For the first time ever at the North Carolina Museum of Art, all four volumes of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America are currently on view.

Believe me, this has been a long time coming. From the transfer of the portfolios from the State Library to the Museum in 1974 to the five-year conservation and restoration program of 2002–2007, this migration has been worthy of a National Geographic documentary.

In the past the Museum has had the ability to show only one volume at a time, in a single case, because of a variety of physical, spatial, and conservation–related restrictions.

The Restrictions

1. Size of the books: really big. Each page is 40 by 26 inches. Not for nothing are they known as the Double Elephant Folios.

2. Size of the case: again, really big—73 inches long x 53 inches deep x 40 inches tall, including the protective glass hood.

3. Limited viewing. Only one page in one volume could be displayed at a time because of light restrictions.

4. Turning the pages—once each quarter—required:

• 8 people from 3 departments.
• 8 suction cups used by 4 strong people to remove the protective glass hood.
• Constant repair of the protective glass hood due to seam breakage during each opening.
• Extreme difficulty in closing the case due to a less-than-precise closure mechanism.

5. Size of the room: tiny. Less than 100 square feet—and it was really just a passageway between contemporary art galleries. In sum, there was no real gallery for the birds to roost in.

The Solutions

1. A dedicated gallery! The new 700-square-foot space allows all four volumes to be shown simultaneously. There are new in-gallery education panels and a reading area, and we can control light levels because the space is not a passageway.

2. New cases—four of them!—one for each volume. They’re each the same size as the old Audubon case, but with greatly improved construction. Pneumatic lifts allow art handlers to open the glass hoods with the greatest of ease (no more suction cups). Pullout decks give greater physical access to the books for safe page turning. And the cases close with a one-handed gentle mechanism and a self-locking system.

That’s right. Thanks to modern technology, what used to take eight people now takes only two or three. Our new cases, made by Glasbau Hahn of Germany, are the crème de la crème of museum casework and a capital investment that will last a lifetime. Unlock with a key, lift open the hood, pull out the deck, turn the page, add a new label, and close the case. It’s that easy. It now takes more time to coordinate the three people with a key than to get access to the book. Our work is more efficient, and the Museum can show more birds than ever before.

One word of caution for visitors to Audubon: you’re being watched. The new gallery is under surveillance by a few feathered friends on loan from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, so be warned—unless you foresee an Alfred Hitchcock moment in your future, please don’t touch the birds.

These past two weeks we have literally begun the move. The day after the doors closed to the public, we, in the Design Department, took over the Egyptian Gallery to prepare the brand new casework for the trip to the new building as the Registration Department did the same with much of the artwork.

About a year and a half ago we started building cases and bases. These past two weeks they were wrapped, padded and moved. Now they are in their new home awaiting final installation.

This process would not be going so well without a great group of volunteers from the community who are doing a tremendous job for us all. Their excitement is infectious and their energy seems limitless.

To see the new cases in the new building is a great feeling. Everyday it looks more and more like a museum. These mini-mile-markers on the road to completion are telling signs that this place really is a Museum on the Move.

As we begin our migration into the new building the museum has been creating a number of orphans. Much of our case work that houses the Museum’s extensive objects collection is several decades old and is being updated, refurbished, and restyled for the beautiful new gallery environments. But out of an entire museum filled with cases this also means that somebody gets left behind.

The poor lonely things would be wasting away in our warehouse collecting dust, and there is nothing wrong with them except that they might be too big or small or we can’t re-tool them for a new use or new objects. So, we started an adoption program.

If we were to write a classified ad, it would read something like this:

Available for Adoption: Museum Quality Cases. Sound base structures and kick plates. No body dings, dents or fractures. Smooth surfaces ready for repainting. Expensive plastic vitrines/hoods unscratched with sound corners and seams. Leveling feet un-broken and ready for use.

Many of our orphans have found fabulous new homes in other state buildings, state museums, and the many historic sites around North Carolina. They have plenty of miles left on them and are now cherished by their new owners, and we are happy to oblige.

(Photos are from an exhibit developed by the Dept. of Cultural Resources at Aycock Birthplace with ECU students; the Governor Morehead School provided the artifacts. The NCMA provided the case work. )

We have begun the long process of construction of each of these new cases–148 in total. In fact, we are deep into it. The measuring, cutting, building, and painting will be complete by the end of June and the cases will wait for their debut in their new home next spring.

This sleek modern aesthetic of the new building also dictates the color we paint things. Everything is white. But not just any white, it is called Super White. And it is WHITE. Every case, pedestal, wall case, platform, and plinth is painted white.

Our storage area looks like a bank of fresh snow that’s waist deep, but if you look closely you’ll see that every piece is slightly different, built to exacting specifications for each particular work of art. All these cases are much like snow flakes in a blizzard… each one is unique and there are so many in one place!

Kathryn Briggs is the Exhibition Production Assistant. She helps build snowflakes that make up the blizzard of casework in the new gallery building. The storm begins in April 2010.