Label Love Letter: The Monterey Bay Aquarium
The Monterey Bay Aquarium does some of the most elegant and evocative labels I’ve ever seen. Here are some of the ones that captured my imagination recently.
Telling Stories with Invisible Objects
When I began as the Curator of Interpretation with the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery in 2008, my first project was Soapstone Prairie Natural Area. 28 square miles in northern Colorado, Soapstone was purchased by the city of Fort Collins to be a park and conservation area. Along with its attraction as a natural space,…
Cracking Character - The Fun of Being Historical-ish
What happens when living history interpreters allow the lines between the past and present to blur a little? When they don’t break character, but they definitely crack it? I’m always a bit skeptical of living history and (re)enactment experiences. I don’t dislike them by default, but growing up between the Revolutionary War reenactment-happy towns of Lexington…
When Dioramas Explode - “Animal World” at The National Museum of Scotland
It’s no secret that I don’t like traditional dioramas. But apparently I do like it when it looks like traditional dioramas have exploded and scattered animals throughout the exhibit. I like it a lot. Last week I visited the National Museum of Scotland. And it was a lovely, if somewhat predictable, experience until I got…
Creative Processes
The more ways I involve myself in creative projects, the more how see how much of the creative process is the same, regardless of your final products and goals. This video about Dustin Lance Black’s storytelling process focuses on screenwriting, but it could just as well be about how we tell tales in museums. “Figuring out why. Not…
Museums Askew 