Month: April 2019

Matthew Bird has spent the past 25 years working in different parts of the art, design and gift professions. Trained as an industrial designer and metalsmith, he designs products that are distributed to gift stores, museum stores, galleries and catalogs throughout the U.S. and overseas. He regularly participates in trade- and craft-show juries and is a frequent guest critic and lecturer at various schools and universities. He has developed and managed multiple retail environments and participated as a designer and buyer for several others. First as an exhibitor, then as a marketing consultant and later as a buyer, Bird has attended hundreds of wholesale and retail trade shows, bringing him in contact with a wide range of manufacturers, designers and consumers.

Knowledge of contemporary product design and familiarity with manufacturing techniques got Bird involved as an expert witness in copyright infringement cases. He frequently designs and manufactures custom wares for a wide variety of institutions (including Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), for which he designed the popular RISD tote bag, umbrella, multiple key rings and even a school tie). His passion for history has led him more recently to focus on design projects for museums. 

Bird is the curator of Mystic Seaport Museum’s Summer 2019 exhibition, Streamlined: From Hull to Home. He took some time recently to answer five questions about the exhibition, which opens June 15.

1. What is the story you seek to tell with this exhibition?

A. “Streamlining” is used all the time in today’s world to mean simplifying a process or making easier to facilitate. And many people are familiar with “Streamlining” as a design style from the 1930s and ’40s that created smooth shapes with rounded corners, and visual references to speed, like bands of horizontal lines, or dramatic wind-swept shapes. The fact that all of the ways we use the word and think about the style come out of a long history of naval design and progress in boat construction is an untold part of the story. The Museum has the objects (BOATS!) to tell that story in an dramatic, visual, irrefutable way.

In short: The collections at Mystic Seaport (boats, motors, photographs) tells a better, truer, more exciting story of how “streamlining” transitioned from engineering to design, and shows how we went from fast boats to fast planes to fast LOOKING everything else (vacuum cleaners, cookware, radios).

2. How did Mystic Seaport Museum’s maritime focus and collections influence the development of the show?

A. Two collections items stand out as obvious foundations for everything the show has developed into:

The 1938 Waterwitch outboard engine is the ultimate example of the streamlined style. It is a beautiful gleaming aluminum, pod-shaped celebration of speed. It was also created at the cross-over point where engineering created shapes designed to reduce resistance, and designers copied those forms to produce manufactured objects that looked fast, even if they went as slowly as a 2 hp motor, or didn’t even move at all. The Museum has a vast collection of other outboard motors, and it was immediately clear that a progression of them show the arrival of design in our manufactured items.

The 1904 Panhard ElCo auto launch is a wooden boat that uses hand-construction methods to create a completely rounded, pod-shaped hull that seems impossibly modern for something made in 1904. It points out that the shapes needed to make a boat go fast, the natural outcome of hydrodynamic engineering, arrived at being as beautiful as they were functional. Using boats in the collection to show the development of these shapes, and how they fueled innovations in airplane, bus, train, and car design, is a great way to connect the collection to the world outside. A trip to this exhibition would be worth it JUST to see the Panhard. It is so insanely beautiful, and unlike anything else that remains from 1904. It made me completely reconsider what I think of as old-fashioned

3. What is special or unique about Streamlined?

A. There have been scores of museum exhibitions about Streamlining as a design style. They have all made the connection from the visual references to speed in things like radios and desk fans to airplanes, which were the best evidence of 1930s advances in speed. But all have ignored the true origins of streamlining, which was being investigated and perfected in boat design long before it migrated to other forms of travel. Early passenger airplanes were called flying boats for a reason; aeronautic engineers used hull designs,  pontoons , and construction methods that were perfected by naval engineers. This exhibition shows the progression from boat to airplane to toaster, and tells the complete story in a way that hasn’t happened before.

4. Is there something that surprised you as you researched and put together the show?

A. Two big surprises arrived while working on this show:

• The first is the contrast in speed boat designs of the 1920s and ’30s. The topsides are smooth, sleek shapes that we recognize visually as the shapes fast boats are supposed to have. But the undersides, the engineered hulls, are radical experiments in how water resistance can be overcome, and even harnessed to change how the boats went through the water. This transition from cleaving the water to planing over it led directly to airplane design. Boat people might already know that but the rest of us (especially design historians!) don’t.
• The second is that once Streamlining was a recognized design activity, and proven as a successful way to increase sales in a Depression-era economy, boats went from being naturally streamlined, as part of their evolution and genetic make-up, to being stylistically Streamlined. Boats in the 1940s had to endure the addition of chromed trim and hardware, horizontal banding, and rounded edges not because they needed them but because it made them look more like other successful products of the time. That the shapes came from boat design in the first place was already forgotten.

