atherine Till Sansone

Internship Blog

Spring 2024

History 790

When You Wish Upon a Starr

Entry Three “It’s a Wrap” 

How do you sum up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in five hundred words? I can give you two, exhausting and exhilarating, many times fully experienced together! For anyone who wants to work in a gallery, or curate an exhibit, I highly suggest you intern in one first because it is not what you think it will be, at least in smaller galleries. Major museums and galleries have many different departments working in tandem with each other to execute the installation of an exhibit. In ones, like where I was privileged to exhibit, not so much, you, the gallery manager, and an installer are the team. It was very physical work, more than what I could ever imagined it would be. I seriously stopped counting the hours it took to launch this exhibit after 120! As an intern, or if employed in a gallery or museum, it becomes your responsibility to execute the vision of the exhibit’s curator. Every exhibit is unique, like snowflakes, no two are alike. In smaller galleries, the exhibits can rotate every two to three months, with only weeks for the breakdown of the previous exhibit and the installation of the incoming exhibition. Hectic, organized insanity is the best way to describe the experience. The following are my takeaways from this amazing event. 

I am thankful I took the time to catalog, organize, and create a spreadsheet for the items I retrieved from West Virginia and Buffalo. The process took me over a month but honestly, take the time, you will thank yourself down the road. In the planning stage, you first walk the gallery with the manager to figure out the layout and how you want to communicate your vision to your audience. What are the colors, textures, and placement of articles or pictures? What is the tone or feeling of the show? Each wall is labeled according to its theme, colors, or texture. I wanted my exhibition to be a visual explosion for the eye to tell the story of this incredible woman who chose burlesque as her vehicle for success. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to visit the 2 O’clock Club in Baltimore where Starr once performed and owned, and it was here that I drew my inspiration. Almost all the original fixtures, wallpaper, and wall colors were intact, be it a little worn for wear. I wanted to mimic that energy throughout the gallery. Next, is one of the most important steps, how you want to tell the story. What pictures or artifacts will be used to capture the story? This step is where you will be glad you took the time to organize your items because you are pulling pictures, posters, and other items out of bins and boxes with little regard to container origin. I first arranged the items on the floor, and after I was satisfied with my selection, I used binder clips and push pins to arrange them on the wall before final placement. I was fortunate also to have other items, including clothing, jewelry, and memorabilia to display, which I knew would give weight to the pictures. One of the lessons I learned from my museum studies class was regardless of how you attempt to tell a story; you cannot dictate where your audience will be drawn. Keeping that in mind, I placed larger items in more prominent locations throughout the exhibit, which also, I believe, made it visually more appealing.

Aside from the physical aspect of an installation, I found writing the labels the most challenging aspect of an exhibition. As historians, we are tasked with taking a germ of an idea and expanding that idea through countless hours of tedious research into papers, theses, or dissertations. When you write labels, it is the opposite process. You now edit this information to a few coherent sentences that fit on a four-by-four label. It is madding. After the reception and listening to some of the questions and comments from several of the audience, I am still tweaking my labels and have added a few more for additional clarity. I find writing papers much more enjoyable!

So, in closing, despite the tremendous physical, emotional, and mental effort it took to launch this exhibit, it was an amazing experience. Curating an exhibit is like theater, the devil is in the details, details, and flaws, only you will notice, but important. While I have just skimmed the surface of this experience, I am beyond pleased to see what I have lived with in my head for over two years come to fruition. Would I attempt this in the future? The jury is still in deliberations!