Rachel Fugate, EAM intern

If you ask what impresses me about Rachel, it’s her warm and slightly shy smile. Rachel told me that she had been an exchange student in Italy for one year. I think that’s why she is patient to explain to me when I’m confused about some English words she said.

Rachel graduated from Birmingham Southern College, and her major is art history. Because of an interest in Museums, she decided to be an intern in the Erie Art Museum (EAM). She became more certain that she liked Museum study when she began working in the EAM. During this internship, she mainly assists the registrar in the EAM, Vance Lupher, by organizing the artwork in the EAM collection. Sometimes she assists Stephanie Crowell, the education coordinator, with some activities. This summer, the EAM is preparing to hold a traveling exhibition about East African cloth. Rachel is also involved in this project. She is assisting in arranging the collection and preparing the exhibition. Rachel thinks that by being an intern here, she can know how a staff manages a museum and can involve herself in lots of stuff. She likes the working environment. I too think that the EAM is one of the few museums that have enough free space to let interns be involved in the whole system.

Rachel thinks that the EAM is a special and unique museum in that the EAM is trying to get people involved and allowing staffs to have any new idea about their own job. The EAM always provides a variety of programs for visitors, like Art in Action and Art camp, and visitor can choose any programs depending on their flavors. I think that the EAM is a people-centered institution. You can get very involved in the EAM, and this is the most cherishable part of this museum.

What I see, What I think in the VTS session

This week is teacher week. The origin of teacher week comes from a coincidence. Once, the EAM held short, one-evening program for teachers. After that program, a teacher told Kelly that she thought the museum should have a weeklong summer training, and thus teacher week was born. This program builds a cooperation between the EAM and teachers. Teachers can help the EAM to hold some exhibitions by writing the text and by make the EAM rethink their position to understand how ordinary people think about some artwork. Therefore, teachers can be a bridge between ordinary people’s thoughts and the EAM and can help visitors understand the exhibition more easily.

This year teacher week focused on planning for an exhibit from the museum’s permanent collection. Using a technique called VTS, museum staff led teachers in a discussion about pieces from the collection. VTS (Visual Thinking Strategy) is a good tool to let people to understand meanings in the artworks. Philip Yenawine, the VTS founder, acclaims that Visual literacy is the ability to find meaning in imagery. Therefore, VTS encourage people to discover something in the artworks, and train their own visual thinking. In VTS, people not only can start appreciate the artworks by themselves, but also can sharpen their own visual and critical thinking.

Most teachers think VTS is a good tool and that it will help them teach students.
In watching the VTS sessions at the EAM, I sometimes wondered if teachers really knew the spirit of VTS or how to proceed with VTS. I was also confused about what the purpose of doing VTS in teacher week was. My first questions were, “Is VTS for training teachers how to do it or just to let them join and enjoy the programs?” I will make an evaluation assuming that the purpose of VTS was for training teachers.

The EAM planned to do a series of VTS programs in this teacher week and also to let teachers assist with preparing an African textile exhibition of kangas. Most interns helped the whole process to run smoothly, including me. (Even though I still can not do anything except for observing them) Kelly was the main facilitator in the VTS, and Britt and Amy also. Kelly was really good at operating the VTS, creating some questions, and using different questions to direct teachers without passing judgment. Meanwhile, I found lots of interesting things happened in the process. At first, most teachers did not respond to questions very frequently, however, after these days they became more involved. I was so curious about why they change their attitude that I asked some teachers privately. Most teachers said that as they began to feel more comfortable they could say what they really thought. I found if you want effective learning to happen, first you should make people feel comfortable in their surroundings. Therefore, facilitators play an important role in the process of VTS. However if comfort is the main reason that teachers respond very frequently, how can we be sure that VTS sharpens visual thinking? The participants, the facilitator, the space, the situation and the time are all factors. So many variables exist in the process of VTS that we can not just jump to the conclusion that VTS did definitely enhance visual thinking for teachers. I think that VTS is a really good tool, but that we must consider how to use the tool more efficiently.

VTS enables participants to understand the abstract meaning of artworks. In VTS, participants observe details in the paintings and try to connect their experiences in order to create meaning in artwork. That’s why most teachers said “it reminds me of….” when they started their comments. From this perspective, first we should know who our participants are. We should collect the entire information about their previous experiences, cognitive stage and so on. If we want to do VTS, we should build the bridge to connect participants and artworks in advance. In VTS we display the artwork and ask three standardized questions: “What is going on here?” “What do you see that makes you say that?” and “What else can you say?”. These questions are not enough for participants. This form may empower our participants to interpret the artworks through their own eyes, however, there is a potential to overinterpret and misunderstand the meaning of artworks. Therefore, understanding our participant is the first step to build the communicative bridge. Understanding will help facilitators select suitable artworks and create questions. We should choose artwork that the participant may already have background knowledge about. For example, in this teacher week the VTS session in which decoys were used was really effective. Teachers seemed to be familiar with decoys and so they did not just guess at the decoy’s purpose and meaning. More over if we do not understand the participants, the artwork we choose may not arouse their attention and we cannot expect them to have the desire to explore the further meanings.

Furthermore, if we do the research on artworks in advance it may much better for our participants. Participants want more than to observe artworks. They have lots of questions. The facilitator should be able to give them the information that they want to know. If the facilitator does not have any idea about the artworks, how could VTS encourage participants to gain deeper meaning? If we would like to set the fire, we need some ingredients, like wood. Therefore, facilitators need to provide some baby steps for participants especially when participants need more information. I think VTS is a learner-centered tool, but it does not mean the learner can observe and interpret artworks without help. And also I think that in the EAM’s VTS sessions learning ended in the classroom. Putting the artworks and the relative information on the EAM website may be a good idea to allow participants to continue learning. VTS is the key to open the door of the art world, but it’s just a beginning, not the end.

My first experience in the EAM

It's my first time as an intern in the Erie Art Museum (EAM) and everything is fresh and unfamilar to me.

I think EAM is a so special art museum, not traditional one. As a public institution, EAM plays a variety of roles. Aside from the educational role, it also has a connection with the refugee in Erie and works to conserve folk art and music. It really impresses me so deeply. How can an art museum do things like that? They broaden their original ways and create new possibilities. I don’t know whether or not this situation is typical in the US or if this situation is really good for art museum or not (maybe it will make art museum same as other social institution or something? ) However, it really makes a great possibility.

Another reasons why EAM makes a lot efforts to broaden its own roles may be the budget problem. The museum rents its space to other shops: Glass Grower’s gallery and a yoga studio. This phenomena make me think about whether or not money is important for the art museum. Even though EAM doesn’t have enough budget on the basic side of museology, but it creates a lot activities on another side, like organizing the Jazz and Blue festival and inviting musicians to play in front of musuems. Is money really important for museum? Yes, it is, but it may have another way without money.