Recently at AAM 2009 in Philly I went to a session called "Eye On Design II." The point of the session was to have ten people from the museum world look outside the museum world for inspiration. The concept is not new to me and I think it is important for anyone to look outside their career field for inspiration. Frankly, it's a pretty simple way to keep the creative juices flowing.
Until recently I have always looked to the education field for inspiration. I mean after all there are a lot of similarities. Both fields have the goal of instilling knowledge. Both often have inadequate budgets and all to often staffs are not really paid what they are worth. Through several educational podcasts that I listen to I've found teachers are fabulous resources for figuring out how to achieve wonderful things with no budget.
But this session at AAM has inspired me to open my eyes even more and search out other fields that can inspire my work in museums.
My current projects are many and varied. For the museum I'm currently cataloging and organizing a very large manuscript collection of papers from the International Order of Odd Fellows. I'm also trying to catch-up on editing some podcast episodes and planning an exhibit that will open in 2010. I'm in the process of writing an article for the Historic House Museum Affinity Group newsletter and I'm putting together a workshop on social media for the Arkansas Museum Association. On the personal front I'm currently working on creating a portfolio.