The Ships Ship Out

The staff at the Addison have been closely studying their calendars lately to schedule all the things we need to do to prepare for our July closing. One of our more complex projects begins soon: the packing and moving of our ship model collection.

Packers will start the long, laborious process of removing each ship model from its glass case and carefully packing it within a specially-constructed crate for its transit to our temporary off site art storage facility. Every delicate miniature mast, sail, and anchor will be expertly secured for their "voyage" with precision and extreme attention to detail using various archival packing materials such as ethafoam, tyvek and twill tape. The ships have left here before, notably in 1993 for our climate control installation, and they will be well cared for in their temporary home as the building is worked on over the next two years.

This marks the beginning of many projects occurring behind the scenes here for our closing. Everything in our building: every staff member, art object, file, book, desk, and pencil, will need to be packed and moved out. It will be quite a challenge, especially considering we will have a full slate of spring exhibitions to install next month. But the staff here is ready for it!

Stay tuned to Blog Addison for further updates as the countdown to our closing continues!

James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives