Mid-semester experience

Mid-semester experience

So far, it has been a very interesting few weeks (or month), where I’ve been very busy with this internship and other school projects. So at this moment, time is very precious to me. However, I am trying to get the most out of all that I do. As for my time at the museum, I’ve been doing different types of tasks such as assisting with studio tours and studio activities (for adults, schools, and children studio drop ins), attending lectures, attending training sessions such as the vision access training, led by experts in the field such as a vision-impaired woman who gave us priceless information that we often ignore, and of course preparing for spring break activities.

In the last few weeks, we have been preparing for the spring break extravaganza event activities. The activities were taking place everywhere, at the lobbies of Khan building, Piano pavilion, and in the studio. The activities were designed by education staff a while ago, and led by other interns, I and docents. Other activities were led by local artists and us too, which I thought it was really great to include local artists in such activities. Prior to the event, other interns and I were in charge of making prototypes, inventories, cutting paper, etc. I worked three of the four days of the event, two of them were at the main lobby at the Piano pavilion with a local ceramicist Ralph Tobin, and painter Scott Dykema. Even though I worked with them with three other docents, the number of kids and work was crazy. Everyone was excited to make art with us despite their age and if the activity applied to their age or not. The approach the museum takes is not to say no to any participant and allowing each child to do whatever their age allows them to do. I find it very good for the museum to offer the same activity for all ages and not to exclude anyone, even letting adults also make art with their children on occasion. However, I think sometimes it might not work for the very sensitive kids. For example, I saw a kid during one of the activities burst in tears and his mom was working on his clay piece trying to fix it. I asked him what is upsetting him, and he replied with shaking voice that he couldn’t make the cityscape as he was supposed to do (by looking at the prototypes), I felt so bad for him since he was I assume younger than the age that is expected for this activity, as he looked younger than six. I had to calm him down and tell him that this is a learning opportunity and is not the final piece that he should make because he could practice at home until he makes great pieces, and that’s how I could make this prototype, it was a result of many years of learning and experimenting. His poor mom was trying to fix the scene in order to satisfy him, but with no luck. This incident made me think of this policy where good is intended but sometimes it might not work and proper activities for proper ages should be enforced. But museums always need people to come back and enjoy their facilities and activities, which I understand.

One of the days I was working alone at the Khan building leading a collage activity where children were asked to create collages of cityscapes using paper scraps provided. There were some education staff members assisting me on and off while I was there especially on my half hour break, but I was there alone most of the time which made me very nervous but I could handle it. This is because working with collage was easier and much cleaner than the other two days where we used clay and acrylic paint, which wasn’t easy to teach and control when children are in charge, especially the 2-3 years olds. The artist, docents and I had to teach each child how to use sculpting tools and the process of making a cityscape relief. It was challenging and exciting too. I talked with children during activities and we got to chat while working on their art, I was very impressed with some who really had great artistic abilities, and the ones who were very great talkers. I also enjoyed getting to know the artists and exchanged knowledge and experiences.

This spring break extravaganza was very interesting on many levels, it was tiring and back breaking, but interacting with children and their families and docents was the best part, they made it fun for me. At the end, this intense hands-on experience was a very good lesson to what kind of materials, time, planning and strategies one could consider when designing future events for large numbers of people in the city.