The Museologist

Thoughts on Interns in the Archives

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:58:00 -0400

archivingaloud:

Oh, our internship “system.”

How can I describe my own experience in it without facepalming so hard that I give myself a migraine? Well, there’s very little risk of that because, chances are, if I’m thinking about the internship system, I already have one.

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You’re not wrong, that’s for sure.

I’m hesitant to really jump into this conversation, because I have had paid and unpaid internships while a student, all with supervisors who treated me with respect and as a colleague. But I think this idea of “We are only as strong a profession as our greenest members” bears further examination.

There’s is a question of “privilege” in the unpaid internship. Graduate school costs a lot. If you can spend time doing an unpaid internship instead of earning money to eat off of, you’re in a fairly fortunate position. When we require resumes be padded with unpaid internships, we require that our greenest colleagues have a certain amount of privilege. Even if graduate school isn’t prohibitively expensive, taking time off from a paying job to do an unpaid internship may be the difference between pursuing the desire to be a part of this profession and not. What kind of potential are we missing out on due to that?

I’m not as familiar with the programs that require internships, so I can’t speak to that. My program had a field experience elective option where a faculty advisor, site advisor, and the student developed learning objectives and project for the semester. The field experience could be paid or unpaid. While it doesn’t fix the problem, it does assure that the internship provides a useful addition to the student’s resume at the end of things, and I heard very few horror stories from that system, so maybe that could be an alternate option?

However, I think unpaid internships are here to stay. There will always be people eager for experience, with or without pay, and for the foreseeable future, budgets are tight right now for archives. I don’t think our more experienced colleagues should be villanized for taking advantage of free labor. However, I think they should take better advantage of graduate student work by utilizing their knowledge and skills to get projects done and develop those students’ skills.

Sorry for the ramble, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but organizing them is difficult because it’s quite complicated!

While I’m not officially archives I think Museum Studies is close enough to talk about taking unpaid internships.

Disclaimer: I’m only a BA at the moment, although my Museum Studies program requires two internships for a total of six credits which is about $4,362 credits wise.

I’m finishing up my first for credits (or paying) internship this week, so I won’t speak to my experiences in interning so much as the process of putting in 140-160 hours of my free time into something I was paying for in order to get experience. I don’t mind getting experience. I love interning, it’s taught me a lot! But trying to be an intern for 140 hours, and trying to be a full time college student and working a job (because I’m broke and need money) is hard and frustrating.

I tried to explain to a professor why internships outside of my state for the summer looked rather unfeasible due to cost - despite my interest in potentially leaving the state for the summer. But I don’t think she quite understood what I meant - “it’s difficult for most people” - is true but there’s a sliding scale here. I’m going to end up in massive debt with undergrad and that was out of my control. If Grad school can’t or won’t relieve some of its own costs, that’s it.

Zero-sum game is mostly over. It’s all well and good to be very idealistic or naive about the system, but with $42k under my belt and counting, I really do have to be choosy in how much more debt I take on. And asking for help has given me a rather harsh backlash. It’s why I’m also grateful I’m working, and have developed more general skills over the last two years. Yes, I can do curatorial work, and have worked in Archives/Collections, and yes I can and have done educational work. But I’ve also been a corporate temp, held a part time job in the lower levels of Arts Administration, and have luckily also learned some retail skills. (A recent interviewer asked what wasn’t on my resume, and I briefly commenting on some of my writing, but everything else…well, I don’t really have too much time for a whole lot else.)

What kind of people are you losing out due to cost?

I can’t say for sure yet, but it could easily be me. Anyone who isn’t upper-middle class (and let’s be honest, probably also white middle-class, although I’m certainly not the only Mexican-American in my program, or the only minority, biracial or otherwise, the field is still mostly white), stands at risk at simply being unable to. I know this. It’s unfortunate. It’s nerve wracking. But I do what I can.

In theory, I don’t mind working for free. I know the industry can’t afford it. But I’m not working for free, I’m paying my University to work for someone and then working another job in order to actually have money. It’s less about working and being unpaid as it is (for me anyways) working and paying to work when I already need money.

