Bethany Rutledge wrote:

> Do any of you have recommendations on good workshops or seminars in the
> Northeast on exhibit fabrication and installation? I'm working with a small
> budget and need some real hammer and nails kind of experience so that I can
> make my exhibits more 3-dimensional. Thanks for any suggestions! -B

Bethany,

Where were you when I needed you??!! I used to own a small fabrication shop in Hoboken, NJ. We would have loved an "apprentice" (read free labor) Seriously, if you want to learn you have to look and do. Call up some exhibit fabrication shops and see if they will let you come and
assist. You will be surprised how much you can learn just by SEEING things made.

Look at good sets of construction drawings for exhibits, the more complicated the better. Try to look at them and understand exactly what all those lines mean!

Pick up any book by the Taunton Press(they publish Fine Home Building & Fine Woodworking) If you have no experience building, just look at how things are put together. They all have very good illustrations. True, it is not exhibit fabrication, but many techniques are the same.

Go to museums, exhibits, and trade shows and snoop around at how those kind of exhibits are put together. People will look at you funny, but seeing what someone else did is instructive, both positive and negative.  One can learn a lot this way, if you can ignore the stares as you
look underneath or behind stuff.

Look at all the exhibit design books out there, there are often good details of how things are done.

Good luck and don't hit your thumb with the hammer!

Paul Pickard
Masters Candidate
Program in Industrial History and Archaeology
Michigan Technological University
Houghton MI 49931

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