Happy New Year, dear readers! As you might have noticed, it's been very quiet around here. Old posts have disappeared and the decor has changed. What in the world is going on?
It's no secret that I haven't blogged much since I got my PhD in 2015. I started, ended, and restarted my personal blog at least four times and moved platforms twice. Every time I restart my blog, I try to recapture a specific moment in the blogosphere that, frankly speaking, doesn't exist anymore. Stuck in the past, I tried to blog about Goth fashion, Halloween hauls, my personal life -- my adventures, my career, my hopes and dreams, and everything in between. The problem is that the last six years have been filled with teaching, moves, academic commitments, more moves, a career change ... another career change, an operation, and more personal stuff than I'd like to talk about. In addition, I've changed and grown. That's not to say that what I blogged about in the past doesn't interest me. It just isn't the focus of my life these days and, in many ways, is holding me back from completely embracing who I am becoming and where I'm heading. I am not interested in showcasing myself and my personal life.
With that said, The Very Curious Doctor Z will be focused on my true passions: art history, visual and material culture. Posting on the first and third Friday of each month, this blog will feature objects and collections in my possession, as well as in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. I will also feature the historic and natural sites that Ed and I will encounter on the post-pandemic adventures we have planned. Finally, I will write about my many historical interests including World War II rations, 20s-40s fashion, historic foodways, and music. Heck, I might even do a book review or two!
While I am still working on projects for academic publishing, I have embraced the goals of Public History, or, in my case Public Art History, Visual and Material Culture. I want to create educational content for a wider, more diverse audience. As I have said in the past, I want to "write stuff" that my working class parents would be able to read, understand, and enjoy. This new focus for my blog parallels my current career goals: to work in a GLAM (gallery, library, archive, or museum) in a curatorial or collections department where I can develop ways to make our collections more accessible to a wider audience. Part of this blog will eventually include online exhibitions using ArchiveSpace and interactive maps using StoryMaps.
If you started to follow me because of my previous blogs, please join me on Instagram. There you will find photos of our adventures, fashion, food, Bijou, and other fun stuff. I might even start writing up short blurbs for each image/set of images!
Upcoming: On February 5th, I will start a series of posts based on the social media takeover I did in October for AHNCA. It was for Halloween and will feature Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, The Merchant House Museum, and Salem, MA.