The Starting Line...

Hello everyone! Katlyn here, blogging to you live from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth! I think Danielle got us off on the right foot by providing a little bit of background info. I would definitely like to get to know everyone better before we dive into our internships. 

Some background on me: I studied Art History and Museum Studies at Baylor University, finishing my bachelors in 2010. I then took an internship working with collections (because that’s what I thought I wanted to do) at a small county history museum in Central Texas. I moved back to Fort Worth in 2011 to take a position in Visitor Services at the Amon Carter. My goals of what I wanted to do in the museum field completely changed once I started assisting the Education Department within a month of starting here. I took on two roles, working at the Information Desk and being the Education Assistant. Four years later and I am now the Public Engagement Assistant. I still primarily assist Education, but I am also available to help the Library, Visitor Experience, and Digital Engagement. (These four departments make up the Public Engagement Division) 

In taking on this new role, I have acquired multiple new duties, many of which are administrative. In doing these tasks, I can sometimes get tunnel vision and just go through the day to day, not focusing on our educational role and impact on patrons. I would like to change that during my internship this summer.  I want to still contribute and come up with ideas for activities and programs to better serve our patrons, but on a higher level. My goal is to learn how to build upon my already existing duties and relationships with the managers so I can contribute on a higher level to the critical development of our education programs. This may be at the grass roots level or in later stages of development when an alternative method needs to conceived because a problem occurred. A challenge for this goal may be the managers not completely opening up or including me in these brainstorming sessions or hour of need. I hope to build even better relationships and trust with them this summer. 

Lastly, now that I am in Education full-time I can be in the galleries more often with patrons during programs, such as, Storytime. I want to take this time to sharpen my skills of interacting with the public as an educator. Before, most of my interaction with the public was providing customer service at the Information Desk. I believe those skills will come in hand in my role as a museum educator now. 

I hope this gives you an idea of what I wish to accomplish this summer! Good luck to everyone in their internships!

Past and Future

In hopes of removing some distance between readers and myself, I’m going to start with some personal background. (Feel free to skip to the last two paragraphs, if you already know me.)

I started my higher education path at Oregon State University, where I studied Bioresource Research, in Veterinary Toxicology. Here, I took the same art appreciation course that we’re all required to take, and I fell madly in love with the art world. I packed up, moved back to Texas, and enrolled in UNT’s Art History program. Towards the end of the program, I was feeling a little restless and decided to take a year to really gather myself and figure out what I wanted to do next. Through some hardships, adventures, and wonderful opportunities, here I am… on the cusp of entering my second year in UNT’s Art Education/ Museum Education program.

I currently work in the library annex as a preservation assistant. I do everything, from re-sewing books, to building special housing for rare objects (books, drums, pictures, films) from the library’s collection. The work I encounter everyday at the annex has kept me curious about art objects. It’s incredible to have an object presented to you in ruins, and be able to return it to a useable state!

I also work at the UNT Art Galleries, as manager of programming. Here I do a lot of scheduling, PR, customer service, and event organizing. The work I do at the galleries fulfills an internal call to work with people. If I’m doing our Saturday Series Events, or just helping students schedule their MFA shows, I get to work with people and hopefully help them in their artistic endeavors.

Starting next week, I’ll be adding a third hat, as I will start my position as the Meadows Museum’s education intern! The Meadows Museum is an amazing institution. I have wanted to see “behind the curtain” since my first trip there with Laura’s class (HI LAURA!!). After talking with Mary, my supervisor, it looks like we’re on the same page as far as expectations go. I really just want to act as a sponge while I’m there, absorbing as much as possible. I want to see all sides of the museum— day-to-day stuff, and even activities outside of the education department. It’s probably not typical of an intern to not already have a focus, but I like to think of it as though I’m open to being swept off my feet by anything.

I believe, as time goes on, a variety of challenges will make me better at doing my job at the Meadows, as well as in the future, when similar challenges will inevitably arise. I’m interested to see how my previous experiences in galleries and museums compares with my time at the Meadows. I can’t wait to see what everyone else is up to this summer!!

-Danielle