Author Archives: Experiment Station

The Phillips Is Digitizing Its Archives

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Rachel Jacobson, Digital Assets Librarian at The Phillips Collection, is managing the project and explains the process.

Digital Assets Librarian Rachel Jacobson with boxes of archival material.

There’s been a scheme going on at The Phillips Collection and we are ready to let you in! For the last few years, various staff members have been planning for an ambitious undertaking: to establish an archival digitization program for the museum’s library and archives. Although this plan has been in the works for several years, it was in October 2019 that substantial steps were taken to make this dream a reality.

In order to make sure that this project would be successful, The Phillips Collection had to prioritize the most valuable, pertinent, and relevant archival collection. The Directorial Correspondence produced by the museum’s founder, Duncan Phillips, was selected. The letters in this collection stretch from before the museum was established to Duncan Phillips’s death in 1966, when Marjorie Phillips became the director of the museum. Deciding on a collection is crucial, but it’s only a piece of the process. Next steps include planning and assessing how to get these precious documents imaged.

Juli Folk, processing archivist, alphabetizing and re-housing letters from 1955.

Keeping in mind the goals of digitization, which are accessibility and preservation, I assessed and selected a digitization vendor, Pixel Acuity.

Between March and August 2020, Juli Folk, our part-time processing archivist, and I prepared 23 boxes of archival material for Pixel Acuity. The two of us were able to start the digitization process despite complications brought on by the onset of COVID-19. The 23 boxes of material, which Pixel Acuity received and began imaging in August 2020, account for only a third of the total material being digitized. Those 23 boxes hold 3,882 archival folders, all of which have been returned, both physically and digitally, to The Phillips Collection. As of late February 2021, Pixel Acuity has 21 new boxes of material that they are working on.

Please stay tuned for more updates as this project continues.

Just Do It, Hit the Register Button 

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Cicely Ogunshakin, a 7-8th grade Social Studies teacher at School Without Walls at Francis-Stevens, reflects on her experience in the Phillips-UMD Prism.K12 course. The student artwork produced from the course is shared in the Community Exhibition The Virtual Classroom as Artspace.

When I signed up for this course, I really didn’t expect it to be so good. My past professional developments had been kind of dry with few takeaways that I could implement in my class, but I was excited to learn about different ways I could  integrate art into my classroom. There were some other benefits as well—professional learning units (PLUs), a year membership to Phillips, the ability to network with other educators, and the class would be 100% virtual. These all made it easier to hit the register button.

I admit that when I received my art supplies in the mail, I was immediately giddy. Crayons, markers, construction paper, colored pencils, a couple of sharpies, glue sticks and some other art materials made me feel like a kid again.

On the first day, we were thrown into an ice-breaker activity in an attempt to set the pace and tone of the course. It was a strategy called Soundscape in which we had to examine different parts of a painting and make sounds related to the painting. In this picture there were horses, carriages, a pier, an ocean, and a family with a dog. Sounds of Nahhhhhaaa, swooshhhhh, clop clop clop, stomp stomp stomp, ruff ruff, and so on, filled our virtual space. We were grown adults on a Zoom call making these sounds, actually practicing this strategy to be able to bring it alive in our very own classrooms.

Screenshot from Week 1 course presentation.

The foundation of our class was based on the Prism.K12 strategies of Identify, Connect, Express, Empathize, and Synthesize. As we progressed over the weeks, I was intrigued to experience how each lesson was relatable and applicable to all of the teachers. Our Facilitator, Hilary, made it look simple. Each week, I left the virtual class excited and feverishly searching The Phillips Collection to see what I could use to implement this strategy in my own classroom.

Part of the class required that you complete a Core Project. I decided to focus on an upcoming unit, The American Revolution. The goal was for students to use the 7-Word Story Strategy to express their ideas, thoughts, and emotions through art and words. I gathered some historic protest images from the Internet and had students examine one of those images.

As they examined the images, they answered these questions:

  • -What do you see?
  • -What do you hear?
  • -What do you feel?
  • -What do you think?
  • -What do you wonder?

I also had them think about the photographer’s perspective and whether a person could tell a compelling story based upon the image(s).

Here are are some of the 7-word stories that my students created:

  • -Screaming, running, woman distressed, wrong unjust death ​
  • -Preferences respect me, respect you respect LGBTQ  ​
  • -Humans, the Earth’s protection and inevitable destruction
  • -Let me be ​who I want. Free.
  • -Dreamers and believers are dying in sorrow

For the exit ticket students had to add 7 more words that presented a possible solution for the same image. They also had to include a visual. Students had the option of completing this activity on paper or digitally.

Examples of student artworks with their 7-word stories, 7-word solutions, and a visual.

My students enjoyed this lesson. They analyzed and shared ideas through collaboration. They learned about other protest movements through images, reflecting on the artist’s work and purpose. They used key words to describe an image and they added 7 more words to identify a solution, all while expressing themselves through their artwork. My students were excited to share their creations and receive compliments from their peers. Using this activity changed the whole mood in my class, which was great since we were in virtual mode and have been virtual since last year. So if you are wondering whether or not to click register, just CLICK IT! You will not be disappointed.

Examining Our Collection, Piece by Piece

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What happened: We recently used an image of the piece titled Goin’ Fishin’ by Arthur Dove to advertise an upcoming assemblage workshop. We searched for an assemblage in our collection to match the theme of the workshop and mistakenly used this piece without adequate knowledge and therefore without sensitivity to its history. We sincerely apologize for the harm we have caused with this post.

Context: This piece was not always called Goin’ Fishin’. When Duncan Phillips acquired it in 1937, the title was N****r Goes A-Fishin.’ Our records indicate that the artist changed the title to Goin’ Fishin’ before his death in 1946.

The background and context of this piece have been explored in scholarly publications, including the museum’s 1999 publication about the collection, as well as in public programs at The Phillips Collection. However, we have failed to provide the critical context and history about this work to our entire staff and on our most accessible platforms, namely our website and in our galleries.

What we’re doing: We have a responsibility to use works like this in a way that sparks dialogue, creates an environment of accountability, and inspires critical thinking. This is an important reminder to us that we need to do better. We are at the very beginning of our DEAI journey, which includes, but is not limited to, anti-racism training and excavating the buried supremacist histories within objects of our collection. We are committed to reckoning with our past and preventing future harm.