A packed schedule of events

Sunday, I met up with several hundred #musetech friends as the Media and Technology committee announced winners at the 23^rd Annual Muse Awards. The winning entries in a dozen categories came from museums around the world and represented the most innovative and awe-inspiring digital projects happening in museums. The IMA won a Bronze Award in Public Outreach for our video XLVI Reasons to Visit the IMA.

These lucite awards are dang hard to photograph.

The sessions this year were really inspiring. The IMA is evaluating a lot of our mobile experiences (more to follow on this soon) and I feel so inspired by all of the thoughtful approaches presented at the conference. I have written down a couple thoughts and quotes from the sessions I attended- sorry if you saw a lot of these on Twitter already! I have tried to give credit where credit is due, but please let me know if I have taken credit for something you said!

Can Mobile Interpretation also be Social?:

• How does the social experience mesh with museum created material? – Peter Samis
• Mobile and social aren’t for everybody. – Peter Samis
• Know the digital habits of your target audience and make sure your digital plan targets the right audience. – Peter Samis via @artlust
• Presenters noted inspiration from artists using mobile social elements in their work. Relational aesthetics in contemporary art are informing digital experiences in the museum.
• Museums can use visitors’ opinions as opportunities to crowdsource first-person content about their collection. – Nancy Proctor
• A huge portion of visitors/users only want to view content – they are not creators/authors. These ‘lurkers’ are valuable as well and we should provide them with a means for engagement. – Nancy Proctor
• Mobile can provide opportunities for in-person social experiences that are valuable for different types of visitors.
• How can the IMA make our mobile tours more friendly to our visitors? What information are our visitors looking for but not finding? This seems obvious but I have been thinking about the implications: Mobile tours should be visitor-centric.
• How can the IMA use our mobile tours as an opportunity to interact with or listen to our visitors?
• What special experiences at the IMA could be supported with mobile technology?

Nancy Proctor discusses what to measure with Mobile

Engage on the Go: Mobile Content Delivery:

• What can we add to the mobile experience that will help visitors with their basic needs? Food, bathrooms, tickets, etc. – Layla Masri
• Opportunity to add social interaction – only do it if it works! Is it what people want or need?
• Mobile includes: Pocketable and portable, smart and dumb phones, podcasts and other downloadable material, bring your own device and rentables, mobile websites and large screen websites. – Nancy Proctor
• Mobile can mean at home or in the gallery; it can be for deep engagement or quick bites.
• Mobile can be used as a strategy for engaging with the visitor on their terms.
• How can we use mobile in the galleries that lets people engage with devices comfortably? Liz Neely discussed the roll out of iPads in the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago and designing secure (yet comfortable) ways for the visitors to use them.
• Think about possible partnerships – how can we leverage other local institutions to build more content together. How does the IMA fit into the larger needs of a visitor’s life?

Liz Neely discusses multifaceted content

Museum as Prototype

• Museums can use prototypes and models as a way to test new ideas in the physical gallery.
• Do museums who are worried about polish and image need to have a space dedicated as “experimental” to allow themselves to use prototypes? Do visitors expect more polish and perfection from a professional institution than a prototype gives them?
• Can a prototype environment give a visitor more authority to question the voice of the museum?
• Prototyping allows me to think differently about what curating means. – Christina Chang
• In order to have an environment for creativity & prototyping, museum staff must have time to think and permission to FAIL.
• We should allow visitors to use the space in new ways that the museum itself does not organize. – Nina Simon
• Museums say certain objects are precious. What objects do our visitors say are precious? How can we help them relate to the objects or ideas being presented through ownership of ideas?

I have a lot more to think about, but hope to be back wowing you with inspirational new projects soon. Also, the current plan is to sweep the 2013 Muse Awards, so watch out Baltimore!

