The actual event.

I felt like overall, my  art educational event at WAAS went well. I wanted to write a post before the event but I was kind of anxious about it. I decided to present on Doris Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda because of the living plants since the exhibition in the room next door also has living plants. 

I had set up the event in two parts. The first part was a brief retrospective on her artistic background and other pieces I selected by Salcedo, ending with Plegaria Muda. The second part was the “art making workshop”. I wanted to give people a chance to apply the inspiration I hope they felt when being introduced to sculptural installations in a community setting. Perhaps some of the artworks evoked something in them that some quiet time to process before they drive home will be soothing.  It still feels like a blur from the moment I stepped up to introduce her work, to today.

I was encouraged by Brandy and Michelle (the other two women I was working with to make the event happen), to speak without notes. I had used all of my time up to the day of the event researching, putting together the  activity (supplies, instructions, objectives, budget, concept) and researching. I talked about her work from powerpoint slides, as well as passed out several of her exhibition catalogues in the crowd and a small wood box with volcanic sand for visitors to touch a type of soil. I definitely could have practiced more, but somehow my 15 minute talk turned into 30. I had to adjust my tone to the audience. I had written some points, but they did not feel like they all were applicable at that moment. I am finding the need to understand when it is the right time to inform, educate, or entertain. That becomes harder when dealing with topics such as death, and during that night, I read from my notes during some parts. I also did not know at what time would my personal interpretation be the most beneficial, I gave it at the end, but I feel like I would have to learn to adjust that depending on the audience. 

                               

The activity portion was my favorite. They were assigned to make collages from the two found objects I found shown in the pictures above.

I still do not have words to express, but the art made by the people who came was so beautiful and inspiring. I hope to write more about it in the future. Scroll down for images of work made that night.

Below are some pieces made by some of the people in the picture above.

Nature of Reality

WAAS was currently exhibiting a sense of growth and nourishment through the exhibition by Shamsy titled Cocoon. By the use of real plants, not only was it visually represented, but physically. 

Plants use soil to grow, some of them... at least the plants in the exhibition. 

After visiting the Warehouse and seeing Salcedo’s work, I recalled her piece Plegaria Muda when Salcedo was awarded the first Nasher Prize in 2016. I did not take pictures of the exhibition that day, but the scent of the soil in a gallery space that day impacted me the most. When researching the piece for the lecture, reviews mentioned the scent of the grass as predominant, but not to me. 

After establishing the material connection between the current exhibition and the lecture/workshop to be presented, I immersed myself in learning about the piece, and the artist. 



I was initially going to include Nadia Kabi-Linke’s piece, Tunisian Americans which was the piece across from Salcedo’s Untitled, and utilized soil as a major component of the piece as well. Upon researching the two, I felt the connections were too political and with a very heavy sense of death for the exhibition space I was entering. I decided to focus on just one, and selected Salcedo’s because the soil was nestled between two boards of wood, and allowed the air to move through it, as opposed to Tunisian American Soldiers, which presented the soil in individual glass air-tight vials.

I would like to revisit their ways of using soil in their pieces, but I wanted this project to be a way to limit my options and focus on one thing. I struggled, it is still hard for me to know what information is best to include and what to leave out. The connections between the lecture and workshop were not established until like a week before I was scheduled to present. It was interesting to be researching the piece, my audience demographics, ways to find sponsorship for the event, as well as touching base with the gallery and the other people involved in ensuring the event was a success. Overall, I had a month of time to research and implement, although accomplished, I would have felt better with 3. I also have to realize the subject matter of research, restricting my time to research is important in the future.

Grow so much you shatter the concrete.

I Visited WAAS ’s new exhibition on June 8th to understand the programming I was going to be inserting myself into the following month. My internship experience last year really motivated me to cultivate art-spaces which allow and encourage emotional vulnerability in a public setting. I feel like that is very important for today’s society, particularly in my personal location, Texas. 

I wanted to bring to WAAS a way of understanding and working around contemporary art which heals. Aspects of healing through art can be using it to express inner reflections, deprivations and imaginations. Or simply by using art-making as a means to interact socially with other humans without actually “socializing” (aka talking). To be in a room with other humans who want to feel better and move forward can be incredibly strengthening. I was interested in using art to facilitate collective spaces of emotional expression, conscious or unconscious.

The following week after my visit at WAAS I art guarded for the new exhibition at The Warehouse titled The Sensation of Space, and stood in front of a piece in Doris Salcedo’s Untitled series.

