My Way of "Seeing" the High Desert Museum

The environment of a museum can have many different effects on how an individual views an exhibit or a particular object. How I personally view an object or an exhibit in a museum may be quite different from how someone one else would “see” the object or exhibit. The fact that the individual is viewing the object in a museum instead of in an environment outside the museum setting can also have an effect on how an individual views the object. I saw these ideas in action this summer when my family and I visited the High Desert Museum in Bend Oregon while we were vacationing near by. The museum had many different types of exhibits traditional indoor exhibits and some outdoor exhibits. Also the museum had “living history” exhibits in which there were actors who portrayed a character that lived in the area at the time period that was being discussed. One of the traveling exhibits we saw when we were there was an exhibit of quilts that were made before, during and after the civil war, which were used to express the makers political opinion or to encourage support for a particular cause. My father, younger brother and younger sister were busy looking at the life size stage coach in the lobby, but my mother and I wandered into the room to take the quilts in. How my mother viewed the quilts was quite different from how I viewed the quilts, in my opinion the reason for this difference is because my mother is a quilter. She noticed right away that most of the quilts were all hand sewn which meant that some woman or in some cases a group of women spent a long time sewing together the quilt blocks, piecing together the quilt and then finally quilting it. How my mother “saw” the quilts was based on the amount of time it took to make the quilt because she is a quilter and knows how much work goes into making one. However, how I “saw” the different quilts was based on the political opinions the quilt makers were showing in their quilts. I thought about the political opinions that were being shown and compared them to my knowledge of the political opinions of the time because I am a history major.

When I viewed the various quilts I remember thinking to myself “These quilts must be pretty special to be in this museum”. However I realize now that if I were to see these quilts in the window of an antique store I would not have given them a second glance. I would have simply written them off as being something that someone found in their grandmothers attack and they did not have space for them anymore. The simple fact that I viewed these quilts in a museum instead of outside the museum in a store or at someone’s home changed my idea of how important and valuable the quilts were. I saw many other interesting things during my visit to the High Desert Museum, the experience I had in the quilt exhibit was just one example. I saw many different objects in different ways than the other members of my family did. In addition to this, I believe that if I would have seen some of the objects outside of a museum it would have never crossed my mind that they had some historical value or warranted being in a museum. I think this is because I have been taught that items that are in a museum must be of some importance or value otherwise they would not be in museum. In the short time that we have been in our class and the little we have learned about museums I have come to realize that my thoughts that just because an object is in a museum it must be of some importance could be wrong. I see now due to the fact that the object I am viewing is in a museum I usually tend to see the object as more important or valuable than it really might be.

Below is a link to the High Desert Museum’s website if you are interested in viewing pictures of some of the exhibits online.

http://www.highdesertmuseum.org/