Spring Update: Town Meeting with Secretary Skorton, Sleepovers, Training, Interviews

You're Invited! Smithsonian Volunteer Town Meeting with Secretary Skorton on May 17th at 10 am at NMAI

Submit your RSVP online

Secretary Skorton invites all Smithsonian Volunteers to a special Town Hall meeting held on Wednesday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. at the National Museum of the American Indian's Rasmuson Theater. The Town Hall will be webcast and recorded for those who are unable to attend in person, but still want to participate.

The meeting will begin with a volunteer panel discussion led by Secretary Skorton focused on the different experiences of Smithsonian Volunteers. Secretary Skorton will then be interviewed by a volunteer* on what’s happening around the Smithsonian.  

The meeting will conclude with a Q&A session. Volunteers in the auditorium can ask a question by raising their hand. Volunteers viewing via webcast can send questions in real-time to [email protected] to be read aloud during the meeting.

We want your ideas! Submit your thoughts in the online RSVP form for topics and questions to be incorporated into the panel discussion and/or interview with Secretary Skorton.

We hope you are able to join us either in person or by watching online. ASL interpretation will be provided for the meeting and the webcast. 

For further information on this message, contact Abbey Earich, 202.633.5260, [email protected].

UPDATE: An Associates Art Rep, Amabassador and Special Events Volunteer, Valerie Virta, has been selected to be on the volunteer panel. If possible, please RSVP on the link above and meet us at NAMI  at 9:45 AM on Wed. May 17th, so we can support Valerie and represent the Associates as a group, Hopefully we can sit together!

 

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The Smithsonian Staff & Volunteer Picnic
Turns 16: How Sweet it is!

The Smithsonian Community Committee is pleased to announce the 16th annual Staff and Volunteer Picnic on the Mall. SI staff, fellows, interns, and volunteers are invited to join in the festivities. This popular event includes free food, entertainment, stories, research presentations, and other exciting activities!

When:                  Monday, July 10 - 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Where:                  Smithsonian Folklife Festival grounds, located on the National Mall between 7^th and 12th streets.

Reserve your free meal tickets by signing up in EVANS or emailing Jenna by TUES. MAY 16. (Photo above shows our Associates Volunteers who came to the picnic in 2014)

FOOD  
Delicious food will be available from four vendors: 

• Anita’s New Mexico Style: featuring Southwest-inspired enchiladas, burritos, rice, stewed beef/pork, and flan
• Buddy’s BBQ: offer down-home classics such including; ribs,  ½ chicken, pulled pork, potato salad, baked beans, and peach cobbler
• Ming’s Vietnamese:  This Vietnamese/East Asian fusion stand will tempt you with ginger beef, chicken salad, pork buns, veggies/vermicelli, black sticky rice, and Vietnamese iced coffee
• Fry Bar: Enjoy fish and chips, mini meat pies, Irish spring rolls, chicken tenders and French Fries

Meal tickets will be required. 

• Advance reservations for meal tickets are required. 
  Reserve your free meal tickets by signing up in EVANS or emailing Jenna by TUES. MAY 16. 

ENTERTAINMENT AND ACTIVITIES: Circus surprises from this year’s Folklife Festival (stay tuned for more details.)

• Enjoy musical performances from colleagues and others with Smithsonian roots. Calls for musical entertainment will be coming soon.
• Sit in on all the collegial conversation while enjoying your lunch at the Smithsonian Stories narrative tent.
• Hear about the latest research projects, presented by the members of the Smithsonian Congress of Scholars. 
• Reconnect with retired colleagues and get information at the Smithsonian Alumni Program station.
• Visit a selection of your favorite Smithsonian Affinity groups.
• A cooking competition and other surprises

MARKETPLACE

The Folklife Festival Marketplace (located inside A&I) will once again be open to staff during the Picnic, so bring your staff ID and beat the customary Festival crowds. Stay tuned to hear more on staff discounts. Proceeds from Marketplace purchases support the musicians and artisans at this year’s Festival.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: MEAL TICKETS

o   These tickets will be valid for use at Folklife Festival food tents on the day of the Picnic only.
o   Only one set of tickets will be given per staff, fellow, intern, or volunteer.
o   Tickets must be reserved in advance; they will NOT be distributed on the day of the Picnic.
o   Volunteers should make their ticket reservations through the Picnic contact in their unit – for Associates Volunteers, that’s Jenna Jones.

