Guest Blogger: Mark Brown, Curator of Education

Arthur Silverman Sculpture Returns to Lauren Rogers Museum of Art

On Friday, June 22, Corten Duo III, a sculpture by Arthur Silverman, was returned to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. The large metal outdoor sculpture, which was on display at Sawmill Square Mall for more than two decades, was installed on a newly prepared concrete pad on the front lawn of the Museum.

Although originally from New York, Silverman has been a New Orleans resident for more than 25 years. Before creating sculpture, Silverman was a practicing physician. Soon, sculpture became much more than a hobby, causing Silverman to give up his medical practice. Fourteen large-scale public commissions can be seen in the New Orleans area alone, including universities, commercial and government buildings. Silverman has exhibited his pieces nationally and is included in such important collections as the John Rosenkrans Collection, Woodside, CA, the Fisher Family Collection, San Francisco, CA, the Philip Johnson Building in Washington D.C., the New Orleans Museum of Art, and of course, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art here in Laurel.

Corten Duo III, typical of Silverman’s work, is a freestanding geometric metal sculpture composed of his signature tetrahedrons. A tetrahedron consists of four flat triangles, much like a cube consists of six flat squares. In Silverman’s judgement, the tetrahedron, being somewhat non-traditional, when stacked, sectioned and joined, allows for a great variety of forms. Much of his work is associated with that of the Minimalists, which is characterized by obvious mathematical and geometric relationships, ultimately limiting emotional responses. However, Silverman states "my sculpture is inspired, but not constrained to mathematics, specifically geometry. For more than 20 years I’ve been investigating tetrahedral ideas for sculpture. My primary interest is in large-scale outdoor work. I like the idea that the public and the site are very important considerations."

Guest Blogger: Holly Dodd, Director of Marketing

The Beatles, London, 1967, Copyright: The Estate of Linda McCartney, 1998.


At the Museum -

The 1960s were turbulent years on the American political and social scenes with broad strokes of change happening on every front. The decade was also culturally monumental, evidenced by the fact that forty years later we are heavily influenced by the art, find ourselves revisiting the fashions, and still adore the music that sprang abundantly from that most creative and fascinating time in our history.

Linda Eastman McCartney, late wife of Beatles legend Paul McCartney, was in the midst of all that social upheaval. Through her life’s work, she had a front row seat and backstage pass to the music scene of the Sixties. She photographed everybody who was anybody during the biggest rock and roll explosion to date.

Fifty-one of these photographs will hang on the walls of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art this summer from July 19 to September 20. LRMA will be the last venue on the North American tour of Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era, and we are planning some special events to tie in with the show.

Gabriele Abbott, North American Tour Coordinator for the Estate of Linda McCartney, will be in Laurel for the opening and will give a gallery talk at 6 p.m. on the evening of July 19. After the gallery talk, there will be a Sixties Party from 7 - 9 p.m. The Wes Lee Trio will play selections from the long list of musicians represented in the show, including The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, B. B. King, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Otis Redding and many more.

Guests are encouraged to participate in a Far-Out and Groovy Costume Contest to be held during the party. Dig out your go-go boots, mini-skirts, love beads, headbands, fringed vests and platform shoes! Decorations and food will follow the theme of the evening as well - - expect lava lamps, hula hoops and other memorabilia.

I hope you will join us for a fun evening celebrating the Sixties. As for the exhibit, anyone who remembers the Sixties or has heard the name "Woodstock" should see this show. The works are very honest and very intimate, revealing McCartney’s unique ability to capture her subject’s true essence and the sometimes fragile personalities of these cultural icons. You won’t want to miss it.

The Museum is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel and is open 10:00 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call LRMA at 601-649-6374 or visit the Museum’s website, www.LRMA.org.

Sculpture on the Grounds

For some time, Cor-ten Duo #3 by Arthur Silverman has been on display at Sawmill Square here in Laurel. We decided to move it to the museum grounds recently, which was quite a project since it's quite heavy. Not only is it a large steel sculpture, its base is a sheet of 2" thick concrete. At the mall, the concrete base sat upon a 10" carpet-covered wooden base.

After we decided to move it, we had to pick a spot on the grounds and have a concrete pad poured, then figure out how to orient the sculpture. Once the concrete pad was ready to use, we booked a local moving company to help us with a truck and about five moving men. They moved the whole thing (wooden base and all) all the way through the mall to the only set of wide doors. Thence by truck to the front lawn of the museum, where they picked it up off the wooden base and carried it across the lawn to the concrete pad.







