Welcome to YOUR Forum

[Mark]

Welcome to the History of Steel Philippine Section planning forum. This forum is simply a place where the Philippine Section contributors can communicate, and get organized. The EEWRS is lending its support to the Museum because we believe that this is an extremely unique, important, and probably historic project. When the time comes, EEWRS would like to help publicize the exhibition as well. As individuals, we also hope that letting you know our belief in, and support of, the project will help allay whatever concerns you may have at this point.

I will be acting as Moderator of this forum, and as facilitator of your work. If you do not already know, I am one of the coordinators of the (surprise) Dha Section … I mean, Continental South East Asian Section. Most of the pieces that I have posted on the EEWRS over the years from my personal collection I am contributing to the exhibition. So basically, I am putting my money where my mouth is. Also, since I have been in the midst of this process for several months, I (and others who I will let identify themselves) can offer you advice, insight, and the benefit of experience. I was invited to Macao as the Museum’s guest to view their operations and meet the Museum staff personally. I wrote an article with my impressions, which you might be interested in reading (I have re-written it a little to focus it more on the issues that are likely most important to you right now). See it here.

So, from a personal point of view I can probably answer a lot of questions you have about the process and what it is all for. But let me stress that the planning and decisions are all yours. I am not here to direct, but rather to support you in your work.

There is a lot to do, and not much time to do it. Follow {link removed, see next post} to a page on Antonio's server where I have put up an outline and schedule of what needs to be done, as conveyed to me by Antonio, salted with a few comments and suggestions from my own experience.

Mark

[Mark]

For this public presentation of the PI section forum I removed a link in my original post above because it in turn contained a second link to a page that contained $$ insurance values. As this is personal/confidential information, I am pasting the contents of the first linked page (the outline & schedule), minus the second link to the insurance info. I have also removed e-mail addresses.

“Information, Goals and Instructions”
Mark Bowditch

What you need to do for PLANNING:

1) Select the pieces for the section. Given the space allotted to each Section, this should be no more than 35. Depending on the size of the selected pieces, more, or less, may fit. In the Continental SEA section, we will be able to fit maybe 25 or 28 at most, because they are mostly sword-length. How you make the selection, and what you select, is up to you, since you are the people who know the material. Hopefully this will be the main issue for this whole project, and a lot has already been done.

1a) Also valuable is selection of one or two “support” pieces, and period photographs, to be included in both the catalogue and in the display. I understand that one or two pieces of Moro armor may have already been proposed, for instance.

2) Prepare a brief description of each selected piece. This must give the locale of origin of the piece (or if more appropriate the culture of origin), its approximate age (“late 18th C.”, for example), its essential dimensions of overall and blade length, and a few brief words on material or construction (“mahogany grip,” or “layered steel construction,” for example). This will be the piece’s caption in the display, and will also be its basic identifying information for handling by the Museum (in addition to a uniquely-assigned accession number).

3) Preparing the accompanying text/article for the catalogue. Federico Malibago has agreed to write the article that will include a general perspective with regional native details and cultural characterization as an introduction will lead to the understanding of the edged weapons represented by your Section. Something in the region of 20 pages, give or take. We will interact directly with Federico since the article will need to be ready as soon as possible so that it can be translated timely.

4) Determine an arrangement or sequence of pieces. As a part of this process, a suggested arrangement or sequence of the pieces for the display itself should be thought of. This means how will the entries be organized in the display. One way to do this is by types, dates, and lastly by region/culture. The idea is to present the historical and cultural connections between, and continuity among, the pieces of the collection in a logical manner that makes it easier for the viewer, the reader and the display. I suggest that the easiest way to do this (assuming it doesn’t happen naturally as part of the process) is to appoint someone to make a first “draft,” then refine it from there.

What needs to be done for LOGISTICS (or how to do what I just listed):

A) Provide to the Museum, via Antonio, your full name and address. The Museum Director, or Antonio as the General Exhibition Coordinator, if Mr. Ung is too busy, will send you each a formal letter of invitation to act as a Contributor, to which you should respond ASAP (assuming you accept it ). This is the official record of your participation in the exhibition, both for you and for the Museum. It will be sent in scanned format by email for urgency.

B) Select from your individual collections those pieces that you believe have something to say, historically or esthetically, about the weapons of the Philippines. Don’t worry about duplicates at first, or having too many. You need to get out on the table, so to speak, what is available for the Section to work with.

C) E-mail Antonio at {e-mail address removed 1/4/06}, and to me at {e-mail address removed 1/4/06} as a backup, pictures of your pieces.
These should show the whole piece and be of sufficient quality that everyone can see what it is all about. Basically, an average-sized picture of 600 pixels wide.
Each piece will be assigned a unique number incorporating the contributor’s initials (mine all have MIB as a suffix – 1MIB, 2MIB, etc.).
Antonio will put these pictures up on a page on his server with their ID number, so that everyone can see the whole pile. The easiest thing for Antonio would be that you actually name the picture files with their ID number – I just gave you the format, so you can go ahead and assigned ID numbers. This will avoid confusion at our end.

