This week was not particularly busy with my internship. I only went in on Tuesday since Thursday I was volunteering elsewhere. On Tuesday, I sat with Bethany and Eve to review the schedule for the upcoming months. Since there will be a large event in March (the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology Conference – Dr. Wolek, I’m sure you are excited for this!) we rescheduled Bethany’s nature sketch club on that Saturday so she has more time to help out. We will be assisting the center on a few of those days to make sure everything runs smoothly. I then helped Bethany schedule posts on Facebook for events coming up at the center related to art and wellness. I was actually able to show her that instead of putting the link into the caption like she has been doing, there was a way to link the page onto the post itself which also eliminated the need to upload a picture since it allows the user to preview the page right on FB. I finished my time there by helping her find a picture to use for the painting workshop she had the next day with residents of a nursing home. Although it was not as eventful as last week, it was still exciting to be part of the process of marketing and planning events for a nonprofit, which are both such huge parts of running one!
All posts by Laura Cheshire
Workshop and Art Festival
This week was very busy! On Tuesday I joined Bethany and another Arts and Wellness ambassador, Sonja, at the Center for Health and Well-being in Winter Park. We held a workshop for caretakers where we had attendees discuss their experience caring for loved ones and the challenges and joys that come with it. We then had everyone draw or paint what their work looks like and went around explaining it. Everyone seemed to find it calming to do art and share their personal background. I enjoyed getting to experience a very impactful way that art can be used to deal with difficult circumstances and even grief.
Today (Saturday) I was in New Smyrna to help run the Art Education tent at the IMAGES art festival. It was SO much fun. We had linoleum prints set out for kids to stamp onto a piece of paper and they all had a great time. Printmaking is particularly intriguing since every single print is different, even when you’re using the same carving. I ended up getting very good at explaining how to do the activity in a way that the kids understood while making it fun and being especially encouraging once they finished their print. This was great practice for me and I loved getting to see such happy kids enjoy making art.
1/15-21
On Tuesday of this week, I attended the monthly staff meeting with Bethany. This meeting was at the main campus where they display the work of several different artists and offer residencies. Everyone on the team was very welcoming to me and introduced themselves as they gave an update on their department. I was able to hear about roles such as donor relations, fundraising, event coordination, and more. It was not a particularly exciting meeting, but I feel like it allowed me to gain insight into the center and how it operates behind the scenes. I actually work at a nonprofit so I am already relatively familiar with how they operate, but of course this one is different and has different demands related to its mission.
Today, I helped Bethany with her monthly painting workshop called “Spotlight.” This is open to all ages, so there were adults and children. Each table was set up with supplies for today’s prompt. We ripped out images of a magazine and pasted them onto our canvas, which we then painted over to create a mixed media collage. I participated in the workshop myself and took note of how Bethany interacted with everyone there. She definitely kept a very positive attitude and made sure to encourage everyone as they went, ready to help when needed. I enjoyed getting to help set up/take the workshop and do it myself to get both sides of how an event like that works.
First week
This week, I started my spring internship at the Atlantic Center for the Arts! I am interning with Bethany, who helps coordinate community events and art workshops. On Tuesday, she went over the schedule and upcoming events that I will be helping with. I plan to go over on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help with various tasks and attend many of the events as well, which sometimes fall on weekends. Some events I am most excited for is the art festival at the end of January where we will help with the art education tent, and the arts & wellness academy in April. I really wanted to attend this academy last year but was unable, so the fact I can attend for free and help out excites me. On Thursday, I came back to the center and Bethany and I worked on tracing birds onto sheets of fiberglass and cutting them out for a community project she is working on. The center is going to have different groups of people paint the birds and turn them into a mobile. I really enjoyed getting to participate in this project and getting to do art as part of this internship while learning about its connection to wellness through a nonprofit setting is perfect for my major and I am thankful to have this opportunity. I look forward to the rest of the semester and what it holds 🙂