Internship Duties

What I have been doing so far is still a bunch of shadowing the head curator and reporting what it is I learned at the end of the day. I am given articles, books, and handbooks to read through on my own time in order to understand more about art curation. At the end of each day I am expected to have a small list of questions to ask (and believe me, I have a good number of questions that I ask).

I work with my mentor a lot of the time since she has so much experience. She is currently teaching me how to catalog objects for the museum collection using a software called PastPerfect. Using this, I plan to collect all the information I can about the racehorse paintings inside Belair Mansion in order to create a small book. Belair Mansion has a huge chunk of it's history in horse racing, yet there is nothing physical to read about the equine artworks. The supervisor thought it would be a great idea for me to come up with a booklet detailing the equine collections that were once displayed in the house as well as the ones that are currently there. It's a good way for me to learn how to do this process and to be able to give something back to the museum. 

If you are interested in some of the articles I have been reading, here is the list:

1) Mining the Museum by Fred Wilson

2) September 11 and the Mourning After: Reflections on Collecting and Interpreting the Historry of Tragedy by James B. Gardner and Sarah M. Henry

3)From Being about Something to being for Somebody - The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum