Last night I attended a presentation given by Rebecca Crowther who is a photo archivist at the Center for Sacramento History. Rebecca attended Sac State and graduated about 5 years ago with a Special Major Masters in the History of Photography with an emphasis in Archival Studies.  She has been at the history center for about 5 years, starting there as a student worker.  She gave us an overview of what the center is like.  They have photo archives that were donated by the Sacramento Bee that date back quite a ways.  The center started taking in photos in 1968.  They also have a KCRA television archive of film which was used prior to video tape.  The center possesses around 6 million images in the archives.

Rebecca spoke directly to students and what one needs to do in order to get a job like hers.  Basically, her response is, "do anything necessary."  She not only works with photographs but she curates shows, is a guest speaker, assists with and initiates shows and exhibitions, she is the writer, graphic artist, installer, in charge of social media  and fork lift driver... yes just about everything. 

The center does take on student interns, here are the deadlines for application:
August 20 for the Fall sememster
December 20 for the Spring semester
May 20 for the Summer

The center is located at:
551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95811
Telephone: 916-808-7072
They are under "Sacramento History" on Facebook, FLICKR, and You Tube

www.centerforsacramentohistory.org

Lab Hours

Trip to the State Museums Repository Thursday, February 20 (4 hours)
Went to lecture by Rebecca Crowther, photo archivist at the Center for Sacramento History, a former alumni of Sac State (1 hour)

Field Trip Statewide Museums Collection Center

Thank you Carrie and your friends at the center for a great tour.  I was truly overwhelmed by the immense size of that facility.  I particularly like seeing the baskets, especially the caps.  I love the way that they are set up and so well organized.

Do you think that we can borrow some of those awesome old steamship trunks for our exhibit? That would be such an elegant addition to conveying the time period that the Beardsleys had their adventures.

I also liked the muslin covered boxes that were used for display in the main lobby.  An attractive way to display small items without everything just sitting flat on a shelf.

Fiinal Concept for Exhibition

Hello!
I have started a string on Web CT where I attempted to encapsulate our discussion in class yesterday. Please go in and read it and give me your thoughts and suggestions.
Hope to see you all tomorrow.  I am giving a ride to, Fiona, Angelina and Airielle.  We are meeting in front of Lassen Hall at 11:30 a.m. If anyone else needs a ride, let me know I can take one more person, snuggly.

Lab Hours

Lab Hours for the week of February 11 - 17


Researched online, looking for information on Beardsleys  1 hour
Went to the Crocker Art Museum 3 hours
Went to the library at the Crocker 1 hour

At class last Tuesday, Carrie had talked about the Beardsley Collection and one of the pieces she is still looking for is a notebook of information that George Beardsley had written about the San Francisco Panama Pacific Exhibition that took place in 1915.  When I was looking online for information about the Exhibition I cam across a website that has a lot of information about the event.  Actually it was an extravaganza.  Here is the link: http://www.sanfranciscomemories.com/ppie/
There is a page that shows a variety of the souvenirs from the exhibition.  Do you think that any of the items in the CSUS Beardsley Collection were souvenirs from that exhibition?  I have one obscure object in my group that is pocket mirror with an advertisement of Heald Business College.  I wonder if they picked it up at the Pan Pacific Exhibition?  Just a thought.  Pocket mirrors were used as a means for advertisement at the turn of the century so it could have been picked up anywhere I suppose.  But it is sure romantic to think that it came from the Panama Pacific Exhibition.  I wonder if it is mentioned in that missing notebook.

Lab Hours

Tuesday, Febrary 4: Went to the Anth Museum to get my objects, took photos of objects and the old catalog cards. (1 hour)
Wednesday, February 5: Downloaded photos that I took of objects and cleaned up the images and saved them in a usable format (1.5 hours)
Thursday, February 6: Began research of items online.  Gathered information and links. (2 hours)
Friday, February 7: Went to San Francisco State to talk with Professor Luby, Director or Musuem Studies Prgoram. Then went to the De Young Museum to hear a telecast mini lecture and to view several exhibits. (8 hours includes travel time.)

On to the De Young Museum

I could not pass up the opportunity to go to one of my favorite museuems, so after my interview with Professor Luby I went to the De Young Museum.  I had read online about a telecast mini lecture that was going to take place at noon.  So I rushed over and got a front row seat.  The telecast was titled, Google Art Talk:Monuments Men.  A variety of art specialists were giving short talks on the Monuments Men.  Here is a list of the group:

• Melissa Buron, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Beate Fricke, University of California, Berkeley
• Barbara Aikens and Rihoko Ueno, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
• Sally Brazil, The Frick Art Reference Library
• Stephen Bury, The Frick Art Reference Library
• Rebecca Rushfield, American Institute for Conservation Oral History Project

Here is a link to the description of the talks:

https://deyoung.famsf.org/calendar/google-art-talk-monuments-men

There is a new movie out that opened Friday, The Monument Men, on the same subject which is about the Allied Troops, primarily American, who salvaged and re-patriated art that was pilfered and stolen by the Nazi's during WWII. 

Information about the movie (plus):

http://www.monumentsmen.com/

Then I went to see the movie with my sister, brother-in-law and niece on Saturday. I do not read reviews, but I heard they were not good, don't read the reviews, just see the movie.  It is really "monumental" that this story has been made into a movie.  Well, of course, it is not 100% accurate but who cares if it is starring Matt Damon and George Clooney. LOL

I think it was the best weekend that I have had in a long time.

More on the Monuments Men:
http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Europa

Books:
The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War
by Lynn H. Nicholas

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
by Robert M. Edsel

Artwork stolen my the Nazi's is still an issue, here are a couple of interesting articles on some that was just discovered:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24977814

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10437728/Cracking-the-case-of-the-Nazis-stolen-art.html

Field Trip to San Francisco State University

On Friday, February 7 I had a very exciting trip to San Francisco.  First, I went to San Francisco State University and met with Professor Edward Luby, Director of the Museum Studies Program.  I had an appointment to meet with him in regards to the possibility of taking a couple of courses from him at SFSU.  He was very generous in spending about an hour with me talking about the program that they offer.  I am a Special Major Masters student in Art Collections Management here at Sac State and it would be a really fantastic opportunity to be able to take some courses that are more specifically in museum studies than what is offered here at Sac State.  As a matter of fact, the course we are in, ANTH 177 is the only course, that I know of, here at Sac State specifically on the subject of museum methods.  He did agree to allow me to take courses at SFSU.  Now we just have to figure out how that will work administratively.  I am really excited.

On Tuesday, February 4 we were assigned numbers for our objects from the Beardesley Collection. My numbers are:

74-2-87  R-C14-top  Maoiri Flax Skirt - Australia
74-2-57  D  Healds College Advertisement Pocket Mirror
74-2-133 CAB-T-597  Chinese Tobacco Pouch
74-2-50a   P7  Matchbox Bean Vessel
74-2-50 b  P7  Matchbox Bean Vessel

Maori Flax Skirt

Healds College Pocket Mirror

Chinese Tobacco Pouch

Matchbox Bean Vessels