Allison wrote:

>I'd like to know your opinion on the process of writing an educational
>text for art museums.

>Do you think that as museum educators our vision and appreciation of a
work of art >would be limited in comparison with that of the expert, and
therefore this procedure >would be counterproductive?

I work with history exhibits instead of art exhibits but I personally
prefer to use curators' information.  In a recent exhibit, I worked with
our chief curator on the exhibit labels.  He wrote a first draft and I
rewrote them using simpler language and at a much lower reading level (I
tried for about 4th grade).  The final version was somewhere in between
and was well received according to a recent study.

I find that when I write labels or materials from my own research, it's
harder to simplify and weed out things that maybe aren't as important.  I
also think that when I work from someone else's research, my new
perspective helps identify areas of confusion.
When I assume that the message is valid and accurate, it frees me to
focus on the way it is communicated.  It's not that I couldn't do the
research myself (I still consider myself a historian) but the beauty of
good teamwork is that we share the load.  One person focuses on the
message and the other focuses on the way it's received.

I'll be interested to see others comments.

Lisa Craig Brisson, Museum Educator
Mackinac State Historic Parks
(616) 436-7301
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]


___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]