Staff and others without tickets are welcome to make a cash purchase of food from the vendors or bring a Picnic lunch from home.Associates Volunteers will pick up their RESERVED lunch tickets at the Ripley Center on Monday morning, July 10, at 10:15 a.m. - location TBD.

As always, the Smithsonian Community Committee is most grateful for the tremendous support provided by the talented Folklife Festival staff, and for the use of the Festival site.

See you on the Mall. Stay tuned for further announcements.

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Volunteer this Summer with our Spectacular Smithsonian Sleepovers!

We literally can not offer these lifetime memory-making nights (which are hugely popular) without our enthusiastic activity leaders! They make the scavenger-hunt style evening FUN! Will you volunteer at this summer's sleepovers?
 
Please look over all these dates and use EVANS to sign up. We ask that you 
select 3 or more dates to help us run things smoothly and more consistently. 

American History
Fri. June 2
Sat. June 17
Fri. July 7
Fri. Aug. 25

 

Natural History
Fri. May 26
Fri.  June 23
Fri. June 30
Fri. July 21
Fri. August 4
Fri. August 18

Udvar Hazy

Sat. July 15
Sat. July 29
Sat. August 12

 

Meeting time: 6:00 pm for Orientation and light snacks (please bring something more substantial to eat if you like)
Dress: Casual and comfortable - sneakers, t-shirt (we will provide you with a Smithsonian Sleepovers t-shirt) are recommended. Lots of walking on hard floors.
End time: You will not be spending the night. You should be able to head home between 11-11:30 pm.

QUESTIONS? Please contact Jenna Jones, CVA at [email protected] or at 202-633-8596.

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 Associates Volunteers Represented in Ripley Art Exhibition
by Guest Blogger Janet Hewitt

You probably would expect Smithsonian Associates volunteers to love art and history. That’s why they volunteer to be around the dim sum of delights found in the Smithsonian.  But would you expect a surprising number of them to be gifted artists in their own right? If you said yes, you are amazingly smart (or lucky) and right on the money.

A current exhibit in the Ripley Center called Artists at Work 2017: The Smithsonian Community Committee Art Exhibition displays a wide range of work that showcases the artistic talent of the larger Smithsonian community.   It is the sixth exhibition in the series and finalists this year were selected from 206 entries. Only 74 made the final cut and are now on display. The show includes the work of Smithsonian staff, interns, volunteers, contractors and research fellows.

We set out to talk to some of the volunteers whose work is honored in this year’s show. For this edition of the blog, we caught up with Leslie Boss, whose beautiful, hand-stitched quilt entitled “Totally Scraps 2015” is a stunning display of color and geometric design.  

Leslie, a retired epidemiologist who formerly worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been an office volunteer with Smithsonian Associates for more than 11 years, working in the local tours division.  That group orchestrates the bus and walking tour offerings that include such recent outings as a trip to Brooklyn, an offering so popular a second trip had to be added.

Leslie is a Silver Spring resident and she told me (a newbie retiree) during a recent interview that while she enjoyed a great career—“retirement is even better.”  She frequently is among the first people to arrive at Ripley, where she can be found hard at work as early as 6:30 a.m. on most Tuesdays and Thursdays. She admits to being “a morning person” but leaves it at that.  She’s clearly a valued volunteer who is by now pretty much self-directed as an integral part of the team.  Did we add that Leslie’s is pretty modest as well?

While we understand that there are sincere distinctions made by artisans who define their work as craft versus art, at some point that whole discussion becomes irrelevant. When your creation has been selected in a juried show titled “Artists at Work” the decision about terminology has already been made for you. And it may just be more about the final creation than how the creator got there.  

