“Having a museum on campus gives us the opportunity for hands-on learning without having to travel the whole world,” says Zoe Alpert, ’25, “the world is all in one building!” While the collections at ̽̽’s Fleming Museum of Art are not exhaustive of world art, culture, and history, they provide nearly infinite opportunities for students to observe, research, and learn from art objects firsthand.
Even more so for students like Zoe, a History major with minors in both Art History and Holocaust Studies, who completed a collections and curatorial internship at the Fleming this spring. Working directly with Curator Kristan M. Hanson and Collections Manager Margaret Tamulonis, Zoe learned to properly document a gallery for deinstallation, dug into the history of the Museum’s principal benefactor Katherine Wolcott, and helped in the selection of blankets and rugs, created by Diné weavers, that will be on view this coming fall semester.
Could you give us an overview of the projects you’ve been working on at the Fleming?
Yes! One project I have been helping prepare for is the lobby construction project at the Fleming this summer. As a result of the project, the Wilbur Room [currently known as the Asian Art Gallery] and corridor cases will be deinstalled and the objects moved to storage. It is a large undertaking to move so many objects at once and to do so it is necessary that all objects are properly documented in the database. For the first few weeks of the semester, I worked to make sure all objects getting moved to storage are photographed and accounted for. I recently had the great opportunity to sit in on a meeting with a few professors in the History and Art History departments to hear their opinions and suggestions for a new installation when the space becomes available.
Another project that I have been working on concerns Katherine Wolcott, the niece of Robert Hull Fleming and one of the reasons the Fleming Museum is here today. This fall semester I did a project for my history seminar on some of the Fleming’s East Asian collections and donors, and during my research I discovered Katherine Wolcott. She is an interesting figure to me because she made a large donation to the Fleming in her uncle’s name, but her name is largely erased from the Fleming’s history. I am in the process of helping to write an object label for works donated by her that will be in the Collections Gallery soon that can give some insight to visitors on her role in the Museum’s history.
I have also had the opportunity to help choose the Diné (Navajo) blankets and rugs that will be in the Native American Gallery this fall and one that will be displayed in the Collections Gallery as well. I worked with Margaret to photograph the rugs in storage and then make suggestions to Kristan based on rug condition, size, quality, and potential for visitor education. Last week we discussed some of the choices and made decisions!
What was your favorite thing about interning at the Fleming?
Getting to touch things, [with gloved hands] aka breaking the #1 museum rule! Every day it was something new – whether it was a medieval nativity scene or a leaf from an Armenian Lectionary, I was always texting my friends saying, “look what piece of history I got to work with today!”
Also, I’m sure everyone gives this answer, but the people really made my internship amazing. The staff at the Fleming are a tight-knit, kind, and passionate crew that welcomed me immediately (and always had cookies!). Although my position was primarily with Margaret and Kristan, I got to work with almost everybody at some point and learn about everyone’s role. I always felt that I was wanted and that my opinion was valued – I have never been in a professional setting like this where I was always made to feel like an equal. I could not be more grateful to everyone for the most amazing internship experience ever.
You had already completed some research even before working at the Museum, correct? Can you tell us more about your initial paper and how that led you to becoming an intern?
This past fall I took Professor Esselstrom’s Americans in East Asia history seminar. For our term paper, we could write about anything related to the class topic. The idea for my paper began with a research article we read in class about Henry Caldwell and his search in China for the “blue tiger.” The article discussed the dynamics between Caldwell and the museums and research centers in the U.S. that he was constantly sending specimens back to. It led me to thinking about the Fleming, the museum closest to me, and how many East Asian objects were in the collection. It inspired the basic question of “how did all of these things get here?”
Margaret and Kristan helped me brainstorm ideas for research paths and gave me access to documents from some of the museum’s largest collectors and donors of East Asian art, including [Henry LeGrand] Cannon and Fleming. In sorting through the documents on the Museum, I of course found Katherine Wolcott. When I saw that the Fleming was looking for a spring intern, I was very excited at the possibility to continue some of this research and to learn from Margaret and Kristan directly. It has been a neat feeling after all that research for the paper, to then get to actually work hands on with these objects.
Was there any artwork that became your favorite or most surprised you?
Working with the Diné (Navajo) rugs gave me a new appreciation for an entirely different medium and type of art. Working with them hands on, rolling and unrolling, gave me a profound appreciation for different types of works and the hours and hours of labor that goes into making them. I will never forget the suspense each time we unrolled a new rug and the reaction to unrolling an especially eye-catching piece.
Having worked directly with our exhibitions and collections team, what insights or new perspectives were you able to take away about museum work?
I am so thankful that I was able to work with Kristan and Margaret. They bring such interesting perspectives to museum work, and I learned just as much watching them work as I did doing work. From Kristan I learned so much about how she thinks about objects working together in a space. The objects are not standalone objects that each contribute to a theme individually, but their labels, positions, and displays all work in conjunction with one another. From Margaret I am so grateful to learn about so many different roles in museum work that are out there. Everyone constantly asks, “what do you want to do after graduation?” and I don’t feel like I can give a genuine response simply because I don’t know what’s out there! Margaret has opened so many different paths that I didn’t know were there.
What do you think are the benefits of having a museum on campus?
The Fleming is such an underutilized resource. Having a museum on campus gives us the opportunity for hands-on learning without having to travel the whole world: the world is all in one building! Visiting the museum not only gives us the opportunity to see things and artworks from different time periods but understand what was valued in different periods and how our perceptions of objects/periods/places have changed.
What from this internship experience will you take back into your studies or next professional opportunity?
From this internship I am taking away the fact that within a museum, I really like being hands on with the objects. Learning how to care for them and about different types of object storage showed me that if I decide to pursue a career in the museum field, I would like to be in a role behind the scenes and that places me among the objects. I could spend days and days in storage just exploring and looking at everything.
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