Image courtesy of The Warehouse. From left to right: Bettina Pousttchi, Doris Salcedo and Nadia Kaabi-Linke

 In the same room was a sculpture by Bettina Pousttchi titled Double Monument for Flavin and Tatlin X (2013) and Nadia Kaabi-Linke's Tunisian Americans. As well as work by Vlassis Caniaris, Bosco Sodi and Katheryn Andrews.

Reflection of Gallery 10 on Kathryn Andrews' Die Another Day, 2013

The pieces together really had me thinking about the way in which we can block things from our historical memory. 

Close up of Untitled (2001) and Tunisian Americans (2012)

Close up of Untitled (2001) and Tunisian Americans (2012)

Sometimes it isn't an intentional block, but an emotional block, a numbing of an aspect of reality that helps us forget just enough to move forward and grow.

Not my picture, I found it on Pinterest:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/aa/ac/8c/aaac8ca001487300077219648cd5655a--tree-roots-as-above-so-below.jpg

Growth, I thought of the way a tree’s roots can grow so much, they shatter the concrete sidewalk.

The End

Hello again.

I hope everyone has had a fantastic summer~

I know I left off yesterday saying I would work more on the glass exhibit today, but that didn't happen. All the information was too muddled and confused, so Scott put that on hold and I was front desk instead. My other supervisor, Kathy, bought me a lovely ice cream cake to celebrate my last day. She's wonderful and I'm going to miss her.

For my summary of my summer, I'm going to try to focus on the positives, so this post will be fairly short.

As I have mentioned before in an earlier post, the majority of the staff I worked with was amazing. I loved coming in to work to see them, they're genuinely great people and great fun. I'm going to miss them.

I'm also quite happy with what I was able to do, which was a decent amount. I was able to help hang an exhibit, unbox another, filled condition reports, led a few tours, cleaned several sculptures, do all the tasks related to the front desk, and a few other things (mostly involving cleaning to be honest). I enjoyed everything I did, though many times I would have preferred for things to have been handled somewhat differently.

On a less positive note (yes, I know I said I'd focus on positives, but this felt important) I do not really feel like I've learned all that much. Though I had been told my experience from my time at the UNT Student Union Gallery was meaningless, I learned a lot there. One of the things I learned while there was how to hang and deal with lights, so I didn't get to 'learn' how to do it at the MBA. Front desk duties are pretty common, I know how to answer phones, deal with customers, handle cash, and so on. In a few other cases, which I feel it would be wrong to go too deep in such a public way, what I learned felt.. wrong? Like I was being taught the incorrect things, things you should not do. I feel bad for even typing such a thing on such a public post, but I don't want y'all to get the wrong impression either, that everything was all rosy and lovely when it wasn't.

Again, I loved almost everyone there! So many great people. And I got to do quite a bit! But.. yea.
It's over. That chapter is finished.

Confusion in Glass

Hi, hello again.

This isn't my last post, I'll do that one after work tomorrow, but I would like to say sorry if it seems that so many of my posts have been in a very short time frame. There wasn't much to talk about for most of the summer, I was mostly just doing front desk stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but not much to write about. But the past few weeks have been jam packed it feels like, so yea... Sorry for posting so much at the end~

So, today in particular I helped unpack a glass exhibit and move it into the room it will be displayed in. The glass art is nice and there is a decent amount of it, but I'm worried we won't be able to fit everything properly into the display cases and that many pieces may be a bit too tall... I'm also worried because the information we were sent regarding the pieces (names/ materials/ images/ so on) is wrong. Like super wrong. It was a list of 25, we have 40 pieces. Of the list of 25, only 2 pieces are actually in our possession. But someone has contacted the person who gave us the list, the artist's representative, to try and sort things out.

Additionally, I have been put in charge of sending out emails to almost 200 people in regards to the MBA's fundraising event, the 8x8. That was a bit exhausting to send out so many emails, but it's done and hopefully it will get at least a few more artists to donate to the museum.

And lastly, I wrote two short biographies for Salvador Dali and Geoffrey Laurence, which will (at some point) be put up near their works and remain in the museum after I myself actually am gone. I overheard Scott on the phone wanting to make sure the bio was good (it sounded like it was) so hopefully that will be up soon.

Tomorrow I'll be working more on the glass exhibit, trying to sort things out.
 I will be back again with my final post, so I'll see y'all again tomorrow~ <3

Last year's Internship as inspiration for this year.

The inspiration for my programming with WAAS was my art-making experience during my time in Johannesburg around this time last year. The first couple of days were very dense with political artwork, such as the Apartheid Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum.

Apartheid Museum Entrance (pics were not allowed inside)

Both places opened my eyes to some realities of racial political violence, and to the way museum exhibits can educate and inform people on the lived experiences of others. 

