For Some Students, A Local Museum Became The Ideal Summer Classroom

By Shannon Hicks

RIDGEFIELD — The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art became a second home for Amy Grabowski this summer, when the Newtown resident and peers spent two to three days each week at the museum participating in its internship program.

Amy will be heading off for her senior year at University of Maryland at College Park this fall with a brand new understanding of how a press department — along with many other departments — of a museum works. Whether or not this will affect her career decision down the road, the art history and government and politics major (and a graduate of the College Park Scholars Program and a dean’s list student at UMD) has certainly added work into her writing portfolio and can say with confidence that she spent the summer doing something she is “very proud of.”

“I have spent time learning something in-depth, which is what any good internship is all about,” Amy said recently.

The Aldrich internship program was designed by museum educator and intern coordinator Melanie Zalman to provide students with exposure to and experience within a contemporary art museum. The students who participated found themselves working hands-on with nearly every behind-the-scenes component of the popular Main Street museum.

The Aldrich already has a reputation for inventive education programs coupled with a hands-on approach to contemporary art. At the heart of the museum’s mission, in fact, is a commitment to education and the development of education programs that reflect the inventiveness, creativity, and timelessness of the art the museum exhibits.

According to its own mission statement, “The Aldrich Museum’s goal is to be a leader in both the exhibition of significant and challenging contemporary art, and in museum education.” Thanks to its willingness to take chances and continue to add new, challenging programs, the museum calls itself “a laboratory for museum education.” With its innovative internship program, the museum has succeeded in raising the bar once again for providing students with career exposure and experience within a museum.

“This program actively responds to the gap found in many high school and undergraduate institutions by providing a forum for training in the arts and extensive career exploration within a museum,” said Ms Zalman.

Interns worked with a staff member, who served as a mentor, in a variety of positions for the museum. Amy was one of two interns working under the direction of Aldrich public relations coordinator Megan Luke. The second intern working with Ms Luke was Leslie Bischoff-Wurstle, a Redding resident.

Together, Amy and Leslie were responsible for generating publicity both regionally and nationally for the museum’s diverse events, ranging from art exhibitions to jazz concerts. The girls generated press releases, completed mailings, spoke with the museum’s press contacts, and even recorded public service announcements at local radio stations.

Additionally, Amy focused on developing publicity for the museum on its Web site, a new and non-traditional medium for press, and also maintained the museum’s extensive media list (the museum has more than 900 press contacts), while Leslie created an archival system for the museum’s photographs — visual records of the museum’s history, employees, programs, and events.

While the students were working on their independent projects under their respective staff mentors, the true success of the program, Ms Zalman feels, came from what the museum educator called “intermentoring” — a constant contact between the interns. The idea of interns working as a full team materialized during group trips to galleries in New York City, intern meetings, intern and staff meetings, and attendance at museum-sponsored events.

The interns participating in the summer program at the Aldrich hail from diverse academic backgrounds, from high school students who are still forming their life goals to graduate students who are seeking hands-on experience to jump-start their careers. Three of the museum’s former interns now work full-time as staff members.

The advantage of working at a museum that is smaller in scale, like the Aldrich, instead of one of the larger museums in New York City or even either of the Yale museums in New Haven was not missed on the interns.

“This has been a great stepping stone,” Amy said. “If we had gone elsewhere we wouldn’t have had the experiences we had here, where we’ve had access to almost everything.”

Fellow intern Leslie Bischoff-Wurstle agreed. “We had a lot of responsibilities put on us, and that felt important,” said the classical studies major, who returns to Dickinson College for her junior year this fall. “It made us feel very good about ourselves.

“I don’t know if I’m going to take a job in an art museum’s press department,” she admitted, “but I think I may work with a museum at some point in the future.”

Final Presentations

As the program wound into its final days last week, Melanie Zalman was already beginning to suffer from what her interns were jokingly calling PID, or Post Intern Depression. Promises to keep in touch were being made, and a farewell party was being planned.

On August 17, four of the program’s interns gave presentations at the museum to a group that included Ms Zalman, education curator Nina Carlson, and Aldrich Museum director Harry Philbrick, among other staff members, interns, and invited guests.

Amy and Leslie were joined by Evelyn Israel, a junior political science major this year at Amherst College, and Camilla Mackeprang, a junior at Boston University, in offering short presentations describing what they have learned this summer and what their independent projects were.

Miss Mackeprang spent much of her summer working in the children’s education department. She discussed the ups and downs of working with children, the “extensiveness” of planning a children’s workshop, and offered a preview of a children’s workshop she will be returning in the fall to lead.

Miss Israel talked about the “double-duty internship” she had, with her time divided between working with volunteer coordinator Aaron Winterbaum and the summer children’s program Art Daze. She also previewed an idea that will not come to fruition until next year, but has already become a major undertaking for the museum: an all-day concert.

Miss Bischoff-Wurstle presented the first volumes of the new Aldrich Archives, which are bound volumes of photographs dating back to the museum’s first years of operation, and a handout on how future interns are to put the archives together as well as how users can locate what they are looking for. What began as stacks and boxes of photos have now begun to be organized into specific categories, with clear labeling and a system that will keep photos in color-coded binders.

Miss Grabowski’s presentation was a discussion of the work she did this summer in the museum’s PR department. Her handout, The Public Relations Handbook, included an overview of intern responsibilities and the tools those in a press department have at their disposal. She also passed around copies of some of the press releases she took care of writing this year, which will now be added to her portfolio.

“They did a lot of work above and beyond their internships, and they were all wonderful,” Melanie Zalman commented last week. “They worked well together, and they did a lot of work outside the museum. It’s been very exciting around here this summer. I’m really going to miss them.”

Internships at the Aldrich are available for fall and winter terms in select departments. The application process includes a letter of recommendation, an essay by the applicant, and an interview, among other steps. For details, contact Melanie Zalman at 203/438-4519.