It was quite an endeavor, and frankly I'm glad I had to be out of town for it. I would've cringed all morning long. George, Tommie, and Todd, who aren't nearly as nervous-nelly as I am, oversaw the whole project. I always think a museum looks more like a museum if there's a sculpture or two out front. This one certainly does the trick. Come visit and see for yourself!

Guest Blogger: Librarian Donnelle Conklin

LRMA Library to Present Bible Exhibition in July

Next month the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art’s Library will take a break from its annual summer postcard exhibits for a look into another interesting collection from its archive - the Bible collection. On display will be examples of early Bible translations, a page from the Gutenberg Bible, along with family Bibles with elaborate illustrations and tooled leather bindings.

Among the Bibles in the collection are several editions of the Book of Common Prayer. One is an 1893 edition that was donated by the museum’s neighbor, St John’s Episcopal Church. Another is a family Bible belonging to the Gardiner family.

The collection as a whole offers a glimpse into the varieties of Bible interpretations that history has influenced, and range from the ornate to the utilitarian. A time line will also accompany the exhibit to help visitors put each version into historical perspective.

The exhibit will be located in the Museum Reading Room, and will run the entire month of July. For more information contact Librarian Donnelle Conklin at 601-649-6374.



A Page from a Gutenberg Bible

Temporary gallery closing

On Wednesday, June 27, the west side of the Lower Level Gallery will be closed for a Board Meeting until 1:00 pm.

This means approximately 1/3 of the Ethel Wright Mohamed exhibition will not be available for viewing that morning. We apologize for any inconvenience.

and you will know us by the piles of our pottery....

Mandy and Mark have been hard at work teaching summer pottery classes for the last two weeks. We had a kids' class and an adult class. They made pinch pots, threw on the wheel, slab-built, and glazed all kinds of cool stuff. Herewith, a few documents of that messy, messy time:






Don't forget, we still have two Free Family Art Days left:

Wednesday, June 20, 1 - 4 pm, in LRMA's Education Annex

Wednesday, June 27, 1 - 4 pm, also in the Education Annex

Another Free Family Art Day...

Last week, LRMA educators Mark Brown and Mandy Buchanan helped visiting kids create "story people". The young artists cut out figures and decorated them with words and clothing to illustrate a story about themselves or someone they know. They used needle and thread to stitch their stories, just as Ethel Wright Mohamed did in her pictures, which are on display in LRMA's Lower Level Galleries.

In case you're going to Mexico City this summer

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - The 100th birthday of artist and feminist icon Frida Kahlo will be honored with the largest-ever exhibit of her paintings, the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico said Tuesday.

"The 354 pieces will be the largest exposition of Frida Kahlo," director of the National Fine Arts Institute Teresa Franco told reporters.

It will also be Kahlo's first comprehensive exhibit in Mexico, she said. After Mexico proclaimed Rivera paintings to be national cultural heritage, foreign owners feared lending her work to Mexico.

Besides one-third of her artistic production, manuscripts and 50 letters that have not been displayed previously, she said.

Works are on loan from Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Nayoga, Japan.

Kahlo (1907-1954) twice married muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and was a close friend of Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky.

She suffered intense emotional pain inflicted by the philandering Rivera and physical pain after being stricken by polio and bus crash.

Pain and her inability to have children were common themes in her paintings, many of which were shocking, bloody self-portraits.

After her death, Frida became "first a legend, then a myth and now a cult figure," Hayden Herrera wrote in a 1992 biography of the Mexican artist.

The most recent international exhibition of Kahlo's work was in 2005 by the Tate Modern in London, which brought together 87 works.

The exhibit is tentatively slated to open June 13 until August 19. The museum is open 10:30 am to 6:30 pm Tuesday through Saturday.

Well this is interesting...

Apparently, the limestone blocks that make up the Great Pyramids are made of reconstituted limestone, not blocks chiseled from quarries. In other words: a kind of limestone concrete, made on-site.

Here's the link: The Surprising Truth Behind the Pyramids

Free Family Art Day, May 30, 2007

Today was our first Free Family Art Day of the summer. We are holding a kind of "open house" in the Education Annex every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. from now through June. Today's activity: A Night-time Garden.

