Revisiting the Greensboro Historical Museum, I actually venture through all the exhibits this time around. As soon as you enter into the museum, a small exhibition is towards your left, the Traveling Exhibition entitled "Down Home". This was an attribute it seems towards Jewish life in NC; a brief history of how they came about and started to settle here in this town. "As a minority, growing up in Greensboro was special to these people," Randall Kaplan stated,” since this town was built by all sorts of leaders in many different ways." The very first known date was back in 1832, and since then, has become more self aware through many activities and grew as not only a community in Greensboro, but also a community as a culture. The museum has set up a small timeline on the back wall to showcase this movement, along with other displays and panel boards to allow audience to get a small glimpse into their perspectives. Since this was in the main lobby area, natural lighting help to make the area brighter, compared to other parts of the museum. The overall space seemed to be condensing, and felt small as I walked around it. But I believe this was just a small token to the museum, therefore it wasn't a major significant of what the museum was about, and so the space was probably appropriate at the time. But, in my opinions, why was this exhibition separated from the rest of the other exhibitions? Why did the museum want us to see this first when entering? It seem to just be placed there, a small unit instead of a whole like the other exhibits. Only will know once I ask them that later the next time I come back.
Period Rooms & Pottery Display -
I made my way towards the staircase after visiting the Down Home section, and entered the real exhibition site of the museum. The first one was the Pottery room. As soon as you enter, a display case of glass holds hundreds of pottery items on both side, as well as one right in front of your line of vision. I wonder if this was intentional to block out the view beyond that point for the audience to make them travel around in order to see the next area. This room, I thought, was a contribution towards the pottery life, as the timeline stated, since 1915, with a woman name Juliana Busbee. Later on becoming know as the Jugtown where she resided, and made many pottery during her times. The area seems to be darkening, only with the display lights visible within the glass case of the object, and some dim overhead lights where the circulation of the room took place. There were many materials within these cases, as well as the different types of color on each pottery, signifying that color and style gradually played an important role in the end product. The simple design grew more popular and so Juliana and her partner added more form. Even though you could read the text to tell you, the lighting in the space made it a bit difficult. I wonder if the use of better lighting would have made a bad impact on the pottery display that they opted for a dimmer version. The layout of the pottery display, I know was set up according to the timeline, but within those times, I wonder if the orientations of display was randomly adjusted or had a specific meaning to them.
Gate City Exhibition -
As you leave the Pottery room, you either can make your way towards the main Voice exhibition room to your left, or the Gate City exhibition up the stairs. As the end of the Voice exhibition, it would lead me back to the Museum shop, I went up the staircase to the Gate City instead. It was like entering into a Western movie at the entrance, with old town design boards up top. They wanted to recreate a view that best capture those major buildings during their times. It was probably projected this way because perhaps this was how the city of Greensboro looked like back then. A, couple of benches surrounding a tree in the middle of the main room, signifying a park area, divided the path of travel into two sections to make a circular pathway if you were to view from the top. It also blocked the other entrance-way site directly across from it. It was also a bit dark in this space as well, with an exception to the General Greene area, which had an abundant of light in the back corner. Each of the building had an open entrance leading into the separate space to showcase each of their individual exhibits. Some of the available sites there were the Lina Porter's Schoolhouse, Richardson & Fariss Druggists, Piedmont Hotel, Crystal Theater, & the General Greene. These were probably the most important aspects during developing times as the town was growing. I found the druggist building to be most fascinating, with all of the drugs stored up in a glass case, showing how the pharmacist aspect used to be like.
Voice Exhibition -
Making my way towards the entrance of the Voice exhibition, this one was already different from all the other ones. In the other ones, you could see all or most of the exhibition as soon as you enter the room, but with this one, it was simply too big of a space to view all at one glimpse. The navigation of this room was probably thought of through the study of how much info this space actually needed. You were lead in in one direction, and you knew exactly where to go. There weren't other spaces that separated from the path itself that you would have had to choose from to continue on. Within this singular pathway space, information filled up the walls from early Greensboro history and made its way towards the present day. A big timeline piece, if you will, showed many interesting artifacts and diagrams of what early life was about. The first section filled with noises of outdoors, deep in a forest echoed the room. Early materials of stone head were shown on the display along with other weapons used in those times, gradually increasing to more advance weaponry. A wagon was also displayed, a form of transportation used then. The actual description I would have used to describe the circulation of the space would have been similar to a maze, but with only one sense of direction. Lighting in all area was sufficient and you could easily read text from the panels of display off of the wall or on the glass board them. As you enter another doorway of the space, a different time zone evolved, and new information filled the walls. This repeated itself about four or so times, transitioning from early times to present date. Venturing deep into the "maze" I ended up at the present daytime, which I discover my neighborhood, Adams Farm, was actually built by a guy name John H. Adams. I believe the museum had a purpose to set it up the way they did, because they wanted to "voice" out to use about the history that once existed, and how at the end of path of the Voice exhibition, time, economy, landscape, and the people had changed everything. It was a way for us to realize and to treasure our history of Greensboro to make an impact and to probably restore or hold on to the last bits that is left.
[Sketches]
Museum Shop -
I don't necessary think this space helps aid in the understanding of the museum, as much as I believe it is where it is to induce a purchase from visitors after exiting from the Voice exhibition because you have no other way to exit off to. And even before that, it is accessible in the pottery room, which ruins the whole perspective and the close-off of each exhibitions they had done. I think it's really there just like any other gift shop to help raise funds for the museum to continue to preserve it's history and artifacts. It was kind of cram inside as well, with so little available walkway since display items are right along the center line.
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