It’s a literal gate-fee that stands in many industries nowadays in order to break in. Even if you don’t have to pay a school credits to intern, if you have to take a free internship, you’re paying with your own money to keep yourself afloat.

That’s not a personal resentment against any one person who hires me, that’s just a simple fact of the matter. My time is split between work that makes me money, and work I pay to do (school or otherwise). If the work I pay to do outweighs the money I make I won’t be able to do it like that forever.

To compound that, I’m only a BA, so while I’ve had more or less seven or so “jobs” in the field, it likely won’t matter until I have a nice shiny M.A. to tack onto my resume.

Any field in which unpaid work and graduate level degrees are the expected norm are going to be fields which are filtered through privilege most of the time, with some exceptions. I think we can divorce that from villainizing our colleagues, coworkers, or bosses, however. It’s just how it is, although you should certainly still be treated with respect, and a bad experience is a bad experience.

Peonies, Morning Glories, Cherries, and Chinese Cotton. Jiang...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:28:17 -0400

Peonies, Morning Glories, Cherries, and Chinese Cotton. Jiang Tingxi, 1669-1732. Ink and Color on Gold Paper Fan. Phoenix Art Museum.

I posted the official Museum photograph of this beautiful painted fan on my Asian History blog, but here’s some close ups of just how stunning this fan really is. It honestly gleamed so beautifully under the light. The hands are my professor, Dr. Claudia Brown at ASU. We were lucky enough to have a painting viewing for our Chinese Painting class, courtesy of the Papp Collection.

Indiegogo | Asianhistory | US History Minus White Guys

thegetty: This Renaissance revival of an ancient hard and soft...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:06:54 -0400

thegetty:

This Renaissance revival of an ancient hard and soft stone inlay technique uses 17 types of gems, jewels and marbles. The central stone is breccia di Tivoli. Discovered around 1559, this stone was highly prized for its rarity and variegated colors which resemble gems set in dark stone.

Tabletop, about 1580-1600, Italian, Florence or Rome

asianhistory: Asian History and US History Minus White Guys has...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:13:24 -0400

asianhistory:

Asian History and US History Minus White Guys has officially started an Indiegogo campaign.

I’m trying to raise a minimum of $10,000 to pay off the rest of my semester’s tuition and next semester’s tuition so that I can spend more time, money, energy, and effort here and at USHistoryminuswhiteguys! I’m currently $31,410 in debt with student loans, and at the end of next year, will have $42,500 in debt. I work a part time job and intern, and unfortunately not even scholarships, pell grants, or jobs can cover all my bills.

That’s where I’m asking my followers to step in!

The chances of me being able to continue Asian History and US History minus White Guys with any regularity or original content are very slim if I continue to struggle with making college payments. I spend most of my free time trying to make money, find money, and get money; instead of putting out content on these blogs.

I would like to change that, but I need everyone’s help. With over 80,000 followers, if all of you donated even only one dollar, I would have all my loans paid off, and would be able to do my summer podcast/review/post series on history traveling. I would even be able to afford to continue my education. I’m a young latina intending to go into non-profit work, which means I’m dedicating my life to community education and cultural access for everyone.

That dedication starts here. It’s possible if I have your help! Please reblog and consider donating. We have 48 days starting today!

Indiegogo | Asianhistory | US History Minus White Guys

This is me, and my other History blogs!

Whew! I had some amazing adventures with the Morse Museum of...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 01:47:13 -0400

Whew! I had some amazing adventures with the Morse Museum of American Art last week…

While everyone else chose to relax over spring break, I decided to go straight from midterms and job training to an internship. It seems counter-intuitive to a vacation trip, but in reality, I had an absolute blast working full time with the Education department instead of trying to manage chunks of school and school work.

