Category: Uncategorized (Page 24 of 66)

Northeast:

• Director of Development, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, CT)
• Director and CEO, New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT)
• Curatorial Technician and Major Gifts Officer, Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT)
• Director of Finance, Florence Griswold Museum (Old Lyme, CT)
• Manager of Public Programs, Mattatuck Museum (Waterbury, CT)
• Edith Dale Monson Gallery Director/Curator, Hartford Art School/University of Hartford (West Hartford, CT)
• Public Program Facilitator, New England Air Museum (Windsor Locks, CT)
• Assistant Manager of Visitor Services, Discovery Museum (Acton, MA)
• Special Library Assistant for the Arts Department, Boston Public Library (Boston, MA)
• Manager of Visitor Services, Metropolitan Waterworks Museum (Boston, MA)
• Visitor Experience Supervisor and Visitor Assistant, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA)
• Programs Assistant, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA)
• Director of Communications and Programs, Art Complex Museum (Duxbury, MA)
• Marketing Manager, Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg, MA)
• Associate Director of Learning and Interpretation, Smith College Art Museum (Northampton, MA)
• Director of Community Engagement and Director of Preservation and Maintenance, the House of the Seven Gables (Salem, MA)
• Visitor Services Representative, Armenian Museum of America (Watertown, MA)
• Operations Manager, Amelia Park Children’s Museum (Westfield, MA)
• Gallery Attendant, Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA)
• Assistant Registrar, the Crosby Company of New Hampshire (Salem, NH)
• Education and Program Senior Coordinator and Curator of Collections, the Preservation Society of Newport County (Newport, RI)
• Executive Director, Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History (Middlebury, VT)

Mid-Atlantic:

• Director of Learning and Creativity, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY)
• Executive Director and CEO, Heckscher Museum of Art (Huntington, NY)
• Education Department Associate Manager, Whitney Museum (New York, NY)
• Chief Executive Officer, National Liberty Museum (Philadelphia, PA)
• Curator of American Art, Westmoreland Museum of American Art (Greensburg, PA)

Southeast:

• Head of Learning + Programs, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (Montgomery, AL)
• Native American Collections Specialist, the Filson Historical Society (Louisville, KY)
• Chief Development Officer, National Civil Rights Museum (Memphis, TN)
• Vice President of Collections, Andrew Jackson Foundation (Nashville, TN)

Midwest:

• Museum Director, Cafesjian Art Trust (Shoreview, MN)
• Art Bridges Fellow, Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE)
• Assistant Director of Gallery Teaching and School Programs, the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH)
• Chief Curatorial Officer, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (Oklahoma City, OK)

Southwest:

• Guest Service Supervisor, Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, AZ)
• Chief Development Officer, Desert Botanical Garden (Phoenix, AZ)
• Joseph F. Gross Endowed Curator, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ)
• Curator, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX)

West:

• Executive Director, Bolinas Museum (Bolinas, CA)
• Coordinator of Museum Programs and Student Connection, Manetti Shrem Museum (Davis, CA)
• Museum Educator, Los Altos History Museum (Los Altos, CA)
• Assistant Registrar, the J. Paul Getty Trust (Los Angeles, CA)
• Development Director, California Museum (Sacramento, CA)

Beginning in January, I and nine other students in Professor Christina Maranci’s seminar “The Threads of Survival: Armenian Liturgical Textiles” began our research into a rich group of Armenian liturgical textiles held at the Armenian Museum of America and the Museum of Fine Arts—and last Thursday, we finally had the chance to share the results of our hard work with the Tufts community! Our research last spring has culminated in an exhibition titled Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects, on view at the Tufts University Art Galleries through December 5. I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say that contributing to this project, from conception to completion, has been incredibly rewarding.

An embroidered saghavard (liturgical crown) from 1751.

Armenian liturgical textiles encompass a huge variety of uses, materials, iconographies, and artistic techniques: objects featured in Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects include a nineteenth-century silk shurchar (priest’s robe) that originated in an Armenian settlement in Surabaya, Indonesia, an intricately embroidered saghavard (liturgical crown) from 1751, two massive painted and block-printed altar curtains, and much more. As the exhibition’s description explains, these objects are highly valuable in that they “show the multidimensional nature of liturgical textiles and bear witness to the vitality of Armenian communities during the Ottoman Empire and their influence along global commercial routes,” and also because they exemplify “the survival of a people, its identity, and faith” against all odds. Most of these objects had never received proper scholarly attention until this year, and their public exhibition sheds much-needed light on their impressive materiality as well as their deep cultural value.

In Professor Maranci’s seminar last spring, each student chose one of the textiles set for exhibition to examine in depth. In addition to writing a research paper on our chosen objects, we also helped to write the wall labels and educational materials for the exhibition. My object—a fragmentary embroidery of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ dating from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and held today at the MFA—was likely originally displayed at the altar of an Armenian church, where it would have encouraged worshippers to reflect on both the tragedy of the Crucifixion as well as the hope of salvation and eternal life it represented.

The object I studied last semester—a fragmentary embroidery of the Crucifixion.

As a current graduate fellow for the Tufts University Art Galleries, I also contributed to Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects throughout the summer by drafting an educational guide to go along with the exhibition. The educational guide highlights four themes of the exhibition—Life / Afterlife; Network / Movement; Communities / Individuals; and Materials / Techniques—and presents some key questions that the objects on display invite us to consider. Participating in the exhibition as both a student researcher and a gallery fellow helped me to translate my in-depth work on a specific object into educational content that will (hopefully) appeal to a wide variety of visitors, a skill I will definitely carry with me into future curatorial experiences. I’m also in the process of helping to plan a few tours of the exhibition—check out the Gallery’s list of upcoming programs for more details!

Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects represents the culmination of the hard work and collaboration of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, gallery staff, and more, and it has been so exciting to see the exhibition come to life. You can check out Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects in the Koppelman Gallery at the Tufts University Art Galleries from now through December 5—and if you’re not in the Boston area, you can also explore the exhibition through the Gallery’s mobile app!

Prof. Maranci with a few of her students at the exhibition opening on September 23!

Communications and Administrative Coordinator – Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)

Executive Assistant to the Director, Boston Athenaeum (Boston, MA)

Program & Volunteer Coordinator, Canterbury Shaker Village (Canterbury, NH)

Events Coordinator, Seacoast Science Center (Rye, NH)

HR & Finance Associate, Shelburne Museum (Shelburne, VT)

Regional Site Administrator Northern New England, Historic New England (Portsmouth, NH)

Collection Specialist, Maine Maritime Museum (Bath, ME)

Collections Manager, Nantucket Historical Association (Nantucket, MA)

Community History Project Manager, Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, CT)

Archives and Research Manager, Historic Beverly (Beverly, MA)

Project Archivist, South County History Center (Kingston, RI)

Curatorial Assistant, Colgate University (Hamilton, NY)

Education Manager, Connecticut River Museum (Essex, CT)

Museum Educator, Martha’s Vineyard Museum (Vineyard Haven, MA)

Education Manager, Amelia Park Children’s Museum (Westfield, MA)

Student and Program Manager, MassArt Art Museum (Boston, MA)

This past weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack that shaped the future of U.S. security regulations and international relationships. Though it is still a dark memory that haunts thousands of people today, the 20th anniversary of this event also unveils an obvious, yet still surprising truth: there are many students today who have no memory or connection to the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. This has put educators in a tough spot; teaching about 9/11 felt more like a conversation, an opportunity to mourn together and discuss personal connections to a tragedy. Nowadays, the conversation is less personal and more formal since that direct memory or connection is no longer guaranteed.

So how do we start that conversation? For me, the best place to look was the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. Learning about difficult histories is, for me, only made worse in the classroom. Classroom teaching has always been a cold, disconnected field in my experience as both an educator and a student. Museums, however, have been a warm place to surround yourself with stories rather than facts, personality rather than numbers. So, of course, when trying to figure out how to begin talking about September 11, 2001, I immediately turned to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum has an abundance of resources on its website. These resources include lesson plans for different age groups, recordings and information for public programming, and even collaborative activities that allow parents to approach the subject with their children in an age-appropriate manner. There are far too many resources available for me to delve into, so instead I am choosing to focus on one that I think is universal and emotional yet pragmatic: oral histories. Both online and in the museum, you can hear actual interviews with people like Lieutenant Adrienne Walsh, first responder to the World Trade Center, or Arturo Ressi, World Trade Center engineer. These oral histories transport audiences to those pivotal moments on September 11, 2001 and offer real perspectives on the events of that day. There is fear, anger, and hope; there is determination, leadership, and loss. To hear the voices of people so directly tied to a tragedy is an unforgettable experience that serves as a great starting point for learners of all ages.

I cannot recommend another resource for teaching about this difficult history that would be more inclusive or informative than the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. I have crawled through endless pages and hyperlinks available on their website and virtual programming, and I continue to hope that museums will serve as a forefront for making education easier and more connected for communities.