November 2022 Employee Newsletter

EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

Redecorating theTree

going to be hanging on the museum’s tree. We’ve created a digital kiosk with a catalog so people can come in and look up their county and not only see the ornament on the tree but also read what the artist has written about the ornament – what inspired them, how they made their ornament and who they are as an artist.”

Some of the new ornaments highlight the county’s topography or its most famous sites. Others tell stories about the county – like Delaware County’s. Artist Brent Cole used the ornament to serve as a tribute to “the nonstop flight to nowhere,” an October 1939 excursion that began and ended at the airport in Muncie when pilots Kelvin Baxter and Robert McDaniels flew a J-3 Piper Cub for 536 hours and covered 34,828 miles. Down below, the ground chief, supplied them with food, water, fuel and oil.

Ruschman said trying to locate an artist in every county who could participate in this project certainly had its rewards but also has had its challenges.

He needed artists who could work in three dimensions. Who could supply a sketch of what the ornament would look like and a narrative explaining the message of the ornament. Who could meet the specifications (basically, 10 inches by 15 inches and no more than five pounds). Who could meet deadline.

“It’s not that there weren’t plenty of artists out there,” he said. “It’s that this project required a certain skillset, and sometimes you had to have a few different conversations to figure out whether this was going to work.”

The Indiana State Museum’s 92 County Tree has gotten a facelift – 60 new ornaments from counties across the state are on the tree this year, with another 32 to follow next year.

Throughout 2022, Mark Ruschman, senior curator of art and culture, approached artists around the state to design and make new ornaments that reflect their county – “to bring recognition to things that were understated about the county or of interest to the artist.”

“The response was great,” he said. “The artists liked the challenge, but also, they were honored to be considered for this project in the first place. They took a great deal of pride in the fact that their piece is

Ruschman said he’s been impressed by the quality of artists who participated this year – David Cunningham, who won first place in this year’s Hoosier Art Salon competition in the still-life category, designed Johnson County’s ornament – as well as the different ways they approached the project.

Wyatt LeGrand, a public school teacher at Bloomfield Junior Senior High School, involved his student art club in the project. Doug Calisch, who taught at Wabash College for 33 years, created the ornaments for Parke, Montgomery and Putnam counties. He put his designs on social media to show what he was working on and solicit comments.

“These ornaments are going to be around for a long time,” Ruschman said. “As the fine arts curator, my job is to curate the tree as an exhibition, and I want to make sure we have the best work for it.”

The 92 County Tree has been a staple of the state museum since 2008. At the time, the three-stories-tall tree was decorated with a combination of ornaments created by artists or purchased through local historical societies.

“The ultimate goal is to represent all 92 counties,” Vice President of Experience Adam DeKemper said. “We want to have people from Indiana come in to enjoy the holiday season and have their county represented on this tree just like they’re represented on the building’s exterior with the 92 sculptures.”

The refresh of the 92 County Tree was made possible by a generous gift from Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites board member Melissa Caito.

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?

My favorite part of the holidays are the decorations and gathering with my family.

What is your most prized possession?

My guitar.

Who is your hero?

My parents.

STAFF SPOTLIGHT: CHRIS McCOY

Chris McCoy is the graphic designer for the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. He began working for the museum system in July. In his role, Chris creates all things graphic design, including fliers, collateral, signage and marketing materials for all 12 locations. He lives in Plainfield.

What is something that always makes you smile?

Excellent design always makes me smile –especially illustrations.

If you could snap your fingers and become an expert in something, what would it be?

Playing music and singing.

What’s one of your favorite memories from the past year?

Visiting the T.C. Steele State Historic Site. I really enjoyed the guided tour of the Steele home and exploring the beautiful grounds the Steeles created.

What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?

I’m an Air Force kid, homeschool kid and I play guitar. I’m also a big Harry Potter and Disney fan!

INDIANA STATE MUSEUM AND HISTORIC SITES

IN THE NEWS

Click on the bold names below to see the news.

As you might imagine, Celebration Crossing has gotten a lot of attention already. WISH-TV was among the three stations here to cover opening day. Bethany was on Fox 59 morning news on Nov. 18 to talk about what visitors can expect. The Indianapolis Star, Indy’s Child and the Daily Journal in Johnson County gave us nice write-ups in their roundup stories about holiday things to do. And we had a must-read writeup from Decatur County-based blogger Rebekah Barton

The Lebanon Reporter ran our entire news release, while radio station WKDQ in Evansville and its sister station WBKR in Owensboro, Ky., both featured Celebration Crossing on their websites, including a 16-minute video of a walk around the museum!

The Goshen News wrote about a local artist who designed Elkhart County’s new ornament for the 92 County Tree. The Carroll County Comet had a story about their local artist too (though it’s behind a paywall). More coverage of the new ornaments is expected.