A quick over view of my week with the Morse:

Preparations for the Winter Park Art Festival, which included making samples of our festival art project, and decorating staff shoes with pain and “shiny bits”. I lovingly rendered my shoes to look like the Tiffany Peacock necklace on display at the museum:

The necklace has peacocks on the front facing side, and flamingos on the back, so naturally one of my shoes is done like a peacock, and the other in flamingo colors. The shoe decorating process received some odd looks, but it was a great project during breaks.
I did some not so shiny things as well - stuffing envelopes, playing office tetris to find supplies, counting and prepping supplies, etc. General work!
I got to sit in on the talk given by Dr. Richard Guy Wilson called “Gilded Age Design: Excess and Reform”. We made sure ahead of time that the set up looked alright, the tech was going to run as planned, and that the catered food was being taken care of. (It was delicious, naturally.)
On Monday, when the museum was closed to visitors, I took another brief tour of the exhibits, including the brand new Art Nouveau exhibit. (I later met the curator, who was absolutely wonderful and discussed Graduate programs in the Decorative Arts and American art with me, as well as the head of the Education Department.)
I worked both days of the Art festival all day long! On Friday I helped get the coffee (and offered to carry it back like a good intern), and both days I spent my time explaining what straw painting was, how the end of the project resembled Art Nouveau themes, and so on. You can see me wielding my primary color glass stain paints in my apron pocket.
It was loads of fun and a lot of work, but we had so many kids and parents and even just excited adults do our art project and stop by the Museum’s open house.
On my final half-day before I flew back home to Tempe, I got to see the storage facility and some of what’s kept there beyond supplies. Imagine my pleasant surprise when a stained glass window had been taken out and displayed in the storage rooms. It’s always amazing to get a small behind the scenes look at things, even if the reason you get it is because you’re storing the leftover art festival supplies. :)

All in all, it was an absolutely amazing and wonderful experience, and I loved every minute of it! I’m so glad I went.

letmypeopleshow: The Curator Vanishes! On March 27, 1954,...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:07:28 -0500

letmypeopleshow:

The Curator Vanishes!

On March 27, 1954, Barton Kestle, first curator of modern art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, boarded a train for Washington, D.C., and was never seen again.

A shy specialist in the Soviet Avant-Garde, Dada, and Surrealism, Kestle had usually worked late into the night at the museum’s grand McKim, Mead, & White building, his office placed near the front entrance so he wouldn’t trip up alarms. This explains how staff came to accidentally seal and paint over his door during a rushed construction job some time in the ’50s.

Two year ago, employees found his door and stepped into Kestle’s world.

Curator Elizabeth Armstrong surveyed the vintage habitat of the forgotten Modernist scholar—his art and books; his high-tech-at-the-time Underwood Model 150 Typewriter, Polaroid Land Camera, and Graflex filmstrip projector; his clock radio and the other streamlined, mass-produced objects wearing their Deco heritage proudly; his ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. She saw not just a time capsule, but an opportunity.

And that’s how the Minneapolis Institute got its newest period room.

Or was it? Read more at ARTnews.com

Mark Dion, Curator’s Office, 2013, site-specific installation. Photo courtesy the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Commute Notes:

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:19:18 -0500

I’ve just gotten slightly more busy this semester! In addition to my Curatorial Internship, my docenting (whenever it works in my schedule), my classes, and my spring break internship, I’ve just gotten hired for a new job. Whew. I’m very excited to start my training as a floor manager for ASU Gammage Theater next week and become a part of the ASU Gam Fam.

It’s exciting for a number of reasons of course! First off, I’m happy to get a little more breadth of experience in Arts Administration, even at the entry level. Gammage is also literally down the street for me, and it’s going to be great to be able to work and get a paycheck. I enjoy the atmosphere of theaters and Gammage has the added benefit of just being a really stand out building. It’s the last public commission of Frank Lloyd Wright, and is probably one of th easiest to find landmarks on campus. I’m quite fond of the place and it will be exciting to be there in the fray of all of their events and shows.

That said, I’ve completed my first summer internship application out of quite a few, and am excited to also be applying to a conference that caught my eye. In other words? I’ve been busy, busy, busy. Hopefully I can queue up more things for later.

Went to the Arizona Science Center yesterday and saw the...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:07:00 -0500

Went to the Arizona Science Center yesterday and saw the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition! The color differences between the current Mona Lisa and the original true colors renditions done are breathtaking. The one on the left is the current “look” of Mona Lisa and the one on the right is how she was painted to appear.

I managed to google up side-by-side comparison shots, because we weren’t allowed to take photos there.

teleporting-tacos: ushistoryminuswhiteguys: themuseologist: Th...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:00:21 -0500

teleporting-tacos:

ushistoryminuswhiteguys:

themuseologist:

The Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center is posting a Call to Latina Artists 18 years and older for our 3rd Annual Latina Art Exhibition, 2013. If you, or someone you know is a Latina artist and interested in showing pieces that explore the views and lives of Latina women by Latina women, please be sure to pass this along! The application deadline is April 17th at Midnight (Arizona Time).

If you have any further questions, please contact the Curators:

Gina Azima - ginaazima@live.com (480) 466-9101
Jose Andres Giron - joseandresgiron@gmail.com (602)-300-2752

I thought I might Signal Boost this here. Please pass it on!

Boosting, even though this appears to be for the U.S. only?

It is not United States only! The show, however, will be in the U.S. but we do encourage international artists to submit.

The Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center is posting a Call to...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:25:26 -0500

The Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center is posting a Call to Latina Artists 18 years and older for our 3rd Annual Latina Art Exhibition, 2013. If you, or someone you know is a Latina artist and interested in showing pieces that explore the views and lives of Latina women by Latina women, please be sure to pass this along! The application deadline is April 17th at Midnight (Arizona Time).

If you have any further questions, please contact the Curators:

Gina Azima - ginaazima@live.com (480) 466-9101
Jose Andres Giron - joseandresgiron@gmail.com (602)-300-2752

jackthecb: bobbycaputo: Underwater Photos That Mimic the Look...

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:31:39 -0500

jackthecb:

bobbycaputo:

Underwater Photos That Mimic the Look of Baroque Paintings

Hawaii-based photographer Christy Lee Rogers specializes in creating dreamlike photos of people underwater. Her project Reckless Unbound shows people swirling around one another while wearing colorful outfits. The photos are reminiscent of the paintings of old Baroque masters, who would often paint people floating around in heavenly realms.

Rogers creates her photos in swimming pools at night. The scenes are illuminated with bright off-camera lights, and the shoots often last two to four hours each.

GUP Magazine writes,

Christy Lee Rogers reshapes the boundaries between contemporary photography and painting, with her series Reckless Unbound. While provoking the audience with vivacious movements and purpose, she also stirs the viewer’s memories of baroque painter Pieter Paul Rubens and his Massacre of the Innocents.

Without the use of post-production manipulation, Rogers’ works are made in-camera, on the spot, in water and at night. She applies her technique to bodies submerged in water during tropical nights in Hawaii. Through a fragile process of experimentation, she builds elaborate scenes of coalesced colours and entangled bodies that exalt the human character as one of vigour and warmth, while also capturing the beauty and vulnerability of the tragic experience that is the human condition.

You can see more of her work over on her website.

Words are obsolete.

So you want to...be an arts educator.

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:31:24 -0500

So you want to...be an arts educator.:

massmoca:

New blog post! In this week’s “So you want to…,” Director of Education and Kidspace Laura Thompson talks about her family of artists and museum technologies.

"…But museums will have to change to take advantage of the turmoil roiling our colleagues in..."

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:31:46 -0500

“

…But museums will have to change to take advantage of the turmoil roiling our colleagues in education. We’ll need to be open and available. We need to let our collections be used by others for their ends. That means sharing online collections and images as open data, being open to collaborations, letting go.

It means that we need to break down the walls that separate curatorial expertise and educational expertise within the museum. Curators and curatorial knowledge will have to be open to the public. The one rule of the web is disintermediation: no more gatekeepers. Curators will need to be open directly to their audiences. Museum educators will need to know collections and content. Those jobs will merge as the museum opens up…

”

- On the Center for the Future of Museums blog, Steve Lubar discusses the role of museums in a new world of education, and describes how opening up is key to success.

Read the entire post, “Museums: Essential Elements in the New World of Education.”

(via hstryqt)

(via thegradschoollife)

Art History is Actually Hilarious - Laura Javier. A Senior...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:22:00 -0500

Art History is Actually Hilarious - Laura Javier.

