As my internship at the Griffin Museum of Photography comes to an end, I am more certain about my future professional prospects and the steps I need to take to work in the museum field. Throughout the course of the summer, I have learned the importance of organizational skills to succeed in the field of arts administration. Art programming is a fast-paced environment in which the future is planned months in advance. This entails all sorts of communications with artists, organizations, guest curators, gallerists, and all sorts of creative professionals that keep the museum engine running. This introduction to a fast-paced environment helped me organize and systematize my own work, as well as being more strategic with my own creative production. I learned to systematize my workflow, files, and graphic assets we work with for the sake of time and efficiency.
One thing I have learned about myself is that I am much more of a self-starter than I had previously imagined. For most of the creative multimedia projects I worked on at the museum, I had almost complete independence in choosing what things were going to look like, as well as a say on the technical aspects of video and audio editing, graphic design, and social media strategies. I am glad this internship program allowed me to use my creative vision to contribute to make the art world more accessible one step at a time.
At the Griffin Museum, I have been promoted as a Lead Content Creator for Social Media. Starting this August, I will be leading a team of creative interns to elevate the photographic arts and promote the mission of Arthur Griffin and the Griffin Museum of Photography. In the near future, I expect I can continue utilizing my multimedia skills to promote the museum’s many exhibitions, events, and educational programs. One of my biggest passions is to make art accessible. I hope that in the future the support offered by the Steven M. Bunson ’82 Internship Fund for the Arts and the Griffin Museum will allow me to do this on a bigger scale.
In less than two weeks, I will be starting my curatorial internship at the Rose Art Museum of modern and contemporary art. Having the opportunity to employ my creative skills and work in a museum with a permanent collection of 8,000 objects of art is really exciting. Something that I am much better prepared for thanks to the support of the World of Work program.