SAM Fam Archives - Page 4 of 4

Gearing up for Remix!

Seattle Art Museum on May 31 2012

Hey there! It’s Natalie Dupille, SAM’s newest PR intern. I’m excited to be working here, and even more excited for tomorrow—and not just because June 1 is my 21^st birthday. Tomorrow is Remix, SAM’s hippest quarterly event, and it promises an evening jam-packed with performances, talks, dancing, DJs, and more.

I’m totally intrigued by Seattle band Midday Veil, who will be fusing mesmerizing, hypnotic rock meditations and vibrant projections to grace us with unique multimedia performances at 9:00 and 10:45 pm in the South Hall. On top of that, there’s the collaborative music and art installation by SAM and Olson Kundig Architects, inspired by the Theaster Gates exhibition, which runs through July 1. Join us in the Chase Open Studio, where, in addition to listening stations and hands-on activities, DJ Riz presents the Stairway to Vinyl Listening Party, where he’ll spinning LPs from the Record Store’s robust collection of records throughout the evening.

Remix is also a great opportunity to check out SAM’s newest exhibit, Ancestral Modern, an exuberant exhibition of contemporary art from one of the world’s oldest living cultures that includes more than 100 artworks created by Australian Aboriginal artists in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Cellist Paul Rucker will be creating “Sonic Interpretations” live in Ancestral Modern at 9:15 and 10:30 pm tomorrow, a surefire way to experience an already rousing exhibition.

Having never before attended Remix, I am thrilled to not only be able to attend, but also to be a part of this exciting event. Looking forward to all that and more, hopefully my enthusiasm is contagious, and I will see you there!

PS- The first 50 people in rainbows get in for free. Rock that ROYGBIV!

Meet Our Second PR and Social Media Intern

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 11 2012

As the second PR and Social Media Intern for the SAM this quarter, it would be best to introduce myself on first day of work. For me this internship is an opportunity to approach art and museums in a new manner from my previous experiences.

I was born and raised outside Chicago, a place which instilled in me a strong love cultural cities and a distaste for tedious flat landscape. For university, I moved to the Pacific Northwest, a region that beckoned me with mountains and a body of water more endless than Lake Michigan. After spending nearly two years abroad, I returned to Seattle and eventually to school at UW as a MA student in Art History.

Meet Our New PR and Social Media Intern

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 5 2012

I’m always excited when I find myself at the beginning of a new chapter in my life. Today marks my first day as a Public Relations and Social Media intern at the Seattle Art Museum, and the start of a new professional adventure with opportunities and possibilities to discover.

SAM’s Got Talent

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 11 2011

I sit right next to Joshua Gosovich every morning at the reception desk in the administrative offices of the museum. We talk a lot. We are always updating each other on the most recent movies we’ve watched. We share ideas on how to cook unusual produce. He is an adventurous farmers market shopper and I get strange fruit in my CSA produce box. (According to Josh, roasting a Jerusalem artichoke is really good!). And of course we commiserate on the woes and hilarity of a rather public desk. In addition to being the museum receptionist and my compatriot, Josh is also an artist. He is currently having an art show at the Balmar in Ballard through December 9. I realized that I didn’t know very much about Josh, The Artist. Following is my bright-light-in-the-eyes interrogation to learn more about my artist friend.

Read More

As Delightful as a Double Rainbow: Summer Interns Sara and Hailey

Seattle Art Museum on Sep 2 2011

We’re saying goodbye to the last of our summer interns. Here’s a little about Sara Portesan and Hailey Hargraves’ experience at SAM in their own words. -Madeline Moy, Digital Media Manager

Hailey Hargraves, summer intern at the Seattle Art Museum

SAM’s School & Educator Intern Hailey Hargraves treds lightly on Carl Andre’s Lead-Aluminum Plain.

Hello all! Our names are Hailey Hargraves and Sara Portesan, and we have spent the past three months as interns in the Education Department here at the Seattle Art Museum. In light of our time here, which is sadly coming to an end, we decided to interview each other and give you (the delightful and dedicated reader) a better idea of both ourselves and our roles here at SAM.

Read More

A Day as an Intern at SAM

Seattle Art Museum on Sep 2 2011

We’re saying goodbye to the last of our summer interns. Here’s a little about Alex Wade’s experience at SAM in his own words.
-Madeline Moy, Digital Media Manager

By Alex Wade

My alarm goes off at 7:30 am. Of course I hit snooze for those oh so crucial extra five minutes. Then it’s off to the shower. I get dressed and walk to the bus stop. It’s 8:13 am and the 345 arrives a few minutes late like always. I take my seat and ride to the Northgate Transit Center where I hop on the 41. I get off at my stop and walk through the tunnel. As I continue through the tunnel, I can see the light (figures huh?). I come out of the tunnel at 2^ndand University right in front of SAM. It’s an impressive building and I always feel important as I swipe my card key to get into the employee entrance. The security guard says, ”Hi Alex” as I sign in and type my pin code into the computer. Then it’s off to the 5^th floor, a floor you would never expect existed unless you worked at the museum. A floor where everything that keeps the museum going is thought of, implemented and carried out.