This is what Leslie had to say on that whole discussion:  “My quilt is pure craft and the fact that it turned out artistic is really an accident! I don’t consider myself an artist by any stretch of the imagination. I have been quilting for about 40 years, and this is the first (of the many I have created) that turned out ‘artistic.’ I am quite amazed to have the quilt be part of the exhibit.”

She learned quilting from her grandmother and still does it all by hand (she says “that’s the fun part”).  She estimates that her jury-selected quilt took “less than a year” to make.  She adds that’s “as close as she can come” to pegging the time it took to create the very large, meticulously stitched work on display in the Ripley Center.

The whole premise took shape in her mind around making a quilt made exclusively from the fabric she had on hand.   Thus the name: Totally Scraps. We asked why impose such a restriction on yourself from the get-go. 

What if she’d had only all-dark, boring colors on hand—then, there’s no way she could have achieved the stunning color contrasts she produced. Or what if she only had available an unpleasing set of cotton fabrics (because she only uses all-cotton) that she’d been avoiding because they lacked appeal in the first place? Why do that to yourself? (It would be like Van Gogh saying there won’t be any yellow paint in this picture because I don’t have any on hand and I like the challenge.)

Leslie explains the simple motivation for her approach this way: “Because I had too much fabric.”  She had acquired shelves of fabric from years of making quilts.  She travels a lot and tries to pick up fabric on her travels. She often goes to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and Amish country to get quite a bit of it. She says the Amish make the best and least expensive fabrics and are wonderful quilters.

But basically, it came down to this: “I’ve reached the point where I am trying to get rid of stuff—including fabric.” She says about the fact that the design came together so perfectly, “much of that is luck.” (We would add talent to that.)

When asked how many quilts she has made over 40 years of creating them, she says simply, “I have no idea--quite a few.”  When not at the Ripley Center at the crack of dawn on Tuesdays or Thursdays, you probably can find her exploring the museums.  She’s already seen Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn Museum and was definitely planning on taking the bus trip to Brooklyn.

In our June blog post, we will talk to Event Rep Joan Stogis, whose quilt panel “Green Man 2014” is part also of this exhibit.

 

A third Associates volunteer, and Smithsonian staffer, Linda Hollenberg, is featured in this The Artist at Work 2017 exhibition. By day, Linda is a Collections Collaborator for the Natural History Museum, and she has made this beautiful basket, entitled “Mississippi Pine Needles 2016.” 

 

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Event Reps: Sign Up for A Spring Training: Choose from 3 Remaining Dates

All Event Reps must select one of these two hour sessions and sign up in EVANS. This training is mandatory to maintain your active volunteer status and as thus, be eligible to be scheduled for upcoming program assignments. It's been 3 years since our last refresher, so there are new procedures and information to cover with each of you. Bring your handbook with you, as we will give you a revised document to replace your 2014 or 2016 handbook section.

All sessions will be here at Ripley.

Please choose ONE of these dates and request it in EVANS:

#1: Friday, April 21: 9:30 am - 11:30 am, includes continental breakfast
AT CAPACITY, select another date
#2: Wednesday, April 26: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, includes dessert & beverages
AT CAPACITY, select another date
#3: Saturday, May 6: (3 slots left) 9:30 am - 11:30 am, with optional potluck lunch afterwards
#4: Monday, May 22: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, includes dessert and beverages AT CAPACITY, select another date
#3: Saturday, June 3: (15 slots left) 9:30 am - 11:30 am, with optional potluck lunch afterwards
#4: Tuesday, June 6: (7 slots left) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm, with light refreshments
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Our Ripley Security Officers:
Meet Corporal Charlie Morton
by Guest Blogger Kiren Jahangeer

Corporal Charlie Morton was born in New York and raised in DC. He agreed to take time out of his busy schedule and answer a few questions about his role as a federal police officer at the Smithsonian, where he has helped guard our nation’s most precious treasures.

