(no subject)
Well, I'm back from a week of learning and brimming with new ideas and new thoughts. I just finsihed a 3 day course on Exhibit Design and then a one day workshop on oral history and both were totally worth every minute and every dollar.
The exhibit course had about 25 people at it and was held in the Wellington County Museum and Archives, which I highly recommend for a visist. The Buildign itself is every interesting as it was the local poor house originally but the exhibits are also VERY well done. THey've got a re-created trench from WWI that's wonderful.
Anyway, that course was perfect for what I needed right now. I feel more confident that I have better skills to develop the exhibits however I' still worried about my lack of artistic imagination. Oh well, that I can't help. I got some really good ideas and help with two exhiits while I was there so that's good. One of the most exciting things was a FREE CADD program that they showed us from Google called Sketch UP. It allows you to render things in 3D! You can draw you're whole building with it, entire floor plans! You can figure out what the shadows will look like at certain times of year, change colours and much more. It's amazing. We were all ready to end the course when we learned about that and just spend the next 3 days playing with it! I also learned a lot about 3D design and how to work with plexi-glass. It's a lot easier then I thought and I will be able to make simple mounts now tha I wouldnt' have before. That'll help a lot with the look of displays. I thought you needed big tools and blow torches to work with it bt you don't, whew! I also learend a really neat way to make manneqins to the specifications that you need, for very little money. Even me, a creatively inept person, can make one.
The oral history workshop was also very useful. I'm planning to put an audio station in th emuseum so that people can tape their memories and thoughts and I needed some concrete ideas about how to set it up. Forms and persmissions etc. I also have a volunteer who's very interested in gong out and doiing interviews in the public and I wanted to make sure we doing it properly and storing the information properly. This workship showed me all of the nitty gritty details about what I needed to do and provided samples of forms. Apparently you can take entire courses on how to do an oral history interview. The things we learn. Anyway, itw as taught by the past president of the Canadian Oral HIstory Association so we were getting the good stuff.
I'm still not sure I'm going to get the building done in time, but I'm going to put my all into it. I've got a few people coming back to volunteer and help me with exhibits so things are looking up. The coming week is just chaulk full of meetings with people so that's good. We'll see. Still dealing with CAO frmo hell and one of my volunteers is getting ahead of herself but that's part of life.
On the plus side I do have a new volunteer who can do construction projects and with this SKetch UP program I can give them much better drawings of what I want them to build, making it much easier for them.
You know, sitting here thinkings about it, this is the first Monday in a long time that I haven't been depressed about heading back to work. I mean, I really haven't had a break since I worked all yesterday on stuff from courses and getting stuff ready for my board but I still want to go into work today. I've got so many new things to show people and to try out that I want to go in. It's a nice feeling.
I hope everyone is feeling better (no longer ill, settled from moving, etc) and I'll talk with you soon. Look for me at work on google because I've downloaded it there. May not be able to tlak long but could at least say hi.
The exhibit course had about 25 people at it and was held in the Wellington County Museum and Archives, which I highly recommend for a visist. The Buildign itself is every interesting as it was the local poor house originally but the exhibits are also VERY well done. THey've got a re-created trench from WWI that's wonderful.
Anyway, that course was perfect for what I needed right now. I feel more confident that I have better skills to develop the exhibits however I' still worried about my lack of artistic imagination. Oh well, that I can't help. I got some really good ideas and help with two exhiits while I was there so that's good. One of the most exciting things was a FREE CADD program that they showed us from Google called Sketch UP. It allows you to render things in 3D! You can draw you're whole building with it, entire floor plans! You can figure out what the shadows will look like at certain times of year, change colours and much more. It's amazing. We were all ready to end the course when we learned about that and just spend the next 3 days playing with it! I also learned a lot about 3D design and how to work with plexi-glass. It's a lot easier then I thought and I will be able to make simple mounts now tha I wouldnt' have before. That'll help a lot with the look of displays. I thought you needed big tools and blow torches to work with it bt you don't, whew! I also learend a really neat way to make manneqins to the specifications that you need, for very little money. Even me, a creatively inept person, can make one.
The oral history workshop was also very useful. I'm planning to put an audio station in th emuseum so that people can tape their memories and thoughts and I needed some concrete ideas about how to set it up. Forms and persmissions etc. I also have a volunteer who's very interested in gong out and doiing interviews in the public and I wanted to make sure we doing it properly and storing the information properly. This workship showed me all of the nitty gritty details about what I needed to do and provided samples of forms. Apparently you can take entire courses on how to do an oral history interview. The things we learn. Anyway, itw as taught by the past president of the Canadian Oral HIstory Association so we were getting the good stuff.
I'm still not sure I'm going to get the building done in time, but I'm going to put my all into it. I've got a few people coming back to volunteer and help me with exhibits so things are looking up. The coming week is just chaulk full of meetings with people so that's good. We'll see. Still dealing with CAO frmo hell and one of my volunteers is getting ahead of herself but that's part of life.
On the plus side I do have a new volunteer who can do construction projects and with this SKetch UP program I can give them much better drawings of what I want them to build, making it much easier for them.
You know, sitting here thinkings about it, this is the first Monday in a long time that I haven't been depressed about heading back to work. I mean, I really haven't had a break since I worked all yesterday on stuff from courses and getting stuff ready for my board but I still want to go into work today. I've got so many new things to show people and to try out that I want to go in. It's a nice feeling.
I hope everyone is feeling better (no longer ill, settled from moving, etc) and I'll talk with you soon. Look for me at work on google because I've downloaded it there. May not be able to tlak long but could at least say hi.