the "Grand Slam Collection"

When one walks into the Connor Museum, the first thought is that there are so many animals in so many cabinets! Making your way through the galleries, most of the exhibits are the same: white walls covered with cabinet upon cabinet, holding different birds, mammals, amphibians, and insects native to the region and from other places around the world. But then, walking into the East Gallery, the eye is drawn to an exhibit located in the center of the room: a big rock structure housing five intimidating mountain goats.
Most of us haven’t seen a mountain goat, also known as a bighorn sheep, on a very up close and personal level, and so this first taste of close proximity to one in astounding. One can examine their fur, their body shape, and also get a glimpse of them in their natural habitat. This exhibit does a good job in displaying the goats in a plausible setting, allowing the visitor to draw his or her own conclusions as to how the mountain goat lived its life, while also letting him or her imagine the goats in the wild.
The five sheep in display (the Stone Sheep, Desert Bighorn, Rocky Mountain Bighorn, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Ewe, and Dall Sheep) stare down at the visitor as he or she approaches. Coming upon such formidable creatures, and having those creatures higher up than me, certainly is slightly unnerving. Though it’s clear and understood that these sheep have been dead for a good amount of time, and have no ability to move and spring down from their ledges, showing you the brute strength of their horns (for which they are being proudly displayed), the set-up is every just as frightening. This is a result of the strategic way in which they are set-up. Posed in lifelike positions, it seems as if they could move, no longer being stationary. Because of this, it can most definitely be stated that the exhibit is affected by how it presents itself.
Other than looks-wise, the information provided on the bighorn sheep displayed is very readable, a good size font, and contains interesting information (such as the types, where they are found, etc.). they do not go into too much detail, which the younger audience is sure to appreciate, and yet they include more information than just a name and brief description, which the older audience would appreciate.
The materials found in this exhibit include the specimens themselves (the five bighorn sheep listed previously), a painted background, various shrub, rock structures for the sheep to stand upon, and, of course, the signs containing the information on the exhibit. There is also a rope keeping people from going up to the sheep and touching them, an act that would surely be destructive as the years wear on.
The objective of the exhibit, or what I would say the objective is after viewing it, would be to teach people about the bighorn sheep while also showing them they way that they could have lived. Unlike the other specimens, many of which are simply placed in cabinets around the room, the “Grand Slam Collection” offers a story to go along with the information. One can easily imagine these magnificent beasts climbing the mountains much like they stand on the rock structure provided in the museum. If this is the true objective of this exhibit, then I daresay that it was achieved. Through the arrangement of the display I see them as powerful animals, capable of great force behind the horns they have upon their heads, and I am thankful for this opportunity to view them in a controlled environment. Where else could I look so closely at their coat and examine their faces?
And thus, all in all, the “Grand Slam Collection” in the Connor Museum at WSU Pullman gets two thumbs up, for its presentation of materials, its general appeal to the eye, the information displayed, and of course the experience it creates with the visitor.