02/17/2008
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Staff photo by Joe Phelanfrom the Kennebec Journal
QUESTIONS REMAIN
No complaints from those who switched to Somerset County center
Vote on 1 may hurt some in election
Steeple at center of debate in Whitefield
VETERANS REQUIRE ASSISTANCE: Homelessness takes center stage
J.P. DEVINE: Overcome sadness with hope
BASKETBALL: NBA Hall of Famer Barry doles out advice at Thomas College
HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY: Maranacook sophomore Mace dominates Class B field
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
A year later, families await answers on fatalities
Owner of topless coffee shop on the comeback trail
Officials report cheaper, better service after switch
Two people in critical condition
Young Marines stick to program
Issue of homeless veterans at center stage
GIRLS SOCCER STATE CHAMPIONSHIP: Winslow falls to York in Class B
Bard hits her marathon stride
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel
Sylvia Clough of West Gardiner placed a split, stove-length piece of wood into the crate set up next to the volunteers' table at the museum entrance. The wood came from the two truckloads she gets from her Farmingdale nephew each year, and otherwise would have fueled her new glass-front chocolate enamel wood stove.
"We're here for the new exhibit," Clough said.
Her wood and the sticks provided by other museum patrons is to be kiln-dried and used as part of the setting for the "At Home in Maine" permanent exhibit.
Elaine Folsom of Readfield penned her name to one end of a piece of oak.
"My grandmother had a terrific kitchen, one with a pump at the sink and a pantry in the back and a spring that came down from the mountain to her kitchen," Folsom said.
Mark Belserene Jr., 4, of Belgrade, declined to put his mark on a short length of tree limb that he had picked up from his house yard after the most recent snow storm.
Beverly Krasavac, formerly of Hallowell and now of Wheeling, W. Va., brought a pile of wood slats for kindling.
While the new, permanent exhibit doesn't officially open until November, spaces for the various displays have been created on the museum's fourth floor, and each space had a number painted on the concrete floor.
A blue foam table substituted for a marble one -- "It's a lot lighter to move around," explained museum director Joseph R. Phillips, who served as a tour director -- and some concepts were simply schematics taped to white walls. Ladders abounded, as did five-gallon buckets of joint compound.
The exhibit is designed to highlight the decorative arts in a series of rooms set up to represent different decades from the 1880s to 1966, said Joanna Torow, the museum's chief educator.
Most rooms had blank white walls, but floral harvest gold, orange and avocado wallpaper were the telltale for the otherwise vacant living room of the 1960s.
"The intent is to tell the story of people who lived in Maine with a little bit of where they came from," Phillips said, as he led a group of people around the in-progress exhibit.
Some of the items to be displayed had been part of other exhibits.
"You start with the good things you've got and buy the others," Phillips said. "We're now scouring for a bathroom sink."
More tours will be offered as progress is made in the "At Home in Maine" exhibit, Torow said.
More information about the museum, including a virtual tour, is offered on the Web at http://www.maine.gov/museum/.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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