Friday, December 19, 2014

Gas Station mechanic coming to the Street of Shops in 2015

We are excited to announce that the next figure to be added to the Street of Shops will be a mechanic in the Gas Station!

This is the head we picked today from Dorfman Museum Figures:


We will be having them add a 5 o'clock shadow so he looks a bit "scruffy."  He will be wearing worn coveralls and will be slightly bent, looking into the engine of the Model A at the Gas Station:


Thank you to Rachel Schneider who funded the figure in our Capital & Replacement campaign in memory of her husband and former board member Dick Schneider.

Look for him in early 2015!

Next up in the Keller Gallery -- The Sheila Markley Black Collection



This collection of vintage textiles was collected with a sophisticated eye by a single fashion connoisseur. This exhibition will feature exquisite dresses, suits, shoes, and hats collected by local attorney Sheila Markley Black. 

Black has donated more than 300 pieces of vintage clothing to the Museum over the past few years.  From Chanel suits to Christian Louboutin shoes, each piece in her collection is an outstanding example of refined taste and classic style.

The exhibition opens with a free reception on Friday March 27.  It will be on view through July 5.

Here is a sneak peek of what you'll see in the exhibition!






Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Use Shop for Museums when you shop online this holiday season


Wow! Santa found all these great gifts at ShopforMuseums.com? AND gave free donations with each purchase to the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum? What a great holiday this is!

Click Shop for Museums to get started!

ShopforMuseums is an online portal that you click through to your favorite retailers.  We will get a donation -- at NO COST to you -- for each purchase you make!  It's free and easy to register.

Get your holiday shopping done AND support your favorite museum at the same time!

Click here for a list of more than 1300 online retailers who are a part of ShopforMuseums.  This list includes the donation amount each retailer has pledged.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Brader scavenger hunt

The charm of Ferdinand Brader's drawings lies in the details. So I decided to take a walk through the gallery yesterday and make a Scavenger Hunt to encourage our visitors to take a closer look.

The Scavenger Hunt will be available in the gallery for anyone who wants to try it!



Brader exhibit is ready and open two days early!

I can hardly believe we turned the gallery around this fast!  I had lots of help yesterday and we hung these gigantic drawings faster than I thought we would.  So we opened the doors around 3:30 yesterday afternoon.

The "official" opening is still tomorrow night at our Holiday Open House, but museum visitors can see "The Legacy of Ferdinand A. Brader" all day today and tomorrow!

I am working on a Scavenger Hunt to encourage people to look closely at each drawing.  The charm of these amazing works of art is in the detail!

Here is a sneak peek of the exhibit:









During the winter months, Brader checked himself into the Stark County Infirmary.  We have the registration book in the Ramsayer Research Library.  It is open to one of the four entries for "F.A. Brader."  The other three entries are reproduced next to the book.

The Stark County Infirmary

Brader drew a design on fabric for a family who did not have a farm he could draw.  The fabric was later quilted into a beautiful design.

There is only one colored pencil drawing in our part of the exhibition.  This one belongs to the Museum.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Bidding farewell to the underwear

Today we took down "Mentioning the Unmentionables" to make way for "The Legacy of Ferdinand A. Brader," opening this Friday at our Holiday Open House from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

It was sad to take the underwear exhibit down because it has been one of my favorites!  We had tons of people come in to see it, and we got great press in some unusual places.  We had awesome comments in the guest book, including women who remembered squeezing themselves into a girdle and those who speculated about how awful it must have been to wear all those layers!

Like I have done with most of my Keller Gallery exhibitions, this one has been turned into a program which is available for your organization's next meeting or event.  Click here for a complete list of  outreach programs.

It is always amazing to me how fast you can un-install an exhibition.  It goes down 10 times faster than it goes up, at least!  Of course, I now have several piles of underwear in my office that need to be cataloged, returned to storage, or returned to their owners.  Fun times.

Installation of the Brader exhibition will begin in the next few days.  We have to completely reconfigure the gallery.  Even though we only have five days to turn the space around, we will be ready for the opening this Friday.  We always are.

Thank you, one final time, to our sponsor for the underwear exhibit: