Blast from the Past

If any of y'all remember the adorable Victoria Slaboda, who was one of our very first two Young Dawgs at GMOA, she is back in the building working at Ike & Jane under the stairs, cheerfully handing out doughnuts and making Americanos with what looks like ease.

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a film that has been out for a while now about street art, and Cine may show it here in Athens once the art students are back in town. Banksy, probably the most famous street artist in the world, plays a major role in the movie. His website is here. Banksy is famous enough and there’s enough about him on the web that I don’t feel the need to discuss him. Another street artist who is important to the film and a little more obscure than Banksy is Invader.

Unlike Banksy, who works with stencils and spray paint, Invader makes mosaics, which he then cements to walls. These mosaics are usually of the blocky aliens from the 80s arcade hit Space Invaders, hence the name, and can be found on walls all over the world (at least 35 cities have them). The artist lives in France, so most of the cities are in Europe, but his art can even be found in places as far away as Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, or Kathmandu. On his website (www.space-invaders.com) he tracks the progress of the invasion on a map with links to pictures of his small mosaics stuck to walls across the globe. The best part about this is that if you’re visiting a major city and have time to kill, you can get a map from Invader’s website showing the locations of his mosaics in that city.

More recently Invader has been creating pieces of what he calls Rubikcubism, in which he makes complex mosaics using only Rubik’s Cubes that he manipulates to show certain colors. These can be viewed here: www.space-invaders.com/rubikcubism_.html . Invader is important to the film because he is the cousin of Thierry Guetta (the main character), who becomes a street artist. Read more about the film here: www.banksyfilm.com

This post was prompted in part by recent events in Athens. Lou Kregel, before leaving Athens, painted chrysanthemums on walls around town. One can be found on the rooftop of the Jittery Joe’s Roaster and another on the wall of Athens Blueprint downtown. There was an article in Flagpole about this that can be read here: http://flagpole.com/Weekly/AthensRising/AthensRising-2Jun10 .
By Dylan Whitlow

Meet Dylan, GMOA's newest Young Dawg
My name is Dylan Whitlow. I am doing an internship at the Georgia Museum of Art through the Young Dawgs program. I am an upcoming senior at Athens Academy. I became interested in working in a museum last summer while I was in Switzerland, following a visit to Kunsthaus Zürich. The director of the summer program I was attending was an art history major and he was making us go, I think, so that he could charge the school for his visit instead of having to pay himself. So when we entered the museum I was less than enthusiastic. There were a few installations on the first floor that I liked, but not enough to think that there was nowhere in Zürich I would rather be. Then I walked up a staircase and saw a Mondrian painting that alone would have made the trip worthwhile because I finally saw the subtle grays that go unnoticed when seen in a book. At the Kunsthaus I also saw paintings by Kandinsky, Warhol, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Magritte, Picasso, Rembrandt, and artists I liked but whose names I had never heard. I was so amazed by that museum that I decided this summer I would try working in one myself to see what happens behind the scenes at an art museum and thanks to Young Dawgs I can. So I have been working at the Georgia Museum of Art for the past two weeks and I like it so far. I have been helping prepare things for publication, mostly by checking facts, which I liked because I was able to see the curatorial records kept on each painting. I have also helped by finding ways to improve the new museum website that is under construction. This is a great experience because I am able to see the goings-on behind a museum more each day and I am looking forward to the next few weeks here.

Famous now, or maybe later?

I am currently working on an education packet that relates art to literature in the classroom. This involves finding pieces of art in GMOA's permanent collection and creating assignments that follow the Georgia School Board's English and Language Arts standards while also linking the art piece to an English assignment in a fun and creative way for the student. I've been doing research trying to find works of art I would like to use—works that I feel will move and inspire students in different ways—and I've noticed something interesting.

Many of the art books I've been looking at that feature artists are "retrospective exhibitions" of the artists and their works. This makes me wonder, why are many artists more famous after their time than during it?

One example of this can be found a feature article on the Art Daily Web site today. The first thing you see is a picture of the "Bust of Renoir" and the article that follows is about a French artist by the name of Aristide Maillol who now has a retrospective exhibition of more than 120 works of art in Barcelona. 

While Maillol was, and still is, known in Paris for his work, he was not famous throughout the art world until recently, when Barcelona opened its exhibition. But why did he have to be “rediscovered” to become famous for his work? Why wasn't he known during his time throughout the art world for his beautiful bronze sculptures and incredible tapestry work?

Johannes Vermeer is another example. Vermeer is known throughout the art world now for his use of lighting in his paintings and his transparent coloring. He joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1653 and slowly became known in his hometown, but after his death his fame died out as well. Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Thoré Bürger, who wrote an essay attributing 65 works of art to him in the 19th century.

Why did it take so long for Vermeer to be recognized for the art he created? I wonder how many unknown artists are alive today who won’t be when they become famous for the art they created?

Many people think that artists are born well before their time. With the research I've been doing, and all the books of exhibitions done as retrospective views of artists' works, I'd have to say I agree. 

Hey hey!!

My name is Sarah Beavers and I am currently interning with GMOA. I am a senior at Clarke Central High School and have lived in and around Athens all my life. I’m always listening to music and going to shows around town. I love art and literature and I am aspiring to be a high school English teacher after college. I wanted an internship here because I had a really good English teacher in the eighth grade that made a huge impact on me. She was some how able to incorporate visual arts into her English class in a way that made the English easier to understand while teaching us to appreciate the art, and I would love to be able to do that for other students. I feel like this internship will give me some background of what people in the art field do, besides actually creating the art. I am very much looking forward to what I will learn with this internship! 

GMOA in the News

The Young Dawgs program has posted its summer 09 newsletter, which includes an interview with Alexis Richardson, who was our student this summer.

Young Dawgs: Alexis Richardson

Our Young Dawgs intern, Alexis, has completed her internship at GMOA. We enjoyed having her and look forward to hearing her presentation on her time here next week at the Young Dawgs reception. Here is her final post to the GMOA blog:

It is so unreal that these five weeks with GMOA is officially going to be over on Monday. I have enjoyed my internship here with my wonderful supervisors and the other interns. This was a different internship compared to my internship last year, because I didn’t do office work. Instead I got to do a lot of hands -on work. I have really enjoyed writing blog posts to express what I have been doing every week. I have learned so many different things that will help not only in school but also in a career. I have learned the importance of time management, to be more independent, to not sit around and wait for my supervisor to tell me what needs to be done, to do something without being told. Along with having my own personal space, which some of the other Young Dawgs don’t have, this makes it feel like a real job. I really have enjoyed the setup in this workplace because it is way different from a regular office. I like how everybody was out in a group instead of in an office. The desks and tables are not separated by walls or cubicles, which I think is very neat. There is a big balcony where you can see all through town and works by LDSOA ceramics students below. I am so glad that the publications and pr departments took the time to have me as an intern this summer. I have really enjoyed and learned so much from my time here.

Young Dawgs: Alexis Richardson

Alexis is almost done with her internship here (she only has a week left!), and here's her second-to-last blog post:

I can’t believe that I only have just a week and a day left with GMOA. I have so much respect for art now compared to before I started working here. My favorite type of art that I enjoy looking at is the Spanish art because it tells different stories and has history and different meanings behind it. I have also learned that anything can be art and that art does not have to be pretty. It can also be ugly. Even though I just scan books it’s not boring at all to me; it’s actually amusing to me. Because the different books have different types of art that are just very eye-catching I forget that I am scanning and just go through the whole book looking at the different images. Even though I do not want a career in art, I have a different outlook on art than when I was placed at GMOA. The whole point of the internship is to see if you still want to major in this field when going to college or in the career field, so I am very glad that Young Dawgs put me here because every day I am learning different little things about art that I thought I wouldn’t be too fond of at first.

More from Alexis, GMOA's Young Dawg intern

I can’t believe that I only have 2 weeks and a day left here at the Georgia Museum of Art. Even though I don’t have long here, every day is still worth coming to my internship. The other day I helped out with the arts and crafts activity for the little kids for AthFest. It was very fun; I had to cut up different materials used to make silly sun visors. Then another intern and I made our own sun visors, which are going to be used as examples so the kids can get ideas how to make their own. Then yesterday my supervisors were gone for the rest of the day, and I was in the publications department by myself. It was so quiet, and I was just scanning books until 4:00pm. That was the first time that I was the only one here for 2 hours. It really made me feel like a real employee and more independent. Other than that today has been just like any other fun day here. I am very glad that I am doing my internship with the Georgia Museum of Art this summer; every day is worth getting out of bed to come here for four hours.

Young Dawgs: Alexis Richardson

Alexis enjoyed her first blog post, and her supervisor in the Young Dawgs program was impressed, so she decided she wanted to keep writing about what she's learning here. You can expect to hear from her more often. Here's what she wrote today:

For the past three and a half weeks at GMOA, my internship here has been better then I thought. At first I was very nervous on the first day that I would mess up on scanning books. But I shocked myself when my prints turned out to be good. In the Publications department I enjoy my supervisors and the other interns that I work with. I am learning a lot of work skills that will help me in the workforce; for instance in the Publications department what shocked me was that I wasn’t doing office work, like answering the phones or getting mail. I am really doing things that you don’t normally do in an office. That’s why I really enjoy coming to GMOA every day because there is never nothing for me to do. I am always busy till it’s time for me to go home. This experience has showed me to be more responsible and to be more accreted. Day after day I am learning more things to get me ready for the real world on my own as a young adult.

Young Dawgs (Summer 09)

We have a new Young Dawg working at the museum this summer, and we asked her to tell us a little bit about herself, so here's what she wrote:

My name is Alexis Richardson. I am the Young Dawg intern for the Georgia Museum of Art. I attend Clarke Central High School and am an upcoming 11th grader. I am interested in spending time with family and friends along with having time for myself and being a teenager. I am doing the Young Dawgs Program because it gives high school students like me an opportunity to see how the real world is and a chance to see what type of career you might be interested in. Along with being in the Young Dawgs Program you get to experience college life and feel like a UGA student. The thing that I like about art is that it tells a story about why the artist chose to do it. Also art can say 1,000 words just by looking at it. This internship with the GMOA is every day teaching me new things not only about art, but different tasks that you do in the workforce. When I graduate in May of 2011 I plan to go to a four-year university to get a bachelor’s degree as a Registered Nurse, work in the hospital as a neonatal nurse and live outside of the state of Georgia.

Alexis has really been helping us out by scanning a lot of our archived brochures so that we can put them up on Issuu and you can use them for research and whatnot, and we're trying to find things for her to do that might play into her career aspirations more.

Young Dawgs Program

So our two wonderful Young Dawgs from the Classic City Performance Learning Center finished up their semester, which meant they each had to do a Powerpoint presentation on what they learned. We took pictures, we applauded, and we were extremely proud! We'll have a new high school student this summer, and we're really looking forward to it. The program is a great effort, and hearing everyone's presentations, not just our students, was genuinely inspiring.

Young Dawgs Program

Sometimes, it's not always clear how the museum participates in community outreach through the University of Georgia, as opposed to its outreach programs that focus on kids and seniors, which have a more state-wide bent. We were recently encouraged to participate in the Young Dawgs program, which provides internships to high school students as a way of preparing them for the workplace. The museum has always had a strong internship program for undergraduates and the occasional graduate student, but this is our first experience with younger kids volunteering, and they've been great. We had the two pictured above, Deylah McCarty (left) and Victoria Slaboda (right) interview one another about the experience, and what they came up with follows.

Victoria Interviews Deylah

Deylah McCarty is a 17-year-old senior at Classic City High School PLC.

Q. What do you want to be when you grow up?

A. An artist and a musician. I would like to open up my own shop to sell my art and be in a band.

Q. What attracted you to interning at GMOA?

A. Well, the art of course. I was also interested in learning how a museum works though. Seeing the business side of the art world. The opportunity to gain more computer experience was an attractive asset to me.

Q. What is the most valuable thing you have gained from interning at GMOA?

A. I learned how to make graphics for the website, which involved learning how to use new computer programs, and also just having work experience has been helpful.

Q. What’s your favorite thing that you have done at GMOA so far?

A. The “Art Of” graphic I made that got put on the front page of the website. I’m really proud of it.

Q. What’s the most interesting part about your internship?

A. Meeting new people, gaining new resources, especially people resources.

Q. You’re working in Public Relations, how do you think what you’ve learned there will be beneficial to your future career goals?

A. I’ve learned that being able to handle the public is really important, no matter what department you work in. Social skills are extremely important to business.

Deylah Interviews Victoria

Victoria Slaboda is an 18-year-old senior at Classic City High School PLC.

Q: As you’ve probably been asked a million times, what do you want to be when you grow up?

A: I plan to be a curator of the European arts.

Q: Why did you choose to intern at GMOA?

A: I love art! I thought it would be a good opportunity to see how a museum is run, and it’s a good link to learn more about being a curator.

Q: So far, what is the most valuable thing you’ve learned there?

A: How to resize photos for the website.

Q: What has been your favorite task so far?

A: I took pictures at the GMOA On the Move Campaign, which got blown up really big and hung up at the kick-off party, and I made a giant red arrow, which was also hung up at the party! For some reason I’m really proud of that arrow…

Q: What’s the most interesting event that has happened?

A: The GMOA kick-off party was very fun, with dancing and music, and I got to meet more of the GMOA employees and make more connections.

Q: You intern in the Public Relations department. How has this been beneficial in regards to your career goals?

A: Well, a curator works with the Public Relations department often, and when you work in a place that is essentially for the public (like a museum), it’s important to have a good relationship with the public. Social skills are always valuable, and business social skills will be good to have as well.

The museum plans to continue participating in the Young Dawgs program, and we'll have a new student from it this summer. Our interactions with our interns are always as educational for us as for them, and, honestly, we wouldn't get nearly as much done without them. Thanks, Victoria and Deylah, for being great kids and a big help!