Departmental Politics and Social Media

So, this post had kind of two lessons.  The first is that, in this museum, each department is in charge of really specific things, and people do not like when another department does something they consider to be a part of their responsibilities. The second thing is that posts on social media are a precious commodity. 

This summer, the marketing department decided to commission a mural in the town square. They essentially had to have it completed within literally days of its approval with the town because Jackson gets a lot of tourists, so there is very strict rules during the summer about what can take up space on the town sidewalks and such. So although the artist was on standby, aware that there might be a mural, she had two days to  conceive of the concept and paint it. It turned out well, its is a black and white portrait of a moose, made of other local wildlife and landscapes with a sky blue background. It also contains a QR code that links automatically to a coupon that gives people $2 off admission to the museum and the hashtag #morethanart (more than art) because that is the catchphrase the marketing teem has been using. The idea was that people would take selfies and stuff with it, and then the
QR code would automatically open the coupon and spread the word.

Now, a lot of people at the museum had issues with this. The first reason being that, everything else that  the other departments do has to go through like three or four different committees before they actually go forward with something. Although this had to be rushed, if other departments had been involved it could have turned out better. The mural doesn’t have the name of the museum, and its over all just not clear what its affiliation is. I also think that that the curatorial team really would have liked some say in the content. Although it is outside of the museum grounds, that is the kind of thing the curatorial department would usually handle. I think over all the mural crossed over certain limes because it is not just an advertisement, its a work of public art, so to some people there was a question as to whether or not it should have been handled exclusively by the marketing team. Additionally, no one one had heard anything about it until it had been up for a few weeks. This was just a result of the fact that it was so rushed, but it made all of the other departments feel out of the loop and further discounted from it as a project. 

In addition to all of this, the marketing department runs the social media. Soooooo…. when they officially announced to mural via the the social media, they did that trendy thing with instagram where you post a whole picture in parts, so that when you are scrolling it doesn’t make sense, but when you click on the profile itself, all the individual images come together and you can see the whole. Well, we had an event that week, and the Special events Team was pretty upset that so many pictures were being posted, and none of them were promoting their event. In the programs meeting, they were specifically upset, because even if the marketing team did post something promoting the event, it would be white noise, because the public is only interested in a few posts a day and there were already a few. 

Anyway, I feel like I learned a lot in this meeting. A lot of people can get upset forever a lot of things when you do not communicate. I think people would have been substantially less upset if they had at least been aware of it. I also think departments can get a little touchy about what they deserve to be included on. Finally, I think that posts on social media are a precious commodity, so it should probably highlight everyones efforts as much as is possible.

Family Fun at the Meadows!

Hi Everyone,

I have had lots of exciting new experiences here during my Internship at the Meadows Museum so far.

The picture that I posted above is from the vault here. Just last week I was able to go on a vault tour with a few other collection and education interns. It was Awesome! We got to learn a lot about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting together exhibitions with pieces that come from all over the world, especially because we are working on install right now for a new exhibition. Also, we got to see just how important and weird loaning artwork to other institutions is, from the expensive and painstaking transportation of our work overseas, to the politics that come with it.

 Since this is a smaller institution, (and there are only 3 of us in Museum Education, including me,) I have really been able to get my feet wet and experience the different roles of a museum Educator. I have gotten to know some of our Docents, and shadowed them during large group tours, and I have been able to be a part of DFW teacher workshops here at the museum.

Also, the big project that I have been working on for the education department is the creation of a Family Activities bag for visitors to check-out. So far, so good. It has taken a lot of trial and error though when starting this project from scratch. I have also come to realize that many of the projects that I initially thought would be great are actually very unrealistic, and a big factor to that is because all of the materials have to be approved by the collections manager or registrar.

I also wanted to say that this job is way too much fun. I am playing with Wikki stix, raised line drawings, and lots of other fun things. But I feel like some major accomplishments of this activity bag is that is is completely bilingual (English and Spanish), and very user friendly with simple instructions with the use of pictorials. Moreover, Dr. Evans has given me the inspiration to try and make everything in braille as well. Accessibility is one of the main goals for this project.

Time is really flying lately. We will do some Prototyping on the last weeek of July so I am in a time crunch, but we shall see! I will update you on how that goes!

Wish me luck,
Virginia

Moving Monumental Sculpture: a Creative Process

At the museum we have something called a sculpture trail. The museum is located on a mountain side overlooking the National Elk Refuge, and the Slate Mountains (a small mountain range parallel with the Tetons. So because of this prime location we have a paved little outdoor hike lined with life-sized bronze sculpture of various local animals at certain points.  The very beginning of the sculpture trail starts with a larger than life sized sculpture of two bison. It used to be on a platform, but it needed repairs, so it has been sitting in the parking lot without a base for a few month. Anyway, a few days ago, the base was fixed so we had to go about moving sculpture that was estimated at about 6,000 pounds. There is literally five people, including me, on the curatorial team, and it was our job to deal with it. We have also moved several other massive, but smaller sculptures since. 