Elsewhere, Channel 21 in Fort Wayne ran a story about a collection of a veteran’s letters and WKDQ reported on the history of Vincennes.

Members of Butler University’s marketing and communications team were in the museum on Oct. 25 to film a portion of the school’s next commercial. The message of the ad is about the real-world experience Butler students get through internships at places like the museum. The scene they filmed showed two student actors walking into the Great Hall, then working with Arts & Culture Collections Manager Meredith McGovern. The commercial will begin airing in December or January during Butler basketball games and possibly on local TV as well.

vs. OVERWHELM CHALLENGE

Which is It?

Imagine you're sitting in a meeting and starting to feel a familiar sensation. The team is pouring through the action plan for a new project, your heart begins to race, your palms begin to sweat, and anxiety starts to crowd your brain. Then, sitting at your desk later, looking over the extensive action items on your to-do list, you take a deep breath and ask yourself a critical question in maintaining a healthy outlook: Is this a mental challenge? Or am I overwhelmed?

The distinction is important for several reasons, particularly during the holiday season, which brings joy and added busyness at work and home. First, while some symptoms may be similar, intervention strategies for dealing with each situation differ significantly.

A regular mental challenge is a good thing. It strengthens the brain and expands your potential. A mental challenge is a cognitive state entered when mastering a new task or working to solve a problem. As we develop new skills, we create new neural pathways that expand our brain's capacity. This growth can cause a temporary slowdown in processing ability that often mimics brain fog, the brain can register these "growing pains" as physical discomfort at times, and the disruption of routine can cause resistance to change.

Our brain releases adrenaline when faced with a new challenge, which may account for the mild anxiety and hypervigilance that sometimes occurs when faced with new things, but it also releases dopamine when we accomplish a new task.

To ease these sensations, practice the new skill and try to learn it in the framework of a skill you already understand. Make a list, break down your new task into digestible chunks, and give yourself white space to process and learn.

Feeling overwhelmed is the state in which the volume of thoughts, feeling, tasks and stimuli in our daily environment shift

our brain and nervous system into a reactive state. In this state, the "primitive" brain takes over, the prefrontal cortex shuts down, and the brain is kicked into a "fight, flight or freeze" state. As a result, feeling overwhelmed commonly leads to anxiety, a sensation of claustrophobia, irritability and mood swings. Brain fog, the inability to manage even the simplest tasks, difficulty making decisions, and forgetfulness are all symptoms and are a direct result of the "primitive" brain's determination that the body is in a life-or-death situation. Our "fight or flight" response is helpful in a crisis, but in the case of feeling overwhelmed, it can be crippling and lead to a loss of productivity.

How do you battle the "overwhelm monster"? Step one is to recognize and learn to control the response. BREATHE is one of the best ways to help your body shift from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system.

The technique known as 4-7-8 breathing, which is borrowed from PTSD treatment, is one the simplest methods to slow your heart rate, relax your muscles and reduce your blood pressure. Breathe in through your nose for four counts, hold for seven, and out through your mouth for eight counts. Repeat until you feel the body begin to relax a bit.

Another way to help work through feeling overwhelmed is to write everything down in a total brain dump. Emotions, to-dos, thoughts—get them all out on paper—then take some time to categorize and prioritize the to-dos.

Finally, if you find yourself struggling on a regular basis with feeling overwhelmed, make sure that you are scheduling "white space" in your calendar and that you are bringing your whole self (newsflash: your "home" self and "work" self are the same person!) you bring to the table when you are scheduling events.

Your Deep End Talent Strategies HR-On-Demand team is here to help you talk through "feeling overwhelmed" versus "challenge" considerations. You can reach us at 866.HR.FOR.ME or IN-HR@deependstrategies.com

Susannah Koerber RECEIVES CREATIVE RENEWAL FELLOWSHIP

Chief Curator and Research Officer Susannah Koerber has received a $10,000 Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis. This will allow her to pursue a long-standing interest in photography by learning historic photography processes (wet collodion, albumen, platinum, etc.) and using these to create artwork that explores relation to place.

Koerber said she will explore new ways of thinking about memory and history, including better understanding how historic photographs were made and ways that different techniques affect how we respond to images, both as subjects and viewers.

“This will be especially helpful in working with the photographs in the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection,” she said. “They represent an explosion of technologies for visual representation that occurred in the mid-19th century. These brought new ways of experiencing and presenting the self and events, which public figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass used to deliberate ends.”

Over the next 18 months, she’ll also visit U.S. museums with major historic photography collections and look at contemporary artists who use these processes in their work.

The Arts Council awards 40 Creative Renewal Fellowships every two years to artists and arts administrators. They’re intended for recipients to “go in search of creative inspiration” and “to nurture their creative exploration and rekindle their spirits.”

Chief Officer of Engagement Brian Mancuso was a 2020-2021 fellow.