A Senior Thesis project at Washington University in St. Louis: a satirical guide to 25,000 years of art history for everyone who fell asleep during slide lectures and missed the comedy. Completely unabridged, semi-critically acclaimed, and perhaps a little facetious. Laser printed on Mohawk 80lb glossy cover, Japanese side-sewn with a soft cover. [SLIDES]

lacma: manbartlett: the art world according to...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:07:45 -0500

lacma:

manbartlett:

the art world according to emoji

Everyone’s reblogging it - because it’s awesome.

hyperallergic: #EmojiArtHistory

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:43:54 -0500

hyperallergic:

#EmojiArtHistory

asianhistory: In all honesty: if vaguely historical elements...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:32:22 -0500

asianhistory:

In all honesty: if vaguely historical elements get you excited to learn the actual history that your favorite video game/show/novel/comic book/etc draws from, then I am glad for it.

It’s not about what “gets you into” history, it’s about what you learn once you’re there. I think the danger of the modern (mostly US in my experience) school system is that we belittle people for choosing the “wrong” ways to find their passions, interests, and subjects for learning. You’d be amazed to find out what you can approach or be introduced to in less traditional means.

Children who hate “reading books” but like comic books? Should be exposed to comic books with quality narratives, comics written after classics, etc, not just told to “suck it up and read”. Folks who watch Avatar the Last Airbender, and want to know more about the writing they see the characters reading would do well to learn about Chinese calligraphy in history, or to look up asian art, or to go further and view the way buddhist ideals are referenced. People who are passionate about Bollywood films might find they’re passionate about Indian culture as a whole, might want to know the historical precedent for ideas or attitudes they’re exposed to.

Put it another way (with a western focus): approximately how many people went to see Les Miz and then thought, “Well, I might want to know a little bit about French History to really grasp what that was based on.”?

So one of my favorite films is Red Cliff, and many of my Chinese friends told me it was historically inaccurate and was thus displeasing. Well, true, the accuracy isn’t fantastic, but on the whole, I enjoyed the films anyways, and then went and learned about the actual battle at Red Cliff. You can separate fact and fiction, and you can recognize games/shows/movies/etc aren’t historically accurate but still want to know what the truth behind all that was.

Academic snobbery has an unfortunate habit of stifling intellectual curiosity if it comes from “low culture” first. But we’re all exposed to popular culture all the time, in many ways. If you choose to use your pop culture interests as a springboard for your intellectual curiosity because you know those aren’t historically accurate - that is, you seek out real sources, academics, books, scholarly works, etc - then I see nothing wrong with it at all.

In fact, by doing so, you’ve chosen to make yourself a critical, intelligent, analytical, and curious human being, which I would argue is the basis of all learning.

publicartfund: An early #FashionFriday...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:17:08 -0500

publicartfund:

An early #FashionFriday treat…

dailyartspace:

THE DAILY STORY:

A History of Fashion and Art Collaborations

Over the past decade the number of collaborations between fashion designers and contemporary artists has increased to a dizzying degree—in fact, the marketplace is now saturated with unique hybrid efforts of this kind. While the crossover of fashion and art is hardly a new phenomenon, the nature of these partnerships differs greatly from those of the past. To cast some light on this evolution, we took a look back at how the relationship between fashion and art has changed over time. [Read more on Artspace]

smithsonian: When it’s young, a red dwarf star frequently...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:09:07 -0500

smithsonian:

When it’s young, a red dwarf star frequently erupts with strong ultraviolet flares as shown in this artist’s conception. Some have argued that life would be impossible on any planet orbiting in the star’s habitable zone as a result. However, the planet’s atmosphere could protect the surface, and in fact such stresses could help life to evolve. And when the star ages and settles down, its planet would enjoy billions of years of quiet, steady radiance.

(via Earth-like planets discovered right next door to Earth | Smithsonian Science)

museumnerd: I can’t get enough of MoMA’s archival photos!...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:06:16 -0500

museumnerd:

I can’t get enough of MoMA’s archival photos! Definitely follow Installator on Tumblr!

installator:

“William S. Rubin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture and director of the exhibition “Frank Stella: Paintings,” and the artist Frank Stella during the installation of the exhibition. 1970. Department of Public Information Records, II.C.180. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York”

+

“The artist working on the installation of the exhibition, “Alexander Calder.” September 29, 1943 through January 16, 1944. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.”

(MoMA)