View looking out of a window in the Hector Pieterson Museum.

After visiting those two museums, I walked out informed with facets of the political reality of human rights in South Africa.

View looking out of a window in the Hector Pieterson Museum.

The political reality of the state of human rights, as expressed through museums visited above left me feeling helpless because of the stories told through the exhibits, but motivated by the fact that, when done collaboratively, museum exhibits can effectively inform on harsh realities of political violence.

The remaining time was spent visiting local artist collectives/studios/makerspaces in Johannesburg. 

I was moved by their ability to use art to bring people together to collectively express their shared trauma and make art as a way to cope and move past hard times. 

Imbali Visual Literacy Workshop

It was incredibly inspiring to enter a space where the goal is to use art-making as a way to heal emotionally, rather then using emotions as a way to heal artmaking.

Where the process is the artwork, and the finished product becomes a byproduct. 

As an euro/western academically trained artist, making art has a sour taste in my mouth rather than the sweet and indulgent I experienced in Johannesburg.

I don’t feel I should make art with the purpose of expecting critique, therefore making art which generates dialogical critique. I should, will, have been making art since those workshops with the goal of materializing my emotions.

Because emotions are universal, then it should automatically make a perfect candidate for endless amounts of dialogue. To create art for the sole purpose of creating dialogue is daunting, scary and useless if not executed in a successful formal manner.

Ending my internship with a bang (The Wildfire)

Hey everyone! this will be my final post, and while I will summarize my experience a little bit, I am mostly going to focus on the wildfire that ravaged our hillside and what I learned from that experience. 

So, Sunday morning I woke up at 5:45 am and went into Grand Tetons to do an 8.5 mile hike. I set a goal to go on a long hike every weekend and I have been successful so far. This one was particularly amazing, because I have gone on a lot of hikes, but on each, even if they aren’t crowded, you do not feel like you are alone out there. On this hike, I had a lot of sweeping lake and mountain views and the silence that only comes from complete isolation. On this hike I also faced my second biggest fear about being here, I had an encounter with a mother bear and her two cubs while alone. I obviously was fine, but It was super scary.

After this I stuffed my face, and went home as a massive thunderstorm rolled in. I sat down to enjoy a nap with the sound of

the rain but was woken up by an alert on my phone that said “Wildfire near Wildlife Art Museum. Leave now!” Panicked, I had to continuously reload the local news article bout the fire. It turned out to be caused by a lightning strike that hit a telephone pole on the same hillside as the museum. It only consumed a little over 60 acres of land (as far as wildfires go in this area, that is very little) however, the fire did come within 6 feet of some of the works on the sculpture trail.

I found out the following day that everything was basically fine, because we had an emergency plan in place. As soon as the fire broke out, the building was evacuated and security stayed behind. They called the curator, and the registrar. They also immediately turned off the air system, specifically the part of the system that brought air in from outside, but eventually all air flow was stopped. This helped prevent smoke from entering the building. The curator actually wasn’t allowed in initially, but his wife was with him so she gave the firefighters an ear full about how the artwork in there is his responsibility. After getting in, he and the registrar went through the museum with our cart and took down artworks starting with the most valuable according to TMS and moving down. They took down about ten pieces and moved them into painting storage. Then, as another storm rolled in, they were given the option to leave now, or stay until the next one passes, so they decided to stay. 

So essentially, we were just really lucky. Because there was no other wildfires in the area, we got everyone, the National Parks Fire Rescue, the town firefighters, and the Greater Teton Firefighters. So this was dealt with much faster than usual. Granted, our building is pretty fire resistant, but it all just could have been so much worse. The following day, the museum was closed to the public, and we had to go around and check the entire museum from the galleries to our basement storage rooms. Although there was never any visible smoke entering the museum we had several spaces that smelled strongly of smoke, and we had to figure out how to air them out. We had to check for any dust or detritus that may have come in through the smoke and we had to check all of our climate control systems to make sure there wasn’t any point where the rooms became too humid or hot. We did this several times throughout the day. Then after the smoke smell in the galleries started to fade, we started hanging the artworks that were taken down back up. Because these were the most valuable pieces, most of them were armed and we went through a very complicated process of reseting and testing all of the alarms. We also had to change all of the filters in the air system. Then we had to do another walk through today. 

Im sorry that this is such a long post, but I feel like I learned so much about how to react to an emergency at your museum, and how to make sure everything is ok after an emergency. 