The kids drew in day-glo crayons on black paper, and then used needle and thread to produce a stitchery work over the drawing. This art project is inspired by our current exhibition, The Needle's Song: The Folk Art of Ethel Wright Mohamed.

Guest Blogger: Allyn Boone, Director of Development

At the Museum
Allyn Boone

This month, we begin our annual membership campaign at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Membership is important to the Museum, constituting a significant source of income that is used to present exhibitions, offer education programs and care for our nationally recognized collection of art.

Thanks to the generosity of our members, LRMA is able to provide Art Trunks to schools throughout the state free of charge, offer Third Grade Tours to students in a six-county area, and present community events like Heritage Arts Festival and Very Special Arts Festival. LRMA has never charged an admission fee, and our membership campaign allows us to make the Museum open and welcoming.

Our members are critical to our ability of serve our community, and we make sure that they know how important they are. Members receive personal invitations to exhibition openings and priority announcements about classes, programs and trips offered by the Museum. They also receive the LRMA News, an informative newsletter with articles about exhibitions, programs, trips, activities and more.

LRMA offers a membership level that is right for every person. From our $15 student membership to our $2,500 Laureate membership, the Museum has a variety of membership categories, each with its own special benefits.

Depending upon the membership category, members receive discounts on art classes and Museum Shop purchases, and they may also receive special catalogue mailings and invitations to the LRMA Gala Preview Party. Members at the Sponsor ($100) level and above have the opportunity to purchase tickets to attend the annual LRMA Gala, an elegant evening that ushers in the holiday season in Laurel. Memberships beginning at $1,000 include complimentary tickets to the Gala.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art was opened in 1923 as a gift to the community. Considered one of our area’s cultural treasures, the Museum has developed through the years into a dynamic institution devoted to presenting the best examples of the visual arts for the enjoyment and education of our community. When you join the Museum, you become a shareholder in the vision that created LRMA and continues to drive it today. To be the best that we can be, we need the commitment and support of our community.

We invite you to join LRMA and be part of the exciting future that awaits our organization. We are committed to excellence in our collections, exhibitions and programs, and we hope that you will join with us in this quest. To join the Museum or request more information about LRMA membership, please call us at 601-649-6374. We look forward to hearing from you and adding your name to our membership roll.


This article originally appeared in the Laurel Leader-Call.

I can't believe I'm linking to this....

because I say "um" a few too many times, but it's a good short video about the museum history and collections, so I guess I'll have to deal:

My American Lifestyle interview

Guest Blogger: George Bassi, LRMA Director

This is George Bassi's column for the Laurel Leader-Call this week:

At the Museum

A new exhibition, The Needle’s Song: The Folk Art of Ethel Wright Mohamed, has opened in time for Mother’s Day in our Lower Level Galleries. Ethel Wright Mohamed, who died in 1992, is one of Mississippi’s premiere folk artists, and we will be hosting a show of her hand-stitched creations until July 8. The family’s gallery, “Mama’s Dream World,” in Belzoni, Mississippi, is dedicated to Mohamed’s work.

Mohamed’s colorful life in the Mississippi Delta is the focus of the majority of her pieces, many of which tell family stories. She also had a love of history and recreated in needlework many events throughout the history of our country. Often referred to as the “Grandma Moses of Mississippi,” Mohamed is important to our state’s culture, and the exhibit is surely one that will appeal to all generations.

I am particularly grateful to Carol Ivy, Curator of Mama’s Dream World, who was instrumental in assisting us in organizing this exhibition and to the Mississippi Humanities Council for providing grant support.

Exhibitions come to the Museum through a variety of sources, and all are approved through a committee of the Museum’s Board of Directors. The support from our Board is tremendous, and they are an integral part of our public programs.

Recently, three new members were elected to the Board of Directors. I am pleased to welcome Read Diket, Clay Johnson and Eugene Owens to the Museum’s governing authority and look forward to working with them in fulfilling the cultural and educational mission of LRMA.

With the election of new Board members, I want to thank the three members that they are replacing on the Board. Stewart Gilchrist, Pat McLean and Al Rosenbaum are rotating off the Board, and each has served the Museum admirably.

In fact, Pat McLean leaves the Board after serving the past three years as Chair. She has been a tremendous leader and, with her husband Bill, an avid supporter of the Museum and its education program. The Essmueller Company Education Endowment Fund, created by the McLeans, will provide support for the LRMA education program for years to come.