How long have you been working at the Smithsonian?

Since 2000. Prior to that I was in the Department of Agriculture for 10 years, but the only interaction with visitors there involved checking IDs. The Smithsonian is a much friendlier place, with a very warm atmosphere. That appealed to me the most when I applied for the job.

What is the strangest question you’ve ever been asked on duty?

A woman asked me, “Can I bring my pet skunk in the museum? It’s my service animal.” She had the paperwork that indicated this was true, so we had to let her in. Someone came in with a small horse once, and people have brought monkeys too that they say are their “service animals.” If they have the proper paperwork, we can’t say anything.

Which museum is the spookiest to work in?

Arts and Industries is where I started, and there were a lot of strange noises there, but the Castle is by far the spookiest. One day I was reading a memo and a clock on the wall behind me started making strange noises. I ignored the clock, and it fell off the wall onto my head, as if it was thrown across the room at me. The strangest part was one of the hands on the clock was no longer straight, and had curled up like a butterfly’s tongue. It was almost as if the clock was angry I ignored it. I showed the clock to my supervisor and some other officers so they would believe me. I also think that James Smithson walks around the halls at night in the Castle. A lot of officers have experienced unexplainable things while on duty there.

Who is the most famous person you have seen on the job?

President Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.

Do you have a favorite Smithsonian museum to visit for fun?

The National Museum of Natural History – I love gems, especially diamonds, rubies, and gold.

What is the best part of your job?

Working with people, whether it’s the visitors that come in or my colleagues. I love coming to work every day and helping people.
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The Hirshhorn is pleased to announce their Opening of a Dolcezza Gelato & Coffee Pop-up Coffee Shop!

Smithsonian staff, contractors and volunteers with a badge will receive a 20% discount on all purchases.

Dolcezza’s Hirshhorn pop-up is located on the Museum’s plaza and will serve daily-made gelato, rich pastries, and expertly crafted coffee drinks, pour-over coffee, cider and hot chocolate.

The coffee shop's hours are 8 AM to 5 PM daily, except on Wednesdays, when it is open until 6 PM.

As a special treat, a new “Infinity” flavor of gelato has been created in honor of Yayoi Kusama’s 88^th birthday. It features vanilla gelato dotted with rich chocolate flakes and a triple-cherry swirl.

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Where Am I?
By Guest Blogger, Janet Hewitt
While this hipster-worthy Hawaiian shirt could easily be found on U Street today in the District, it actually dates to a much  earlier decade—well before millennials arrived on the scene. The shirt belonged to a U.S. president, but which one? And where is it hanging currently? 

Just imagine what the media today would do with a shot of POTUS wearing some cool shades with this shirt on his back? Yet, that look was actually sported by a president during vacation breaks from the Oval Office back in the day. And even back then, the owner took some grief from a friend about his “vacation attire,” or so says the card in the display case where this now resides. Apparently, Hawaiian shirts weren’t considered sufficiently presidential.

Today, presidents go to Camp David, or, more recently, Mar-a-Lago to get away from the pressures of the White House. But back when this was worn, the president was tooling around in a golf cart or a speedboat at the “little White House” in Key West, Florida.

So, here’s what we want to know: Who owned the shirt and in which museum is it currently on display? 

Here’s a few hints:

Hint One: The shirt is graced with the very faded signatures of his family, including a daughter with musical aspirations.

Hint Two: It shares the same display case as a 1921 pass in a small leather case issued to President Warren G. Harding that gave him free access to any professional baseball team stadium. The black case is embossed with the words: “Compliments of the National League.” (Since it’s April, we felt it was especially timely to get in a plug for the start of the major league baseball season. So, while we’re at it—Go Nats!)

ANSWERS TO LAST ISSUE’S Where Am I?:  In the February edition of the blog, the two items featured were 1) A bronze bust of Harry Winston that sits in the Harry Winston Hall overlooking the room where the Hope Diamond is displayed in the National Museum of Natural History, and 2) The Angelina Jolie Citrine necklace also displayed in the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum.