I’m a Collections Manager in a large New York City institution. My first museum job was as a thirteen year old volunteer at a “living history” state park, Heritage Hill, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Living history generally denotes that the … Continue reading
Becky Fifield
This woodblock print in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts The Geisha Toye as a Vendor of Poems, and dates to c. 1795. Geisha were the purveyors of iki, a kind of dark artistic cool. Gei means art and officially, the … Continue reading
It’s no secret, I can see the search terms readers use to get to The Still Room. Some I can tell that you’ve tripped onto this site by accident. Others, I wish you had left a comment so we could discuss … Continue reading
This finger-wag at women about appropriately dividing their time between pleasure and work is fun to sing. Interesting that work is defined in the following line as stitching – something that falls into the play category for me today. The … Continue reading
Last week found me in Germany and Luxembourg. Dusseldorf, like many cities affected by World War II, is a new city, with glimpses of old fabric in surprising places. As in other European cities, the pedestrian mall of the 1950s … Continue reading
Where there is space, there is dust. Over dust, visitors to our museum and I connect. Dust is an ongoing challenge for collection care staff. It gets on your cases. It gets on objects on open display, such as the … Continue reading
During our recent trip to see Jeremy W.(of Le Cafe Witteveen) and Tina S. in their Chicago stomping grounds, we got to check out some incredible local spots. One of them was The Green Mill, a nightclub paused during its … Continue reading
Dr. V and I took the week off a couple of weeks ago, and finally followed through on a plan to go hiking. Most modern Americans expect to hop in their car in order to achieve reaching a remote wooded … Continue reading
This post is not about servants. So much of the time when I refer to runaways, it’s in relation to indentured and enslaved women. Thanks to Mr. I for sending around this link to a well-written article in Popular Science about a runaway … Continue reading
What is that box with all the dials sitting in the corner of the gallery? Chances are, it’s a hygrothermograph. It’s a device that tracks temperature and relative humidity over time. Museum staff use it to understand the environment in … Continue reading