Gift Shop Sale & Makeover!
By Jeff Pruett

At the Gaston County Museum of Art & History we are delighted when first time visitors and returning patrons stop by to experience a new exhibit, view the artwork of a local artist, or visit one of our permanent collections. Most often these visits include a stop in the gift shop. Around the museum you will see the phrase, “there’s always something old and a lot that’s new at the Gaston County Museum” and we are very excited to announce that over the coming weeks and months there will be A LOT that’s new in the gift shop; you might call it an extreme makeover!

To kick things off, we will be having a very special sale on all of our current gift shop merchandise from September 13 – 20 during regular museum hours. Please shop early so you can experience the best bargains! All shop merchandise will be 25% off with special deals on the sun porch, including discounts of 50% and more.

To keep you up to date with the changes in the gift shop, we will be updating our progress and posting photos on our Facebook page, so follow along and let us know what you think. We welcome your comments and believe you will be pleased to see the shop’s new look! If you haven’t visited our Facebook page, check us out at www.facebook.com/GastonCountyMuseum and be sure to click LIKE!

For more information on the gift shop, please contact Patty Brooks, Museum Shop Manager/Development Assistant at 704.922.7681 x108 or patricia.brooks@gastongov.com

Dedication to the Job
By Stephanie Elliott, Curator

Old City Hospital

One of the most exciting parts of my job is the opportunities I have to learn about the history of Gaston County and meet the people who are a part of that history. In preparation for our upcoming exhibit on the history of Gaston Memorial Hospital, we have had the chance to speak with several past and current employees. No matter how boring people think their lives are, I always find them fascinating!

It was definitely a different time during the early years as a hospital than it is today. We talked to one gentleman who was a student in high school and worked over the summer in the Operating Room. Part of his job was to discard of the amputated limbs after surgery! I can’t see a high school student being allowed to do that now.

We also talk to several employees who moved from working in the mills to jobs in the lab and radiology. That would be unheard of now, where it takes years of schooling to be prepared to do a job like that. But back then it was just on-the-job training.

Looking Good in Hospital Garb!

Regan (our registrar) and I also had the opportunity to visit the current site of the hospital and get a few behind the scenes tours of the departments. It’s hard to truly appreciate the size and scope of what is done there just by looking at the outside. There are so many people that have to work together to make it work as a whole. It has definitely changed from the ten room hospital it started out as.

So I guess the point of all this is that no matter how boring you think your story is, it is always fascinating to someone. And I love that my job allows me to encounter and learn new things every day, even if it means putting on a bunny suit! But it was worth it to get to see open heart surgery taking place.

Museum Internships
By Jason Luker, Programs Coordinator

So, let’s say you want to join the museum field and you have decided to pursue an internship. That is a fantastic decision on your part. If you want to get into the museum business, you will need to have some experience. Do not think you are going to walk into a museum interview with your fancy degrees and mounds of book learnin’ and land a full time job with benefits. Not in this day and age. A good internship will get you into the field, provide some personal training, and lead to networking opportunities that will land you that coveted “paying gig”. The following are some points that I would give to anyone looking for a museum internship.



Don't Be Scared to Try New Things!



Don’t Limit Your Choices. I believe one of the biggest hang ups for folks trying to get in the museum field is their preconceived idea of a perfect career. People will get this holy grail job in their head, like being an archivist for the Smithsonian, and make some career path for themselves wrapped around archival work only. They are limiting themselves and are missing a great opportunity. It is wonderful to have a goal and also making a plan to obtain that goal. However, it is also good to try new things and gain some diversity. This will keep resumes from being so one dimensional. Trust me, for many museums it is more impressive to have a diverse background instead of being devoted to one skill set, because most museums run on a small group of employees who are asked to do different tasks. So, if you have been studying to be an archivist, maybe try an internship as an educator. If anything, it will prove to yourself how well you can handle a room full of 4th graders. On a side note, try different types of museums. If you are a history person, maybe do an internship at a zoo. If you are an artist, maybe try an internship at a science museum. Diversify yourself a bit and you will be better off in the long run.

Research the Internship. Before you accept an internship, make sure you have a firm grasp on what will be asked of you and what to expect out of the experience. A good internship will include assigned tasks with an end project that can go on your resume. If the internship is real loose in the description, be cautious. Sometimes that leads to an internship filled with crappy assignments that the professionals don’t want to do. You can always ask the museum for more information on the overall task you will be working on. Also, be upfront on your desire to make connections in the field. Networking is the key to finding a museum job. Your internship should be able to help you in networking or at least give you a strong letter of recommendation. Remember, you are the one offering to work for free. It is the museum’s job to design your scope of work and provide networking leads.

