A Broken Bottle

Yesterday and this morning I've been constructing storage for one of the most fragile objects in the collection. Not only is this object fragile, it's actually broken. It's a brown glass bottle, enclosed by basketry and was probably made by an individual in the Makah tribe. Problem is, at some point in the past, the glass bottle broke. The basketry is still completely in place, but when moved you can hear the glass shards clattering into each other within the basket. (click on any of the photos below to see larger versions)



My first step was to make a box that the bottle could be isolated in. The box has ties on the sides which means that the sides drop down, making it easier to get the bottle out for research.



But just setting the bottle inside the box isn't going to stop it from tipping over and breaking further, so I made two Tyvek pillows. These pillows are filled with polyester quilt batting and sewn shut. The pillows are then attached to opposite sides of the box with velcro.



Then I closed up the box, tied the sides, and, viola!, the bottle is immobilized but it is not subject to too much undue pressure. The pillows can also compensate for any shifting that may occur within the body of the object.



This housing should help to mitigate further damage to the object and help to support it as well. It's a beautiful object, so I'm pleased that this box is a success.

I looked around the internet, and if you'd like to see similar basketry bottles, check out the Ethnology Collection at the Burke Museum, which is available to look at online.

SPOON!!

Not, SPOON!, as in the battle cry of The Tick. But spoon as in a utensil used in the preparation, distribution and consumption of food.



I've been making slow and steady progress through small portions of the collection. One of my projects this week was the rehousing, cataloging, and photography of a small collection of Northwest Coast wooden and horn spoons. The above is pretty typical of the wooden spoons, undecorated with a large bowl.

I should have taken a "Before" picture of storage, but I missed my chance. This is how the spoons are stored now:


I made custom cavities in 2" thick ethafoam for the smaller spoons. The larger spoons are required by space constraints to lay on their sides for the time being. They will be given custom mounts when we have moved. Some of the boxes are not permanent, thus there are some foam spacers in boxes to prevent the movement of the mounts. The boxes are custom made as well. And now the spoons are just about ready to be packed and moved, which is the ultimate goal.

Flickr

Well, like the good folks at the IMA, I've gone revolutionary. That is to say, I've signed up this museum-in-development for Flickr and joined the dozens of museums using the photo-hosting site to host photos and potentially invite community involvement.

www.flickr.com More of CWU Museum's photos

At the moment, it's just an account under the name "cwumuseum", but in the future we could easily create a group or groups for special events, the museum in general, or anything we cared to. In the meantime, the images are mostly past Whatzits.