Dark Corner of the Internet

In a few short weeks MOHAI is opening a major exhibition about food culture in Seattle called Edible City. Even though food is the focus, there will also be clothes-- including some chef's jackets and dresses worn to a famous Seattle restaurant.  For various reasons, we wanted a couple of the mannequins to not be the usual ones we had in stock. So I was tasked with finding some new mannequins.

***WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS INANIMATE OBJECT NUDITY***

Since we had a limited budget and limited time, it meant finding something from a retail supply company rather than a custom order from someplace fancy. So I went online to search. And I'm here to tell you that the internet world of mannequins was grimmer and even more upsetting than I expected.

I realize that the bar for icky things on the internet is set pretty high, but I still feel like this was a dark little corner I had stumbled upon. 

The idea was to get mannequins that were a bit more dynamic and lifelike than our regular ones. So I guess, faces? But if the faces are painted, you sort of need wigs...

Ok, ok, no wigs. Maybe "molded" hair? 

Erm. A little better, I guess, but sort of hard to pass her off as a 1930s housewife, right? 

Hey, oh actually this molded hair one looks a little better... 

Wait...how come all the non-white mannequins are specifically listed as "Ethnic" or "African"? 

This...feels a bit racist. I guess it is good that they even sell mannequins that aren't white, but you lose points if the white version of the style is "female mannequin" and the black version is "ethnic female mannequin." And you definitely lose points if all your "African" mannequins are in a separate special category, away from all your "regular" (white or abstract) mannequins. 

Oh there was also a site that used "Latin style" as the euphemism for mannequins with larger butts. 

Even without the casual/blatant racism, there were lots of weird categories on the sites. Some that I really didn't want to click on...

And some that were a little more intriguing. Like a whole section of "Euro Male" mannequins???

Tell me more!!

And then there was just straight-up nightmare fodder. 

Aren't you glad I started blogging again?

This is Unhelpful

If there was a hippocratic oath for museum collections staff it would definitely contain something about leaving behind information in a form which will be helpful to my successors.  We've all suffered through enough collections mysteries to know that an attitude of "I'm going to make up my own weird system to do this!" and "I'm sure I won't forget to finish that project" is a recipe for disaster.

Worst of all are those projects that someone clearly spent tons of time on which resulted in something completely useless. When one of my coworkers started in the department and asked if the collection had ever been inventoried she was told "yes! lots of times!" and shown a drawer full of lists of artifacts. No location information, no images, no condition details. Just a list of artifacts by type.

Anyway, so while working on our collection of fans, I found a note so astonishingly unhelpful I had to laugh. Apparently, some sort of fan expert had been through the box and wrote a summary of what was found inside. Here it is verbatim, IN IT'S ENTIRETY:

1983

Some inexpensive 20th century fans. 

Most fans in this box are last half 19th century. 

A few 18th century fans. 

Three fantastic (no pun intended) fans I’ve never seen before in 35 years of fan research! No other museum has them, including New York Met., Smithsonian, DeYoung, etc. 

Congratulations!!!

There was no included list indicating which fans were which. NONE. Nothing in the box seemed that amazing to me, but I could identify one or two that seemed to be a little different or of somewhat better quality. I spent some time looking at the Met's database and saw a bunch of SPECTACULAR fans which were way more impressive than anything in this box. 

Theirs:

Ours:

Theirs:

Ours:

Which made me think...who even knows what was in this box when the note was written? Or if the note was even placed with the right box!?! I later came across a few fans that, while not any more exceptional than anything I saw on the Met website, were potentially in the same league. But wait...there's more! A couple boxes later I found ANOTHER note, with the same handwriting, full of more juicy information: 

Most of the fans are last quarter 19th century. Some oriental. Some very good fans. A lot of not so good fans. A few should definitely be mended!

Without any hint of the object numbers or even a vague description or list there was nothing I can do with this information other than throw it away. 

JK I put both notes up on my bulletin board and am going to laugh at them every day. 

