Reposted from the Spiritual Sunflower's wordpress blog, originally posted on September 21st, 2018
The Best Experiences Come When You Aren't Looking For Them:
A Summer Internship at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, FL
This past summer, I received an amazing, unexpected opportunity that has opened up a whole new world of knowledge and possibility to me at the Polk Museum of Art.
An internship opportunity was surely something I had my eye out for after my sophomore year at Florida Southern, but wasn’t actively pursuing. One day towards the end of the spring semester, my mom shared with me a link on Facebook about a Florida Southern student internship at the museum.
I’m not an art major, but the thought of spending my summer in a museum triggered my curiosity and artistic side. I submitted an application, hoping that my passion for art and learning would shine through and I would be granted this opportunity.
Over the summer, I spent 6 weeks at the Polk Museum of Art, soaking up as much as I could from the departments. The program included two weeks in each department: curatorial, education, marketing and weekly shifts in visitor services. After completing the summer program, I decided to continue my education with an internship in marketing and member services.
The family environment and teamwork at the Polk Museum was something that, to me, I feel like people dream to be a part of when they grow up. While I continued my internship in marketing, I enjoyed every minute at each of the other departments, and this experience has opened my eyes to a whole new area of opportunity to explore.
Through the museum, I have learned about the caring and preservation of pieces of art, which is so cool to me. These one-of-a-kind works are pieces of our history that must be delicately and attentively cared for. Getting to see how pieces of art are stored and shared between museums to help create exhibitions was also fun to see. I think it’s awesome how museums lends pieces of art to one another to complete exhibitions and share the story of that piece with even more people.
The biggest perk of being in marketing, to me, is how involved you get to be in the other departments. It’s important to share with the public everything going on within an organization to build personal relationships with them, so posting about the shipments of artworks, future exhibits and even how artwork is stored and cared for in museums is something to delve into for publishing content.
Another wonderful opportunity the Polk Museum provided me with this summer was working with children. I’ve taught swim lessons for five years already, but through the museum’s summer camp program I was able to help teach elementary and middle school students how to create clay sculptures and other fun art projects. I’d never had experience teaching kids art before and it was just as fun as I thought it would be.
It’s also the marketing department’s job to share exciting news and events going on with schools and summer camps at the museum. For example, the museum does weekly tours for 4th graders and now a special evening curator tour on the first Thursday of every month for those who are done work or class after the its normally closed on weekdays. The diversity of people that visit the museum is something to be enjoyed and shared with everyone, because there’s a place for everyone to learn and be a part of something in a museum.
My responsibilities as a marketing intern this fall include managing the Melvin and Burks Galleries Facebook page, assisting with the museum’s Instagram profile and developing strategy for building audience and engagement on social platforms. As a communications major, and someone involved in network marketing, these are things right up my alley, but in a different area than I would have thought even last summer.
My experience at the Polk Museum of Art so far has been nothing but mind-opening and educating. Every day I’m pushing the creative limits of my mind to come up with new, engaging content to share and meeting artists and community members I never would have even heard about if it wasn’t for the museum. Through all of this, I’m doing what I love and dream of doing, which makes it that much better.
I’ve been presented with challenges, new ideas and experiences, and began building many new, deep connections in my life through the opportunities the museum has brought me. I’m so thankful for the experience I’ve had so far and I can’t wait to see how I’ll continue to grow the rest of this semester at the museum.