Fabrication Planning Begins
With the close of week 4 and the beginning of week 5 the countdown till the opening of our exhibit looms ever closer. Last week we finalized last minute details on our exhibit booklet, which is looking fantastic. This week our focus was directed towards drafting up and drawing out construction drawings for our fabricated display pieces.
Edgar Degas, Little Dancer on display at the National Gallery of Art. Note how the sculpture is on central display to the room and solidly mounted to the display case.
It’s incredibly important to create secure and stable mounts for artifacts and to display information. Oppose to just nailing something together in the moment, construction drawings help museum workers determine why particular mounts are necessary, detail the materials and costs of their fabrication, and outline their design of construction techniques. Construction drawings give a practical outline for the cost, materials, and feasibility of mount making.
When the HA class set down to determine what mounts needed to be fabricated we were surprised at the low number. Only four drawings would need to be completed: three lighted boxes, the case for the time capsule, the stand for the self-station, and the center case. Excited by the prospect of math required for the task, Amanda bounded head and drafted up the case for the time capsule before the rest of the class even started thinking about the assignment. It was determined that the design committee would complete the drawings for the lighted boxes and the rest of the class would work together to make determinations on the selfie-station and the center case.
Construction drawing drafted by Amanda of a bird-eye's view of the center case.
After a meeting with Library staffs this past Monday, it was decided the self-station would be constructed with three collapsible 3’x7’ rolls of display material. A much more difficult task has been the drafting of our center kiosk, which will feature a timeline history of public history in Illinois and an introductory video to the exhibit. Originally we had designed the case to be 7’ in height with a 3’diameter. At our meeting last Thursday, however, we decided that was too narrow so we increased the diameter to 4’. In response, this past Monday we received an email from our exhibit professor Mr. Riccio cautioning about the size of the library’s doorframe, which is only 3’. Moving forward we will need to determine if the mount we construct can horizontally fit through the library doorframe or if we’ll need to construct part of it in the foyer. The queries and complications never end!
