Author: Museum Career Internship Program

Hello, my name is Vianly Ramales (she/her). I am a Fine Arts major at LaGuardia Community College and a first generation Mexican-American. I grew up having a passion for art as soon as I picked up a pencil. At that moment, I knew I had a vision, to create whatever spoke from the heart. When I got to middle school I suddenly left behind the “passion” that I had for art and I never bothered to look back. My friends and family would ask me, “Do you still draw or paint?” “Why not?” I thought art was just another hobby of mine collecting dust. Years passed by, I never thought about letting art back into my life until the pandemic happened. I felt this sudden urge to pick up a pen and paper again. I created pieces that have made a massive difference in my life. I began to take art more seriously. I have come to realize that it is never too late to pick up right where you left off or whether it is something new. Now here I am, creating art that comes from the mind and heart. 

I am really grateful that I was chosen to be an intern at the American Folk Art Museum because I know that this is the way to gain professional experience in the art field and to amplify my art skills and knowledge. I have never worked at a museum before, so I think it will be an amazing experience to learn about the large variety of roles for different interests. This is also an opportunity for me to collaborate with others who share the same interest in this field. I think expressing our appreciation and passion for art can unleash our new artistic sides that we thought we’d never had and open the mind to new and compelling ideas. I am an artist who is willing to expand her art skills in any way. I take new opportunities that will help me achieve in my career and that allow me to increase my knowledge.

Looking at the American Folk Art Museum’s collection, I can relate to Malcah Zeldis’s, Death of a Friend, 1973. This painting does a great job in depicting a loss of a close one by giving us these cold hues. The setting in this painting has a destructive mood full of people who are in a state of grief and pain, which is how I felt when I lost both of my grandfathers. I feel connected to this piece because even though I went through a stage of loss and grief, life goes on. Death is inevitable. Moments I experienced with my loved ones inspire me to create memorable pieces. When I create pieces of artwork, I try to incorporate my grandfathers’ legacies or my culture and traditions.

Thank you AFAM for allowing me to enter deeper into the art world I have yet to see. 

Hey! My name is Kyrie (he/him) and my major at LaGuardia Community College is Fine Arts: Design. I’m interested in interning at the American Folk Museum so that I can learn about the voices in art that aren’t usually talked about. I’m starting to discover unique and untraditional artist styles and works I can get inspired and learn from.

I get to understand the inner workings of a museum first hand and the community aspects behind that. Plus, I get to meet a lot of awesome like-minded people. I’ve been creative ever since I can remember, from being a child making my own creations out of Legos, drawing my own characters, and making comics. Creating was a way to make something of my own I could be proud of and show other people. It fueled me and made me happy. I loved to make drawings when I was in middle school and give them to people and see their reaction–it was great.

Around the end of middle school, I became inspired by music as another form of expression from being introduced to great artists on “Adult Swim” which I stuck with until today. I produce electronic, rap, house and experimental tracks and projects as a hobby. I learned the act of creation is freedom for me. Before the pandemic I pursued music recording as a career but when the pandemic actually hit, I started to reevaluate my decision, understanding that music for me was an outlet and I didn’t want to be told what and what not to do. I realized that art was my first true happiness. I came back to LaGuardia with a second wind. I was excited to pursue this career path, learning as much as I can about art and developing my own ideas. I come from the Bronx and always felt like an outsider because my interests were way different from most of my peers. I knew from a young age that I was special and had something to offer in my life and it was all about finding the right path to express that.

I like this artwork by Melvin Edward Nelson because of how expressive it is and how the title really gives you a visual of the piece in motion, almost like a live story. It’s also very abstract. You can interpret it as many things, for example “Is that an alien umbrella?” or “Was the world attacked?”. I connect with this work and like the unusual use of colors, the repetition, and the patterns. Everything feels so different yet it works well together.

Hello! My name is Melissa (she/her) and I’m a Fine Arts student at LaGuardia Community College. I currently live in New York, but I’m from Los Angeles, California. 

My art mainly consists of portraits. I like creating characters that emphasize melancholic moments in our everyday life. I create art because I tend to fixate on the intangible. Art simply helps me make sense of things. I’m currently pursuing a BFA in Studio Art, but I would like to pursue art education as well. Education is something I value and I would like to help kids tap into their creativity. 

I see folk art as an extensive documentation of one’s culture and community. With this internship, I hope to gain the ability to depict my experience in New York. This state isn’t my hometown, so I always feel compelled to ask lifelong residents about their life in New York. Most of them take great pride in their city despite the issues it faces and are quick to tell me about the beauty that keeps them here. This state is unlike others I’ve been to, it’s rich in culture and diversity. I never see the same faces and it’s filled with endless stories. I like that. I intend to stay in New York and find ways to help my community, all while documenting it through art. 

Within the AFAM collection, I found an untitled charmer by Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. I was drawn to it because it reminded me of the album cover of “Live Through This” by Hole, a highly influential album in my teenage years. Something about the woman in the photograph is greatly empowering. It’s maybe the way she wears the crown with firm ownership. Maybe it’s the way she unabashedly smiles with her breasts out. Maybe it’s the way she recognizes her beauty. A handful of Von Bruenchenhein’s photographs include the same woman; it’s evident her presence allured him. She seems like someone bold who took pride in their eccentricity and I like that. That side is very much within me too, but I hope to gain the courage to bring it out.

Hi! My name is Mariany Guzman Melo (she/her). I’m 19 years old and a Fine Arts Major at LaGuardia Community College. I reside in Queens, New York but I am originally from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. From the moment I found out about the Museum Career Internship Program, it sparked my interest. I started drawing at a very young age and eventually it became a part of me. This program seems like the perfect opportunity to learn more about the many careers available in the field and insert myself in the art community. 

Making art, learning about art and experiencing it has to be one of my favorite things to do. Growing up on an island, for the majority of my childhood I got to learn to see a world full of color and excitement. Many people from many different backgrounds are able to coexist within such a small piece of land, creating a harmonious chaos. That’s the feeling I crave from my work and the art that surrounds me. I think this is something that many other artists resonate with as well. 

Lurking through AFAM collections, a piece that really stood out to me was “The Comic Tragedy” by Louis Monza. It immediately got my attention because I did not know where to direct my eye. At first glance It looks messy and overcrowded, but the more you look at it you start to notice that the elements lean on one another perfectly and create a beautiful balance. Monza moved from Italy to the United states and worked on the railroad. He lived in Mexico for a very short time and also served in the U.S. Army. The harsh realities and cruelties of the war are reflected in his works, making it very political. I loved this piece, and the way it predicts the inevitable. 

Getting to be part of this program and learning about art excites me. Finding out about artists like Louis Monza and how his experiences influenced the creation of a timeless piece like the “The Comic Tragedy” fills me up with joy. I hope as the program goes on I get to learn about more incredible artists.

by Adrian Gray, Curatorial Intern

The discovery of the secret, autodidactic and enigmatic images created by artist Jean-Daniel Allanche were made known to the wider art world and public in collaboration with his heirs and artist, collector, art critic and gallerist Hervé Perdriolle. Perdriolle’s early contributions to the outsider art movement included his role as art critic for the “Figuration Libre” movement in the 1980s, of which the American counterpart was “Ugly Painting”, claiming acolytes like Keith Haring and Jean-Micheal Basquiat. Perdriolle’s gallery, which was located at the time in his Paris apartment but has since relocated to Brussels, focuses on the art of makers operating largely outside of the western academic tradition. A healthy constituent of the gallery’s holdings represent traditional makers of India and Africa. It is with this connection that Allanche’s images might be contextualized.

Jean-Daniel Allanche was born in 1940, in Sfax, Tunisia, to a working class Jewish family. The artistic traditions of richly patterned, decorated architecture and objects of historically multicultural Tunisia would later factor into his artistic processes. He spent his formative years there, earned a Tunisian Baccalaureate and emigrated to France at age 18 where he continued his studies in the sciences. He eventually became a respected professor and researcher of physics and spent 10 years teaching Physics —later Quantum Physics —in Congo, Ghana and Burkina Faso. In tandem with his rigorous scientific pursuits Allanche devotedly nurtured his artistic passions —music, writing poetry and painting. He sold a few of his first paintings, however after the dissolution of his marriage he decided to create his art in seclusion, writing in a journal, “loneliness is your place where no one can come to settle there. This should strengthen you and not weaken you.” The apartment  in which he would enact his creative solitude was dubbed, by Allanche, L’ Atelier Molécular de Saint-Germain-des-Prés ( The Molecular Studio of Saint-Germain-des-Prés). Here, from 1976, for 30 years, the artist-scientist would fill every available interior surface including ceilings and floors with magical, auratic murals.