In summing up my experience in the internship , it was the greatest experience of my life. I cannot express my gratitude in receiving this opportunity. I have learned a lot of practical things, like how to use TMS, how to handle fine art objects, how to respond to a fire, how to write copyright credit lines, and all kinds of stuff like this. However, to me, the most meaningful part of all of this was personal development. I have gone on more than 10 long hikes in the backwoods of the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. I did the necessary research to find them, and I hiked them alone. I have faced a bear, several moose, hundreds of elk, and an insane weasel, all on my own. I have discovered that I have more courage than I ever would have known otherwise. I can handle so much more than I thought I could. Most importantly, I have gained a deep love for this area, wildlife, and our national parks. I cannot stop exploring, hiking, and adventuring when this internship is over. I will bring that passion home with me. 

Shifting for the next semester

While I am a long ways away from the end of my internship, I will be transitioning to my new schedule this week. Thursday is the last day of the museums summer programs, so starting next week the educational department will be shifting their attention to events promoting the reopening of the museum.  I will now be assisting community lead and teachers that were recently hired on. One of the new hires is my old classmate, Asami. I look forward to getting to work with her. With the new community programs going on there has unfortunately been a little bit of tension. Some of the organizations/individuals that the museum partners up with can be more difficult then others to work with and there is always an issue of various departments failing to communicate internally with each other. On a positive note, I am getting a clearer idea of what I want my final project will be. The museum recently partnered up with a private school for low income students and African-American owned businesses in Forth Worth. I am interested in seeing if I can come up with a program for either the school or the businesses. I asked my supervisor for a list of the schools and businesses and the programs they were interested in holding. It is not a done deal, but it is an idea to get me started. I have really wanted to try to create programs that might reach African-American kids as I feel they are a little underserved by most museums. Especially since the museum is holding a great retrospective on Gorden Parks this semester so there will actually be artwork that depicts black subjects. Before the exhibition went up there was one one artwork on view of an African-American which is a little disappointing for me. While the museum has wonderful works of art in their collection, it nice to see artwork that depicts a group which I feel is underrepresented in museum collections in the metroplex. It would be great if I could center my program around art where African-Americans are actually represented. It always bothered as a kid that so much of the images and art that I looked at didn't look like me or my family. Now as an adult I try to consciously include art in my programs that depicts a diverse body of people. The museum has been making their own efforts to reach people that typically do not go to the museum by connecting with the Tartant County Black historical society so I am not going off the beaten path. My time so far at the museum has been a blast and I learned a bit about how the institution operates and the work and planning that goes into one program. I go to meetings just figure which artwork will be included into the tour programs, the language of the flyers for the  girl scout programs, and what supplies will or will not be ordered each month. It is nuts the amount of work that goes into just the planning of the next semesters programs.

Time Flies

It's crazy how fast these past 2 months have really flown by.

As my internship is drawing to it's conclusion, final edits are now being made to the Family bags I have been working on. I am sad to say that my project winding down and soon I will have to say goodbye to the Meadows Museum, but it has been so much fun and I am definitely coming back! I wish I could be here during their testing and trials with volunteers, but overall I feel happy and excited about the results of my work here. I can't wait to see how they turn out after production and after their release to the public in October.

I added before and after pictures to show you my initial idea of how to design them and then what they ended up looking like. Inside there are 3 different sets of prompts for families to do together, as well as a children's book, a materials bag, and a Family Guide sheet. Everything is multilingual, even the different bags (we have metal dog tags for the vision impaired), and that really feels like a major victory to me.

I recently got to sit down with the curator, Amanda Doseth, to talk about the future and possibilities of working within Museums. It was really awesome that I got to meet her and its great that everyone here is so open and willing to help guide those who are interested in the Museum field.

Overall, I have learned so much about the inner-workings of museums, like how many different departments have to work together before you can... do anything really. To get the family bags out in the galleries, we have to go through approved vendors, we have to get out marketing, our materials, the language we use, and everything that is written has to be approved. When I first started this project I thought that it would go by so quick and be so easy. On day 1 I had so many Ideas. . . But looking back now, after trial and error, writing and testing and rewriting, I see why some of the ideas that I thought would be perfect just didn't fit. And the education team here at the Meadows worked through everything with me and has taught me that it's okay, and very good for our plans to change and be refined and reworked.  Now I feel like I have a huge inventory that I can use for the future, and have come up with a fantastic resource.

