KMA conference 2025
Meet in the Middle
Great Bend, KS
Afternoon Workshop, 1-4 PM
Small Text, Big Meaning: Crafting Clear, Compelling Museum Texts
This hands-on workshop is for museum professionals who want to transform "words on the wall" into powerful tools for connection. Participants will bring labels from their own museums to write, revise, and workshop together. Through collaborative exercises, we’ll explore how structure, language, and tone can turn looking into learning. You'll learn to craft museum texts that spark curiosity and conversation, offer layered meaning, and speak with clarity and care. Whether you're reworking legacy labels or writing fresh ones, this session will help you create labels that welcome, guide, and resonate—meeting visitors where they are and inviting them to read between the lines.
Amanda Martin, Director - Wyandotte County Historical Society & Museum in Bonner Springs
Will Haynes, Deputy Director for Engagement and Learning – Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence
Kristina Walker, Director of Education & Interpretation – Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence
The Plan
The Plan
Watkins Museum
of History
Douglas County
Historical Society
Will Haynes whaynes@watkinsmuseum.org
Deputy Director for Engagement and Learning
Spencer Museum of Art
Kristina Walker
Director of Education & Interpretation kewalker@ku.edu The University of Kansas spencerart.ku.edu
Lawrence, KS
Name three to five questions that you have about this work of art upon viewing.
Hollis Sigler (1948-2001)
Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making,1995
Oil on canvas
1996.0008
What you WANT to know versus what you GET
Archive Label 2003
Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making is one of a series of paintings Hollis Sigler produced during the summer of 1995 on the causes of cancer. Since her mother died of cancer, and intensified by the artist’s recurring struggle against that illness, subjects related to cancer have been prominent in Sigler’s work. The artist died in 2001 from cancer.
Sigler’s painting suggests the work of an untrained artist. She adopted this style, called faux naif, intentionally to identify herself as separate from the male-dominated art scene. Hidden in the brilliantly-colored painting are images of the use of chemicals in agriculture and the inscription around the frame refers to our lack of knowledge of the long-term effects of chemicals.
120 words, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 12.10
Current label (in the Empowerment exhibition, Earth section)
Ghostly skeletal servers attend a vacant table prepared for a harvest feast. While powerful forces may seem invisible, Hollis Sigler makes her message clear through various inscriptions, with the longest around the frame: “Although the use of DDT has been banned by the Government for years, its long-term effects are now being recognized. The cancer-causing potential of pesticides in use today may be hidden for years to come.”
68 words, Flesch-Kincaid grade level 11.8
Rendering of Plan for Part of Indigenous Lawrence
InterActive Group, 2023
Meaning and Interpretation:
Intentionality, Provocation, and Collaboration
“Omit unnecessary words.”
Ruins of the Palace of Princess Ennigaldi in Iraq
Labels in the Earliest Known Museum
Leonard Woolley, Photograph of Label Cylinder
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Public History Audiences and Challenges
Importance of Intentionality
Detail from Permanent Gallery
Watkins Museum of History, 2013
“A group of photographs of law enforcement people in action during the period of the burning of the Kansas Union on April 20, 1970. This photo shows three police officers in riot gear and weapons kneeling on curbside by patrol car.”
Stanley Forman (1945-)
The Soiling of Old Glory
1976
Photograph
com/old-glory/
Intentionality and Collaboration
Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Delaware Art Museum, June 30, 2018 – September 9, 2018
Transparency
https://aaslh.org/making-history-making-visible/
Intentionality and Collaboration
In the Spotlight: Lawrence’s George “Nash” Walker
Watkins Museum of History, 2025
Empathy and Collaboration
Renderings of Plan for Part of Indigenous Lawrence
InterActive Group, 2023
First Peoples Museum
Oklahoma City
2024
Building Relationships
Research – Context – Layers of Meaning
A Label that Provokes Engagement
Stanley Forman (1945-)
The Soiling of Old Glory
1976
Photograph
Reproduced with permission of the artist
What do you see happening? What does their body language suggest these people are doing?
Tensions during the Boston Busing Crisis boiled over on April 5, 1976. Outside City Hall, white anti-busing demonstrators attacked an African American man named Ted Landsmark, in one case with an American flag.
The incident was more complex than this image might suggest. Scan here for the fuller story:
Intentionality and Collaboration
Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Delaware Art Museum, June 30, 2018 – September 9, 2018
Transparency
https://aaslh.org/making-history-making-visible/
Intentionality and Collaboration
In the Spotlight: Lawrence’s George “Nash” Walker
Watkins Museum of History, 2025
Empathy and Collaboration
Renderings of Plan for Part of Indigenous Lawrence
InterActive Group, 2023
First Peoples Museum
Oklahoma City
2024
Building Relationships