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

My favorite time to volunteer at the Indianapolis Museum of Art is on a Friday night when museum hours are extended to 9pm.  You know that feeling of peace that you have right before a soft spring rain starts to fall?  Or the sensation you feel the moment that you first see the ocean when you arrive on a beach vacation?  Yeah.  That’s my cheesy analogy for the feeling I get when I sit in a quiet, serene gallery on a Friday night.  As a volunteer of the IMA, I have the luxury of feeling like the permanent galleries of the museum are my private sanctuary.  My personal church.  I suppose I should pause for a moment and explain who I am and why I’m lucky to be blogging here…

My name is Jessica Hancock and I’ve been a volunteer for the IMA since the fall of 2008.  At that time, I was going through a particularly challenging time in my life.  It was a time when I felt like, even though I had a million friends and a million different options for a Friday night, all I wanted to do was be still.  One day I reverted back to my roots, so to speak, and I thought about the days when I used to strut around the old IMA galleries alongside my Busha (polish for Grandma).  Busha was a museum docent, post retirement, for over 20 years. She used to bring my cousins and me around the museum, educating us through every twist and turn we’d take through the galleries.  I remembered how proud I was of her, how I wanted to have that substantial knowledge about art.  So I walked right into the museum on a Sunday afternoon in November and started volunteering.

Hands down, it was the best decision I ever made!  Four years later, I volunteer once a month on the first Sunday of every month at the guest services kiosk.  The months that I do not volunteer, I feel anxious.  Art does something different for everyone.  One of my favorite questions that I get when I’m volunteering is usually from an eager parent asking, “Where do I start?  Which gallery would my kids enjoy the most?”  It’s an exhilarating and proud moment when I get to share my expertise and personal favorites in the museum!

To volunteer means to make yourself useful to others.  In whatever way you choose to do so, volunteering can be humbling and a reminder you of who you really are.  For me personally, there is an attracting element to knowing art and being able to share it with others.  Being present and giving my time to the IMA once a month was my way of feeling close to something I love.  I have the endless opportunity to educate myself and museum guests every time I’m there.   So if you find me still and in a “moment” at the museum on a Friday night, just know that I’m just enjoying my personal sanctuary.

Heather (on the left) and Elizabeth (on the right) receiving their ROSE Award nominations.

We have a host of staff, volunteers and docents that make the museum a wonderful place to visit and the ROSE Award nominations are a way for us to acknowledge those contributions to the museum. Two of our very own were nominated to receive the ROSE Award. Heather Hudson and Elizabeth Battson received letters of acknowledgment from Mayor Ballard and took part in a reception for all honorees on March 28th at the Indiana Roof Ballroom.

The mission of the ROSE Awards is to honor non-managerial hospitality employees or volunteers who exemplify excellent customer service. These industry champions, through one-on-one or behind-the-scenes contact, positively influence a visitor’s experience in Indianapolis.

Once an employee of the IMA, Elizabeth enjoyed the visitors and serving our community so much that she returned after retirement to volunteer.  Over the years, Elizabeth has stuffed hundreds of membership envelopes and assembled thousands of complimentary exhibition tickets. She does this all with precision, care and a wonderful sense of humor.  We often find that we need to remind her to stand up and stretch!

Heather serves as the receptionist at the museum, and while in this role, she has developed a wonderful working knowledge of the IMA.  This allows her to be extremely helpful to callers and visitors in providing them with the information they seek. Heather handles a high volume of phone calls, at times up to 150 a day.

Let’s be sure to applaud both ladies on their recognition of excellence!

In the Marketing offices

In 2006, the graphic design team worked in the marketing department. Exhibition design worked on the other side of the building. There wasn’t usually much crossover. The brochure you picked up was never part of the dialogue with actual exhibition design. We handled primarily marketing print work. No exhibition graphics. Since then, all of that has changed. Graphic design is part of the larger Design Studio. We collaborate every day, not only with each other, but with every other department in the museum. We still work on all print collateral, but also on exhibition graphics. We’ve had our growing pains, but it has been an amazing experience that has helped strengthen not only my own work, but the overall design of the museum and the visitor experience.

The Design Studio

So, what’s the point of all this? Tomorrow night, Wednesday February 15th, David Russick, our Chief Designer, and I will be giving a presentation for AIGA Indy about how our department functions here at the museum. It has been a crazy trip for us as we’ve looked back at all of the things we’ve worked on. Our accomplishments and our failures. Over coffee, we’ve remembered many of the amazing and ridiculous things that have happened with each project. We’d love to have you come out to the Indianapolis Art Center and learn about design at the IMA and help support AIGA. More info can be found here. Hopefully we’ll see you there. Oh, and I’ll try not to wait three years between blog posts next time.

Robert Indiana, "Numbers," 1980-1983. Gift of Melvin Simon and Associates; 1988.241. © Morgan Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The IMA is getting into the spirit by positioning 4 and 6 of Robert Indiana’s Numbers together on the 2nd floor, near the Welcome Desk. You can also check out one of the Super Cars (for the Carolina Panthers) near the entrance, outside the IMA’s retail store.

As Visitor Services Manager, I wanted to make sure we were prepared with as much information as possible for this huge event. One activity that we participated in was Super Service Training, which was set up to prepare our team with valuable tools and resources needed before the Super Bowl (and ensuing crowds) got underway.  We had an amazing time with our trainers! We played games, learned the history of the city, and absorbed valuable information that all customer service associates need to do their job at the highest level. After completing the training, all of us received our own “Super Service Pin” and certificate, pictured below. We will wear these with pride!

Come by and see us, and happy Super Bowl!

For those of you who have a taste for the technical and an appreciation of process, begin reading here:

Art Directed Photography

Unfortunately for me (and I would argue the patron), this is what I get to do the least.

Art Directed photography requires a fair amount pre-planning and time to explore an approach to photography of an object or setting.  It requires the input of multiple parties, is of high quality, and has a distinct “look” to the final image.  These images are generally intended for more targeted uses in magazine and catalogues.

The images below of Alberto Meda’s Light-Light chair were taken with a Mamiya 645D and a Phase One P45 digital back. The inspiration came from our Senior Curator of Design Arts Craig Miller, who wanted to focus on the texture of the material. The silhouette of the chair legs emerges from the darkness to reveal the back and the carbon fiber texture.

Alberto Media, "Light-Light chair (prototype)," 1988, carbon fiber and Nomex composite. Purchased with funds provided by James E. and Patricia J. LaCrosse.

Here’s another example of an art directed photo shoot:

Allesandro Mendini and Alessandro Guerriero, "Side chair from Ollo Collection,"1988, plastic, laminate. Frank Curtis Springer and Irving Moxley Springer Purchase Fund. © Alessandro Guerriero.

Publication Photography

Occurring much more frequently than art directed projects, publication photography is what you will typically find me doing day to day. It generally consists of high quality documentation photography, which requires more setup time and use of higher end equipment. The background may be white or gradated. Publication photography fulfills the need of catalogues and other external requests that require large image sizes.

Below are images of a more straightforward nature.  A generic gradient background is used rather than something more dramatic. Therefore the background or lighting does not become a distraction or a more obvious component of the image.  We have recently moved away from using the gradients.  Much of our work is shot on a plain white background to give all the attention to the art object.

Documentation Photography
This approach is similar to publication photography, however the intended results are more focused on a specific collection.  The drive behind this type of photography is to get a clear visual record of the object.

 Documentation photography is a systematic approach to photographing objects in the collection. The image is captured in a very generic setting (usually with a white background). Although quick snapshots can also be utilized as documentation, the goal of the Publishing & Media department is to acquire a clean, representative image of the work of art.  The resulting image can then be utilized for 80-90% of image needs (small press, newspaper, online, magazine, some catalogue uses).

We tend to create these images with Canon 5D Mark IIs and similar full frame digital cameras. A group of photographers are usually involved with any systematic documentation of the collection, along with staff from other departments coordinating the object movements.  See image below:

The role of the museum photographer is an exciting and rewarding one, and – as with many jobs in the museum – you frequently have the opportunity to get up-close with a variety of artwork.  And as a photographer, we get to see the work in its best light.  Future posts from me will be dealing with specific objects and how we shoot them, including images of our setup and some trial and error photographs, if I can get them by our editor.  Stay tuned!

Want to create a paradise for your feathered friends? The IMA Greenhouse has an exciting new product for you…a Green Roof Birdhouse. You can actually plant a living garden in the rooftop tray of this cedar home for birds.

In order to create this home for your feathered friends, simply follow these step-by-step instructions:

First soak the wood with water, as well as the potting soil you’re going to use.

Add soil to the roof tray until it comes to within ½” of the top.

Take cuttings from a plant, hydrate the roots, and “stick” the cutting in the soil.

Add cuttings as desired.

Choose a contrasting plant, prepare a hole for the roots and plant. Continue adding plant material that pleases you. Remember to choose plants that have similar cultural requirements.

And know when to stop!

