Once again, too long a time has lapsed since I last posted. That time was taken up by Christmas--and very welcome visits home from all of our (now grown) children. Immediately afterward, we had to rush to get our big Christmastime fundraising exhibit, the Festival of Trees, taken down so that we could begin to hang the sampler exhibit.

The samplers had been in our dark storage room, awaiting the big moment. On shelves, it was easy to lose track of just how large a collection 114 samplers really is. It took us--me, our new museum director Tara Raiselis, Collections Manager Camille Smalley and Education Manager Anna Kelly, about three hours just to carry them all up, one at a time, and position them around the big rear gallery of the museum. Our initial plan was to not install any of our portable walls, as we thought they might interrupt the "flow" of the exhibit--and because they are NOT at all portable. (New, really portable walls are on our wish list!)

It quickly became very clear that, even though the rear gallery is very large, we would have to hang the samplers one above another, three inches apart, all the way around the room, without the portable walls. That would mean that people would not be able to get a good close look at the stitchery because it would either be too high or too low. And where would we put the object labels?

Out came the portable walls--all of them. With all that additional wall space, what we ended up with is the samplers hung about six inches apart, all the way around the room, and three or four of the smaller ones hung one above another--and then they all fit. It looks so wonderful.

One of the more moving moments for me (and there were many) was when I hung the samplers of Sarah Jane and Julia Ann Patch next to each other. These two young women were first cousins who were born and raised in what was once and still remains a very small town: Otisfield, Maine, located over in the foothills of the White Mountains. Sarah Jane (1819-1847) and Julia Ann (1807-1848) died within a few months of each other, and are buried within ten feet of each other in a small, sunny cemetery that slopes down away from the road in Otisfield. I imagine Julia Ann watching over her younger cousin when they were children, and how Sarah Jane must have looked up to her as a role model. Perhaps this is a romanticized view of the two girls, but it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for me. Neither ever married. Julia Ann's sampler belongs to the Otisfield Historical Society; it has never traveled far from home, since it was discovered not too many years ago in a trunk in the attic of her father's still-standing home. Sarah Jane's work traveled a different, more uncertain (at least for me) route, being purchased at auction several years ago by someone who lives in the Williamsburg, Virginia area.

When I hung the samplers side by side on the wall, I had to wonder when the last time these two pieces had been near each other. It was an amazing moment!