Theresa Handwerk
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, Delaware
Education Department Intern
www.delart.org
Hello All,
I am a master’s student in the art history program at UD, and am very pleased to be interning in the education department at the Delaware Art Museum, a small-to-medium sized museum founded in 1912 and located in the Brandywine Valley in Wilmington, Delaware. The museum exhibits the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside of England, but the balance of its holdings are American artworks. The Delaware Art Museum has important collections of works by Howard Pyle (a late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century illustrator) and John Sloan (an twentienth-century painter who focused on urban scenes), and American artworks dating from the Colonial era to the present day. In 2003, the museum closed for two years to undertake extensive renovations and an expansion.
The education department has also recently expanded, and today consists of the Director of Education, managers of Studio and Family programs, a group tour coordinator, and an Americorps Public Ally/Outreach Coordinator. I have been working as an assistant to everyone in the department since winter break, varying my hours depending on projects and my class schedule, and will continue to do so during the upcoming academic year.
My duties consist of two longer-term projects and a variety of additional tasks. One of my projects is to prepare docent materials which will be particularly significant for a major Howard Pyle exhibit that the museum is presenting in 2011. The museum holds the works of several other illustrators in addition to Pyle’s. These pictures, for which the museum has the full-sized painting or drawing, originally appeared in magazines or books alongside the stories which they illustrated. My task is to unearth all of the stories which the museum does not currently have on file, digitize them, and make them accessible to the docents and curators. This is a challenging and fascinating job during which I am finding archival materials on the internet and handling the actual documents in either the museum’s library or the library at the University of Delaware. It is extremely tempting to stop and read all of the tales!
Another project of mine is to create a museum-wide gallery brochure, geared towards adults, which encourages the visitor to think about and view selected works of art in new ways. This is an exciting undertaking for me as I am primarily interested in introducing art to or expanding the artistic knowledge of teenagers and adults. I have selected a theme – scenes of domestic interiors, a particular interest of mine – and am in the process of selecting artworks and conducting research in the museum’s archives about the paintings and their creators. The challenges include striking a tone which would be both edifying and understandable to most visitors, making the presentation exciting yet low-tech, and creating what is intended to be a lasting document for the museum’s use and something that the guests can take home with them.
The Director of Education, my internship supervisor, has been amazing at providing me with a variety of tasks within the department. I’ve assisted with the organization of and introduced a lecture by an author on a book tour, supervised a gallery talk, presented a film, administered surveys to visitors (both via self-completing surveys and sit-down interviews), documented results of surveys, ran an art project for six-year-olds at a community center, and helped create databases and mass mailing packets for group tour marketing. I have taken advantage of opportunities to participate in meetings with staff and with a regional educators' forum, and to sit down for informational interviews with the executive director as well as members of other departments. I have also attended lectures and workshops at the museum. In the future I will be surveying school kids in regards to their experiences with an ongoing local school/museum partnership and continuing to help out at community days and various museum events.
My internship at the Delaware Art Museum, my first at a museum, has proven to be even more valuable than I would have imagined possible. It is eye-opening to participate in a corporate culture so different from what I have previously experienced. For example, I have been observing with interest the synergy amongst the various departments as they work together on the same projects and within the museum’s budget. In addition, the meetings I have attended on allow me a peek into both the long- and short-term planning of the museum. At least equal to the educational gains from my internship are the personal benefits. The Delaware Art Museum is a wonderful environment, and not only because everyone I have encountered is helpful, friendly and willing to teach. Even after eight months I am still amazed that I get to spend so much time in the incredibly beautiful, stimulating atmosphere that is the museum. The possibility that I might some day work for an institution whose mission I believe in so strongly is astounding to me.
I am looking forward to the coming months and will blog as new developments occur.
Hello All,
I am a master’s student in the art history program at UD, and am very pleased to be interning in the education department at the Delaware Art Museum, a small-to-medium sized museum founded in 1912 and located in the Brandywine Valley in Wilmington, Delaware. The museum exhibits the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside of England, but the balance of its holdings are American artworks. The Delaware Art Museum has important collections of works by Howard Pyle (a late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century illustrator) and John Sloan (an twentienth-century painter who focused on urban scenes), and American artworks dating from the Colonial era to the present day. In 2003, the museum closed for two years to undertake extensive renovations and an expansion.
The education department has also recently expanded, and today consists of the Director of Education, managers of Studio and Family programs, a group tour coordinator, and an Americorps Public Ally/Outreach Coordinator. I have been working as an assistant to everyone in the department since winter break, varying my hours depending on projects and my class schedule, and will continue to do so during the upcoming academic year.
My duties consist of two longer-term projects and a variety of additional tasks. One of my projects is to prepare docent materials which will be particularly significant for a major Howard Pyle exhibit that the museum is presenting in 2011. The museum holds the works of several other illustrators in addition to Pyle’s. These pictures, for which the museum has the full-sized painting or drawing, originally appeared in magazines or books alongside the stories which they illustrated. My task is to unearth all of the stories which the museum does not currently have on file, digitize them, and make them accessible to the docents and curators. This is a challenging and fascinating job during which I am finding archival materials on the internet and handling the actual documents in either the museum’s library or the library at the University of Delaware. It is extremely tempting to stop and read all of the tales!
Another project of mine is to create a museum-wide gallery brochure, geared towards adults, which encourages the visitor to think about and view selected works of art in new ways. This is an exciting undertaking for me as I am primarily interested in introducing art to or expanding the artistic knowledge of teenagers and adults. I have selected a theme – scenes of domestic interiors, a particular interest of mine – and am in the process of selecting artworks and conducting research in the museum’s archives about the paintings and their creators. The challenges include striking a tone which would be both edifying and understandable to most visitors, making the presentation exciting yet low-tech, and creating what is intended to be a lasting document for the museum’s use and something that the guests can take home with them.
The Director of Education, my internship supervisor, has been amazing at providing me with a variety of tasks within the department. I’ve assisted with the organization of and introduced a lecture by an author on a book tour, supervised a gallery talk, presented a film, administered surveys to visitors (both via self-completing surveys and sit-down interviews), documented results of surveys, ran an art project for six-year-olds at a community center, and helped create databases and mass mailing packets for group tour marketing. I have taken advantage of opportunities to participate in meetings with staff and with a regional educators' forum, and to sit down for informational interviews with the executive director as well as members of other departments. I have also attended lectures and workshops at the museum. In the future I will be surveying school kids in regards to their experiences with an ongoing local school/museum partnership and continuing to help out at community days and various museum events.
My internship at the Delaware Art Museum, my first at a museum, has proven to be even more valuable than I would have imagined possible. It is eye-opening to participate in a corporate culture so different from what I have previously experienced. For example, I have been observing with interest the synergy amongst the various departments as they work together on the same projects and within the museum’s budget. In addition, the meetings I have attended on allow me a peek into both the long- and short-term planning of the museum. At least equal to the educational gains from my internship are the personal benefits. The Delaware Art Museum is a wonderful environment, and not only because everyone I have encountered is helpful, friendly and willing to teach. Even after eight months I am still amazed that I get to spend so much time in the incredibly beautiful, stimulating atmosphere that is the museum. The possibility that I might some day work for an institution whose mission I believe in so strongly is astounding to me.
I am looking forward to the coming months and will blog as new developments occur.
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