As I sift through and pack things in our home for our eventual move, I’m trying to look at the house from the perspective of new owners. We’ve made a great many improvements to the place since we moved in roughly 29 years ago. We gutted, insulated, rewired, and sheetrocked most of the old part of the house, which was built in 1894. We also removed the rotted front porch (trust me when I tell…
I am irritated. I read a story on NPR News about a Pennsylvania guy who stole artifacts, mostly firearms, from about a dozen museums in the 1960s and ’70s. He got caught in 2018 after trying to sell one of the guns. His sentence? One day. One. Day. I am irritated because this sentence shows how unseriously the courts, and by extension, society in general, take thefts from museums. Oh, well, it’s just an artifact,…
We have needed a new kitchen faucet for a few years now. We got some fancy-dancy spray faucet the last time and eventually lost water pressure because the aerator was blocked. We tried cleaning it with vinegar and were unsuccessful. We also attempted to remove the aerator so we could replace it without replacing the entire faucet. We didn’t want to have to throw the faucet in a landfill. Unfortunately, the aerator was not removable…
After publishing last week’s post about a thought experiment regarding setting up a history museum that has no collection but uses short-term loans, I got some feedback on LinkedIn. David Grabitske (yes, him again!) said he knew of someone who was part of such a museum. The museum of loaned artifacts – for reals! – is the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas. Tom Wancho, exhibit planner for the museum, said in our…
Chatter from Museum Colleagues Last week’s post about what to do with three handmade baptism gowns stirred some chatter from museum colleagues on social media, particularly LinkedIn. One colleague is trying to figure out what to do with his letterman’s jacket, which he said he would not accept for his own museum’s collection. Another wondered whether the sacrament of baptism will continue. And another, David Grabitske, who has written for my blog in the past,…