Quagmire Surprise

One of the tough things about collections work is that you can have a great plan for what you want to get done that day, and then just unexpectedly wander into a giant project that takes multiple days to resolve.

This week I was looking for interesting deaccessioned artifacts for a hands-on activity I'm doing at the museum. I wanted to show some examples of different kinds of damage (fading, bug holes, silk shattering) and I remembered seeing some boxes in storage labeled "examples of deterioration." I found them and brought them into the conservation lab to take a look. Sure enough, the boxes contained a bunch of super sad, damaged, crumbling-to-bits objects.

As I began looking at them I started to see accession numbers and I got nervous. These items were deaccessioned right? I mean everything is jammed together and there are like three dresses just wadded up in the bottom of this box. These aren't STILL ARTIFACTS ARE THEY?!?!?!

Oh yeah. They were artifacts.

I was reeeeeelly close to just closing the boxes back up, putting them back on the shelf, and pretending like I didn't see anything.

But no. I was in this mess and the only thing to do was to take the time to properly sort it out. I got out new, bigger boxes that would fit the items more comfortably. I re-packed everything and wrapped the boxes for freezing (since some of the "condition issues" were bug damage I wanted to be safe). Once they are out of the freezer I'll go through them more carefully, officially proposing some for deaccession and do my best to stabilize/clean/take care of anything we really should be keeping.

Once I went through everything, I actually discovered that the two items that were in the worst condition had already been deaccessioned.

...but one of them had a Seattle label.

End of Year Cleanup

One of the best gifts I got for Christmas this year was a vase of fake flowers for my desk. You see, I'm not allowed to have fresh flowers in my office. (Actually, I always feel sort of strange saying that I'm "not allowed" as if it is cruelly banned by some order on high. Us collections folks put that rule on ourselves.  We are obsessed with keeping bugs out of the collection, and so we self-impose a no food and no fresh flowers policy in our office space.) So my parents bought me a lovely vase of fake flowers.

One requirement of the gift was that I clean off my work desk to make room for them. I have a problem of allowing mountains of papers to pile up on my desk, and since last year I was sick on New Year's Eve for my usual year-end desk clean-off day, I had TWO YEARS worth of desk piles to go through this year.

But I got through it and oh man did it feel good. I love the last two weeks of the year. It is a quiet time to just wrap up a lot of loose ends and get stuff done. Besides cleaning off my desk I...

Put away about 40 hats that had been inventoried but not yet put in boxes

Finished processing all the 2015 clothing and textile accessions

Best moment for that was when I was going through some items from the 1990 Goodwill games and was using my friend EB (who was a Russian major) to help translate the text on a shirt that had been purchased from a vendor at the games. Here is paraphrased version of our text conversation:

Me: Can I get some help with some Russian translation?
EB: Yes!
Me: [Sends photo of patches on shoulders]
Me: It is a sailor-style shirt that looks very official. So maybe the word is "Navy" or "Security"?
EB: Umm....I think it says "Fish Farm"

(We eventually figured out that it was an abbreviation for the Ministry of Fisheries)

Finished a super exciting data cleanup project that a volunteer and I have been chipping away at for over a year

Wrapped up some loose ends from the shoe project

There were some random socks and spats that had been found on the shelves which needed to be moved to different places, and there were two pairs of thigh-high boots which I hadn't figured out what to do with yet.

The shafts of the boots (yes, that is what it is called) were very fabric-y so rather than stuff them like tall leather boots, I stuffed the feet and then rolled the tops of the boots into neat little bundles.

Found some interesting stuff on my messy desk

On a page of random notes from something I attended in 2015 I found the following message:

"A necessary first step to grandeur is a delusion of grandeur"

I've decided to make that my motto for 2016.

Boot Time

You know how back in olden times people didn't have TV or movies or the internet or basically any entertainment beyond knitting and using a stick to roll a hoop around?

These poor children never lived to see Bachelor in Paradise

And you think how on earth did they spend their time? What did they do with all of those empty, Netflix-less hours?

Well friends, I have discovered the answer. 

They spent those extra hours lacing up their shoes. 

