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Visitors Discovering Something New at MAH
Posted by Diana on August 31, 2012
The Visitor Services team is excited to share our visitor encounters from the front desk. We are (in no particular order) Mary Kopp, Sarah Groh, Katie Chrivia, Kai Hanson and Diana Kapsner. You will occasionally see a visitor encounter from some museum interns as well.
Mark & Jen took home a Miss America tote bag.
Saturday, June 23
Jennifer and Mark stopped by the desk after viewing the galleries and curiously picked up our MAH tote bag that features the Miss America Contestants from 1924. We all started to talk about the history of the pageant in Santa Cruz. Coincidentally, Marla Novo, Curator of History wrote an Artifact of the Month blog post about the same picture. Diana mentioned the meat dress of Ann Simonton to which Jennifer noted she had seen a great documentary that featured the protests of the Miss America contest in Atlantic City. The documentary was called Up Against the Wall Miss America and shows feminists protesting the pageant in 1968. Mark bought the tote bag, and left us wanting to check out the documentary. Thanks for sharing, Jennifer and Mark!
- Mary Kopp, Visitor Services
July 7, 2012
Today Aron and Sam came in looking around the Atrium surprised. “I’ve lived here all my life and I never knew this was here. I’ve walked all along Pacific Avenue and right passed this building without ever knowing.” I was curious, “what was it that prompted you to come in today?” I asked. Aron and Sam were attracted to the Art Market in Abbott Square, which was our first time doing such an event. I started to tell him about the history of the building, how long MAH has been here and what we have in the galleries. After a good hour or so of strolling through the museum, they came back asking if I knew a good framing shop. Aron, a recreational photographer, had developed a photograph of a rose on the other side of a heart-shaped fence. “It would be perfect for this exhibition.” I told him about our upcoming exhibition Santa Cruz Collects and how we’ve been asking people in the community to share their collections and stories for display. Then I handed him a MAH program and told him to keep in touch. They will both be coming to 3rd Friday: Street Art Night.
-Diana Kapsner, Visitor & Volunteer Services Manager
Sunday, July 8th
At the Museum today, a group of 3 came in ready to explore our local culture and art. They were a bit disappointed to learn that we were still exhibiting the All You Need is Love show, which they had enjoyed a few months back. Still, they paid to come in and see it again. After a few minutes, I heard them laughing and discussing the visitor-generated responses to the question “What’s the craziest thing you’ve done for love?” They traveled upstairs and after a while they slowly came down. They told me about how they saw so many new things with the second viewing. They also took the time to read the labels in the Joan Brown exhibit (“It all makes so much sense now” one of the guys said) and play the Hearts to Hearts game in our Solari Gallery. It really shows that there’s always something new waiting to be discovered at the Museum.
-Katie Chrivia, Visitor Services
Saturday July 21st
Hamilton visited the museum and recognized one of the boys in the Soquel skate photo hanging in the entrance hallway. One of them, named Chris Chapman, he was neighbors with when they were kids. Hamilton made a keen observation about the skater boy’s haircuts: they were all flat tops. Apparently, these kids were “trendsetters” for the flat top hairstyle. While everyone in the 70s and early 80s wore their hair long, these kids were “going back to the 50’s style.” He also recognized that the picture came from a photographer doing an interview for the local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel about flat tops. Bill Lovejoy, the photographer, still works for the Sentinel today.
-Diana Kapsner
