Pool noodles, Joan of Arc, touching paintings, and the unserious road back to Ticonderoga

I have an embarrassing confession, which, as an emerging collections professional, haunts me to this day. When I was ten or eleven, I visited Fort Ticonderoga while on vacation. I remember taking a tour with a docent, who showed my family portraits of military leaders. As we approached one, I saw how thickly the paint was applied, creating a ridged texture along the base next to the gilded frame. As a young, curious child, I wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch the painting—so I did, only for a second. I was quickly chastised by the docent and pulled my hand away.

In January, when I saw the listing for summer graduate fellowships in Collections and Exhibits at Fort Ticonderoga, I was immediately thrilled. I remembered visiting the site as a child, making a sachet in the King’s Garden, and loving the living history around me. My brothers were thrilled, too, specifically by the cannon and musket demonstrations, and of course bought matching bright red toy muskets at the gift shop when we left. This could be a full circle moment – I could return to a historic site that had left a meaningful impression on me as a child, but this time, as an employee!

But before I could dwell on the happy memories, another came to mind. I remembered, rather embarrassingly, that while there, I had been curious enough to reach out and touch an oil painting on the wall in one of the exhibits at the fort. Not the frame, not the label, but the stretched canvas and the paint atop it. I remember getting scolded by a docent and feeling ashamed.

As I read the fellowship descriptions, it set in. I had touched a painting. I want to be a curator and collections professional, and I had TOUCHED A PAINTING. I was about to apply to COLLECTIONS and EXHIBITS fellowships, and I had done something that could have damaged a COLLECTIONS object, in an EXHIBIT. Yikes. Was I a traitor the likes of the infamous one-time commander of the fort, Benedict Arnold himself?

I know the emphasis on the words above may seem overblown, and yes, I am intentionally being overdramatic here, but in that moment, sitting on my friend’s living room chair, I truly started to panic. I felt, to put it bluntly, stupid. I was sure I had known better as a child, and yet had still chosen to touch that painting. I felt like there was no way anybody else applying for these fellowships had ever done something as detrimental to a collections object.

There was no way anyone else had done something as detrimental . . .

That’s when it hit me. Aside from the obvious side that, firstly, I was a child when this happened, and secondly, of course other collections professionals had made mistakes before, this was my weird little story. And frankly, it’s a little bit funny.

So in that moment, looking at the Fort Ti application, I made a choice to be unserious. It wasn’t that I didn’t value or respect the institution of Fort Ticonderoga – quite the opposite. But I decided that I would be open and honest about my mistake, and that I would embrace it. To open my cover letter for the collections position, I wrote the paragraph you read at the start of this article. It was, of course, spiced with overdramatic language (even though deliberately cringey, did I really need to use the word “haunt”???) and paired with a line at the end of the letter noting that I was eager to touch more paintings (safely).

When I finished writing, I couldn’t help but giggle. I was still nervous to apply, but I felt calmer. It was a wildly circular moment to have this distinct memory of the only time I’d ever touched something out of turn at a museum be at the place I was now applying to for a graduate fellowship. In COLLECTIONS. And EXHIBITS. Perhaps this absurdity was what gave me the courage to, when applying to the exhibits fellowship, submit photos of my DIY-ed Joan of Arc Halloween costume when asked for an example of a design project I had completed. That Joan of Arc costume, which I had made from car sun shields, was really cool, if I do say so myself. It was a bit of a risk, but I didn’t have photos of a museum-specific design project, so it was what it was.

Luckily, it seemed like the people on the other end of the application stratosphere were equally unserious (in the best way). My Zoom interview was led by an incredibly kind and lighthearted group of interviewers. They made me feel comfortable enough that when asked about a unique solution to an exhibit design or fabrication issue in my interview, I talked about pool noodles. I had created a “dig site” for a children’s museum dinosaur exhibit by attaching pool noodles to plywood and covering the whole thing with a layer of felt. Again, this felt a bit silly – I was speaking to Real Life ProfessionalsTM and talking about building with colorful foam flotation devices – but to my surprise and delight, my interviewers shared a love of pool noodles. They, too, had recently solved a museum challenge with the help of macaroni a la foam.

As I write this article, I am sitting at the kitchen table of one of Fort Ticonderoga’s staff houses. I am still pinching myself that I get to work at Fort Ti this summer as the Edward W. Pell Graduate Exhibits Fellow. More on the fellowship later, but I am loving the place, the work, and the people. The community here is just the right combination of serious and unserious, and I have even gotten to see some jumbo pasta in action. When the museum acquired a collection of antique swords and had to transport them from New Jersey back to New York, how did they ensure the weapons’ safety? By wrapping them in inedible Italian cuisine, of course! Now, at their final resting place in collections storage, they are still snuggly hugged by red, blue and green ethafoam worms.

So what’s the point? Why have I spent so much page space writing about extra-large, extra-al-dente spaghetti? Because I’m thinking about the fact that as museum professionals, we tend to reserve joyful experiences for museumgoers, and often specifically for children. We work behind the scenes to create meaningful, exuberant moments for our visitors, which is, of course, important. But at the same time, isn’t it important that we get some of these moments ourselves?

We are museum people. We may be adults, but many of us are here because we still experience childlike joy when visiting a new museum or historical site. Perhaps the way we can spread the most joy is by giving ourselves the space to experience it first.

I’m not saying that we should go touch paintings (please don’t, unless you’ve been properly trained and are wearing the right kind of gloves), but let’s not be afraid to talk about our mistakes in museums. We aren’t perfect! Nobody is! I would argue that museums are some of the most imperfect places. There is room for mistakes, silliness, creativity, odd solutions to problems. Let’s choose fun, when appropriate, because we can—heaven knows this world needs more lightness!

So I hope you find a space for some museum silliness today. Whether it be finding a creative use for *non-lifesaving* flotation devices, discussing the construction of your French saint costume, or telling the story of a questionable childhood choice, I hope you find the space to have a little giggle.

And, of course, shoutout to Miranda, TJ, Tabitha, and the entire Fort Ti team for letting me be unserious. I seriously love this place, and the space to be silly means the world.