Sometimes I Marvel At The Fact That People Actually Tell Me They’re Intimidated By Me Or Scared Of

Close ups of the arrows. I painted dial rods and tore apart feathers them glued them on to make these. They're too short to actually shoot but they work for what I need, decoration.

Next step, spray paint it black! Wish me luck!

I'm having a hard idea coming up with an exact point, but I want to talk a bit about my field of expertise. I have a master's degree in history and work in a museum. I know so many people who are leaving the museum field (or who never got in) because it's extremely underfunded so people are overworked and underpaid. Budgets are precarious so most people are working contract to contract because institutions simply can't commit to hiring people permanently. MANY museums have one person doing the work of 3-5 people and they're making little over minimum wage. Burnout is a huge issue.

I hit the jackpot when I snagged a permanent full time position in a museum with a relatively healthy workplace culture. I make just enough to make ends meet and pay my student loans, and that's more than I can say for most of the people my age I know in the museum field.

But people constantly complain that our museum is only open 8 hours a day, six days a week, that we don't offer more public programs, that we don't have more exhibit changes. Meanwhile our budget, which comes from the government, has been status quo for almost a decade. That means we have the same budget now as we did ten years ago, even as the cost of utilities, staff, insurance, everything had increased. My museum is running on what is essentially a skeleton staff. We need 12 more people to have a comfortable distribution of duties and 23 to reach our full potential. (We have 24 permanent staff so we essentially need to double our work force).

People want their museums (and their libraries and art galleries and many other institutions) to offer endless, cutting edge services but they aren't willing to pay a small tax hike to fund them. People honestly think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a museum to expand its services when its budget has essentially been cut every year for a decade.

Museum exhibits and programs don't appear out of thin air. They take weeks, months, sometimes years of research, writing, conservation work, graphic design, and community consultations. Before they even start to be installed! The people behind each of these parts have specialized education and training. And most of them are making a bit over minimum wage if they're lucky.

People work in museums because we're passionate about them, but that doesn't pay the bills! People love their local museums until it's time to fund them. People love to complain about what their museum isn't offering but grumble and groan when a museum tries to fundraise from its community.

Basically if you want cultural institutions in your community you need to support them! If you can't donate, visit! TONS of museum grants are based on the number of feet through the door. If a local museum admission fee is too high for you to access, find out which level of government funds it and write to that representative. (Also see if your museum has days with reduced or free admission or if you can rent a membership from your local library, libraries renting out memberships to museums and galleries is becoming more and more common).

This is a very winding post and idk what I was aiming for but I needed to get it out.

Dog of Randall the jeweller, ca. 1875

@zaxawesome

a lot of ppl in the notes of the previous post are mentioning museums hoarding stolen cultural objects which is important beyond measure but museums shutting down due to lack of funding will not result in repatriation of cultural materials, they would most likely be auctioned off to private ultra-wealthy collectors to recoup some of their debt and we'd never find these objects again let alone be able to repatriate them. i understand the desire to say 'fuck museums let them die' for this reason but it won't have the result you think it will, and it will also mean that all of their ethically sourced and donated materials (which for most museums are the vast majority of their collections) will no longer be cared for by experts but again, sold off to private collectors who can do whatever they want with them or deteriorate in storehouses indefinitely. this would be catastrophic for public history and collective knowledge-sharing across the globe across cultures, and museums in post-colonial and run by/for racialized or otherwise oppressed ethnic groups will fall first because they receive FAR less funding than the large western institutions. just repeating phrases and sentiments you've seen online as a form of performative activism without knowing anything about what you're talking about does more harm than good and doesn't make you look smart or clever just foolish it's so deeply annoying and frustrating

Try not to stress out too much!!! We love you and you'll have plenty of opportunities to do great things in the future <3 <3 <3

Thank you. ♡ Unfortunately it's my senior year so I won't be able to audition again.