5. What do you want the visitor to take away from the exhibition?

A. Obvious take-aways are basic understanding of what Streamlining is in design. And how that developed, and what it led to. Also that everyday manufactured objects help us understand the world that created them, which applies to our own contemporary existence as well. But the most important take-away, which requires no descriptions or text panels or new information to make happen, is that the Mystic Seaport Museum collection is full of exciting, inspiring objects.

Every parent or teacher will tell you – busy is better.

With all the bad news of the last few years surrounding high school students, Stonington (CT) High School special education teacher Deidre Toole was thinking that while there are lots of sports teams, drama, and music programs after school for students, there weren’t a lot of options for the kids who don’t play, sing, or act. She felt there was a need for after-school activities that would appeal to those students who felt there was nothing interesting for them.

She turned to Sarah Cahill, director of Museum Education and outreach at Mystic Seaport Museum, with whom she has worked in the past in the high school’s Community Classroom. The Community Classroom provides work/life experience for special education students as part of their high school curriculum. Mystic Seaport Museum has paired Community Classroom students with staff interpreters for several years.

“Our relationship with the Seaport is so strong, and Sarah is so great, so when I told her that I wanted to create something for kids who need something to do to get involved with after school, she immediately said, ‘Let’s build a boat’,” Toole said. Cahill involved Supervisor of Sailing Programs Ben Ellcome, and Patrick Connor, lead sailing instructor at the Museum’s Community Sailing Center. Together they created a program for the group from Stonington High to build a Bevin skiff.

“We were just developing our youth development boat building program, so a pilot program was born!” Cahill said.

Every Tuesday during this school year, a bus would drop off the boys who volunteered to participate in the program at the Museum, and they would work with Connor on building the boat. It involved far more than carpentry, however, as they had to understand the plans, materials, and the construction methods. They will launch their finished skiff in a ceremony at the Museum on May 7.

Toole noted that it was coincidental that the program ended up with all boys, there were a couple of girls also interested but they ultimately did not enroll because of other issues. The program has been a resounding success, she said.

“This has done extraordinary things for these boys,” she said. “Some of them have never had anything in an after school program that interested them. Here, they have been totally immersed. When the bus drops them off, they run, run to the sailing center. I am overwhelmed by how much the Seaport has taught them, and taught me.”

Stonington High freshman Caleb Melzer said the program turned out “better than I expected. I’m a pretty shy kid, so the small group was good for me,” he said.

Sophomore Jake Simonds had two legs up on the rest of the group when the program started, as his father is both a carpenter and an oyster fisherman. Jake and a couple friends had even tried building a boat on their own a while back, “but it sank as we all heard the Titanic music playing in our heads,” he said. “This is better. It’s way more planned. There’s more people, and better materials. It’s fun being able to work with others on a big project.”

Senior Dylan McNeil was quite familiar with the Museum before this program started, as he has been learning in the shipsmith’s shop for a couple of years through the high school’s Community Classroom program. He wanted to join the boat building group as a way to expand on the skills he has already learned here.

“I really like using my hands to build something,” he said. “And I’ve learned a lot about building that I didn’t know before, like using the planer and the chisel. I’ve learned to respect the old-style tools, the hand tools, and how they used to do things.”

Cahill said that based on the success of this year’s boat building, “we are expanding next year to provide a boat-building and maritime heritage apprenticeship for eight to 10 high school students in Stonington High School’s new Alternative Education Program. They will be with us for a couple of hours three days a week through the entire academic year. They will learn life and career skills, leadership, boat building and design, as well as historical maritime trades and sailing.”

Cahill and Toole said the program will be funded through a combination of grants provided to both the Museum and the school district.

Mystic Aquarium, Mystic Seaport Museum and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center are proud to announce plans for a multi-day, community-wide Earth Day 2020 event in celebration of the movement’s 50th anniversary. The events, which will be announced in detail in the coming months, will engage a host of like-minded community partners as well as the general public in support of habitat restoration, conservation and overall collective action. The announcement was made on April 22, Earth Day 2019.

The first Earth Day, held on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement.  Earth Day Network reports that today more than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

“Conservation is at the heart of our mission to protect the ocean planet,” said Dr. Stephen M. Coan, President and CEO of Mystic Aquarium. “Our teams of animal care professionals, educators and scientists actively engage nearly 100,000 ocean ambassadors each year in support of Long Island Sound and beyond. We are eager to expand that program in 2020 through this grand celebration with our community and in our community with our partners.”

