INTERNS & VOLUNTEERS

Categories of Internship

ART STUDIO INTERNSHIPS: Studio interns work with us as apprentices, much in the same way young artists used to apprentice to master studios in times past (until the nineteenth century, most artists started their career studying in the studio of a master). The main benefits are personal and experiential, but in many cases the experience can also be translated into academic credit. Interns work a 40-hour week, helping with art projects, preparation of materials, and some office work. Depending on their interests, skills, and our own project needs, interns may work with Sara or William or both. Sara is making clay sculptures of indigenous animals at a nearby zoo as part of an environmental education program, and one of her main needs is for an assistant to help demonstrate and explain the work to visiting schoolchildren. Assistants can also help her in sculpture projects. William works with assistants on his own painting projects as well as producing demonstration works for the LAARP program, and his interns have a special opportunity to learn how to work with raw materials for making art with egg tempera, fresco, and other exotic media, applied to prepared supports such as carved wood, stone, ceramic, and local fibers. In some cases, studio internships with William and Sara can be combined with development internships.

ART RESOURCE / CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIPS: The art resource program works among poor communities in Central America and the Caribbean, showing artists, artisans, and art teachers how to work with traditional techniques and low-cost, local resources. These internships are excellent for anyone interested in development work, especially related to community art projects and education. Duties include a combination of office work (coordinating activities with collaborating institutions, working with archives and expense records, project proposals, presentations, exhibitions), field work (setting up regional workshops, researching local materials and methods at each site, and conducting the workshops), and studio work (processing and organizing samples of earth pigments and other materials, and helping make demonstration pieces). Long before arriving, development interns should start researching and planning for the projects they would like to undertake. During a typical three-month development internship, the first month is spent attending Spanish classes, acquiring a basic technical vocabulary and range of artistic technique, practicing on demonstration pieces, meeting with other interns and collaborators. The second month the interns begin to make excursions to outlying villages to set up one or more projects in collaboration with regional organizations. Their third month they complete the projects, analyze and record the results, and lay groundwork for follow-through projects for the next team of interns. They are also expected to complete at least three "thesis" artworks demonstrating uses of local materials during this time. They may work with us for less than three months but with the understanding that the shorter period does not allow for very much training, preparation and project implementation.