North Carolina Museum of Art – CA Work Experience Program

NC Museum of Art Day 1

Today was my first day at the NCMA. I met with Felicia Ingram in the morning and she gave me a tour of the East and West buildings at the museum. After introducing me to some of the departments she works with, we discussed our backgrounds and her work at the museum. Because Felicia focuses on accessibility and curation, I attended a couple meetings she had related to that. We met with one of the IT directors about an interactive display that visitors could interact with and its development. Felicia showed me the process of figuring out where to set up artwork and we went to check on some of the new exhibits that are being put up. Felicia’s work includes the accessibility of labels, space between displays, and the amount of artwork put up in a particular exhibit. While being introduced to the entire museum was definitely a lot for one day, I couldn’t be happier with my placement at the NCMA and I’m looking forward to the rest of my time working with Felicia and the other employees!

Day 8: Y’ALL I GOT TO RIDE THE LIFT

My final day at NCMA started with leading Dr. McElreath in through the staff entrance, which was vaguely reminiscent of my first day at the museum when Ms. White met me outside and guided me to said entrance. I have come full circle. The student has become the teacher.

Anyways, Dr. McElreath and I watched as the art handlers installed a new textile in the African gallery. The picture below does not do it justice–its a super pretty piece (you should go see it).

After that, I went back to translating my paper floor plan revisions to digital, which I managed to finish, even though there was some trouble locating the files I was supposed to be revising.

Revised floor plan for the Egyptian gallery

After lunch, I got to peel vinyl stickers off the wall for, like, an hour, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. I took off the Georgia O’Keefe labels so that they could be replaced in preparation for the Frida Kahlo show.

After that (and after I had sat through a meeting that went on way longer than it was supposed to), I went with Ollie to install supports (I think they were for lights but I could be wrong) in the ceiling. And remember on Friday when I said I was sad I couldn’t ride the lift? Guys, I got to drive the lift. It was great and only a little bit terrifying.

I had a great time at NCMA–I got to do interesting work, I got to look at pretty art, and everyone was super friendly.

The design team (and their loyal intern)

Day 7: Back to the Museum

My 7th day of work experience (and 5th day of working at NCMA) started with helping make new signs for some of the outdoor pieces, as the previous ones had gotten damaged. After that, I reviewed more floor plans, this time of the African gallery. I also started to type up my floor plan revisions from last week so that nobody would have to struggle to read my terrible handwriting.

Just as I was getting bored of the floor plans, I was stopped to help get the vinyl stickers off an old sign and reprint it with new lettering, which is actually a pretty interesting process.

NCMA Day 4

My fourth day started with Kathryn, who showed me the museum’s Wim Botha exhibition and helped to elucidate the planning process museum workers have to go through to prepare for an exhibition. They have to think about lighting (certain pieces require more or less lighting depending on how fragile they are), layout (especially for sculptures/objects like in the Wim Botha exhibition), preservation (some pieces have safety railings or barriers), and comprehensibility (panels have to be close enough to the artwork to make it clear which piece they are talking about). On top of all that, artists themselves tend to have a lot of opinions as to how their work should be displayed and laid out in a gallery–opinions that often conflict with those of the exhibition design team. Despite these challenges, the Wim Botha gallery looks great. (Y’all should check it out.)

After lunch, I helped move cases and displays out of the Ancient America gallery, which the design team had started to clear out on Tuesday. We were able to finish getting everything out of the room in preparation for the new exhibition.

Before:

After:

I also got to tear down a mural (basically a big sticker) from the wall. The design team had to get out a lift to tear down the top of it since it didn’t all come off in one piece. Tragically, I wasn’t able to ride the lift because of “liability concerns”. Whatever.

Tearing down the mural:

NCMA Day 3

To start off my third day at the North Carolina Museum of Art, I finished checking floor plans for the galleries I hadn’t gotten to yesterday, a task that only took about half an hour. After that, I spent my day bouncing between different members of the design team, helping with odd jobs and tasks. I helped Rand and David move display cases, moved furniture out of Gallery 4 with Clare, and put up labels for artwork with Sean.

I was able to get a tour of the conservation department, whose current big project is a marble statue called Bacchus. His torso and head are ancient Roman, his legs and one of his arms are from the Renaissance, and his other arm is being built by the museum now in order to display the full statue. I was also able to walk around the African galleries, parts of which are being rearranged next week.

A piece in the African gallery, imitating the style of El Anatsui as a reflection of the viewer

NCMA Day 2

My second day at the North Carolina Museum of Art, I was helping Molly, a different member of the Design Team with her project. Said project had me checking gallery spaces against floor plans to make sure that all the art was where it was supposed to be. For me, this meant a lot of walking around and puzzling over which ID numbers went with which pieces and being very confused when some of the art was mysteriously missing. No, nothing had been stolen; the issue was that the floor plans were kind of old and when pieces got moved around or sent to storage, the plans hadn’t gotten updated. By the end of the day, I was able to get through nearly all of the West Building of the museum, except for part of the Modern/Contemporary galleries, a tiny part of the European galleries, and the American galleries, which, luckily, had been completed beforehand. Meanwhile, work continued on de-installing the art in the Ancient American gallery in preparation for the new exhibition, and plans were made regarding swapping out pieces in the African galleries.

North Carolina Museum of Art WEP Day 1

Arriving at NCMA this morning, I was pretty anxious. Maybe it had something to do with driving a route I’d never driven before, but I think it was mainly my internal monologue of ‘Oh my god, I’m interning at the gosh dang Art Museum! I cannot mess this up or I’m pretty sure the Art Police will kill me’. Turns out, actually entering the building was the hardest part of my day. I was assigned to work with Clare, part of NCMA’s design team. She told me that she does a variety of things at the museum, but today we had to spackle and paint a wall since the art handlers had taken a few paintings down and there were holes from where said paintings had been hanging. (I don’t have pictures of that–it was just a white wall, y’all.)

While that was going on, art handlers and a variety of other people from other departments in the museum were moving pieces from one of the ancient American galleries into storage. They were going to replace it with an exhibition showcasing a ‘grain mummy’ (no, I don’t really know what that is either), which is supposed to be opened in late July. I was able to observe, but understandably enough, they didn’t let the 17-year-old intern touch the precious art pieces.

I was also able to get a tour of the Judaic gallery from two docents whose scheduled morning tour group were unable to get to the museum. Did you know that NCMA has a Hanukkah lamp that was shipped to the white house for Hanukkah a few years ago?

We Asked, You Answered: "What's the Story Behind Your ...

I was told the story of a wedding ring that was used for the weddings of every Jewish woman in a certain village for a length of time. The reason for that was that none of the women should be arrogant enough to have a ring more beautiful than the others.

I also saw the Design DT when they came to NCMA for inspiration for their projects and I was able to feel self-important since I was working at the museum and theoretically, would have authority over them should they become unruly.

So, yeah, all in all, my first day at NCMA was pretty great.

Sources Cited:

Hanukkah Lamp– Lucidon, Amanda. “Hanukkah Reception 2015.” The White House, 9 Dec. 2015, bit.ly/2QxZWr9.