Even this illustrator got exhausted and just did the laces halfway

Ok, so this may not be the most accurate depiction of history, but I spent some time unlacing and re-lacing some historic boots this week and it took forever. 

I'm at the tail end of the shoe project, and there are just a few things left to do. One of those things is putting proper stuffing in the shoes that are fragile or difficult. There are several pairs of tall lace-up or button-up boots that I've elected to do myself because they take patience and care--and for some reason I was under the illusion that those were qualities I possessed. 

It was just one shoe! How did the time just melt away?!?!

This was a pair where both of the shoes used to be laced like the one on the right. I had thought that maybe the laces were broken or the holes were ripped so they couldn't be laced properly, but after taking a careful look I realized that someone started and was then like I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS and just wrapped the rest around in a big knot.  It is a beautiful thing when you connect with someone from the past and feel like you share a moment with them. I feel you, person who gave up on properly lacing these shoes. I share your pain, I will continue your work. We are one. 

Save the Ward County Historical Society!

This week, everyone was talking about the terrifying New Yorker article about how Seattle may soon be destroyed by a massive earthquake.

At first, most of us were like…

I’ve been hearing about “The Big One” since middle school. Seattleites know about the risk. If you are scared please move so our housing prices will go down.

But then, in the middle of the night, it was hard not to be like…

Or at work, hard not to have an existential crisis while organizing the shoe collection thinking WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT ALL OF THIS WILL BE SWALLOWED UP SOMEDAY

Everything is meaningless.

But I was also reminded of my visit to the Ward County Historical Society while I was in North Dakota. It is a small historical society that had survived one disaster and now was facing another.

In 2011 there was massive flooding in North Dakota including in Minot. The Ward County Historical Society was in the flood zone, and the whole thing was filled with more than five feet of water. They have multiple buildings on their grounds, some of which were two stories and others which weren’t much taller than five feet to begin with. They had enough warning to put most of the artifacts in the attics of the taller buildings, but there was serious damage on the first floor of everything. The site director who gave me the tour was thrown into her position with no professional museum training and had to figure out how to negotiate with FEMA and get the necessary repairs. It was devastating to hear some of her stories but it was also inspiring. The place was beautiful and full of interesting stuff. When you visit small historical societies, usually the worst thing you see is artifacts that look like they have been on exhibit since the Eisenhower administration. Things are coated in dust, sagging and breaking on their improper mounts, and labels are faded and worn. But between the post-flood renovations and the site director's commitment to rotating displays and putting new things out, everything looked fresh and well-maintained.

Plus, the creepiest mannequin they had was intentionally creepy, so points for that.

Igor just helping out at the car show

It also seemed like a pretty active historical society too—they have all kinds of events, including actual blacksmiths who make stuff in the blacksmith shop on weekends.

The scary thing though is that the society is now facing another threat. They are on the North Dakota State Fairgrounds and the Fair is trying to evict them. By one estimate it would take over $5 million to move all the buildings, assuming that all of them would actually safely make the journey. There are many in the community that are fighting to save the museum, but it isn’t clear yet if the effort will be enough. And what does the fairground want with the space? Well, they aren’t being specific, which means it very well might be used for something riveting like storage or additional parking. I was told that one of their main arguments was that the Historical Society isn’t money generating.

IT'S CALLED A NON-PROFIT

You know that prayer about accepting the things you cannot change and having the courage to change the things you can?  Museums should have disaster plans and do what they can to prepare for emergencies, but if a 9.0 earthquake rips through Seattle there isn’t going to be a lot I can do. Fault-lines and floodplains are things you and I cannot change.

In many ways, the bigger threat to museums is apathy, and it is something that we can change.  A community that cares can rebuild. FEMA doesn’t pay 100% for repairs. Ward County Historical Society got back in shape because people gave money and time and resources. But if enough people in the community don’t care about history or museums, they are going to see more benefit in a parking lot than an educational space. Apathy is the real threat that keeps museum workers up at night, and the one we work to change every day.

(If you are interested in keeping up with the Ward County Historical Society, check them out on facebook here.)