Long Island Sound is an estuary (where saltwater from the ocean mixes with fresh water from rivers) and like the Mystic River, drain from the land. While estuaries are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, Long Island Sound is among the most important and valuable estuaries in the nation. In fact, it received Congressional designation in 1987 as an “Estuary of National Significance.”

“The Earth needs our attention now more than ever, and we recognize our obligation specifically to the Mystic River and watershed,” said Stephen C. White, President of Mystic Seaport Museum. “Mystic Seaport Museum strives to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience, and in the spirit of the Earth Day Network’s mission to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement worldwide  we look forward to bringing that focus and awareness to our home community.”

Together the community organizations look to share information about the history of the local watershed including human impacts and offer educational opportunities and activities to shed light on ways we all can become better stewards of the planet. It is critically important to protect Long Island Sound and maintain its water quality as a living resource to more than 1,200 species of invertebrates, 170 species of fish and dozens of species of migratory birds.

“At the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, every day is Earth Day, but the 50th anniversary of the Earth Day movement is especially significant,” said Maggie Jones, Senior Director of Conservation and Philanthropy at the Nature Center. “We are looking forward to collaborating with Mystic Seaport Museum and Mystic Aquarium to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards. This opportunity will bring our unique but complementary contributions together, to create a Mystic-wide partnership of activities and events that reimagine what we can collectively do to protect our global environment.”

Mystic Aquarium, Mystic Seaport Museum and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center are encouraging broad participation from area businesses and organizations to join activities during the week of April 18-26, 2020. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, Olde Mistick Village, Clean Up Sound and Harbors (CUSH) and Pine Point School have also pledged their participation in Earth Day 2020.

The series of events will include the fifth Annual Mystic-Wide Cleanup, a town-wide, large-scale debris removal event, on April 25, 2020.  Since its inception, the event has resulted in the removal of more than 500 pounds of debris each year from more than 10 miles of riverside property in Mystic.

Environmental stewards are encouraged to ‘warm up’ for the big event by participating in this year’s Earth Day Celebrations. On April 28, join Mystic Aquarium for an Earth Day Cleanup at Bluff Point State Park in Groton, CT. Details are available at MysticAquarium.org.

The Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center is hosting a week-long series of programs called “Celebrate Earth” from April 22 to 28 that engage and educate all ages, from “acorn to oak”, to inspire an understanding of the natural world and ourselves as part of it – past, present, and future.  Details are available on their website.

Mystic Seaport Museum announced scholarship funding is available for its youth summer and fall sailing programs, including Community Sailing, Joseph Conrad Overnight Sailing Camp, and Schooner Brilliant.

At last fall’s America and the Sea Award Gala, which honored Dawn Riley and Oakcliff Sailing, money was raised to provide scholarships for the Museum’s youth sailing programs. Riley is executive director of Oakcliff, which trains premier-level American sailors for future Olympic, America’s Cup, and other world-class level sailing competitions, and leads a movement to reinvigorate the sport in this country. Oakcliff Sailing is located in Oyster Bay, N.Y.

“We are so pleased to be able to offer scholarships to our youth sailing programs,” said Sarah Cahill, director of museum education and outreach at Mystic Seaport Museum. “In addition to providing a lifelong pastime for children, learning to sail can help children with self-confidence, decision-making, and math and science skills. As an education center we are gratified to be able to provide these types of experiences to children who otherwise would not be able to participate.”

Financial aid – up to 100 percent – is available based on need. Community Sailing programs are for children ages 8-14; Joseph Conrad overnight camp is for children ages 10-15; and schooner Brilliant cruises are for ages 15-18.

For more information about the scholarship funding click here or contact Catherine Padgett at 860.572.5322, ext. 1, or reservations@mysticseaport.org/.

Financial aid

Community Sailing

JOSEPH CONRAD camp

Schooner BRILLIANT

On Friday, April 5, Mystic Seaport Museum hosted a symposium entitled “Franklin Lost and Found: Probing the Arctic’s Most Enduring Mystery,” which drew experts and scholars from across the globe to Mystic, CT, to dissect the doomed Franklin Expedition from 1845 to the present. It was presented in conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibition, Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition.

It also attracted about 140 audience members, some from as close as down the road and others from as far away as the United Kingdom, all drawn by the opportunity to hear from  those most in the know about one of maritime history’s most enduring mysteries.

