The clicking of typewriter keys and gentle guitar melodies filled the room as over 100 Bloomington residents celebrated “Love at the Museum” at the IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on Thursday.
The free event featured live music from artists Claire Pendreigh and Alicia Gail, a typewriter workshop from Our Type Love, beeswax candle making, craft tables and a dessert and hot chocolate bar.
Development and External Communications Manager Camden Hill said that the event was meant to be inclusive of all forms of love.
“We’re really envisioning this event as celebrating all types of love from platonic love, self-love, obviously romantic love and as my colleague even joked, tough love,” Hill said.
As guests trickled in and hung their coats on the coat rack, they were greeted by the music from Pendreigh and Gail, who shared a two-hour set. While Pendreigh is a Bloomington local, Gail is from Nashville, Tennessee.
“Most of the songs that I write are songs that do touch on love in one way or another,” Pendreigh said. “Whether it’s ruminating on love of someone else or love and loss of family, or love of yourself through letting something go that’s not serving you anymore.”
As Pendreigh sang, attendees gathered around her with paper cups of hot chocolate and cookies from IU Catering, listening attentively and erupting in applause after each song.
“I feel in general a lot of my music is very introspective and tends towards the melancholy and is very lyrically oriented,” Pendreigh said.
In a room behind the performance, Siren Hand and Adam Henze from Our Type Love instructed attendees on how to use their six vintage typewriters. College aged couples hid their papers from each other as they wrote love notes and parents encouraged younger children to give the 70-year-old typewriters a try.
Hand and Henze created their Indianapolis-based business in 2020 after Hand served over nine years in the United States Army.
“In getting out of the army, the same tools that I used to clean my weapons when I was in were the same tools that I used to clean the typewriters,” Hand said. “I was already familiar with mechanics, and Adam and I are both writers and poets ourselves.”
Hand explained that after buying one typewriter, they quickly amassed over one hundred.
“When you have that many type-writers you try to figure out how the community can use it, so that’s what we did,” Hand said.
A line quickly formed at Our Type Love’s workshop with people of all ages waiting to type with the antiquated keys.
“There’s a lot of creative expression that’s able to be done with these machines,” Hand said. “I think that’s really the thing, is seeing people get excited about writing and then about the ideas and then communicating it to people.”
“Love at the Museum” was the first of a series of themed events at the IUMAA called “Night at the Museum.” Their next themed event is scheduled for March 13 and features catering from Tab’s Kitchen and free Bollywood dance lessons.