Spritz well with water to clean the soil from the leaves and water the plant roots thoroughly.

When your masterpiece is finished spritz well daily, or when the soil is dry to the touch, gently soak the plants. When planted, a Green Roof Birdhouse is so beautiful, you may want to display it indoors as a living object d’art! But if your birdhouse is really “for the birds,” it comes with two heavy-duty brass screws for fastening to a wall, fence or tree trunk. There is a side panel that swings open for easy cleaning.

When Rachel Carson wrote her iconic book Silent Spring (1962) some say she launched the entire American environmental movement. Others say it began with Henry David Thoreau’s Maine Woods published in the late 1800’s. But whenever the movement started, we can all agree…GREEN is here to stay!

The Kröller-Müller is located on about 60 acres, set within De Hoge Veluwe National Park, and visitors can either park their cars nearby and take a brief walk to the museum, or leave their cars in several locations along the park border and pick up a free bike to cycle to the museum. Taking the latter option, I started to think about the art-viewing pilgrimage—whether it’s climbing the steps of a neoclassical art temple, riding in a van across the New Mexico countryside to reach The Lightning Field, or wending your way through the IMA’s formal gardens and crossing the canal into 100 Acres.  Before the art viewing, there is the preparing for the art viewing.  Not a walk for the sake of a walk, but a palate cleanser in anticipation of a specific, intentional sensory experience.

Along this same vein, I recently enjoyed encountering several empty galleries at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. As part of its temporary program during the construction of its new wing, the Stedelijk has reopened its renovated original building with a changing installation of works from their permanent collection. Interspersed between galleries that for the most part contain single artworks, are unlit vacant spaces that are at first curious, and, upon further consideration, revelatory. These spaces were designed in part as a creative solution to the fact that the museum is still under construction—insufficient climate control, the need for light blocks for new media works—but they also provide a fascinating pause between artworks: a breath in the often-overwhelming bam-bam-bam of artworks presented in quick succession. The rooms draw your attention to the building itself—its architecture, its history, its key role in the framing of each work on display.

Dan Graham, "Two Adjacent Pavilions," first version 1978, second version 2001.

Most important about the darkened rooms is that they do a fine job of affirming one’s place in the world/city/building/room, urging you to consider your presence as a body in space (phenomenology, if you will). Also very successful at accomplishing this is Dan Graham’s Two Adjacent Pavilions (first version 1978, second version 2001), which is sited near the entrance of the Kröller-Müller Museum. Made of glass and steel, Two Adjacent Pavilions is part architecture, part sculpture, and its reflective surfaces frame and mirror the lush grounds, the more traditional sculpture nearby (Mark Di Suvero’s K-piece, 1972), and also your own encounter with the structure.  Entering the glass cubes (the doors were propped open), I was immediately hurtled into an unstable ground between experiencing the work and being the work. The subject/object relationship was upended marvelously, and I was made acutely aware of my own presence, the proximity of others, and Graham’s expert insistence upon his art’s integration with its context. His art is the context.

I’ll commit a crime here and skip over the contents of the actual museum (except to note that a gallery of early Piet Mondrians is one of the most impressive displays of Modern painting I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing, to say nothing of their collection of Van Goghs) and move directly to the sculpture garden. Opened in 1961, the sculpture garden was designed to capitalize on the museum’s stunning natural surroundings, originally housing sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth in formally groomed outdoor galleries and an open-air pavilion by Gerrit Rietveld that was added in 1964. As years passed, the sculpture garden expanded beyond the bounds of the original plans and leaked into the wooded areas surrounding it.

Jean Dubuffet, "Jardin d'email,"1974.

