June at the DMA

Hello everyone! 

This month I have spent a lot of time working on ‘Teaching Ideas’ in the Interpretation department. I’ve been working through all of the DMA’s education files from the 1970s until the early 2000’s. In this search, I am hoping to find material that has not been put online at some point in time to help expedite the process of inputting potential teaching ideas for both educators and viewers.

I’ve also been working heavily on research for object descriptions for the DMA’s online collection. This is pretty fun for me, considering my focus and background is art history. Oftentimes, because I get to choose the material I am working on, I can research material that I’ve been interested in previously or is beneficial to my current scholarship. In fact, I’ve decided on a new course of research for my thesis based on some of the stuff I’ve been able to study so far!

Overall, I’m really enjoying my time at the DMA and am excited to continue working here over the summer! I hope everyone else is having a great summer, too!
Megan Wanttie

My So Called Life - Season 2

So I'm sitting here on Father's Day after a great day with the family and reflecting on my first day of internship at the Museum of Biblical Arts (MBA).  I officially started my internship yesterday.  I am reporting to Lauren Tollett the Museum Supervisor and Registrar.  I first met with Scott Peck, Curator and Co-director.  He introduced me to many of the staff and showed me around a bit, even though I know the place pretty well.  I then met Lauren and off we went in a whirlwind pace to get some projects done.  My day was pretty much spent on assisting with the new exhibition,

GOD IN THE GARDEN - THE IMPRESSIONIST PAINTINGS OF HENRIETTA MILAN

that officially opens on June 26th with a meet and greet with the artist.  The paintings have been hung and we worked on the registrar portion as well as getting all the labels ready,  I quickly noticed that many of the staff wear multiple hats, even in a single day, and know this feeling well.  Just before we wrapped u for the day, Lauren and I discussed where to place the labels for the painting that were double-stacked.  This is not often done at the MBA but Henrietta has numerous paintings.  We discussed a few options before we finally settled and what we think will be the easiest for the patrons to understand.  The day truly did fly by and look forward to heading back there next Saturday for another action packed day.  Once I get a bit more settled in, we will begin the docent training so I can conduct some tours.  I look forward to these opportunities since I do this often at the airport.  I hope I will be allowed to try a few of the different techniques that we have studied since this may be a better opportunity than at the airport.  I had a great first day and look forward to blogging about some of my other experiences.  It is really exciting when you get to see new pieces of art and test out some different tour techniques.  I'll have to grab my notes from previous classes and brush up on them.


peace,
Guy

My So-called Life...

My So-called Life...

Hello fellow ‘terners, I have enjoyed reading everyone’s first foray in the Insightful Internship blogs.  For those who do not know me, my name is Guy Bruggeman and I am also working on my master’s degree in Museum Education.  I work for the City of Dallas in the Department of Aviation as the Art and Programming Coordinator.  This extremely long title essentially allows me to be the liaison between the Dallas Public Art Program (they have 17 pieces in the collection at the airport) and the Aviation department.  I oversee the collection which includes presenting about it and conducting tours.  I also have an art gallery, thanks Eben for the great exhibition, and 15 display cases that are also an exhibition space.  I also oversee the performing arts which currently is building up our music performances on our brand new stage.  Okay, enough about my work life…. I am in the final process of completing my application/schedule/internship work schedule with the Museum of Biblical Art.  I am pretty excited about interning there.  I always enjoy visiting with them and hope to learn more and experiment with different touring techniques along with other projects that they will have lined up for me.  I will blog about this some more once I start. 

In the meantime, I volunteered at the Nasher Sculpture Center this past Saturday for the “Target First Saturdays.”  Boy, what an eye opener. I have been to these before when taking my now, 7-year-old son.  To be on the other side was a lot different.  I have known the Nasher crew for almost 10 years and to be quite honest, owe them a lot.  I was assigned to the materials table where we had everyday materials that artists’ may use to create works of art.  We also had some blocks and some type of building materials that were really fun to play with.  Our job had a few goals in mind.  One of the first was to let them know that this is one of the only places that you can touch objects at the Nasher.  The second was talking about the materials and how artist’s use them to create art objects.  We had stainless steel, wood, wax and plaster.  We also had some images of artworks in the Nasher collection that are made from these materials.  We introduced these materials to the kids while asking them questions about these everyday materials and of course allowing them to touch the objects as much as they wanted.  I was also in charge of creating a thank-you card to Target by using their fingerprints to create the Target Logo. Surprisingly it wasn’t too messy and should look pretty good.   

As mentioned earlier, this was a bit of an eye-opener to be on the lecturing end.  The four + hours flew by and before I knew it Anna Smith came by and told me I was done for the day.  I mentioned to her that I would talk to the other ‘terners to see if they would be interested in assisting for some of the upcoming Target First Saturdays.  I will be back for their September event but, “They are always looking for volunteers.”

Peace,

Guy

DMA Interpretation Internship First Few Days

Hello everyone! My name is Megan Wanttie, I'm an Art History master's student with a focus on 18th-century French porcelain and decorative arts. In addition, I am pursuing the Art Museum Education Certification. My internship this summer is at the Dallas Museum of Art in Interpretation, which, as I understand it, encompasses areas of museum education and the digitization program. The program/department seems to be an evolving field that works to accomplish many different tasks throughout the museum and online.

My two main tasks will be helping with Digitization project progress alongside the D3C team, which is a task that was funded by a large grant several years ago to help the DMA create content for the online collection and reorganize the website, as well as working on Teaching Ideas for the objects included in the Digitization project. Teaching Ideas are basically individualized teaching modules for each object that are designed to be accessible to all levels of learners. I'll be helping sort through past DMA teaching material and customizing content for the project.

I'm really excited to get to see how a large scale museum works; so far, I have really enjoyed the atmosphere and the tasks that I've been assigned. I've been able to tag along to various meetings and luncheons, so I already feel like I'm starting to be a part of 'the office'. I am really happy to get to combine my art history background within the education department to help create usable content. Going in to this internship, I hope to gain usable knowledge that will help further my career and other future positions that I may be interested in!

This week, I've been working on learning all of the programs and processes that I will be utilizing this summer and I think I'm off to a really great start. I've been able to choose the pieces I want to work on and research things that I am really interested in. I have yet to start working on Teaching Ideas but am set to start working on those next week, which seems to be yet another fantastic project to get to work on. One last thing, all of the work that I will be completing this summer is focused on being accessible to all levels of learners, from children, to adults, to scholars; I am truly ecstatic to be working in an environment that puts emphasis on this kind of content!