This web page will be what you work with over the coming weeks for the selection process. Here is the link {link removed 1/4/06} to “our” page on Antonio’s server, just to give you the idea of what kind of foundation needs to be built here.
We have refined our selections from this working set.

D) Also get to Antonio and me, preferably at the same time as the pictures, the brief descriptions mentioned in paragraph 2) above. If you want Antonio to assign the ID numbers before you send pictures, then send the descriptions that correspond to each number, that is OK. It is very useful to exchange ideas on these descriptions, including mutual assistance in reviewing descriptions for content and accuracy.

E) If you have period photographs showing Philippine weapons and the people who made and used them, submit these also for consideration.

F) Prepare a list of the pieces that you will be contributing, and their value. The Museum needs this information in order to properly insure each piece both for shipping and for its stay in Macao. its stay in Macao. The insurance value information will go directly to the Museum and will not be shared here, for privacy reasons. My suggestion is to start this list right away with everything that you have included in your first cut, so that once the final line-up for the Section is decided, the final list can be sent to Antonio quickly, and therefore he can erase the picture and description that has been uploaded and have a final version.

G) Prepare your contributions for shipping to Macao. Although the Museum can make the arrangements, and pay for shipping, they can’t come to each of us to pack up the stuff and bring it to the shipper, so we have to do that part ourselves. The Museum has made a special arrangement with Federal Express to handle the actual shipping to and from Macao.

The most important part of preparing the pieces for shipping to affix a tag to each piece containing your name, the piece’s ID number, and the brief description you have created for it. This can be done by writing it on a paper/cardboard tag that is tied by string or wire to the piece, or printing the info out an gluing it to such a tag. The description should have already been e-mailed to Antonio and me by this point (see D, above).

H) Prepare any print material (i.e., photographs) you are contributing, either for shipment to Macao, or by making high-quality scans (it will have to be very professionally scanned for the printing). Any print material sent to the Museum will be treated the same as the other pieces, in terms of insurance (if necessary), accessioning, and tracking. Antonio has provided the following information for making scans:

a. Try and find a good scanner that may have a feature called descreen, and then scan it to 28 cm high (11 inches) and choose a resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch).

b. If you don't, then try to find a laser photocopier, choose photo mode see if you can enlarge the picture and just photocopy it. Then you send the photocopies and the Museum will scan them.

PROJECT TIME-LINE:

Nov. 25, 2005 – (Yep, that quickly) Contributors to have pictures of their proposed pieces to me and Antonio, with descriptions, and Antonio to have them up and available on the web.
This is an end-date: please start sending pictures to Antonio and me as soon as you can and Antonio will put them up as they arrive.

Dec. 31, 2005 -- FINAL list of the pieces for the Section to Antonio, with final descriptions, insurance value and ownership along with full address of owner. Photographs will already have been posted on your web page.
Jan. 30, 2006 – Section order/organization finalized.
Feb. 15, 2006 -- Article finished.
Feb. 16-28, 2006 – Prepare items for shipping to Macao.
Mar. 1, 2006 – Pieces shipped to Macao. Once received, the pieces will be kept securely in a protected climate-controlled environment.
Mar.-May, 2006 – Pieces will be professionally photographed, prepared for display, and the exhibit arranged for display in special climate-controlled cases. Descriptions & accompanying text will be translated as soon as possible.
Mid-May, 2006 – Exhibition opens (the precise date is not definite yet, but will be set shortly). The exhibition period will last 3 months. Please check this link here to see how the Museum handles things.

As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done in a small amount of time. However, if there is quick, clear and open communication between you, this will go very quickly and be remarkably easy. We decided on the final set of pieces for our section in just a few days, once we got everything in one place to look at. Being open, communicative, responsive, and above all cooperative, with each other as a group, will be critical to the success of the Section.

There are several reasons for the particular deadlines, and their being so tight. Everyone needs to understand that while we are each just preparing our own Sections, Antonio and the Museum are dealing with Five Sections, and therefore need a certain amount of time to photograph all swords for the catalogue, organize everything, plan the display, the catalogue and so forth. The amount of work that must be done by the Museum once the pieces arrive in Macao is what dictates the March 1 shipping deadline, which in turn dictates all the ones preceding it. A final list of pieces, and their value, must be sent to the Museum by Dec. 31 so that arrangements for shipping and insurance can be made, which always takes a while. All written material needs to get to Macao by Dec. 31 (descriptions) and Feb. 15 (article) because all text, including the catalogue, will be appearing in three languages – English, Chinese and Portuguese – so there is a lot of translating to do. The translating thing, by the way, is also why written material needs to be brief, since every word takes up triple space. The pieces need to be actually be in Macao well ahead of the exhibition opening because each needs to be accessioned by the Museum, and photographed for the catalogue (and there are going to be a lot of pieces for the whole show). Photographing metal objects is challenging, and blades in particular if one wants all the activity of the metal to show. Also, the display space must be prepared in a way that is tailored to each piece, including lighting (again so that the blades will be shown at their best).
Please do not hesitate to post or e-mail to me at {e-mail address removed 1/4/06} any questions that you have.

Good luck, and have fun.

Mark Bowditch