Office of Exhibits Central

OEC Helps with Kisses

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Archives of American Art (AAA) is installing the exhibition A Thousand Kisses: Love letters from the Archives of American Art, located in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture and will run through May 30, 2008.

A Thousand Kisses, featuring love letters written by and to American artists, was organized by Liza Kirwin, curator of manuscripts, and Joan Lord, curatorial archives specialist. The exhibit celebrates the publication of their new book With Love: Artists’ Letters and Illustrated Notes.

OEC Graphics supervisor Rolando Mayen installed two vinyl murals for this exhibition: one of painters and spouses Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and another of nature photographer Harry Bowden and his wife Betty. In order to fit the approximately 80 by 130-inch photographs on the arched walls, Mayen cut them to shape using a template made during the last installation. He then taped the photographs in position on the wall before peeling away the backing and adhering them onto the wall. Each wall mural was made of two sections, overlapping only about a quarter inch to account for possible flexing due to temperature or humidity.

When the exhibition closes, the vinyl murals, which are backed with low tack adhesive, will peel off quickly and with little damage to the wall.

top photo: Bruce and Libby Thiel of Blueline Design put away their silkscreening materials.
middle photo: Mayen double-checks the measurements before putting the mural on the wall.
bottom photo: Mayen makes sure the mural is applied without any air pockets.

Giant Crab Nearly Complete

In March 2007, we ran a story about how we acquired a Giant Japanese spider crab to make a life-sized reproduction for the National Museum of Natural History’s Ocean Hall, which opens in September 2008. Since then, OEC modelmaker Vincent Rossi has been hard at work.

His first step in creating the model was setting the pose of the frozen crab in a position that would balance showing off the crab’s size while still keeping its pose natural. To preserve the crab specimen for NMNH, it had to be stored in OEC’s freezer when Rossi was not working on the model. The legs were cut from the body to fit in the freezer.

To make the molds, Rossi supported one half of each leg with plaster and then coated the other half with silicone rubber. After the rubber set, a sheet of fiberglass was molded to the outside. Then, the mold was removed and he went through the same process with the other side of the leg. The shell of the model was created by brushing a polyester resin/milled fiberglass mixture into the mold. Rossi placed steel rods inside the outer shell of the body and legs for support along with a dense, expanding foam to fill the inside of the model. After Rossi paints the model, it will be ready to be mounted and displayed.

The Giant crab is one of four life-sized models that OEC is making for the Ocean Hall exhibit. Stay tuned to see stories and pictures of the other models.

top photo: Vince Rossi glues locator pins in place to provide a template for the mount makers.
bottom photo: Silicone rubber molds for the crab body

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