Workin’ 9 to 5: Museum style
September 28, 2006
What I love:
- Playing around with paint and color
- My Duel 2 GHz Power PC G5 MAC and wide screen monitor!
- Working with artsy people
- Seeing art before everyone else does
- Ethnic food lunches
- Always learning something new about history and art
- Checking out the sets of movies that are being shot in the Baltimore area like Ladder 49 (I really enjoyed that movie too) with John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix; The Visiting with Nicole Kidman; or Bruce Willis’ new Die Hard movie.
What I don’t:
- Budgets
- Working with artsy people
- Excuses for writing labels beyond the average adult reading level: “But what will my colleagues think!?”
- Excuses for exhibition designs that break the laws of physics: “But you’re ruining my aesthetic vision!”
Ah . . . just another day in the life of a museum.
Advertisement
8 Comments
leave one →
Ladder 49 was a great movie, too
Yeah, Ladder 49, not 39. Oops, fixed that. Thanks Lib!
I have become one of those artsy people that people love and hate to work with. HA HA. I laugh about how worked up I get over my images or when someone wants me to do something and doesn’t give me the time or working conditions to produce what they want. I turn into the sterotypical artist and then I have to laugh at myself…but it is true.
What a fun job you must have. Sounds like the pros outweigh the cons.
Enjoyed reading your lists. What do you mean by writing labels….? I missed that.
I’m so jealous! I’ve always wanted to work for a museum! AND I wish we lived nearby so we could check out the museums during Freefall!
Explanation: The curators write labels for objectst that go on view. Often they’re beyond comprehension. However, Curators are hard to edit. They often put up a fight. One common excuse or appeal to use certain words is, “But what will my colleagues think!?” I don’t do the editing, but my co-worker does and it’s part of my department’s job. I have to listen to it all!
Are you talking about people who want to sound educated (and indeed they are educated if they are curators) but end up confusing the heck out of readers? You just wanna say, “”Plain English, please!” Is that what you’re talking about? They feel pressure to impress their colleagues at the risk of “losing” Citizen Q who is trying to interpret the label?
Yep, that’s what I meant!