Dixon Gallery & Gardens Internship - Week 1


Dixon Gallery & Gardens Internship - Week 1

Day 1- July 5, 2023:

Dear Diary,

Today was my first day interning at my chosen museum. Luckily, for me, I had already visited the Dixon Gallery & Gardens for a school field trip, making me more excited than nervous. Unexpectedly, I was invited to a morning meeting. Everyone seemed nice and we had a nice little music chair set up for the meeting haha. I liked how everyone, from people who did financing, to people who did the landscaping, was invited and involved: reminded me of the family dynamic I formed during my YAP experience. But anyway, my boss (who's the director of education) introduced me as a new intern from the Youth Ambassadors Program. Everyone started clapping and congratulating me, and without realizing it, I joined in the celebration as if Angelina was not me.

I was put on the spot by a man who seems to be in charge of everything: he asked if I wanted to make a small speech but that I didn't have to since it was so sudden and that I may have been nervous. I usually don't make speeches. However, he reminded me of my neighbor who passed away months ago, and I guess I felt comfortable enough to speak in front of dozens of people. Maybe it was my way of speaking to my deceased neighbor one last time. I got up and spoke about how I'm excited to gain new experiences and skills throughout my internship.

I sat back down and mentally gave myself a high-five. Maybe I should run for president??? 

After the meeting, I was finally let into the educational building of my museum. My boss handed me my keycard and nametag, as she explained my assigned project. The museum is currently planning a new exhibit: Meet the Dixons. The Dixons were a married couple who established their home as an art museum where they donated their collection to the public. Additionally, they recently found photographs and documents of the couple. These photographs and documents range from blueprints and contracts to images of bears and vacation spots. I was excited that I got to carefully look through them and decided which would be best for a slideshow that will be displayed on a TV for the exhibit. Now I feel like Milo Thatch from Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

I had another meeting with 2 women that ran Cazateatro, a bilingual theatre group. Funny enough, I already knew one of the ladies because I was friends with her sons; so, this was the first time meeting her. The meeting generally consisted of how the museum and the theatre can assist and elevate Latino artists in our area. It made me realize how many Latino artists, and even regular Latinos, lack basic knowledge of taxes, contracts, documents for business services, etc. I mentioned how a way to expose our community to this problem and solution: target Hispanic restaurants and stores to spread information. Not too bad for my 1st-day ey?

I was also given an Outlook and Office login to officially set me up. Of course, technology doesn't always want to see you succeed: the password didn't work and I had to wait the next day for the technology experts to fix it. In the meantime, I was given a book about the museum's history, current exhibits, and programs and workshops. I took notes, then, I picked up boxes from upstairs where you needed a special keycard to enter (museum turned into the Pentagon?) and finally skimmed through them to get a general idea of what type of content I will be exploring. Oh yea, I was given a big binder with an index that provided the dates, people, location, etc. in regards to the photographs and documents. There were more than 10 boxes that probably weighed a ton each.....

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Day 2- July 6, 2023:

My Outlook and Office login finally worked, since I got a new password. For the entire day, I intensely looked through each folder and its envelopes containing the photographs. As I did this, I documented what photograph caught my eye. I only did the 1st two boxes of the entire Dixon archives collection. I had to pretend I was a surgeon because I refuse to let my shaky hands drop photographs that probably have multiple zeros on their price tag.

                

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Day 3- July 7, 2023:

Today I was assigned to design a card for the museum's Spanish book club: Club de Lectura. I was eager to start since I enjoy graphic design, and maybe through this process, I could read books again as another hobby. I experimented with different colors, textures, and formats for the side that showcased the books, their reading dates, and their summary. I only read one book in Spanish, but when researching the selected books, I think I might add more to that book count...               

                                                     

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Day 4- July 10, 2023:

My boss gave me feedback on my design for her Spanish book club. It was overall positive with few requests for minor changes in formatting. For the majority of the day, I scanned photographs from the 1st two boxes. I felt like a big girl using the big boy printer/ scanning machine. >:)

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Day 5- July 11, 2023:

I got new boxes to continue with my Dixon photograph search. I did this for the entire day.

In the morning, I served coffee that they had in the staff kitchen, but I didn't know where the sugar was. So instead of looking like a snooping rat, I decided to not look for the sugar and chug the soulless coffee. Tragic. ěš”TL  (me crying on the floor after that sad cup of coffee). 

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Day 6- July 12, 2023:

Today I scanned and cropped the rest of the photos from the next boxes I went through. I enjoyed my lunch break where I spoke to my coworker. She's really sweet and talking to her made me feel like I've been working at the Dixon for years and that we're best friends. We discussed how my summer has been going so far and she told me a funny story about her experience with coding. I already know that I will be missing my job and my wonderful coworkers that are guiding me through my internship.


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All in all, thanks to YAP, I've become more eager to try new things and intend to test my challenge and test my confidence during my internship.










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