On the roster for the daylong symposium were:

• David C. Woodman, author of Unravelling the Mystery of the Franklin Expedition: Inuit Testimony
• Fred Calabretta, director of Collections Management and senior curator, Mystic Seaport Museum
• Kenn Harper, Arctic historian and author of Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo and In Those Days: Tales of Arctic Whaling
• Lawrence Millman, mycologist and author of A Kayak Full of Ghosts
• Peter Carney, independent Franklin scholar
• John Geiger, president of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and co-author of Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
• Keith Millar, emeritus professor and honorary senior research fellow, University of Glasgow College of Medicine
• Douglas Stenton, Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo
• Jonathan Moore, senior underwater archaeologist, Parks Canada
• Russell Potter, professor of English and director of Media Studies, Rhode Island College, and author of Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-year Search
• Leanne Shapton, artist, publisher, and author of Artifacts from a Doomed Expedition, The New York Times

Discussions ranged from the role of the Inuits in determining what happened to the two ships and their crews, to “Franklin in Popular Culture,” to updates on the terrestrial and underwater archeological surveys, to the forensic testing that has been performed on the recovered crew members’ remains.

Staging symposia is not new per se for the Museum, but it is new in terms of connecting such an event  to a current exhibition. Since launching the Era of Exhibitions in conjunction with the opening of the Thompson Exhibition Building in 2016, part of the Museum’s long-range plan has included returning to the hosting of scholarly examinations of topics and issues. The 2016 arrival of Nicholas Bell as senior vice president for Curatorial Affairs moved the plan forward as well.

In 2018, the Museum hosted a daylong symposium that coincided with its exhibition Science, Myth and Mystery: The Saga of the Vinland Map. As with Franklin, that event also brought together scholars and experts as well as an interested public to examine the history of this infamous document.

“A top goal of the Era of Exhibitions initiative is being able to stage these types of exhibitions that bring world attention to the Museum,” Bell said. “Hosting world-renowned experts to delve deeply into issues of interest around the exhibitions provides added cachet and speaks directly to the Museum’s mission and vision.”

In addition to enhancing both the exhibitions and the Museum’s reputation, staging symposia provide the opportunity to create a sense of excitement around history and historical investigation and research. As Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum, noted in his welcoming remarks at the Franklin Symposium, “We have assembled a great collection of Franklin researchers, explorers, archaeologists, and writers along with a captivated audience. I get the sense that it is as exciting for our speakers to be in the same room together as it is for those of us who will be observing.”

That sense of excitement was not overstated. Rudy Guliani (not the former mayor), an intern with the New London County Historical Society, was ecstatic when someone at the society was unable to attend and offered him a ticket. A history student at the University of Toronto, the 24-year-old took copious notes throughout the day.

“I am loving this,” he said during the lunch break. “A few months ago I was doing archival work on the Resolute and I got involved in the whole (Franklin) story. Then I went to the (Death in the Ice) exhibition and it was spectacular. And you have the Grinnell Desk! Sometimes if I am just driving by I will stop in and look at it.”

Ellen Berkland is the staff archaeologist for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, based in Boston. She became a member of the Museum a year ago after visiting The Vikings Begin exhibition. Part of her job is managing archaeological sites in state forests and parks, and so she had a particular interest in hearing from the presenters involved in the modern-day management of the Franklin sites, and the discovery and recovery of artifacts.

“This has been a great mix of information taking us through the history of the voyages, the timelines, all the research, and now seeing that data and the forensics. Hearing about the oral histories and from the anthropologist, I feel there’s a lot I can take away for my own job,” she said.

Museum member Lloyd Hutchins of Groton said he became interested in the Franklin Expedition after the discovery in 2014 of the wreck of Erebus, one of the two ships lost. When Death in the Ice opened, he came, and “became fascinated. I’ve been to the exhibit twice, and when I heard about the symposium, I thought I’d see what else I could learn,” he said. “There are so many interesting facets to the story.”

A book signing by many of the panelists at the symposium ended the day, and gave attendees and members of the public the chance to speak with the authors.

Symposium presenters Russell Potter and Leanne Shapton spoke about the Expedition’s impact on popular culture, dating from today back to 1845. When Shapton wrote about all the missions searching for the wrecks for The New York Times, it was less the history and more the emotion that attracted her. She called the dribs and drabs of artifacts recovered by various 19^th century searchers, “a trail of Victorian breadcrumbs strewn across the tundra. … But each fragment flickers with a life.”

At the symposium, she said, “I wanted to bridge the science and the culture and our collective imagination around this story. In the exhibition, there are two left-handed gloves among  the artifacts. But they were worn by one man. That idea of him having two left-handed gloves. That opens up your imagination.”

About the Exhibition

Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition is a traveling exhibition developed by the Canadian Mu­seum of History (Gatineau, Canada), in partnership with Parks Canada Agency and with the National Maritime Museum (Lon­don, UK), and in collaboration with the Govern­ment of Nunavut and the Inuit Heritage Trust.