Dear SAM: A Love Letter From a Summer Intern

Seattle Art Museum on Aug 17 2011

Dear SAM,

I usually begin letters more eloquently than this. There’s usually a smooth intro, a “how do you do,” a nifty tidbit about my life. But brutal honesty is all that’s coming to mind now and I think we’re now close enough for that. So here it goes: I am going to miss you immensely. And here’s why…

SAM Art: Some Thoughts from Our Interns, Part II

Seattle Art Museum on Aug 16 2011

For this week’s SAMart, I would like to share with you the reflections of two summer interns I have been lucky enough to work with for the past several weeks. Katie Tieu and Jasmine Graviett have been friendly, thoughtful, conscientious, and eager colleagues this summer, and will be missed when they go back to their “real” lives—as a sophomore and a senior in high school, respectively.
-Sarah Berman, Collections Coordinator and Research Associate

My experience at the Seattle Art Museum

Jasmine Graviett

You don’t find many 17-year-old girls working/interning at an art museum, but I am one of them.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Graviett and I am a YWCA GirlsFirst intern, which is an all girls program that helps young ladies get through their high school years and this program is how I got my awesome internship at SAM. Working at SAM has helped me see art in a different way and understand more about the art work. At first I wasn’t really all that into art, I only liked art that made sense to me or that I could relate to. Things that looked like a whole bunch of paint splashed on a board or something that looked like a 2-year-old drew it never really appealed to me because I thought that I could make something like that. I mean, what could be so special about that? This summer I found out there’s a story behind every single painting and that it isn’t always as it seems.

SAM Art: Some Thoughts from Our Interns, Part I

Seattle Art Museum on Aug 16 2011

My Experience Here At SAM

By: Katie Tieu

My name is Katie, and I am a YWCA GirlsFirst intern. GirlsFirst is an all girls program that teaches us life lessons, how to stay on track in high school, and how to succeed in life. GirlsFirst also helps us get internships by teaching us skills that we need to use to get a job. They taught us many things, like how to type a resume, cover letter, and how to talk properly in an interview. They had a list of jobs for girls to apply for, and I was hired by the Seattle Art Museum to be a Human Resources intern. I am working here for 8 weeks during my summer break, but it’ll be ending soon.

Being here at SAM is very fun and such a great experience. While I was here, I saw and learned how the museum actually operates. I also got to see the exhibitions and the permanent collection here, and what can I say? IT WAS AMAZING. Just by looking at each detail an artist includes is very mind blowing. Like this painting. It was created by Jackson Pollock and is called Sea Change, painted in 1947. Does it look like any ordinary painting that anyone can do? That’s what I thought. But, look closely, every detail you see on the canvas was planned and thought about before it was there.

A SAM Intern’s First Visit to the Seattle Asian Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum on Jun 22 2011

Within the Fuller room, visiting monks from the Gaden Shartse monastery were creating a mandala and will do so over the next few days. Mandalas are a Buddhist form of sacred art that carry spiritual significance. They are made by layering colored sands in an intricate design which usually relates to the dwelling of a diety. The monks vigorously run one chakpur (a bronze funnel that holds colored sand) over the ridges of another chakpur in order to direct the sand into the design.

Gaden Shartse monk making mandala as part of Seattle Asian Art Museum and Dechenling collaboration

Monk prepping chakpur for mandala making.

Once the design is complete, the monks will sweep the sand into a container which will be placed in moving water such as a river or ocean. So four days of concentrated, intricate work gone in about thirty minutes. Quite a reminder of beauty and its impermanence.

Continuing through the museum, I repeatedly viewed objects made of nephrite. Upon later research, I learned that nephrite is one of two kinds of jade and usually comes in shades of green, grey, and brown with varying degrees of translucence. My favorite object was a dragon and tiger plaque, made of nephrite in the Ming period (1368-1644). It’s a decorative object, and it made me think about how there was a time that anything functional was expected to be beautiful, that functionality and beauty are not mutually exclusive.

Dragon and tiger nephrite plaque.

The displays of ceramics, sculptures, and scrolls were lovely and accessible. The labels gave clarity to the objects they described but still left me with room to interpret and understand the works on my own. I most appreciated this when admiring a woman’s robe from China, ca. 1875-1908. The label mentioned that garments in this era were seen as descriptors of one’s true nature as well as indicative of socioeconomic status. I found this idea inspiring and refreshing as much of what I’ve studied with fashion discusses garments as an act of display of wealth or a purposeful effort to control how others’ interpret us, not necessarily as an indication of our nature.

Woman’s robe.

I definitely enjoyed my time at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. It’s a manageable museum with space that facilitates easy movement from exhibition to exhibition and that contains a diverse range of work characterized by unique perspectives. I enjoyed something in each exhibition: plaques, robes, kimonos, prints, ceramics, and contemporary prints juxtaposed with sculptures and paintings. I plan on going back there and taking some people I know that will likely enjoy it as well.

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Top photo: First camel ride ever.