Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

Hello again, Bloggers! Over the weekend, the traveling exhibit for Charles M. Schulz opened its doors! It’s pretty excited to have played a part, however small, in helping with this exhibit. It’s a neat collection of Schultz’s works, as well as a really cool area where you can put on football clothes and take a picture like you are Charlie Brown! This picture to the left and right are the general theme for the entire exhibit. Panels of pictures with accompanying text are along the walls, with a Charlie Brown statue in the middle and a few other Plexiglas displays of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and fragile or expensive works of art. I think the most dramatic thing about setting up this exhibit was the time frame that was allowed. Like I mentioned in the previous blog post, we only had a few days to change up the displays. Though we had a lot of people on the museum side, there are a few things to consider in the overall process of changing out an exhibit. If there are holes from the previous exhibit in the walls (which there were) it would be imperative to not only fill in those holes, but to paint as well. Maybe a different color paint on the walls would have suited the exhibit better than the one that is already there? Unfortunately, with limited time, the best that can be done is a quick fill and a small dab of paint – or better, having the new pictures cover the holes as best as possible. If the museum staff could have painted themselves, maybe these pictures would look different. As it is, this is not the job of the museum staff here at the Clinton Library. With such a short amount of time, improvisation is key! Overall, the exhibit is wonderful. I am grateful, however, to have these experiences. I believe that knowing the ends and outs, and shortcomings of museum arrangement is important because it exposes me to the real workings of the museum world. Not everything is going to be unlimited. You may not have a large budget, enormous amounts of time, or a staff of multiple people who can assist you. You may only have a few days to switch out an entire exhibit with limited resources for help. You may also have a larger exhibit than the space calls for, and need to eliminate something. We had to eliminate a few items from the Charlie Brown exhibit because of space. What do you eliminate? Does it change the overall theme of the exhibit? These are very important questions in the museum world! We will be getting a new graduate assistant sometime in the near future! Stephanie has moved on to bigger and better things with the Clinton Foundation. I wonder who will be my new partner in crime? Stay tuned for the next update, bloggers! Until then, have a great week!