Being a Face

hello,

One of the biggest things that I have learned during this internship is just how important events are to a museum. They are some of the main ways to bring in funds, they also bring in demographics of people that that might not otherwise come. I have also kind of learned how to see through the different kind of events, and their real purpose for the museum. I have attended a ton of events throughout the summer, and I have learned a lot from each of them. There have been more casual evening events each moth called “Mixed Media,” these target young professionals in the community by creating a kind of night life environment in the museum. They have cocktails and live music, it reminds me a lot of Late Nights at the DMA. These are clearly about bringing a different demographic into the museum. A majority of the visitors here are older retired people, and families. I think this is a great way of bringing new people into the museum. 

We have also had a few other events that clearly target people for donations or gaining  higher level memberships. These are a usually a lot fancier and they include members of the board and trustees getting involved. These can be fun but they are a lot more exhausting, because everyone is mingling more.

So, basically through these events, I have learned how important events are in general, but I have also learned how important it is for the curator to be a face for the museum. Our curator have been at every event and he always speaks or gives a tour. Generally, when preparing for an event, it often feels like we are planning an event for a celebrity to make an appearance, just because of the way we structure the event around him talking or mingling with people. This was defiantly something that I didn’t know. In my future career, I might need to be prepared to be a face for the museum sell myself in order to sell what I am doing.  

P.s. just this evening we had a wildfire on the hillside surrounding the museum. I don't have much information. The museum was evacuated, and the fire consumed over 50 acres. As far as I can tell the fire did not reach the museum itself but it was completely surrounded. We most certainly will have some smoke damage. I attached pictures and I will keep you all

updated.

Halfway There

After almost three months at the Amon Carter, I have just about passed the halfway mark on my fellowship. It has been wonderful to work in the Carter's education department and I have started to get a clearer idea on where I would like to focus my attention.  I found that I really enjoy working on the community outreach programs. There are less guidelines and the programs are more freeform than those strictly designed for school students. The school programs are so well established and the school district has a very clear idea on what they would like to focus on that it can be rather daunting to try anything new. The logistics of getting 60 students in and out of the museum also limits exactly what can be done. Whereas the community outreach programs typically have less attendees and take place offsite so the kids that come can do more outlandish projects. The next few months my time at the Carter will mostly be spent helping with those programs. I have also gotten the chance to write lessons for the school tours and the afterschool programs and write some content for the Teacher Resources web. The next two weeks will really consist of me editing all of those before the museum reopens. I also need to decide what I want my major project at the museum to be. I have some options, but I am unsure if I would want to present an idea to the department or try to design an entire program. If I go the program route I want to come up with something that would actually be desired by community and would reach an audience the museum doesn't really reach. The museum does a lot for children, but there are not a lot of programs for teens. I wondering if it would be worthwhile to try to design a program for teens. I hoping I get a clearer idea soon so I can begin the planning and logistics part of the process.

Putting Art Up

Hello again~

I meant to write about this earlier but forgot! Oopsie...

But I helped an artist put up an exhibit in the museum recently. Another intern and I were trusted with her alone to put everything up. Scott had shown me a week beforehand how he likes art to be put up and where he likes his sightline (58.5 inches from the ground). So he trusted me and the other intern to help our lovely artist (Debbie Jackson, super nice woman). We helped transport the art from her car to the room that would be the new home of the paintings for a while and we set to work. The artist wanted her art a certain way, but due to how much wall space was actually available and how Scott wanted things, ended up doing things a bit differently, and we readily helped her. There was quite a bit of math involved in the whole process, which none of us were mentally prepared for. The actually hanging went smoothly though. We had to fix things a few times but math is hard and led to some mistakes... all fixable though. We used ooks and cleats, which was interesting because I hadn't dealt with cleats before.

It was fun and I loved spending time with the lovely artist, but oh my gosh was it exhausting. We didnt expect it to take all day, but it did. After we were finally done, I was able to oversee the loan process, which was a nice little bonus experience.

Cleaning

Hello again!

Today another intern and I have been cleaning sculptures  We were outfitted in lab coats, gloves, and respirators, and given brushes and a vacuum to clean the dust off of the bronze sculptures. We were told what to do, though some instructions were obvious (of course you would dust from the top down, what kind of madman does the opposite), and sent on our way. I think we've done rather well. We've cleaned 4 bronze sculptures so far, which took a decent amount of time and effort (and maybe a little scare on the ladder). Soon we will start on the plaster sculptures, but we have to wait for Scott to instruct us and he's away at lunch at the moment. I'm back on front desk duty while I wait.

It's quite tiring, but I think it's mostly just the fact the the vacuum is a bit heavy to have on my shoulder for such long periods of time. Also being on the ladder is difficult because I'm clumsy as is, and the vacuum offputs my balance, but I'm stubborn and try to make it work regardless.

I tried to add some before and after pics, let's see if it worked~