I am a notorious hater of museums, unless they involve dinosaur bones, then I'm all in. We went to dozens of them in New York, and now with in-laws who live in Washington D.C., there never seems to be a shortage of them to visit. I've probably been to every famous American museum you could think of by default, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, it's just the idea of walking around and looking at stuff isn't really in my top ten. And don't even get me started on art.
I'm a tactile person. I have to physically handle things to be able to experience them. If I can't turn something over in my hands, hold it closer to my face to examine it, smell it, look at it from different angles, it might as well be a picture on a TV screen to me. It's not real until I can touch it, experience it. And museums, with all their artifacts behind glass and guarded, don't seem real to me.
The new exhibit at the Pioneer Log Village in Reedsburg is not like that. I visited recently with my intern Brian to do a preview article on the hard work volunteers have put into the exhibit, which was about to premiere the next weekend at Reedsburg's Loyalty Day. Maybe it was the fact that the Barb, the Historical Society President, didn't mind opening the cases for us so I could get a better photo without reflecting off the glass. Maybe it was because it was just the three of us, with no other guests elbowing in on our experience. Or maybe it was because these were all items connected to my home town, to people I knew, histories for which I had some kind of reference, not just facts and dates on a page like in history class.
Sure, there are some items behind glass. But there are many items in the new exhibit (and the Village itself) that you can actually touch, like old military uniforms donated by local residents. Barb knew the story behind almost every item, could reference who donated it and where it came from. And I was blown away by how many items there were, different items the volunteers had been rescuing from dark and cobwebby boxes over the course of a few months.
Brian and I spent longer than we probably should have at the exhibit. We were supposed to be working on a story, taking photos, talking to Barb and gathering information. We shouldn't have stayed there longer than a half hour or so to avoid imposing on her time and ours. But I just couldn't help it. Every time I turned around, there was something more to look at, something I hadn't seen before, something my photographer brain wanted to capture from every conceivable angle. To say that the exhibit is well put together is an understatement; not only is it extremely professional but it encourages the kind of exploration (read: time-wasting) that kept pulling me back in that day. And who could ask for a better host than Barb, who volunteers so much of her free-time revitalizing the Log Village and gave us so much information and access that day that I just couldn't tear myself away.
The exhibit is only a small part of the larger Reedsburg Historical Society Log Village. The grounds are beautiful, and each cabin and building is full of artifacts from Reedsburg and the surrounding area. I spent a great afternoon there with my dad a few years ago, exploring each of the buildings. The site is one of Wisconsin's hidden gems and well-worth the trip if you ever have the chance.
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