December 10, 2019 (Tuesday), 9:00-3:30pm:

Hours completed: 6

Total hours completed: 73.25

I continued work on honing the language for the labels in the St. John’s Church exhibit. Having generally settled on the types of messages I wanted to send with the labels, I now needed to cut down the word count and space it would take to say it. I also had to be very careful, since these were religious artifacts, to make sure to be respectful of the religion while also adequately explaining their use. It was really challenging, for example, to explain in approachable language that a certain vessel called a ciborium is used to hold the bread/wafers prior to and after the ritual transformation of them into the Body of Christ, according to Catholic doctrine. Catholic doctrine would not allow me to call the pieces in the vessel after the ritual “bread,” since in their belief system, the material is no longer bread. However, the preferred terms like Eucharistic Host and Body of Christ were a bit too “jargon”-y to adequately explain what the vessel was actually used for. I’m sure the labels will need more work until they are adequately worded, but I think I made good progress today in explaining “Eucharistic Host” in a label early on in the exhibit. (4 hours)

Dave and I also ran a brief errand to retrieve a work of loaned art that belongs to the Special Collections from an office on campus. I did not realize that retrieval was an important aspect of the job, but I can now understand that it ensures the safety of the piece and makes it easy to do an initial inspection in person prior to the more in-depth condition reporting after the fact (1 hour).

Finally, I had a pre-meeting meeting with Dave to prepare for a one-on-one meeting I will be having with Fr. Carlson tomorrow about how I can help with or contribute to the Carlson Fable Collection. Dave wants to make sure that I do not overcommit, since my time with the department is limited, but that I also can help explain the rationale behind (and steer Fr. Carlson toward) the oral history interview concept. (1 hour).