We ended up hiring people from a local foundry to help up move the bison. I found out that at a larger institution, they would l

ikely have a bronze conservator on staff that would oversee the entire process. Because we are a small institution we obviously do not have one. So the entire curatorial team was just out there, talking with the people from the foundry, and figuring it out. The registrar, Emily, told me “I like our situation, because you don't need to have all the answers, if we do not know something we all just take a minute to figure it out together.” I found that to be true, there was a lot of creative problem solving. We ended up wrapping the sculpture at key points with cloth covered chains. However, some of them were still  a little abrasive so we buffered them with blankets. we then lifted the chains with a piece of heavy machinery.

One thing that I didn't anticipate being so difficult was keeping the public away from the area. We put up traffic cones but everyone wanted to get up close and take pictures of the process. We ended up posting people at certain points just to keep people away. However, this is an extremely touristy area, and at times there was language barriers in telling people to back away. 

After we got the sculpture to the other side of the parking lot to the pedestal we had to put two people on ether side of it to physically guid it into place. Then the curator wanted to rotate it, but he machine couldn’t do that so we kind of twisted it by hand and ended up swinging it too. Once we had it in the position we wanted, we fixed it to the pedestal with plaster and a large bolt. 

Over all this was a very interesting experience, we have moved a lot of large sculpture since then, but nothing quite as large.  I know this might seem like an odd thing to write about but I feel like I learned a lot about what it means to be a part of the curatorial team at a small museum. Its all about working together to figure things out. There is very rarely a single correct solution to a problem, it all about creative problem solving, and it is ok to not have all the answers. 

Pictures are the view from the museum into the Elk Refuge and the sculpture we moved.

Private and Public. Political and Poetic.

During my time at WAAS, I have been thinking of how experiencing art in a gallery differs from a museum...what is the opposite from a museum? 

Current installation titled Cocoon by Shamsy in one of the galleries on the second floor.

Is it all a matter of Private vs. Public? Communal vs. personal? What I want to think further about is how public spaces are private and how private spaces can be public. As a way to create a contrasting example, the DMA in this example is considered as a Public “private” space. Private, because although it is accessible to the Public, it only serves a private agenda. WAAS on the other side, is a Private space but it aims to serve a public agenda. It seeks to provide a de-politicized “safe space” for art, giving me an un-institutionalized blank slate to work from. WAAS will be an active member of the Dallas community for 8 years this September, funded in 2011. 

As an art historian and curator, WAAS is an institutional tabula rasa in a sense. Unlike the DMA, it has no institutional historical context (apart from the physical building which is from the 1800s I think...) which connects me to Colonial forms of representing culture. I do not have to worry about not being political enough or being too political. I feel as if I can breathe and exercise my cultural agency without being choked by political forms of power. 

With that in mind, I pitched to Brandy, the owner/curator of the space an addition to her summer programming which I have been researching and planning and I am excited to share about as soon as I wrap up and finalize things this week! 

Belated Update

Hello again~

I've meant to post twice already, but things kept distracting me. My time at the museum so far has been lovely, but personal life has gotten a bit messy. Among other stuff, my grandpa broke his hip, and has been in and out of the hospital because of it and some other problems. But he's better now, I'm actually with him right now caring for him while my mother and grandma are out of town, he's napping and so I realized I should do this while I have the chance. Given his extremely limited mobility at the moment, he can't be on his own. I go back to work at the museum tomorrow though, which is fun, though I do worry about him 'cause my sister will be looking after him until the others get back. I trust her, but I trust myself more.

Ah, anyway, Museum stuff.

So, quite a few things have happened.

One- I got to fill out condition reports alongside another intern a couple weeks back on an exhibit we had just received.

Two- I was able to personally meet and talk to the artist who created the artwork that I filled condition reports on. His name is Avner Sher. He's a Jewish Israeli artist who works with wood and cork. He is also quite nice and has fun circular glasses.

Three- I led two tours. One was a group of kids, all within the ages of 4-6 with a few adults, who visited us as part of their Vacation Bible School. Originally, Scott, the director, had wanted me to talk about our Dali exhibit alongside a few other particular pieces, but after learning the age and focus of the group, decided against it. The other group was that of a senior group from a senior home, and I was able to talk about Dali like Scott had originally wanted. Both groups were very nice. The kids were excited to listen and participate, while the seniors were excited to learn new information and see things in different ways. Both groups were extremely lovely.

I have come to the realization, however, that no matter how much I study, I will never feel comfortable enough with this information to be in a position perceived above the groups themselves. Many people coming in have studied the Bible or Torah since they were young, and have years of studying it under their belt. I have a few months. As uncomfortable as it makes me, I need to come to terms with the idea that I will always be the one with the least understanding, but that is okay. I just need to turn the focus around on the visitors themselves. I will give them some information about a piece like the Resurrection of Christ, but I will also ask for a lot of participation in viewing and experiencing the piece, so hopefully everyone is able to get something fun out of the experience rather than me attempting to give them blanket information that they already know from simply glancing at the piece.

That's all for now, I hope everyone's having a great time during their summers and at their internships.
See y'all later~