I cannot emphasize enough, museums/zoos/aquariums and the like are at an incredibly dangerous point right now, and it’s breaking my heart that not only is it happening, but it’s happening so much more quietly than it deserves. The main people I have seen sharing information about the crisis museums are in right now are others in the field, and while I know it’s not out of malicious ignorance, because people love these places and don’t want to see them gone, it’s scary that these places are dying with so much less fanfare than some of the other institutions threatened by the current situation in the US.

I came across an article from NPR the other day suggesting that unless something changes, ONE-THIRD of museums in the entire country (a loose term that includes certain places like aquariums as well) could be dead before the end of the year (source). A third! Can you even imagine the incalculable loss? And it goes so far beyond the services museums generally provide to the public, like field trips or a place to go on the weekends – not that those aren’t important. But museums do so much more than that. If these places die, where do their collections go? Often there’s no one else who can take them in, and as someone who has spent a significant amount of time in the bellies of museum collections, most people have no idea how many specimens or artifacts would become homeless and in danger of being lost forever. In the case of zoos and aquariums, what happens to their animals? Another friend of mine mentioned on Facebook the other day that the Aquarium of the Pacific is not only in dire need right now, but that a person they know who works with them has said that if they close, they’ll have to euthanize a significant number of their animals. And for the places that do survive, they won’t be unchanged. The science museum I used to work for isn’t in danger of permanently closing – yet – but still had make the incredibly difficult call to do a 39% reduction in staff positions, meaning that even when they reopen, the jobs that I and over a hundred and fifty people held before the pandemic – educating, running programs, engaging with visitors on an extra personal level – won’t exist anymore. Another friend of mine doing a museum studies degree has said that even the Smithsonian (the SMITHSONIAN) had to make a similar call and many of her friends doing work there are now jobless.

Your local museum isn’t getting help from the government. Museums, zoos, and aquariums have had to beg desperately for stimulus money that hasn’t manifested. These are non-profits, that rely on revenue from visitors and memberships for the most part, and as they are responsibly staying closed for everyone’s safety, they aren’t getting visitors. Without some form of help, they are going to drop off the face of the planet, or appear at the other end of this as gutted shells of their former selves. 

If you want to help, you have two options: get money into the hands of these places directly, or put pressure on your representatives to offer museums and other institutions like them some kind of federal stimulus money. If you can afford it, this is a great time to get a membership to a place you love – many of them are even offering special online programming for members, so it’s more than just a donation. Or you could make a donation, if that’s a more practical amount for you to spend, because at this point anything helps. And if you can’t do that (or even if you can), yell at your senators and representatives to do something. Many places even are offering guidelines for the sorts of things to talk about, like this script from the Monterey Bay Aquarium (although repetitive scripts are less likely to have an impact than individual e-mails, something is still better than nothing, and you could even read over it to figure out how to formulate your own message).

I’m not usually one to beg people to signal boost something, but it’s breaking my heart that this issue is being ignored. Every day it feels like I have to explain these places are struggling to someone else who didn’t know it was a problem, and while I don’t blame them for not knowing, I want people to know. I want people to be aware that we are at risk of losing some of our most valuable cultural and educational institutions, not find our after all this is over that they’re gone. Please talk with people you know about what’s going on. We need our museums. And right now, they need us too.

So over on Reddit this happened:

And collectively everyone was like: hey we love this tiny child, please do take him to a public candle lighting and show him the Rugrats special and here's our fave chanukah kids books and some songs and play a little dreidel and here's some kindergartner activities you can printout or color, also through the power of Jewish geography here's a potentially nearby Jewish bakery with sufganiyot stocked up for him, and also a recipe for if you want to sneak veggies into some latkes.

He's five and has permission. ADORABLE.

(and don't mind me wanting to cry because this was me at age 5 and now I'm Jewish lol)

((Them legs tho))

{So @ask-cosplay-nyo-lithuania made this yesterday for my birthday becuase I have become UnderTale trash. Thank you dear friend. Thank you.}