Crocker Library

This week I started volunteering at the Crocker library, they hope to get everything ready for opening the first week of November. The shelving only came in last week - only 2 days before the museum opening. The library is downstairs in a lovely little room. Right now the stacks are pretty empty.

That is a window alcove back there, filled with boxes of books.

The mountains of boxes that have been emptied already (there are slightly smaller stacks behind the two flat piles you can see the tops of), I was able to get Jessie to help me cart all the boxes out to the recycling bins the floor so was clear for a little while.

This entire wall of shelves are all books donated from one person's collection - and this is not even all of the books that were donated this is maybe half. It makes me drool, to think of her having that many art books of her own.

Here are just a couple that caught my eye on Friday when I was organizing them:

From inside:

It is wonderful to be helping in the library and getting to walk through the Crocker on my way in is wonderful! It really is a beautiful museum.

Teachers Pet

Alright, not really, but pretty close...after staying up ALL night last night to work on a presentation for class tonight I totally failed! Neglecting to explain all the fantastic miscellanea I collected in my research and was completely inarticulate, skipping over entire sections because I was running out of time and had prepared too much.

I knew it was a great presentation with amazing content, and did take me from about 10pm last night until 7am, 10 am to 1 pm, 4 pm to 6pm today to compile. After 14 hours it better be fantastic.

It was so fantastic...my professor asked if she could have it, three times over the course of 15 min. She LOVED it, "amazing" "I have never seen a presentation like that" "where did you find everything". My friend J was sitting next to the Prof said the entire time Prof S. was ohhhhing and awwwing over everything.

For not covering half my content and points, and not having my themes as organized as well I might want I will contest that it was still slightly epic.

And...I believe I have found my final project, drum roll.............

DICKENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graduation is getting closer by the day! If I can just get through the semester.

The Crocker

Tonight I skipped the first hour of class to go to the Friends and Family Opening of the CrockerArt Museum - where J has been working since May and who we are indebted to for getting her and her little fam out here. That reason alone makes me love the Crocker.

My love of the Crocker goes back to my junior year of high school in Davis, for extra credit I went to the Crocker to view a collection of watercolors that were visiting at the time and fell in love. Maybe it was the mansion, maybe it was the art, maybe it was the glass covered bookshelves and winding staircase specifically.

Opulent as some parts of the old building are, the big new beautiful wing has wonderfully clean lines. The collection looks fantastic. The Crocker is not so pretentious as to ignore any genres, which I appreciate.

It was nice to hang out with the Gibbs and the parents. The food was great, no one died when the champagne bottle was opened via cleaver knife, and I am sufficiently tired after walking almost the entire museum in about an hour and a half that I will sleep well tonight. Looking forward to going back soon!

GC Weekend

At home for conference - up until after midnight playing nerts with B, C, and G and up early making sourdough pancakes with C watching GC and catching the end of G's soccer game.

Soooo much homework to do - let's see how much I get done :)