In working with non-profit Boards for almost twenty years, I have learned that some Board members simply cannot be replaced. Stewart Gilchrist is stepping down after 50 years of service to this Museum. It is rare to find such dedication, commitment and passion for an institution, and LRMA will always be grateful to Stewart for his invaluable insight, especially in the areas of collections, governance and finance.

LRMA is a better place because of Stewart, and I wish him and his wife Gene all the best as they move from Laurel this summer. The Gilchrist name has been in our town for more than a century, and it is hard for me to imagine Laurel without them.

Two new exhibitions opened this week

- In the Stairwell Gallery, The Town that Timber Built, an exhibition of historic photos from the LRMA Archives, which is our contribution to the celebration of Laurel's 125th anniversary this year.

- In the Lower Level Galleries, The Needle's Song: The Folk Art of Ethel Wright Mohamed, featuring over 30 works by the Belzoni, MS stitchery artist.

For more info, visit the museum website.

Two American Landscapes

At the Museum: Two American Landscapes
by Jill R. Chancey, PhD

As you enter the American Gallery of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, it’s likely that the painting that first catches your eye is Thomas Moran’s “A Glimpse of Long Island Sound from Montauk.” Painted in 1907 and purchased by Lauren Chase Eastman in 1908, it hangs centered at the far end of the gallery. Its vibrant sunset (or is it a sunrise?) glows in oranges, reds, and yellows over rolling hills and verdant fields. The swirls of color might bring to mind the paintings of the 19th century British artist, J.M.W. Turner, who was a great inspiration to Moran. Turner was a master at depicting the vortex of flame, cloud, and smoke. Light and air were Turner’s inspirations, and clearly they inspired Moran as well.





In the near distance, a small creek surrounded by rocks leads the eye to the intermediate wetlands, which again lead the eye to the waters of Long Island Sound, shimmering in the distance. Long Island has been inhabited for centuries, by Native Americans and then by Europeans, but this pretty piece of landscape shows no intervention by human hand. The mossy rocks, verdant greenery, and gnarled trees appear to be arranged by nature only. Today, Long Island is densely inhabited, but in 1907, it was best known as a summer retreat for city-dwellers. Moran and his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran (whose work is also in the LRMA collection), had a summer home in East Hampton. This scene was painted near his home, and is one of many works inspired by his surroundings. When Mr. Eastman purchased this painting, Moran wrote to him, saying, “I think it among the best of my works. The picture was painted from the north shore of Montauk, L.I. [Long Island] looking across the sound toward the Connecticut shore.”

Moran is best-known for his panoramic paintings of the American West, which were instrumental in persuading Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park. Interestingly, the rather placid landscape of Long Island is rendered with the same visual drama as Moran’s views of the wild and untamed beauty of the West. It may be instructive to compare Moran’s view of Long Island with William Merritt Chase’s “Shinnecock Hills,” which also hangs in the American Gallery. This subdued but exquisite view of Long Island, from only a few years earlier, captures the quietness of the sandy rolling hills, without the drama of Moran’s vivid sunset and rich greenery. Chase, another artist-resident of Long Island, frequently painted “en plein air” (outdoors), so this little panel was likely painted on the spot. In contrast to the Moran, one does see evidence of human habitation: a dirt road and, possibly, a bit of black in the far distance indicates a building in the distance. Where the colors of the Moran call to you from across the gallery, the Chase calls for closer, more intimate looking. Stand a minute in front of the Chase and one can almost smell the salt air, feel the sand beneath one’s feet, imagine the rough surface of the rocks strewn about.





Moran rejected the Impressionists, seeking representational accuracy, while Chase, in this small format, treats color and form optically, as did the French Impressionists. In other words, if he saw a smudge of green in the distance, he didn’t paint in leaves, branches, and twigs he could not see from that far away. Instead, he painted the green as he could see it. Moran, while not obsessively detailed, delineates one plant from the next, one tree from the next. Both artists, however, use the landscape as an expressive subject. “A Glimpse of Long Island Sound, Montauk,” evokes the sublime moment just before sunset; “Shinnecock Hills” evokes a more meditative, peaceful moment in nature. Both artists, like the Romantics before them, had an emotional relationship to their surroundings and were sensitively attuned to the varieties of natural beauty.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and on Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Check the website for upcoming Summer events and classes. For information about LRMA exhibitions and programs, call (601) 649-6374 or check our website at www.LRMA.org.


