A blog about the activities of the Museum Career Internship Program, a partnership between The American Folk Art Museum and LaGuardia Community College. Support for this program is provided by Richard and Laura Parsons, the Schaffner Family Foundation, Jane and Gerald Katcher, Donald and Rachel Strauber, and the LaGuardia Community College Foundation.
On Wednesday, April 26, 2019, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm, the American Folk Art Museum’s Self-Taught Genius Gallery in Long Island City had a program called “Drink & Draw,” which was organized by Steffi Ibis Duarte, curator of the Self-Taught Genius Gallery, and Natalie Beall, education specialist. This program was free and open to all art lovers from the general public. This program was a workshop for enthusiasts to do activities such as drawing and making new friends. Those who attended had a good time in the company of other art lovers, made friends, and practiced their artistic skills. The museum provided rosé wine, beer, and lollipops in the conference room for the those who attended.
This program was also about seeing the exhibition in the gallery titled New York Experienced. The participants had to choose an artwork from the exhibition and draw it with their own styles and techniques. This kind of program is good because people can feel free to be creative and not worry about being criticized or hearing negative comments about their drawings. The participants had an hour and thirty minutes to make their own drawings, enjoy drinks, and have a fun time.
I interviewed Chris Sanchez Suarez. He is working in the Public Programs department with Theresa Rodewald, who is the Adult Public Programs Coordinator. He is working with the new exhibition that The American Folk Art Museum is going to have called Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art (March 19, 2019- July 28, 2019) Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art. He is responsible for reading some books about the history of folk art in New York, the curatorial statement, and the checklist for the exhibition. After he finishes reading, he will write articles about what he thinks of what he read and send these articles to Theresa. He will help Theresa develop some public programs that will assist people of different ages. In these public programs, hewill help the audience by explaining these programs, passing the microphone, papers, and answering questions. Also, he will promote and share what these programs are about with other people, and he will find out different ways to present and engage with more people in these programs. As we know, each human being is different and we have different ways to learn or be interested in public programs. When these programs are finished Chris will read the surveys to learn what the audience thinks of these programs and what positive changes to do for the future.
“I love it because it is nice talking and working with people of different ages and I really enjoy reading [so] much stuff.”—Chris Sanchez
Tyrese Henry is working in the Education department with Rachel Rosen who is the Director of Education. He will help with different ideas to improve workshops, educational programs that will assist people of different ages, and family programs. Also, he will create three family programs for the upcoming exhibition at the main museum, Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art. In these educational programs, he helps the audience by explaining these programs, some artworks, passing colored pencils, sheets and answering any questions.
“I have a lot of freedom to explore my own ideas of how to educate people and how these educational programs work. It is fun and informative to interact with people of different ages at the museum and seems their passions for the art world.”—Tyrese Henry
Family programs
Children programs
Adrien Bryant is working in the Collections department with Ann-Marie Reilly who is the Director of Collections and Exhibition Production and Judy Steinberg who is the Collection and Exhibition Manager. This department includes the warehouse or storehouse of the museum, where are all the artworks are saved and preserved. Every day she is doing something different– on spreadsheet days where she works on compiling information on previous, current or upcoming exhibitions. Other days she assists with pulling pieces of art for new exhibitions and loans (when the museum lends works of art to other museums for exhibition), photography of artwork or condition report. She has to be very careful when she moves the works of arts so as not to damage them or make them fall.
“I love this department, it is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. I get to absorb all this knowledge and experience around me. Being able to work in the art field and be around people who share similar passions as I do is amazing. It is a game changer.”—Adrien Bryant
Kristin Townsend is working in the Curatorial department with Steffi Ibis Duarte who is Assistant Curator and Stacy Hollander who is the Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, Chief Curator, and Director of Exhibitions She is working on the new exhibition in the Self-Taught Genius Gallery called “New York Experienced.” Before the installation of the exhibition, she helped to measure and to think about where the works of art looked best. In addition, she added information about the artworks on the curators’ computer program, TMS (The Museum System) and is learning how it works. When the curators are going to have a new exhibition, Kristin is able to observe the process. How do they think of a topic and title? artworks will they include, and will they borrow some from other museums? Also, she helped Stacy with the wall text for “Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art” as researching and paragraph phrase some information. She working on an interpretive text for Steffi on Ralph Fasanella’s Pie in the Sky. She has been researching him and his background because the library has a lot of information about him. In addition, she is helping with some field trips for visitors to the gallery, she tries to be available to answer any questions they have about the work. For group tours, she tried to give them a more in-depth talk on the backgrounds of the artists and shed some light on why they make the art that they make
“working in this department it is really interesting because so much going on when the museum is going to have a new exhibition. It is a lot to think about how and where to put the artworks in an exhibition.”—Kristin Townsend
Photos by Miguel Medina, Adrien Bryant, and Kristin Townsend
My name is Miguel Medina, and I study at LaGuardia Community College, where my major is Fine Art and Design. I’m doing my internship in the American Folk Art Museum. This museum is the “premier institution devoted to the creative expressions of self-taught artists, past and present.”
The American Folk Art Museum New York offers a paid internship, which is a great opportunity for students of LaGuardia Community College to have work experience in the art world and learn about different areas of the museum such as Education, Public Programs, Curatorial, Collections, Library/Archives, Publications/Website, Development and Marketing/Communications. Also, I have been able to meet and make new friends in the art world.The current group of interns started on September 12, 2018. For the first three months, the interns had meetings every Monday and Wednesday for three and a half hours to learn about different folk artists of the world and their artworks such as Henry Darger who is from Chicago and Martin Ramirez, who is from Mexico, among other artists. Also, interns learn about different categories of the museum collection such as Art Brut, Antique Art, and Contemporary Art. In each meeting, most of the employees of the museum from different areas were introduced to the interns. They talked to us about where they are from, where they graduated from college, their backgrounds and experiences and what they do in the museum. The program is really interesting because we learned a lot about different folk art styles and practiced analyzing artworks. Also, we had some workshops where we made artwork, such as a piece of a quilt with colored paper and a silhouette on black paper. The final project, was to create an exhibition using the museum collection. Interns had one month to prepare their project, which had to have a title and ten to fifteen images, and involve three public programs. In December, the internspresented their projects in front of the other interns and some employees of the museum. After the final project the instructor decided which areas the students would continue the internship. Since January the interns have been working in the different areas that were designated and working on different projects.
This is my first post in this blog, I will keep posting more articles about how my coworkers and I are doing during the internship in our different areas.
Left to right: Miguel, Chris, Adrien, Tyrese, Kale, Sayquen, Saki and Kristin
Museum Career Internship Program 