Resume
Waterford Crystal Bird
(personal collection)
Work Experience
2020 - Present
Ice House Museum
Title: Curator
Publicity and Media Coverage
Historic Structure
Exhibits
Website and Social Media
Education
Archives
Guest Lecturers and Events
Volunteers, Lamar University Interns and Junior Historians
Grant Writing
Responsibilities
In my present position as Museum Curator, I handle all publicity and media, something I feel is prime sustenance for the growth of a museum. Over the past 5 years, we have developed an international media presence at the Ice House Museum that has involved articles in many US major newspapers and news networks. Some of these include multiple articles in Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesman, Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, USA Today, San Antonio Express and many page one articles in Beaumont Enterprise. In November 2024 an international episode of "Fishing For History" was filmed by Farpoint Films, a Canadian Film Company over 3 days about an exhibit at the Ice House Museum and is currently playing on Canada's SuperChannel Network. It is scheduled for US distribution through Discovery Channel in 2025. This episode can be viewed here and in Work. We were also featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Southern Living, and a broadcast in Berlin through an interview with the Associated Press. We have also been featured in numerous podcasts and radio programs. Upcoming publicity (interviews already completed) will inclusion in three books (two fiction novels and one travel book), an upcoming article in Texas Cache Magazine, and Texas Monthly Spring of 2025. For further information and links to our media coverage please see Work.
My responsibilities include oversight of maintenance of the 1927 Ice House Factory, 1914 Pump House and Water Tank , Fountain, Memorial gardens and grounds of the one acre campus. In 2024 we undertook an exterior renovation project which involved repairing the roof on a 1914 structure, building new restrooms, installing new signage and banners and adding a fountain and memorial garden.
Responsibilities include all aspects of development of exhibits, including conception of idea, procuring grant funding, research and development, design, writing text, all graphic design, coordination with print company and/or tradesmen, overseeing construction, lighting design, advertising and press release.
I perform all aspects of designing, building and maintaining the museum website, and managing all social media. In 2024 we were the proud recipient of the Texas Association of Museums Gold Award TAMMIE (the only gold award in the state) for Social Media.
I oversee and helped plan and facilitate educational programs, such as "Traveling Suitcase" which brings museum artifacts and lessons to the classroom, development of the Junior Explorer Club for grades 3-4, which sponsored archaeological digs for kids in historic locations; "Spooky Stories" for high school students and "Ghosts at the Museum" for all ages to reenact and tell historical ghost stories. We provide lesson plans and curriculum guides, as well as coloring pages, 500 clay pot kits per year as a distribution center for Texas Historical Commission, tours of the museum and Kids Activity Days, most recently about teaching children games from the frontier days. Adult Education is provided through our lecture series, and adult curator-led field trips to explore historical locations.
Maintaining archives with an online archive system (Catalogit) and adhering to American Alliance of Museum standards for archives.
Scheduling and hosting guest lectures concerning relevent historical events that align with our current exhibits. A partial list.of selected lectures is in the Work section.
I also assist the Board of Directors in fund raising events.
Recruiting and scheduling volunteers, supervising Interns from Lamar History Department and overseeing our Junior Historian Program. I have also been very active in recruiting adults to research remote historical locations and share their findings with our Social Media audience.
I personally write an average of 8 grants per year to finance all exhibits, and repairs and maintenance of the building. My success rate to date has been that I have received 100% of all grants applied for, although often at a lesser amount than requested.
2024 -present
Museum Consultant
Lumberton Historical Museum
I am currently under contract with the Lumberton Historical Museum to consult for the building of the new museum currently under construction on the City Hall Campus. My responsibilities include everything involved in building a new museum from the ground up: research and development of a story line, museum layout, consultation surrounding software, museum furnishings, setting up archives, financial software, grant writing, publicity. design of the museum and graphic design of all exhibits. I have been consulting with LHM for 6 months; they anticipate a grand opening in Spring of 2024 at which time my contract will end.
2007-2020
Graphic Design Artist and
Internet Marketing Professional
In following with my lifetime of work within the arts, I became a free lance Graphic Artist in 2007, partnered with my husband's private business as a Network Engineer. During these 13 years I produced a wide variety of graphic art for clients for both print and web. My specialization was that I was "an artist first", based on my lifetime of training and experience as a hobbiest artist. My clients were those who sought creative design, more than a template designed by a computer technician, but who sought the creativity and insight of high-tech customized artwork and turn-key work. During this fun and fulfilling place in my career, I produced websites, wall art, posters, video and printed materials and took great pride in creating unique "branding" and logos that flowed through all areas of their business. My clients included schools, musicians (from opera singers to country!) writers, realtors, government entities, exotic wildlife breeders, attorneys as well as the security of a lion's share of construction businesses, oil drilling companies, barge businesses and plumbing companies. I am also a Social Media, Search Engine Optimization and Google specialist, and was an agent for many of these companies in their drive to gain more website traffic. I was asked to do a Social Media training for business for the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce which I presented during their Business Expo in 2015.
I am proficient in most graphic design software, but work primarilty in the Adobe Creative Cloud. I have many years of experience in Adobe's Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Rush for video, and Acrobat, as well as many of the newer cloud-based apps such as Canva and Photoleap.
Internet Marketing and Social Media as Applicable to Museums
In terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media and Google Marketing, I am adept in keyword selelction and optimization and am very proficient in Google Analytics, an often understated and underutilized aspect of websites and social media in museums.
