I feel that during this internship there were many moving parts and that Mia and I, both, made an impact in our workplace. I feel that one way I contributed to my internship site is by always being attentive to detail and trying to get as much work done in the time given. I was constantly communicating with my mentors about what more there was to do after each task whether it was writing emails or hanging up artwork. I also believe that my contribution was not only to my mentors but to those who we worked around. My mentors were Cris and Mario, both part of the education department, they are both very busy people and I believe we were of great help to their schedule. One of the main things I helped with was writing emails to the 25 & Under contestants, we communicated about logistics of events and answered any questions they had. Overall, Mia and I were involved in whatever came up each day, there was no set schedule or set tasks that needed to get done each day. Liz is one of the people who we also worked closely with, she was part of the education department, we helped her with art prep, mainly. I believe that we were of great help in that side of our internship as well because there was constantly new artwork being put up and new exhibitions to showcase. Apart from Liz there were also many other people who were part of the education department which we helped. One other contribution we made was with Luisa, when she held art labs. Art labs revolved around having students create artwork with materials given to them after learning about art. Luisa conducted 2 art labs while we were there, both of which we helped with. One of the art labs was particularly busy as there were many little children and it was hard to keep them together. I believe that being around made the time they were there easier as well as the set up and clean up.
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One of the most memorable experiences through internships so far was setting up artwork for the 25 & Under art contest. This whole process was so fun as I got to look at art, write about art, and learn about all that it takes to make a professional exhibition happen. Throughout this process, I communicated back and forth with artists, speaking about logistics, but also answering questions or concerns. I believe being at High Tech for so long has given me the skills and ability it takes to write professional emails and artist statements which was a tool much needed for this internship. After emailing the winners and receiving all the artwork, Mia and I worked on creating text for the labels that would go next to the work. We worked a lot on spreadsheets, making labels that described the work presented and spoke about the message it conveyed. After each description, I translated my own descriptions to Spanish and I also helped Mia translate hers statements as she needed some help. Spanish was another skill that I was thankful for throughout this internship and which I was happy to have encountered. Both of my mentors spoke Spanish and often switched languages with everything going on in their head. We also had two volunteers coming from TJ, which knew English, but often communicated in Spanish with the people around them. Being in San Diego, translating labels and artworks to Spanish was a very crucial step and I was happy to be able to help out. This second week of internships has been far busier than the last. We held 2 exhibitions simultaneously, including 4 high schools and 1 UCSD graduate class. Mia and I have been in charge of many different tasks such as sending emails, receiving art from the winners of the 25 & Under contest, cleaning, and setting up for Thursday’s exhibition. Although there are many things to be done, sometimes Mario (our mentor) is too busy to be assigning us work all the time so we often take on the task of finding new people to help. This has worked perfectly for us, as we’re able to meet new people and learn new skills! Mario is my mentor and he is one of the people in charge of the education department. Although times get stressful, especially during exhibition week, Mario manages to handle it all. On top of being in charge of the logistics behind art exhibitions, Mario also takes it upon himself to take on the hospitality role. He makes sure food, dishes, and “mingling” spots are available to guests to enjoy. One thing I admire about Mario’s work ethic, that I would like to see in myself, is his ability to level out the work there is to be done between himself and the people surrounding him. He is able to take on work but also make sure that others are on their toes. Another person who is my mentor is Cris. Cris is the head of the education department and she is one of the most confident women I’ve ever seen in a workplace. Cris Scorza is always willing to help you with your tasks, but often will help you in order to push yourself. She understands the effort and time put into every piece of work that goes into creating a show and makes sure anyone working feels appreciated. One thing I would like to learn from her is to be so confident in your own decisions that it makes people agree with you. One last person who I would like to gain knowledge from is Liz! Liz is one of the leaders at the education department and she is focused on a teen artist group called TAG. Liz is so positive and one of the friendliest people I have yet to meet at my time in MCASD this far. Liz always has a smile on her face and makes sure to say good morning and goodbye every day. One skill I would like to take away from spending time with Liz is being more meaningful with the time I spend around others. Seeing Liz make an impact on both Mia and I, makes me want to make the same impact on someone else. My internship is at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in downtown. I begin at 10am and end my shift at 5pm. I like my schedule because I get to sleep in a little bit longer and get to watch up on my rest from the day before. I usually arrive around 30 minutes early from internship so I’ve been getting a coffee most morning to help me energize for whatever is to come throughout the day. My work site is not very big, there is maybe around 30 employees but each one is working on something to keep it moving. There are many departments within the museum that are all working together in order to fundraise money, bring in people, create contests, and educate younger generations. I am interning as a part of the education department which means that there are 2 main things I am working on right now. I am working on the 25 & Under contest and on the next ESP showcase. The 25 & Under contest consists of choosing 25 artists under the age of 25 to represent the artists in our community. The ESP showcase is the same thing that our school got to with collaboration of the museum, this month we are working with High Tech High Media Arts, San Diego High School, Westview High School, and Hoover High School. As part of the 25 & Under contest, Mia and I were assigned to sort through the top voted artists. In order to do this, we collected data from a website and casted the votes on spreadsheets in order to better display the data. After seeing which pieces got the most votes, we picked the top 25 voted. After doing this, we worked on an email to send out to the selected contestants congratulating them and reminding them to bring in their artwork. For the ESP showcase, I worked on writing a text for a poster describing the ideas behind each school’s exhibition. In order to get this showcase ready, we had to bring down furniture from upstairs multiple times and help arrange it in a way that better displays the new artwork. Another part that went into preparing for this showcase was cutting out labels for the artwork, receiving artwork from the schools. What strikes me the most about my workplace is that there are so many moving parts behind each contest, showcase, and museum visit. Each person contributes something meaningful to the team whether it be their compassion, tech skills, confidence, or simply their lending hand. There has been a lot of support from employees, they let us now that it’s a safe space and that they started off as interns too which they were able to translate into a long term job. |
AuthorMy name is Valeria Aguilar and I'm currently a Junior at HTHcv. Read these blog posts to know a little more about my experience! Archives
June 2018
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