In 1974, the Kröller-Müller added the striking and unmissable Jardin d’émail by Jean Dubuffet. (No, Dubuffet was not a savant who predicted the terminology of the coming technological revolution: émail means enamel in French.) Those who have seen the IMA’s Dubuffet painting from 1964, Courre Merlan, or his large-scale sculpture Monument with Standing Beast outside of the Thompson Center in Chicago, will recognize the black-and-white outlined forms of the artist’s signature art brut style. Quite the opposite of Dan Graham’s glass pavilions, Dubuffet’s bright-white landscape contrasts sharply with its environment. The “enamel garden,” made of concrete and polyurethane painted with epoxy, sprung from the artist’s imagination in the form of a model he created in his studio in 1968, before its final destination was known. This garden-within-a-garden struck me at first as a bizarro mash-up of Alfredo Jaar’s Park of the Laments (you enter from underneath and climb stairs into its center), and Atelier van Lieshout’s Funky Bones (the material, the color, the stylized forms). Traversing Dubuffet’s landscape, I felt as if my fellow garden-goers and I had swallowed an “eat me” pill and emerged on planet Dubuffet, free to cavort and recline within one of his famed Hourloupe paintings. The anti-nature of this garden, surrounded by a ring of trees, reminded me once more that successful outdoor art need not be made of rocks or blend subtly with its environment to engender a fruitful consideration of the relationship between the self and the natural world.

Nicole Peters, IMA Scholar Objects & Variable Art Summer Intern, on a Boat.

Prior to starting my summer internship, when I was putting the finishing touches on my Masters in Art History at West Virginia University, I had been daydreaming about working on the 18th-century European porcelain and ancient Chinese bronzes located in the IMA’s collection.  During my first phone conversation with Richard McCoy back in April, I soon found out that my internship would not include what I had been working on at WVU, but instead I would be charged with researching, documenting, and conserving the eight site-specific contemporary installations within 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. My initial reaction was, “Well, this sounds pretty interesting…and besides, there’s probably some bronzes and marble sculptures in there somewhere, right?”

Fast-forward to today, six weeks along in my internship, and I am learning more about various formats of fiberglass, powder-coating, galvanized steel, and industrial paint systems than I ever thought I would.  But more importantly, my internship here has been encouraging me to fully consider and understand contemporary art materials, contemporary installation processes, and the importance of site maintenance and regular inspection.  As I engulf myself in this project, I am becoming familiar with various conservation terminology and procedures, and the instruments involved in the technical study of artworks.

One of my current projects at 100 Acres involves recording and monitoring the level of color and gloss on Jeppe Hein’s Bench Around the Lake, Los Carpinteros’ Free Basket steel arches, and Atelier Van Lieshout’s fiberglass installation, Funky Bones.

Nicole Peters Making Colorimetric Measurements on “Funky Bones.”

With the help of two useful instruments, the Micro-TRI-gloss Glossmeter and the Spectrophotometer CM- 700d/600d, and one very knowledgeable conservation scientist at the IMA, Greg D. Smith, we have been able to begin detailed research projects on important IMA artworks. Using these instruments requires both manual and technical competency, but more importantly, the information recorded must be understood and interpreted in a way that it is not only accessible to conservators, but also curators, registrars, and even the artists themselves. Thus far, color and gloss measurements have been recorded for the steel and plastic components of Free Basket and the black and white fiberglass sections of Funky Bones. Measurements for the fifteen individual bench installations for Bench Around the Lake are currently in progress.

The colorimeter instrument is able to digitally plot a precise numerical coordinate that corresponds with an exact color located on the CIE L*a*b* color charting system.  When colors are digitized, it becomes possible to express minute differences in what is essentially the same color.  These are called color differentials (i.e. Δ L*, Δ a*, and Δ b*). The CIE L*a*b* system evaluates hue (color), value (lightness or darkness), and chroma (saturation).

Plot of Red and Blue Paint Used on “Free Basket.”

For example, the color for the red and blue arches of Free Basket was measured and plotted in the above image.  This measurement is to be taken annually and the sample location should be taken in the same area each time.

  The other piece of equipment I mentioned is the Micro-TRI-gloss Glossmeter.  It takes three surface readings at 20°, 60°, and 85° in order to compensate for the different levels of gloss.  A 20° geometry is suitable for a High Gloss surface, a 60° for Semi Gloss, and 85° for Low Gloss, as shown in the image below.  The instrument evaluates the specular (or mirror-like) reflection of a surface and is often associated with the amount or level of gloss.

Angles Used by the Gloss Meter.

By taking an initial measurement, every value recorded afterward can be compared to the initial numerical value to assess how much of the gloss layer has been lost.  This loss can be crucial to the artwork’s appearance or presentation, in addition to the preservation of the interior components being protected by the gloss barrier.

