Thursday, September 8, 2011

GHM Exhibit Visit


[1] the main “Voices” exhibit

The first impression I received from this exhibit was actually quite captivating.  I loved the contrast of the light quotes against the dark wall.  This lead me to wander farther into the exhibit, entering a room with hundreds of pictures of people and a few words explaining a picture or two here and there.  Up till this point, I was very pleased with the way it was all set up.   I continued walking and stopped in a large green room.  The room itself had a nice flow and easily led your eyes throughout the space however the dark green was a far cry from the soothing colors on the wall in the prior rooms.  What I consider to be the “green room” contained information on the first residents of Greensborough and many, many battles.  After you’ve been visually led through this room, you’re brought into a deep red room.  This section begins with a lot of information on farming and then ends with slavery.  In the slavery part of this room, there was a poster on the ratio of whites to slaves to free blacks back many years ago, which I found to be quite interesting that this data was kept over this time span.   As you make your way out of this room, you’re brought into a room that made the others seem small.  This room has a sewing exhibit set up in the center and similar exhibits around the room.  The part of this room that drew me in was the army section in the back.  I learned that from 1943-1946, Greensboro was an army town and was able to see the type of beds the soldiers would have slept on.  Continuing on you come across a bar set up where you learn about the sit-ins that occurred in Greensboro in the 1960’s.  In the same room, they have banners set up to inform you of all the colleges in Greensboro.  Finally, you enter a room representing today’s gate city, beginning in the 1980’s until today.  In that room, there are items I can relate to such as a part on Yum-Yum’s Ice cream and the different neighborhoods that exist in Greensboro today.  From this exhibit, I feel that we were supposed to take the knowledge that the voices of the past helped create the city that we know today.

[2] the period rooms and pottery display

This exhibit was my least favorite out of the four I visited today which was disappointing because it was the first one you get to when your going to the others.  I did enjoy the period rooms more then the pottery because it was a clear way of how people use to live.  I liked the bedroom the most because I felt that it gave you the best idea of what life was like.  The other rooms didn’t appear lived in from my point of view.  There were five period rooms that I took notice of in this exhibit.  They were the living room, the bedroom, the dining room, the parlor, and the clothes display.  The pottery display was in the center whereas the period rooms were on the outer parts of the room.  The pottery exhibit was titled “The Art of Turning Clay: The Bluebethenthal Pottery Collection.”  The pieces of pottery were all in glass cases with information posted behind them.  The first case told the story of Jagstown.  The people who founded Jagstown pottery were Raleigh natives.  As I viewed more cases of pottery, I learned of the Asian translation of the pottery.  However, all the pottery looked incredibly similar to me.  The pottery has been featured nationally in magazines and newspapers. 

[3] the “Gate City” exhibition

This exhibit was my favorite by far of the four we visited today.  Before you even enter the exhibit, you see a map on the wall outside and a note that says, “Based on actual commercial and civic buildings.”  I thought that was interesting because all museums are supposed to showcase actual items, which led me to believe this exhibit wouldn’t be a typical one.  When you enter into the room, the first thing I noticed was that it was set up like a town.  I have always been very interested in seeing how people used to live, not just reading about it.  This exhibit allowed me to see what their typical towns would have looked like.  The rooms made up to be apart of the town were the Richardson and Fariss Drugstore, the Crystal Theatre, the Hotel Clegg, the Steam Fire Engine Company No. 1, the city market, and Miss Lina Porter’s schoolhouse.  The drugstore was about what I would have expected after seeing many exhibits like this over the years; it was a narrow room with cabinets on both sides and a counter.  I know that in later years they would have expanded the idea of a drugstore into one with a soda machine and such but I liked that this stayed true to the time period.  The theatre was much different then I was expecting.  It was one room with very uncomfortable looking wooden seats.  It might have seated twenty at most, certainly not what we think of when we think of theatres today.  The Hotel Clegg looked very official with the double doors, the only building in there I remember having them.  Inside there was a telephone exchange in their lobby space, which I found interesting.  The firehouse was pretty typical, even still a main idea of what we see today.  What I found interesting about this was that the fire engine weighed 4000 pounds and was pulled by two horses.  The schoolhouse appeared to be a typical one-room schoolhouse with benches that appear like they would seat two children to a bench at a time.  In the schoolhouse, there was a wood burning stove in order to heat the schoolhouse in the colder months.

[4] the traveling exhibition titled “Down Home”

This exhibit was focused on Jewish life in North Carolina, what that meant to them and what it means to the state.   As soon as you enter you notice a sign (or the dreadful music that plays nonstop the entire time you’re in there).  On the sign it explains up front that Judaism is a culture, an ethnicity, and a religion.  The exhibit as a whole was divided up into a few different sections.  These consisted of keeping the faith, family comes first, building businesses, creating communities, and love of learning.  The part that I remember the most from the exhibit was the food section.  I’ve always heard about kosher and the different types of rules for eating that the Jewish follow and never understood them until this exhibit so I feel like they presented it very positively.   They had a refrigerator that had inside what they would be able to eat.  They also had “food” in the process of being “cooked” for the viewers to see.  As you move through this exhibit, it’s a bit unnerving.  Everywhere you step, you’re bound to set off something talking to you, usually more then one thing at a time.  I didn’t like that part of the exhibit at all because it would catch me off guard and then I would walk away from it because I couldn’t focus to read the signage with the speakers talking.  Overall, I feel like it was a very informative exhibit because I know I am guilty of not understanding religions apart from my own as well as I should.  I think that if someone had any questions about the Jewish culture, this would be an excellent resource but if you had a question about their religion, you should find somewhere else to research.


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