any artifacts in it yet) The dad responded, "Yes they do! The air in there is air that Buffalo Bill used to use!" Good save, dad. Good save! :)
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