Hamilton Wood Type Font Fund

The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers WI is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type. Existing since 1880 and housing 1.5 million pieces of wood type, Hamilton's collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world. About 3 hours from Chicago, the museum is well worth a visit. Admission is even free!

The museum is run only by two volunteers of the Two Rivers Historical Society and really needs your support in obtaining important grant funding. Please consider contributing to the Hamilton Font Fund, every dollar makes a difference.

From the Hamilton Font Fund Facebook page:
Help protect a Printing Treasure: Hamilton Urgently Needs Your Help.

Dear friends of wood type,
Hamilton has an unprecedented opportunity to qualify for a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the "Save America's Treasures" program which has a deadline of May 20th, 2010.

This gives Hamilton 30 days to raise enough money to apply for a $25,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We're excited to have already raised over $5000 for this vital program that will help us archive, preserve and digitally document our collection of over 2000 vintage advertising plates and our 1.5 million-piece type collection.

But we can’t do it without you.

What can you do? We have 3 ways for you to give:

1. Become a member of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum online today (http://www.woodtype.org/museum_information_membership.shtml). There are 4 levels to choose from with sweet incentives that let you take a little slice of Two Rivers back to your home or office wall. Your membership dollars go a long way toward helping the museum fulfill its mission of preserving this amazing piece of printing history. All new membership dollars generated between now and the grant deadline will go directly to our matching funds effort.

2. If you're already a member you can simply donate at a level that suits your budget! Our recommended donation base is $50 and every dollar you give goes to protecting this typographic gem. (http://www.woodtype.org/museum_information_membership.shtml)

3. Shop at our Etsy Store! All proceeds for the next 30 days go directly to Hamilton’s “Save America’s Treasures” efforts and we'll be adding more merchandise soon. (http://www.etsy.com/shop/HamiltonWoodType)

Finally, we ask that you pass this message along to at least 2 people you think might become friends of Hamilton. Time is of the essence. We'll be keeping you updated with our progress in the coming month. Thanks for supporting wood type.

Sincerely Jim and Bill Moran

National Mustard Museum

Wisconsin is home to all sorts of unique things, and one of them is...the National Mustard Museum! The museum recently relocated from Mount Horeb to Middleton, maybe to be closer to the action of mustard loving Madison? Yeah, that's a lot of M's.

The museum is having a grand opening this weekend with all sorts of mustard-y events. Including a 25 mile relay race with a jar of Grey Poupon and a presentation of "Wisconsin Cheeses and the Mustards That Love Them." If by chance you can't make it to the museum, you can still get in on all the mustard by joining their mustard of the month club!

As American as Apple Pie

Apple Pie: Symbols of Americana recently opened at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition, featuring pieces from MMoCA's permanent collection, runs from January 23-April 11, 2010.

Photo Credit:
John Shimon and Julie Lindemann, Thecla Bertsche Keeps Busy and a Very Tidy House, cir. 1986–1987. Gelatin silver print, 13-3/4 x 13-1/2 inches. Purchase, through the Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund
Image Courtesy of www.mmoca.org

Blooming Butterflies

A couple of weeks ago we went to see the Blooming Butterflies at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Now that I'm no longer afraid of butterflies, I really think they're quite fascinating. Yes, yes I was afraid of butterflies at one point. I just don't like things that might unexpectedly land on me. They do flutter about somewhat aimlessly, you must admit. I always loved them in the distance but kind of freaked out if they got too close. Well, for whatever reason I got over that so now I can really enjoy them.

In addition to the live butterflies (fresh from their cocoons even!) the show also had on display a collection of butterfly specimens. They were all labeled with a date and location which I'm convincing myself was the date and location of their death from entirely natural causes, thank you very much. Some of the specimens were 80 years old and as a museum curator, my first thought was how incredibly difficult it must be to keep live bugs from completely consuming these specimens.

The collection really illustrated how many incredible butterflies exist around the world. And judging by the size of its butterflies, I've scratched Sumatra off the list of likely vacation spots. Yikes.

The Tiny Aviary

The Tiny Aviary, published by illustrator extraordinaire Diana Sudyka, documents her volunteer work in the Birds Division at the Field Museum of Natural History. Alongside the little biographies of bird specimens are Diana's illustrations and paintings of the birds. I love this unique little blog. And it always warms my heart to see museum collections being studied!

On Procession, Indianapolis IN

An exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. On Procession assembles contemporary artworks that look to parades as a theme or a device. The exhibition consists of two parts: the IMA gallery display, on view between May 2 and August 10, 2008, and a parade that occurred on April 26 in downtown Indianapolis. While some of the works in this exhibition were created for inclusion in actual parades and processions, other works draw inspiration from the imagery and materials of parades.

Expanding the traditional scope of an exhibition, On Procession brings projects initially made for public space into a museum setting and also presents animated projects in the streets. These works provoke questions about the institutionalization of public space, patronage and participatory culture, and the carnivalesque, a term used by theorist Mikhail Bahktin to describe moments of carnival activity, when “the rules” become suspended. Here, the carnivalesque is evoked in subverting traditional hierarchies of audience-participant relationships, as well as in acts of collective celebration.

Photo and text courtesy of imamuseum.org

Indianapolis Museum of Art
May 2,2008- August 10,2008

Kimono Exhibition : Madison WI

Kimono sleeve

Crafting Kimono is an exhibition at the Design Gallery of the University of Wisconsin. The majority of the pieces featured in the show belong to the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. The show explores the materials and techniques that go into creating kimono as well as the subtle nuances of wearing kimono.


Folded kimono and paper kimono packaging


Pre-tied obi

The exhibition runs from October 31,2007-February 3, 2008. However the gallery is closed December 17-January 22.
Gallery hours: W-F 11-5:30, S-S 12-5.

Design Gallery
School of Human Ecology
UW-Madison
1300 Linden Drive
Madison, WI
www.designgallery.wisc.edu

Festival of Maps : Chicago IL

Detail of a Map of Africa, 1562
Courtesy of Northwestern University Libraries


The Festival of Maps, beginning November 2, 2007 and running into 2008, takes place across over 30 different institutions in the Chicago area. They are calling it "a unique collaboration to display humanity's greatest discoveries and the maps that record our boldest explorations." Maps of all sorts: printed maps, painted maps, embroidered maps, digital maps, maps etched into clay tablets...just to name a few.

If you can't get to all of these places, some of the collections can also be viewed online. The Field Museum has a great virtual map exhibit. The Northwestern University Libraries also has their antique African map collection available for view online.

But if you can, I really really really think you should stop by at least a couple of the exhibits. There's so many to choose from. And for future reference, the Newberry Library in Chicago has quite an amazing map collection.



Handpainted map of an Aztec empire, 1524
Courtesy of the Newberry Library



Map of London printed on a leather glove, 1851
Courtesy of The National Archives of the United Kingdom


Map of Chicago, 1857
Courtesy of the William Blair & Company Fine Arts Collection

Photography Exhibition : Kansas City MO

Photo courtesy of www.nelson-atkins.org
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is currently having a photography exhibition:

Developing Greatness: The Origins of American Photography, 1839-1885

Among the work shown is one of the earliest known daguerreotypes as well as one of the first snapshots. The exhibit is up through December 30, 2007. There are also some interesting educational programs offered in conjunction with the show.

An added bonus to visiting is the beautiful museum grounds which are part of an outdoor sculpture garden called the Kansas City Sculpture Park. Which does in fact include a gigantic badminton shuttlecock, as seen on the left side of the photo. You can even tour the Sculpture Park online.


Photo courtesy of www.nelson-atkins.org