Work Like You Mean It. Treat your internship seriously. Come in on time. Make sure you are dressed professionally. Be nice to everyone and do tasks assigned to the best of your abilities. Even offer to help out whenever you can. Don’t complain or act like a know-it-all. And for the love of all things holy, ask questions! If you do not know how to do something or if the instructions have been less than clear, be sure to ask for clarification. You will gain more respect that way. And remember, you want these people to like you, even if you are leaving their sorry butts behind.

So there are a few pointers for you. We are always looking for good interns here at the Gaston County Museum. In fact we have an opening in the education department right now. If you would like to know more about the position, please give me a call at 704-922-7681 ext. 105 or by email at Jason.luker@gastongov.com.

Summer Time Fun!
By Kelly Mason, Outreach Coordinator

While most people are loading the car with swimsuits, beach chairs, and towels, museum education staff are preparing for an action packed summer complete with wool Civil War uniforms, corsets, and activities for the whole family! One of the joys of a museum educator is the ability to create new ways to engage children. Most of my time as an educator is taken up throughout the year doing school programs for the masses. Whether I am dressed in my worker clothes discussing everyday chores of the Hoffman Hotel, or dressed in my Civil War ball gown opening students eyes to the woes of a war torn country, or even if I am dressed in beautiful Victorian attire talking about 19th century art, school programs take up a lot of time and tend to be fairly repetitive. (Need to cover those NC standards!) Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and love providing programs for school groups. Sometimes, I just long for a change of pace and summer provides that outlet.

Summer is a time for us to let our hair down (figuratively of course, since a respectable woman in the 19th century would not go around town with her loose locks!) and dig into some broader topics. We host multiple camps here at the museum throughout the summer months including our paid all day Civil War camp (water balloon battle included) and some paid half day camps including pottery and cartooning camp. We also provide programs for the county libraries: this year’s theme discussing inventions that changed Gaston County. (Very interesting stuff: look up Edison Hydro-Electric Dynamo! Better yet, stop by our museum and check it out!)

Our biggest undertaking for the summer is our Free Drop in Day Camp program that runs for 7 consecutive Thursdays. This year’s theme: Work and Life: Gaston County in the 1800’s. We provided programs that spanned topics such as merchants, farming, county court, school, textiles, and transportation. Kids experience a variety of interactive stations that often include games and crafts to bring the subject to life. Some of my favorite stations included laundry relay race, planting seeds, quill pen writing, playing the textile doffer game, and making our train lantern craft. I had the ability to change period clothing from week to week based on my activity and showcase the broad spectrum of life during the county in the 1800’s.

The most magical and rewarding time for a museum educator is to see the children come back, week after week, continuing to grow and learn, and most importantly having so much fun. My job is to bring history to life, to demonstrate to kids that history is not just a boring subject they study at school, but that history is all around them and helps to create the world that we live in today. It is a museum educator’s job to show how the past, present, and future are all intermingled and that it can be very rewarding and a lot of fun to discover! As the curtain closes on summer and we begin gearing up for hundreds of school children, we look back fondly on the past few months and feel a sense of accomplishment: we were able to keep kids active and learning! Mission accomplished! Great job education team!

A Building Full of Stories
By Regan Brooks, Registrar

“We are the storytelling animal.” ~Salaman Rushdie

Stories. We all have them and you tell them just about every day - when you come home at night to your family, having coffee with your friends, or chatting with coworkers. And stories are important. They allow us to process through what happened during our day. They share clues to our loved ones the parts of our lives they were not present for and scientists have proven that with children, storytelling increases learning capacity and knowledge retention as well as critical thinking. Storytelling is so important, not just because it’s more interesting, but because our brains are wired to want to understand something. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance – often times things tend to butt up against each other. We hear something, but it doesn’t quite jive with something else we know. And if we just hear it, and it doesn’t jive, we’re unlikely to believe it. But a story allows us to resolve those issues of cognitive dissonance. They allow us to begin to get a much greater understanding of what it is that we’re hearing or that we’re talking about. And that’s why it’s so tremendously important. It’s literally everything to us in the Museum business.