I have found all of the skills listed above to be foremost in the success of a museum and have utilized them extensively in the museum setting. by analysis of actual searches and traffic, you can determine exactly what your patron's interests are, and then drive future posts and exhibits toward these interests. This has had a marked difference in the traffic to the website and especially to the museum. As result of our social media alone, 75% of our visitors come from outside of our area, and we have had an average of 2 social media posts a month over the last two years that was seen by in excess of 10,000 people. Last year, mostly due to one international viral post (Shipwreck on the Neches) over 800,000 people saw our Facebook page from all over the world! As a result of this strong data-driven result, it is my absolute opinion that the Internet Marketing skills (as applied to business) are one of the most underestimated tools used in museums today. In my present museum, I am the lone engine that creates every aspect of the museum, from marketing to art. Our museum is completely self-supporting, and has had to be run as a business to be viable, and as such, I have learned to closely monitor the exhibits, social media, website, and media presence -- driven by data-- towards the exibits and events that bring people in. I am overwhelmed with anticipation at what can be done with adaquate funding and staff for marketing your museum. Based on what this technique has done for this small museum in the small village of Silsbee, I have great anticipation to see what can be done for The McFaddin Ward House to put you on the national and international market.
To see examples of this success, see Work.
The video below is our entry to the Texas Association of Museums Tammie Awards that won us the Gold Award, the top and only Gold Award awarded in the State of Texas for Social Media.
High School Choral Director
Director of Music
One area of expertise I would bring to your museum is that of an educator. I taught high school choir for 20 years and am a licensed professional educator in two states, Colorado and Texas. I am fluent in the educational language of TEKS and lesson plans, and understand what it takes to inspire children, as well as being thoroughly proficient in the legal protocol to organize and sponsor events for schools and groups. I was also the Chair of the Fine Arts Departments in two school districts in two states for a total of 12 years, overseeing curriculum and budget for all fine arts employees. My special training and experience working with children with disabilities and the ADA law created a special heart in me for these children which is always in my mind as I prepare for events. While I loved teaching, I originally left teaching to pursue my operatic career, but I have maintained a great passion in life-long learning my entire life. I would be very qualified to oversee, support and assist your educational programs. Additionally, my extended experience as a Choral Director both in the school and Church setting has given me the skills of supervision and detail-driven organization of large groups of people in both workplace and event/performance settings, extensive experience with audience engagement and response, organization and direction of large performances with countless moving parts and motivating and inspiring artists and supporters to reach for and achieve excellence.
My employers in this capacity:
Silsbee High School 1984-1992
Wasson High School, Colorado Springs, CO 1992-1995
Calvary United Methodist Church, Colorado Springs, Co 1995-1999
Director of Worship and Music
Sierra High School, Colorado Springs, CO 1995-1998
(Full time Professional Opera Singer 1998-2003)
Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School 2003-2006
Professional Opera Singer
I am foremost a storyteller in this life, descending from a long line of ancestral storytellers. Writing about history has been an important part of my life. I believe people stories are the catalyst that attracts and inspires museum patrons, as well as employees and volunteers. Simple artifact exhibition pales in comparison.
Besides ancestral role models, my story-telling took root as a professional opera singer. I possess a Bachelor’s of Music in Vocal Performance (with a minor in instrumental music), that prepared me for versatility in languages, in acting, in the historical periods of art, music and architecture, in reading audiences and responding to them. I also have the ability to express different periods of art history in multiple settings. Understanding the period (Renaissance, Classical, Impressionism, etc) influences on art, architecture, music and literature creates a global understanding of the influences of the people who created the history. In that sense, my search for "composer's intent" has naturally flowed to seeking the period influenced mind-set, or "intent" behind history. Examples of this train of thought can be found in many of my exhibits. I also have the experience of working in front of audiences and the media comfortably and am an excellent public speaker as a result. As an Opera Singer I was exposed to the people who are drawn to the arts, such as Mamie McFaddin. I have known many who shared Mamie’s characteristics; I lectured or performed for Patrons of the arts (Including the Lutcher Theater locally), attended receptions and have a lifetime of experience in this area. I could see myself organizing music, or staged reenacted scenes at the Museum, in the memory of Mamie and her musical evenings. The innate and learned characteristics of opera would be very useful for your museum.
My technical theater training has been of immense help in the exhibits I have developed. The use of color, the power of lighting, background sounds– the emotional component to lay “the stage” and atmosphere for patrons is very important in my exhibits, as well as the flow from exhibit to exhibit. I always look for "distractors", and eliminate them so that nothing takes away from the moment and of the message of the exhibit or event.
1998 -2003 full time, I still continue to sing opera on occasion
Susan Kilcrease (left) singing the role of Dido in the opera "Dido and Aeneaus" by Henry Purcell.
Note: Not professional recording
Print this page
Education
Bachelors in Music (with Education Certification)
Lamar University. Beaumont, TX
I majored in Vocal Performance and minored in Instrumental Music (Flute) and received Texas Teaching Certification in addition to my course requirements. As a result, I have 190 undergranduate hours, in all three majors, Vocal major, Instrumental Major, and in Education.
Graduate Hours
Lamar University. Beaumont, TX
Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
As an opera singer I was not seeking a Master's Degree, however I have over 30 post baccalaureate hours in voice and theater in addition to 190 undergraduate hours.
Valencia
Porcelanas Miquel Requena
Cuart De Poblet
(my personal collection)