Jimmy McCollum Slide Collection

The day Jessica flew into the TCI, I received a call from a friend of the museum and we took possession of a collection of slides of the early development on Provo. We thought the collection was going to be a few folders, but it turned out to be over 1500 slides in carousels. It took some doing to get the collection to Grand Turk, but
a couple large cases and a flight later they arrived.

One of our current projects is to scan all of these slides into our digital collections. Aliatte is doing this in between her class schedule.

Of particular interest this week are the February 1977 images of the anchor and cannon at the DuPont property of which the museum just took possession. These images clearly illustrate the deterioration that happens to artifacts when they are removed from ship wreck sites and given no conservation treatment.

The collection will add to our on going efforts to preserve the early development history of the TCI. After the collection is digitized and cataloged we will be holding a showing and will film several people telling stories about the images.

Archivist Archiving Our Archives

Last week Jessica and Tiffany arrived at the museum. They are archivists volunteering for the next twelve weeks to survey and catalog the archival collections and the library at the museum. New shelving was built in the library this past spring and the new carpeting was finally laid in July.

But since the hurricane, our library books have been stacked out of the way. Or in fact they have been stacked in the way. The added professional help is pushing this project ahead and we have done more work in the archival collections in the past two weeks than we have in many months.

1999 Our Islands Our Heritage

Today, we hung a collection of art from the DECR 1999 Our Islands, Our Heritage children's art competition. In May, we had thirty if the pieces professionally framed. They are on display at the Salt Mills Cafe and at the Gartland Youth Center.

This is the ten year anniversary of the competition, and though the artwork was completed by amateur artists, many in high school at the time, the colors and topics covered our very similar and make the displays very visually interesting.

We are hoping that the exhibits of this artwork will lead to another environmental art competition. But for that you will have to stay tuned...

Anchors Away

For the last year, the museum has been trying to acquire a large anchor and cannon that are sitting in the garden of the old DuPont proprieties on Provo. The properties are for sale and a few weeks ago we received the go ahead to move the artifacts to a location where they can be conserved. We moved them today with the help of AND construction.

A quick calculation of the weight of the iron suggested the cannon could weigh as much as 840 pounds while the anchor weighs in at maybe 600 pounds.

AND brought a 40 foot flatbed and a crane thinking we could lift the items, but these were way to big to get up the hill to the property. These were sent back and a front loader was brought up to the house.

In the end, they hand carried the anchor and placed it on a flatbed trailer. They tried to carry the cannon, but this only made it a few feet before it was decided to hoist it with the front loader. After this it became like clockwork and the move to the museum property went smoothly.

Project complete!

A New Day

Today, we are starting a new blog about the goings on at the Turks and Caicos National Museum. The blogs will be short, hopefully. And will be focused on keeping people who care what we do informed about what we are doing. I hope you all log on - and I hope you like what you read.

Neal Hitch
Director, Turks and Caicos National Museum