If you were to stop a person on the street and ask them what it is that the Museum (this Museum, that Museum, ANY Museum) does, what its core purpose was, the answer would probably involve ‘stuff’. They preserve old stuff, they showcase art stuff, they show science stuff.

Wrong. Our core purpose is to tell you a story. We use stuff. We take care of that old stuff, that art stuff and that science stuff so we can use it to tell you that story. The story of how things used to be and why they are the way they are now. The story of how things work, the story of what’s happening now. Museums are storytellers. And we try (particularly in the history museum business) to get others to share their stories as well by getting oral histories. Sometimes it’s formal, sitting down with a tape recorder, a video camera and asking specific questions. Sometimes, it’s just “Talk to me.” Either way, when we ask – and this may come as a shock to some people – we actually do want to hear what they have to say. You’d be surprised at how many people that will happily ramble on to a complete stranger that hasn’t asked, but the second someone does ask them to talk, clam up and shut down. There’s a variety of reasons for it: They don't believe they have anything of value to tell you, and don't understand why you would want to interview them, or maybe they’re afraid you’re going to use that information in some way that would reflect poorly on them. There’s been numerous times when we’ve invited people to come meet with us and share stories and they walk into the room, give us a look (usually akin to a deer in headlights) and say they really don’t have anything to tell. It really makes you want to bang your head on the table and ask them “Then why are you here?” And the frustrating thing? They do have something to tell. And we really, really do want to hear it. And we’re not going to do anything bad with it. We promise. We no bite.

Of course, on the flipside, with other folks, you have to remind them that you’ve only got three tapes with you and you might have to continue this session another day.

Dressing for the Part
By Will Ruark

Hello, my name is Will and I am a 24 year old man who likes to dress up.

When I accepted the position as Programs Assistant, I was told I would need to assist with interpretation and programming. It was also mentioned to me that I would be doing living history—and dressing up for the part.

So cute and yet so historically wrong.

As a child, I dressed up to help my father with programs about pioneers in Western Maryland. This involved me grabbing some miss-matched, overly large clothing that would receive a response of “Awww. How cute is he!” But, here at the museum—it was now important for me to attain clothes that:

1.) Would fit

2.) Were historically appropriate
3.) Would be a representation of my character (a young man from Maryland) and

4.) Would receive a different response then when I was a child.

These criteria then led me on an adventure. I had no clue that companies existed that made Civil War era clothing. I had no clue that some people in Gaston and Mecklenburg County spend their retired years hand stitching beautiful Civil War era clothing as well.

Union Soldier at your service!

I was given a job: piece together a Union Soldier outfit. This job took me almost one month. It involved me talking to a company in Idaho (and waiting a month while an “Old Lady” hand altered my coat), venturing out into the country outside of Charlotte to pick and choose an assortment of clothing from a gentlemen’s garage shop, and being told more than once that people would rather see me in Confederate Grays. It was an interesting process, to say the least.

But, hey, after the month process—I must say I look pretty handsome.

My glorious death during Civil War Soldier Camp.

Museums & Community Partnerships = A Winning Combination
By Jeff Pruett

At the Gaston County Museum of Art & History we partner with many individuals and organizations for a multitude of projects, programs, and events. Partnerships are truly the heart of rich and diverse programming, exhibitions, and successful civic engagement. Partnering with local organizations and individuals is key to creating a more thriving and revitalized community. By working together, we can truly engage and educate the community in extremely unique ways.

Currently, the Gaston County Museum partners with Gaston County Public Schools to provide free or very low cost curriculum-based history and art focused programming. We visit many local schools and provide free outreach programming as well as provide a multitude of on-site offerings, for free or very low cost. It’s always a compliment when we see students return with their families and give them tours of the museum, excited about everything they learned on their field trip.

John Dee Holeman at Blues out Back

We have partnered with local companies and individuals to make our Blues out Back Concert Series (we are currently in our 16th year) a success as well as partnering with CaroMont for our upcoming exhibit on the History of the Gaston Memorial Hospital (this exhibit will open in mid-September). Without our generous community sponsors, it would be impossible to do these types of award-winning programs and exhibits. Remember, we are YOUR Gaston County Museum of Art & History.

For information on becoming a sponsor or partner with the museum, please call Jeff Pruett – Director at 704.922.7681 x101 or jeff.pruett@gastongov.com. Please come and see us and experience the many diverse offerings through our exhibitions and programs that we offer to all ages.