Special Guest

-from the Curator

This afternoon the Museum had some special guests come out for a surprise visit:  Leonard Fabian and his daughter Eva. 

 Fabian, who originally found the olla now displayed in the exhibit's Adaptation Case: Water Cache, was thrilled to see the olla in its new permanent home.  "I get emotional every time I come out here" he said "but it brings back such great memories.  It looks so great there."  While Eva has grown up hearing stories about Fabian's experience finding the olla, this was her first time seeing it in person.

In 1977, Leonard Fabian discovered an archaeological site endangered by heavy off-road traffic.  He alerted the Imperial Valley College Desert Museum and the BLM and together they investigated.  The result was the first water cache documented by Imperial Valley archaeologists.

Name that Sheep! Voting this week

-from the Curator

Our bighorn sheep statue is designed to be a photo op for museum visitors.  You won't get a bighorn to pose with you in the wild (and shouldn't even try) but our sheep will pose for you all day long. He's even got his own social media hashtag #shelfie.  But we need to make that more unique and a name will make that happen!

For the entire month of August you've been sending in suggestions for the Name That Sheep contest and now it's time. From September 1-5 we will have voting online and at the museum, then on September 6 we will announce the winning name!

Not all names that were suggested made it to the final round of voting. Why? Remember way back when we started, a few of the basic rules- the names had to be for a male sheep, but also needs to work for our hashtag- which will be: # NAMEshelfie.  So names that were too long, although often very fun, wouldn't work as well here.

Each name will be posted on Facebook, where you can vote simply by "liking" the name you choose. If you come into the museum and want to add your vote, we have the names at the front desk.  Sunday morning we'll add both online and in museum votes and declare the winning name!
Get your friends and family to join in voting and let's Name That Sheep!

Names for Voting:

Jay
Sheldon
Rocky
Ramses
Shep
Clyde
Shaun
Anzi
ElCee
Cimarron
RamBo
RAM
Bam Bam

Exhibit work continues

-from the Curator

Measuring pieces for trays

The installers from Weldon Exhibits may have left, but there are behind the scene aspects of exhibit building that continue.  Today, we worked on building the trays that will hold the glass bead base of our visible storage exhibit and added some finishing touches of paint and rust effects to wood. It's amazing to see the difference a few little touches makes!

 We were also inspired by the beautifully clear weather to drive out and re-take our panoramic images of the Yuha Desert for the Land of Extremes.  

A photographer's work is never done

Secret superhero photographer?

Coiled Clay Art Program goes national!

-Anne C. Morgan, Head Curator

This week I went to the Society of American Archivists national convention, held this year in Cleveland.  I had the honor of being a part of a panel discussion on nontraditional outreach in archives and museums and how institutions of any size could reach new audiences through creative programs.  

Caitlin Brennecke with Troy Historic Village; Caitlin Christian-Lamb with Davidson College; Kelsey Duinkerke with Thomas Jefferson University; Jessica Holden with the University of Massachusetts, Boston; and I gave a panel discussion moderated by the wonderful Michelle Ganz from Lincoln Memorial University, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum.  We each discussed specific outreach programs from our institutions that step a little bit outside the box.

Cleveland Convention Center, home of SAA 2015

 In my case, I talked about the IVDM's Coiled Clay Art Program.  As our signature program, we have done it so often the staff doesn't think of it as 'outreach'- just fun.  But one of the big questions we asked on this panel was: "If you're not having fun, why would anyone else?"  Each of us explored the idea that outreach events should be fun and engaging as well as educational.  Being unique and going beyond the walls of our institutions means that we reach wider audiences and interest them in different ways. Through the fairs, festivals, and field trips the Museum has done, I know we've met many people we might not otherwise have gotten the chance to talk to, and introduced many kids to the idea that museums can be fun.

Between 125-150 people attended our session, and we were thrilled by the many interesting and insightful questions asked after the talk.  Clearly a lot of people were already starting to think about what new and exciting programs they could start at their own institutions.  We were also surprised and flattered by the amount of positive feedback we got after our talk.  It was very encouraging to a group of young professionals giving their first large conference presentation!  If you follow the Museum on Twitter ( @IVDesertMuseum) you saw some of the lovely comments people tweeted about our session: "Just saw a fabulous session on outreach. Thanks to the panelists on #s303 #saa15!"

It was a wonderful experience for me as a young archival professional, and a great spotlight for the IVDM on the national stage.  

Caitlin, Anne, Jessica, Kelsey, & Caitlin, celebrating a presentation well done!

Installation of Phase I and Phase II nearly complete!

It has been quite a busy week out at the museum! Weldon Exhibits has been out all week installing the rest of phase 1 and phase 2 of our permanent exhibit. Our Lake Cahuilla Diorama has received its new floor treatment, our visible storage has received its glass case, our ceramics video is up and running, and we have received our Habitats In Flux and our Power of the Land exhibits. It is so exciting to see the museum come together. Everyone here at the museum is happy to see all of this activity, and to see the museum's dreams come true. 

Power of the Land starts install today!

The installation of Power of the Land began today, This is a multi-media interactive exhibit that looks at the resources in Imperial County.

Kumeyaay Stories of Change videos

-from the Curator

Our video editor Marcie Rodriguez and Frank Salazar have been hard at work editing additional video clips for the Cal Humanities Community Stories grant.  Oral histories that didn't make it into the final Emmy-nominated First People Kumeyaay documentary are being added to YouTube as a part of this grant in order to share more of these incredible stories. You can see all of the links as they go up on our website, where we now have a section devoted just to this grant.  It's constantly growing- we are working on adding teacher resources for classroom discussions as well as the new videos. We hope you'll explore them and enjoy!

"The Importance of Tradition"

"The Natural Ways"