This article appeared in the Laurel Leader-Call on Sunday, April 29th.1

Call for Papers

I think this Call for Papers deserves wide dissemination:


CALL FOR PAPERS -

National Women's Studies Association Journal


New Orleans:


A special issue on gender, the meaning of place, and the politics of displacement


The editors of a special issue of the NWSA Journal seek contributions from a variety of disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspectives offering feminist analyses of the meanings that New Orleans as a place has assumed in both historical and contemporary contexts-especially the contexts created by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. New Orleans has long evoked a unique sense of place, a distinctiveness that was spotlighted and arguably hyper-realized in public discourses surrounding the disaster.


Since the fall of 2005 New Orleans, as a place-name alone, prompts debates around race and class and has come to stand in for a host of issues and topics that go beyond the physical space to which the name refers. We invite scholars as well as artists, writers and poets to submit work that explores the specifically gendered dimensions of the experience of place endured by inhabitants of the city of New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and other affected regions as it relates to the hurricane. We also welcome contributions that use feminist analytical tools to illuminate the varied meaning of New Orleans as a place set in various historical, comparative, and global contexts.


Potential topics include:


* Nationalism, regionalism, public history, public art and heritage in New Orleans
* Sexualized and gendered associations with contemporary and historic New Orleans women, architectural engineering/design in New Orleans and the Gulf region


Send one e-copy and two print copies of your manuscript (20-30 pages, doubled spaced), with parenthetical notes and complete references page formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style to:


Laura Gelfand

Myers School of Art

The University of Akron

Akron, OH 44325-7801



Email: Lgelfan@uakron.edu

Antiquities and the law

Reprinted from an article in the Laurel Leader-Call:

At the Museum: Antiquities and the Law
Jill R. Chancey, PhD
Curator

Many objects in museum collections, including those at the LRMA, are what we might call “stand-alone” objects; many modern paintings, for example, are self-contained and make just as much sense in a museum as in a gallery or private home. Yet certain objects require context for understanding. For example: an altarpiece designed for a specific church loses some of its meaning when transferred to the secular environment of a museum or gallery. Why? Perhaps the altarpiece painting includes images of the patron saint of the church, or the church members who paid for it. Perhaps it was designed to complement the church’s architecture and decor. If the altarpiece winds up in a museum because the church is gone, or perhaps the church fathers decided to replace the altarpiece with something more up-to-date, then the viewers should be aware of the original context of that painting. This kind of contextual information contributes to the understanding and appreciation of artworks once they have been removed from their original locations. Placing artworks in context is one of the primary activities of the art historian and museum curator.

Going farther back in history, even the most ordinary objects, such as spear points, arrowheads, and pottery sherds, are valuable sources of information if we know where they came from. How deep was that arrowhead buried? What was it buried with? How many layers of material were above it? Were there ashes, animal bones, or other organic material in the same layer as the arrowhead? Where exactly was it buried? The answers to these kinds of questions contribute to the body of knowledge about human history, and the development of culture. Unfortunately, an artifact without this kind of information represents a real loss of cultural knowledge. This is true of all antiquities, from marble statues to stone tools.

This is why, then, that Mississippi state, federal, and international laws do not allow anyone to “injure, disfigure, remove, excavate, damage, take, dig into, or destroy” mounds, graves, or archeological sites. “Pot-hunting” might sound like a fun Saturday afternoon for a history buff, but only a trained archeologist can legally get a permit to dig for artifacts, even on private property. The kind of cultural information that is lost when an amateur digs up a site belongs, properly, to the community, which is why a permit for digging must come from both the government and the property owner. An archeologist is trained to gather all of the data that would be lost otherwise; once the artifact has left the ground, the data is lost forever and cannot be reconstructed.

This kind of cultural information is so important that museums cannot ethically collect antiquities that have not been acquired with governmental licensure and approval. In fact, several major museums in the United States have recently had to return antiquities to Italy because they were bought from dealers who acquired the items illegally. International dealers in antiquities, and at least one high-level museum curator, are finding themselves facing prison time and hefty fines due to their flouting of these laws. Fortunately, here at the Museum, we do not collect antiquities so we do not have to worry about disreputable dealers selling us looted artworks. We do, however, ensure that our Native American acquisitions come to us through legal, ethical channels, conforming to the multitude of state and federal laws that cover Native American cultural property. Awareness of the developments in cultural and antiquities law is one of the many responsibilities of museum staff in the US and abroad. However, it’s important for citizens to be aware that important historical and cultural information can be lost if amateurs don’t leave the exploration of archeological sites to trained professionals.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and on Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. For information about LRMA exhibitions and programs, call (601) 649-6374 or check our website at www.LRMA.org.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith - only one more week!

