Medals of Congressman John A. Blatnik

John A. Blatnik

Pins and buttons from the John A. Blatnik Collection.

Congressman John A. Blatnik was born in Chisholm, MN. He was chemistry teacher in Chisholmbefore serving as senator from 1940-1944. At the age of 29 in 1940, he was the youngest member ever elected to the Minnesota State Senate. In 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Corps as chief of the Office of Strategic Services’ mission. His familiarity with the Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian languages helped him while working behind German lines as an intelligents agent. He set up a system that rescued nearly 400 downed airmen, earning him the rank of captain and many medals.  

In 1946, Congressman Blatnik was elected to congress and won 13 times more. He wrote the Clean Water Act, which passed in 1972.

Bronze Medal Star, the fourth highest combat award. John A. Blatnik Collection.

USFA Medal. John A. Blatnik Collection

It's Been A While: Updates and An Old Wrench

We are chugging away developing programs and exhibits for our next busy season. In the meantime, join us for sensational music by local musicians and see our current exhibits!

Acoustic Cafe with Band

Acoustic Café ~ Every Thursday from 5-9 p.m. ~ Enjoy acoustic music by talented local musicians. ~ Appetizers, drinks and homemade soups available on our menu.  Admission is free.  Come check it out!

Going to Pieces Quilt Exhibit:  Now through June 17^th

Going to Pieces Quilt Guild celebrates its 30 year anniversary with approximately 30 members. The exhibit showcases 90 quilts and quilted objects from 18 members. You can see the creative advances from their first to most current quilts. Within each quilt the women’s personalities show through from humor to artistic vision.

Sketchers & Carvers Exhibit in the Community Gallery: Now through April 1^st.

OBJECT OF THE MONTH

Antique Wrench from the Minnesota Discovery Center Artifact collection

Notice all of the different sizes on one tool? Cool, huh? 

Can you find interesting tools around your house?

To receive emails about our upcoming events and exhibits contact Deborah McCauley at dmccauley@mndiscoverycenter.com

Happy Holidays from the Staff at the Minnesota Discovery Center

Holiday photos from around MDC.

A bird's nest made out of grass.

Textures of basketry made by our demonstrators.

A basket that uses a horn as a handle.

Lace-like basket designs. Again made by our demonstrators.

Plucky all dressed up for the holidays.

A beautiful sunset towards Hibbing from our Overlook.

Creating Panorama Photographs for Train Exhibit

Laurentian Rail Road Club Train Model 

Come check out the model train exhibit from the Laurentian Rail Road Club in our Overlook Gallery. One of the RR guys wanted to put panoramic backdrops that showed the Iron Range (which is a great idea!) so he went out and took some photographs around the Iron Range. Never in a million years did I ever think I would have to learn how to stitch photographs together in my job description as curator. But there I was, Google-ing "how to create panoramic photographs." There are many great websites that helped me and after 8 hours of trial and error I finally finished one. Here are some of my stitching efforts!

Sand Trap Panoramic

Golf Course Panoramic

 

Lumber Equipment Panoramic

Photos courtesy of John Linstromberg.

Panoramic Stitching Tutorials
Stitching Photos in Photoshop at phong.com
This one is very advanced. The author of this site prefers to tweak his photographs after he uses the
Photomerge function (Photoshop CS3: File>Automate>Photomerge). If you're interested in fixing the "mask" yourself, this one will be helpful.

Photoshop Cafe Auto Alighn and Auto Blend at photoshopcafe.com/cs3/smith-aa.htm
This one is more straightforward and for someone who is new at stitching was the easiest way to do it. You will need Photoshop CS3 (not sure if the other versions work... try it!)

8 Guidelines to taking panoramic photos with any camera by Digital Photography School
Short, easy to read on taking good photographs to create panoramas.

Using Photomerge, another Technique to create panorama
Again, by Digital Photography School

TIP:
When taking the photograph, one should overlap the shots, otherwise Photoshop won't know how to stitch and blend.

Happy photographing and panoramic making!

Good stuff in the Community Gallery

We’re currently showing what I think is our best Community Gallery yet: Sketchers and Carvers. The variety of work and the number of pieces - woodburning, woodcarving, pen drawings, pencil grids, black ink on taconite-dyed paper, colored ink and more – make it an interesting show. Even if you just breeze through the space you get a sense of shapes, dimensions and texture. For a small area, it has a lot going on: 60+ submissions with more than 75 pieces from nine regional artists.

But somehow it’s not overwhelming. I feel fortunate to have been able to meet most of the artists who contributed to this exhibit. They were all wonderful to work with and I only hope they’re happy with how we’ve displayed their work. Mai did a great job displaying the carved sculpture pieces and we are extremely lucky to have an MCAD grad on staff. We all got a little creative in the layout, but it feels like it works. Many of the pieces are for sale, and there are more than a couple I would like to buy. The thing I love about our Community Gallery is it gives people with all levels of gallery experience a chance to share their work. The great response to the call for entries tells me there are plenty of talented people on the Range who want opportunities to show what they do. We’re happy to accommodate! See the show through March, and you’ll see what I mean. For artists' names and more info, click here. -BP

Museum Presentation

I made a presentation on what we are doing at the Minnesota Discovery Center to our board. Below is a short version of that presentation which defines what museums are, notes some of our exhibit and object collections challenges, includes our solutions to those challenges. I have hyperlinked websites that I find useful. I hope that you can get something out of it too!

I will write an update on what we've actually done in the museum and how it's working on another blog. Look out for it!

What is this?: Found with Kitchen utensils

Wooden kitchen utensil, slant tip, round handle; found in collection

What is this object? Help us figure out what this object is. Have you ever seen anything like it? Typically when we find an object like this we try to figure out its use and purpose. It was found with kitchen utensils during our inventory, so we believe it is some kind of tool used in the kitchen. It's round, has a groove running down the center, slanted edge and round handle at the top.

What do you think it is?