The concept of monitoring the amount of light exposure and its effects on delicate or sensitive artworks was not foreign to me, but how this information is relevant to a contemporary outdoor installation was certainly a viewpoint I had not previously considered.  Although modern paint systems and structural materials can be formulated to better withstand environmental threats such as light exposure, pollution and moisture, the fact remains that outdoor sculptures and installations are constantly being exposed to these harsh conditions that will ultimately lead to their degradation.

Nicole Peters Making Gloss Measurements on “Free Basket.”

What I’ve found is that recording gloss and color levels is an important part of a regular maintenance plan for outdoor artworks whose material composition or coating systems can be affected by environmental agents.  I’m excited to be here at the IMA to help develop this program.

The recorded information can be used in order to gain a better understanding of how different surfaces and materials react to constant exposure from environmental agents. Gradual changes in an artwork’s surface may not be noticeable over an extended period of time, but they can be scientifically described using these two instruments. Also, it is possible that the data can be extrapolated and perhaps applied to other artworks made from similar materials.  In the end, this information may inform artists when they are choosing their materials to make their work.

One of the treasures in the Miller House and Garden archives is a collection of over 1,000 3 x 5 inch index cards stored in a small file box. In the upper right hand corner of each card is a handwritten number, and on the front is typed information about items the Millers purchased with Girard’s assistance for the house.

Last spring Bradley Brooks, the Director of Historic Resources, and Annette Schlagenhauff, Associate Curator of Research, asked if I might be interested in helping them and IMA Archivist Jennifer Whitlock to make sense of what the archives contained. I immediately said yes. The House and Garden would be open in the spring of 2011, and the race was on to learn as much about the history of the house as possible.

During the first few weeks of perusing the cards, Annette and I tried to decide on their origins: Girard or the Millers. We came to the conclusion that the Millers generated these cards using the information from the invoices sent from Girard’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The invoices are among the materials in the archives, and the cards contained much of the same information as the invoices, although in abbreviated form. Every invoice has a single item number which corresponds to the card’s item number.

We initially thought the cards provided a chronology until we noticed that the invoices are not organized chronologically. The earliest invoices are dated April 20, 1955 and correspond to Items 8 through 16 (there are no invoices for the first seven items). Invoices for Items 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, and 26 are dated April 23, 1956 – one year and two days later. And Item 24 was February, 15, 1957. With Items 29 and 30, we were back to April 1955. If the Item Numbers did not reflect the order in which items were purchased, what did they mean?

We hoped that by cracking the code of the Item Numbers we would better understand Girard’s design process and the extent of the Millers’ participation. We turned to the correspondence between Girard and the Millers for clues. After several long afternoons cross-referencing letters and invoices to the index cards, Annette and I were able to make sense of Girard’s code.

Our clue came in a letter from Girard to the Millers. He was arranging a meeting with the Millers in New York and wrote, “As I mentioned to you earlier, my chief concern is to have a good foundation on which to start building your interior furnishings schemes. The best way of achieving this is to try and make decisions on rugs, so I think we probably should concentrate our attention in that direction.” (AHG to JIM, 9-9-54; 32/380)

Many of the earliest item were rugs (14 of 28), and the number on each card seemed to correspond to a “to do” list of Girard’s making. In providing the furnishings for the house, Girard first found a rug for the living room in 1955 – Item No. 1. Item 24 is the entrance rug designed by Alexander Girard; its late invoice date of 1957 is easily explained: the design and fabrication of the rug took nearly two years.

Entering the house, the rugs do seem to be the foundation as they simultaneously define rooms and fade from consciousness. As Girard and the Millers selected furnishings for the house, Girard worked systematically to produce the house’s harmony of colors, shapes, and textures. Having made decisions concerning the rugs, Girard then turned to the pillows, and by June 1955 he had assembled the myriad textiles needed to make almost 100 pillows to be used throughout the house.  Fabrics for pillows came from Indonesia (Item 35), Peru and Guatemala (Item 38), Thailand (Items 47, 48, and 52), the United States (Item 61), and Persia (Item 94).  In July and August of 1955, materials for curtains were purchased (Items 36, 50, 53, 56, 60-63, and 65), and in August and December, all major decisions concerning textiles were made with the purchase of fabric for bedspreads (Items76–78, 161, and 179).

Having worked through so much material in the Miller House and Garden Archives has given me a much greater appreciation for Girard’s contributions.  His hand seemed to have touched most everything that, for me, makes the Miller House.