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
That is SO COOL, Virginia, that you've been able to make all of the directions so accessible and either bilingual or pictorial. Congratulations! I can't wait to see the final product and to hear how it goes when you test it.
ReplyDeleteI am thrilled that you are having fun in your work. To me, that really matters! When you went on your behind-the-scenes tour, was it with Anne or Julie? They are the best. We do a tour of the stacks with them in my museum studies class every year and it is such a good time!
Thank you! And the tour was with Anne. She was great and very helpful! She has crazy good organizational skills, and agreed to look over my resume and meet with me to give me some tips sometime soon. I am very grateful.
DeleteAwesome! Anne L is the BEST (though this applies to all of the Annes at the Meadows :)!
ReplyDelete