Instead of a search for artistic influences on Allanche’s modality, it is more helpful to consider scientific meditation and ancient tradition. The work is genuinely unique and purely symbolic. The images reflect the artist’s personal philosophies derived from concepts of theoretical physics but realized with reminiscences of animism. The artist asserted that the intentional, repetitive, layered, circular patterns are representations of molecules. In many areas of his murals he emphasized these molecules by affixing what appear  to be pebbles, marbles or other spherical objects. A photograph of spiral steps shows the underside and supports encrusted with these three-dimensional “molecules”. Allanche also contemplated a grand relationship between color and music. To this endeavor he applied his quintessential fervor for analysis. His penchant for music was activated into a schemata which connects colors to musical notes. This holistic practice was meant to convey the concept  of the interconnectedness of all things and time. In scientific terms this is quantum mechanics.

Accompanying his murals the artist displayed his numerous collections of African statues, masks and artifacts gathered from his travels in Western Africa. So abundant were the objects, they occupied equal visual and physical space as the murals did in his apartment, indicating his affinity for both the objects and associated culture. Allanche’s first recorded trip to the region to teach was in 1971. The date is significant as it predates his mural painting practice which he began in 1976. The timeline supports an African cultural impact on Allanche’s process.  Considering the rigorous research and analytical discipline Allanche lavishes upon his passions, a deduction can be made that his approach of immersion into a culture he resided in for 10 years would be no different.

Particular to the areas in which Allanche taught —modern day Benin for example and later teaching in Burkina Faso —shared, centuries old practices of visual and other artistic expressions served multifaceted purposes. Cultures like those of the Mossi and Gurunsi composed of many tribal groups, still maintain their ancestral traditions, from architecture to ceremonial pageants. Traditional architecture of the region displayed  intricately painted patterned walls with a limited palette of local traditional pigments, a task performed by the women in the community. Ceremonial costumes and masks reflect similar patterns with varied meanings. Chiefly, masks and statues are representations of ancestors. Some patterns tell stories of ancestors, while others delineate between the merits of knowledge and ignorance, and others taught hunting. One popular motif, the running zig-zag is said to represent a pathway to the ancestors or other worlds. There are some symbols which can easily be understood by all members of a community; others reveal their meanings only to members of the same family or the individual who created them. Masks, costumes, statues  and applied decorations with various human, animal combinations are powerful symbols representing the interconnected universe and the accumulated history and knowledge necessary for the survival of subsequent generations.

As much as Allanche imparted knowledge while in Africa, in equal measure he might have acquired new information which would be applied to all his practices. He would have encountered kindred systems of creative expression, as making in Western Africa combined music, poetry, dance and painting. Recalling his native Tunisia, the activity of painting on walls would have been second nature. His residencies in Western Africa would serve to bolster his choice of  canvas for artistic expression. All apartments Allanche would occupy from 1976 forward featured painted walls with his molecule paintings. Even his final apartment boasted painted molecule walls, further indication of the arcane knowledge he acquired in Western Africa and its impact on his life and practices. This was a knowledge he carried close to himself and cherished as much as any other he encountered.

Hi! My name is Cristina Tenecela, and I’m a Fine Arts Design Studies student at LaGuardia Community College. I’ll be graduating in Fall 2021, and I’m excited to learn more here at the American Folk Art Museum. I was not familiar with the museum until my professor mentioned in his class. This sparked my interest immediately since I’ve been wanting to work at a job or internship that involves art.

Learning more about the museum and what they display on site was confusing at first, until I saw the variety of folk art online. In one of our meetings, when trying to find a work of art from the collection we find fascinating, my attention was drawn to this little doll named Betty that was hand made from head to toe. The face of the doll unnerved me at first, but taking a closer look, I realized that it had some sort of meaning behind it, along with a backstory about the woman who made it and her family. I connected with this right away since I also make handmade objects.

