Returning to Class

This semester I am serving as the instructor for Art After School, a class that teaches students aged 6-10 about art-making and various art historical topics. While I served as the instructor last semester, I am hoping to build on the skills I gained and learn how to successfully incorporate more kinetic activities into class. Last year there was little variation in the structure of my lessons which I felt caused some students to lose interest. For the next few months, I am planning to break up these lessons by allowing the students to play games and move throughout the class.

Honestly, I have already had the opportunity to try on these activities with a couple classes as I returned from break to my internship on the 9th of this month. The successes and failures I had had so far are giving me a lot ideas on how to improve. I have already got some useful feedback from the students in class. My supervisor Sara Greenberg has really encouraged me to introduce new types of activities which has been both unnerving and exciting. Tomorrow I am actually going to try to read the students before having them create objects that relate to the story. I have tried a similar activity previously, but this is the first time I am actually including a story time of sorts.

It seems that this year, like last year, my greatest challenge will be creating programming that appeals to kids of different ages. There is a significant age differences between my students and with that comes a major difference in abilities and skill. Some issues have already come up as some of the younger students have struggled to complete an activity. I hoping the next lesson plan goes a bit better.

On a positive note, its great to see many of the students I had last year and meet some new ones. They are a great group of kids and very excited to come to class.

The first two days of internship: Some hopes and reflections

I am doing my internship this semester at the Kimbell Art Museum in the education department. Which is a great opportunity for me to learn and observe considering the great team they have in the department, among them Connie and Ali who used to be a classmate in some of my art ed. courses at UNT. I’ve been working at the museum for two days, my first day was Wednesday, January 16th and Friday was my second day. My assigned regular days are Wednesdays and Fridays, and there are some days that are mandatory to attend such as in Spring break, family festival and other nights.

From this opportunity, I aim to learn how educators, and curators design and plan their future projects and how they operate their current programs and events. So far, since the first day, I had some idea of what the staff does and how they work and make things happing by observing and paying attention to what goes around me. My direct manager is Connie Hatchette the education manager, and I am expected to work with all education department staff at some point, but until today I have worked with Alli Rogers on the Vision Access Project creating the tactile graphics on the printed paintings with puffy paint in preparation for a focus group session after a sample tour for a couple of visually challenged individuals. I am excited to see what the results are and how this focused group would give an insider perspective in order to help in filling the gaps that we might have missed. I am also expected to attend some lectures and docent teaching which I did last week and found really interesting and educational. I believe its a privilege to be able to attend such activities. In the upcoming week, I am asked to observe a docent tour for an hour, and to meet with Marilyn Ivy the studio and family program coordinator for a studio orientation and to discuss future projects.

Moreover, in this internship, I aim to plan and create an art project on my own. As for now, the plan that I have in mind is to create an art project that is based on my dissertation research, which is a good opportunity for me to examine it in a real setting and discuss my ideas with my manager for brainstorming and feedback. However, prior to that, I need to learn by doing my assigned tasks and observation, then I might start working on my project.

Finally, I find it fascinating to see the other hidden world that operates like a beehive where everyone is busy making awesome things for the other visible (public) world. I am looking forward to learning more from the rest of this internship. 

New Year, New Internship

As you could gather from my title, the new year has brought in a lot of new internship opportunities for everyone - myself included. To be honest, I have already started my internship at the Kimbell Art Museum in the education department! My first day was January 3rd so I have been interning there for a couple days now. However, that doesn't mean that I know everything there is to it! My internship schedule is Monday and Thursday 9:30-4:00 with select days that I will be helping work events like over spring break. The early mornings are a definite shift from the late night graduate courses but I've been doing well waking up early!

Through this internship, I really hope to gain a more in-depth understanding of the multiple roles within the museum education department as well as throughout the other departments. One thing that surprised me from day one is that there are underground tunnels that run throughout the museum! I feel like I should have known this fact sooner, especially given how museums would transport artworks otherwise, but it felt like such a shock to actually be able to walk through them with a staff badge.

I have been working mostly with the Education Manager Conni and the Community Engagement Coordinator Alli preparing for an upcoming sample tour for people with low-vision and blindness. I've been involved in meetings, taking general minutes, and helping to do smaller tasks that are important to the overall goal of the project. Lately, I have been gathering sensory objects like scented bottles and tactile objects like straw hats and weathered wood to draw upon the essential components of the selected artworks without relying on visuals. One project that I worked on today was creating DIY tactile drawings for the tour; this entailed printing out 11x17in size artworks and 'drawing' over the outlines with a raised puffy paint so that the objects could be made out when rubbed. Some areas are marked with patterns to denote colors or textures located in a legend at the bottom of the page. It's a slow moving project but one that I really enjoy so far.

I'm excited to write about how the sample tour goes in my next entry as well as smaller projects that I have worked on or will be approaching soon.