If you've been meaning to visit Made in America, this is the week to do it. The exhibition closes on Sunday, April 29th.

Visitor hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am - 4:45 pm, and Sunday from 1-4 pm.

Guest Blogger

Today, an article from guest blogger, Tommie Rodgers, Registrar at the Museum. This article also appeared in the Laurel Leader-Call:

May Day: Saving Our Archives

The phrase “May Day” can reference a day of fun around the maypole as people celebrate the arrival of Spring or it can mean a call for help from pilots and ship captains. But for museums and libraries, it means a little of both. The Heritage Emergency National Task Force asks institutions to celebrate May Day on May 1st to remind us to be prepared for natural disasters that could occur during the upcoming hurricane season or any time of year. Cultural institutions are being asked to set aside this day to take action to be prepared for unknown disasters. And while our preparations are different than the preparations you might take at home, I ask that you also set aside this day to plan to protect yourself, your collections, your family photos, your home, and most importantly, your family from natural disasters.

Here at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, I am currently working on revising our Disaster Plan and incorporating the new information that we’ve gleaned from our past hurricane preparations. We’ve learned that our building is a fortress against powerful winds and we can offer temporary storage assistance to museums along the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We’ve become quite efficient in knowing which art objects to move, where to move them and when to tie down or move outdoor sculptures. During the 2005 hurricane season, we “prepared” the collection for a hurricane four times during that Summer but Katrina became our only real threat.

We also learned that being in downtown Laurel, we are fortunate enough to receive the needed electricity quickly to keep the collections at a reasonable temperature to prevent mold and mildew from growing. And, while meeting with other museum and library staff across the state in the past year, I’ve become aware that our own circumstances are much better than many other institutions.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is also in the preparation phase of re-accreditation by the American Association of Museums. This process requires us to address, review, update, or create policies every ten years. One step in updating the Disaster Plan includes the purchase of disaster supplies. Most supplies such as plastic sheeting, cardboard sheets, flashlights, garbage cans, plastic bags, etc. are usually here but not necessarily put in one place. There are other items that need to be added to the list such as extra mops, masks, extra batteries, rubber gloves and boots. Items such as waxed paper for wet paper documents and plastic crates for wet books are materials that we may need. According to the recommended list, there seems to be no way to have on hand all the extras for every possible disaster, so we’ll have to make choices in what we obtain.

Now there’s another issue of having a staff member on site during the disaster. We don’t normally keep a stocked kitchen, but someone may need to stay here for days at a time if another hurricane threat is favorable, so food and bedding will be supply items as well.

Here are a few tasks that you can do on May Day to prepare yourself:

Make sure your insurance records, birth certificates, social security cards, and other important documents are in plastic and can be retrieved to carry with you to another location and have a set of copies in a different location.

Stock your food pantry with non-perishables.

Stock up on bottled water.

Put family photos in a lidded plastic container that can be moved away from the floor, basement, attic or upper room.

Have a month’s supply of medication in a zip-lock bag.

Make an evacuation plan and contact out-of-state family in case you need to leave the area.

Keep a full tank of gas in your car and don’t wait until the last minute to fill up.

Have a family drill and discuss your actions.

Stock up on batteries and flashlights.

Buy a portable radio.

These are a few things you can do to remind yourself that taking the threat of a disaster seriously is important and being prepared is smart. Remember to celebrate May Day with positive thoughts of knowing that you’ll be ready should you be in harm’s way in the future.

May Day is a project of The Heritage Emergency National Task Force and is co-sponsored by Heritage Preservation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Audubon's Animals of North America

Next January, we'll be featuring an exhibition of 70 hand-colored lithographs by John James Audubon. At the moment, however, the American Museum of Natural History is exhibiting a selection of those lithographs, and the oil and watercolor paintings that were the precursors to the prints.

Learn more about the exhibition here.


Read a New York Times review of the exhibition here.