When I create handmade objects, I make them primarily for my makeup looks as you see here. From the original ice cream hat (top left) that I made many months ago to the lovely Red Queen look (bottom right), I have made my own props to make fantasy come to life. When I was younger, I tried to sew dresses for my dolls, then I created my own dolls, and then I tried to make my own dress which didn’t come out as I planned. It was a hobby of mine that never flourished until the pandemic hit. I first started doing simple makeup looks, tutorials, tiktok videos and personal photoshoots that are posted on my Instagram (@lulu_emme6). Soon, I started to get very creative with the looks, and I began to purchase wigs, buy materials from craft stores and even used clothes from my own closet to create the looks I was going for. The look I’m the most proud of is my recreation of Utica Queen’s picnic look (the picture next to the Red Queen). From the picnic hat to the outfit, I made it all myself. The process took a lot longer than expected, but was completely worth the effort and time! 

All I’m focused on now is learning from the internship program about different kinds of folk art. Maybe I will get inspired by the artworks in the museum and put that into my own art, and maybe in the future, I would want to do another museum internship to gain even more knowledge and inspiration. I can’t wait to see what AFAM has to offer.

Hey! I’m Ruth. I’m 23 years young and my pronouns are she/they. I recently graduated from LaGuardia Community College where I majored in Fine Arts: Design Studies, and I am currently attending Queens College majoring in Interactive Design and minoring in Computer Science. During my free time I enjoy going on walks with my dog, drawing, reading, tending to my physical health by doing yoga and lifting weights, meditating, and spending time with friends. 

I have always had an interest in art, but I never did anything about it until about 3 years ago. As a first generation college student in North America, being an artist wasn’t supported as a goal that I should have. When it came to what I wanted to pursue as a career I was lost and didn’t feel excitement with my major. This confusion led me to purchase a one way flight to Ecuador and in my 3rd month there, I grabbed a pen and a marker and just started drawing on my thigh. I was surprised with what I saw just because that was my first time ever drawing something relatively large with a lot of details. Afterwards I got on my laptop and started checking what majors LaGuardia offered in the creative field. The rest is history.

During my last semester at LaGuardia one of my studio art professors mentioned this internship to the class and my curiosity was piqued. I believe this will be a great opportunity for my growth as an artist. So far I have enjoyed every bit of it and am very appreciative of the things I have learned. Prior to becoming an intern I didn’t know AFAM existed, but after doing some research I was excited to learn that AFAM’s mission is to present art by self taught artists. A majority of my friends are self taught so being able to see works by others is very dear to my heart. 

Hello, I’m Aidan. I’m just exiting my mid-late twenties and am returning to school to pursue a BFA in studio art at Brooklyn College. So far I am enjoying both. Most of my background has been in television/news production, the bulk of which I did at a public media station in Juneau, Alaska. After about six years doing that I decided I no longer cared much about news or making money (see above major choice)—I knew this because, in those days, I spent most of my time producing Gavel to Gavel Alaska, which is pretty much C-Span but on the state level. Also, it’s basically as hard-line-news as it gets, and yet rare was the committee meeting that stirred my passion. A career change was in order. 

And here I am! After moving to Brooklyn sight unseen via a four month road trip with my partner and arriving two weeks before quarantine began, I matriculated at the Fiorello Henry La Guardia Community College in 2020. I heard about an internship at the American Folk Art Museum from an admired painting instructor. The museum was closed for most of my tenure in the city, but I had visited once just after it reopened and very much liked it. I was ecstatic to accept a position this year, and am even more so to learn about museum theory, the mysteries of folk art, and artistic pedagogy—all of which I am very passionate about.

When not attending school or interning at AFAM or working at Jane’s Carousel in Dumbo (no, we don’t do the brass ring thing and haven’t for like 50 years), I enjoy walking around the city looking for new foods to try, cooking the foods of my childhood, and meeting new people and; discussing food with them. I am also an avid reader—mostly science fiction and poetry and a few food books here and there. I own one cat and have many friends.