The busy summer almost gone!

August is almost gone, one more days left. It has been a very busy month for me—commuting between Boston and West Massachusetts every week. I have two internships: Monday at South Hadley MHC Art Museum, Tuesday to Friday at Boston MFA. Now one more week left and then school starts—can’t wait to see my friends, classmates and professors again!!!

MFA Boston is really a huge art museum with numerous tunnels and storage rooms underground—of course, since they have a huge collection. I’ve seen parts of the Chinese jade, ceramics and lacquer collection and I’ve already lost my way underground. My major job is researching on the Chinese highlight objects and some other cataloguing work. I love the job because I got familiar with MFA’s great Asian collections and got chance to go through their books and periodicals (the department library is filled with books of various languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.). But the best part is the discount I get with my staff card (!) in their wonderful shop and café~! Hahaha…

Compare to MFA Boston, MHC Art Museum is a small art museum with a few staff members. Each person has individual work to do but also helps with everything else. Here I got to know almost every part of the art museum: the object file, the back storage room, the mat cutter, the secret storage cabinet hiding in the gallery, etc. And, there is this fabulous Ice Cream Thursday to gather us together and “taste” ice cream and go through the Mad Libs that makes everyone laughs.

When I look back at my experience during the summer, I realize how much I get from my internship experience and how much I grow. Now summer almost ends and school starts in a week, and I look forward to future opportunities and challenges~!

Learn one more new thing today~

I learned another new thing today—examine art objects (on paper) and write condition report~! Dala~!

I know this is really a tiny thing among the huge museum running business. But I know I am learning bit by bit and will know lots of stuff after this 12-week summer internship. Examining art objects is easy, as long as you pay attention to details and have good eyes. But writing condition report, which is just a piece of double-side-printed form, requires succinct and exact description. The museum even has several handbooks on art handling, which of course introduces how to examine an art object and how to write the observation down. Lots of terms: stain, crease, crack, abrasion, etc. as well as all kinds of abbreviation—upp. l., ill., etc.—and therefore lots to learn and memorize for a non-native-English-speaker.

I am so happy learning new things~!

Below is a lovely "stocking deer," a picture I forgot where I got it from. Love it so much!

The best part of museum work~

I really like my work at the art museum. It’s a small art museum so I get to know almost every aspect of the museum, from the guard, reception desk, to the curatorial documents and the back-stage storage. I just learnt how to make exhibition labels yesterday, using press and cutters—really big and sharp cutters, don’t know its official name. I love the moment when the knife cut through the card board, leaving the beautiful slop on the edge of the label. Haha~!

But the most exciting part of the museum work is about art work research. Research at the beginning may be not that interesting, but getting some basic information and knowledge about the art work is important for gathering key works for further research. Then search for related books by looking at some articles’ bibliography—and get the books from the library. I know there are tons of books on my loan right now, but since I am doing several artists and art works at the same time (and I am doing my own research also~), no wonder.

I was doing some research on a Chinese export punch bowl made during the 18th century, Qianlong Period (1736-95). It was one of our Chinese art collections but nothing was done for the art work. So I chose it, thinking I could use my language skills and Chinese background. However when I pulled out the art work itself, I realized that the image on the Chinese ceramic bowl was something about the Greek Mythology, which I know only a few names: Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Paris, Achilles, Hector, etc. just because I watched Brad Pitt’s movie Troy before.

Since I know nothing about the story, all I can do is to remember the image itself and go through all those books, trying to find out some images that look like the one I have. FORTUNATLY, I found it this morning, after flipping through 4 books. It was an image of the Judgment of Paris, with one man sitting under a tree and three other nudes standing besides. The nudes are not proportionally drawn, and Athena was drawn like a man with muscles on her back; and the “gold apple” that Paris handed to Aphrodite was actually a yellow mango.

But the moment of figuring out was extraordinary. Just like solving a puzzle or figure out a crime as a detective. It’s full of excitement and satisfaction. That’s the best part of museum work.

Museum work

Museum work is not as interesting as I think.

I am now working in a small art museum as a summer intern, doing works such as object research, files cataloguing, and a variety of things. Though my title is “curatorial internship,” I did not take part in the actual thinking process.

There was an all-staff meeting on the first day I started my work. Everyone in the art museum gathered together in the storage, learning how to handle art works in the storage. The collection manager showed us everything, from washing hands at the entrance to holding art works in the right way. After the meeting, I know I won’t be a “collection manager” in the future—I have no patience dealing with these numerous details in handling the actual art works. Looking at them is enough for me.

I know that many jobs are about doing very trivial works, but I want challenge, I want to see new things, I want to use my brain, I want to create something. But before all these, I still have lots to learn. I need to know more about the art world, how an art museum runs, how an actual exhibition comes to life from a “bling.”

I love beautiful and interesting things. That’s why I love art, and that’s why I choose art history as my major and want to work in the art world in the future (and now). I am not very clear about my future, but at least I know what I like.



Female Dancer

China, Western Han Dynasty, 2^nd century B.C.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/all/female_dancer/objectview.aspx?page=1&sort=6&sortdir=asc&keyword=female dancer&fp=1&dd1=0&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=0&OID=60009609&vT=1&hi=0&ov=0

Jonas Lie

Recently I am doing research on Jonas Lie, the Norwegian-born American artist in the first half of 20^th century. Though I know clearly that among the category of “artist” there are numerous kinds of artists just as there are numerous kinds of people in the world, I still hold the belief that artists are nerds who only think about art and who pay no attention to “worldly” stuff. That impression comes from my former research on artists in Chinese conquest dynasties.

When I came across Jonas Lie, I was so shocked—an artist shouldn’t win so many prizes since he/she would never attend such “mundane” competition; an artist shouldn’t be a friend of a government official (a U.S. president!); an artist shouldn’t have such a smooth career life… Okay, I know I am using my stereotype, but Jonas Lie did shock me by his long list of awards, honors, memberships, and positions in prominent art institutions.

But looking at his art, I admit his painting skills were extraordinary which also reflects his acute senses of light. His work Birches in the Snow, one of my favorites, reveals Lie’s extraordinary relaxing painting skills. I especially like the shades that the birches cast on the snow ground, so flexible. The light grey blue color of the shades, floating on the slightly bluish white snow, has an enormous space within it, seemingly has its own soul.

Get shocked on my "taste"

I have been looking up various art works and designs online these days and I found this (see below). I think that the different colors team up nicely and make the look really interesting. When I posted this picture on my “Chinese facebook,” I had absolute confidence in my “taste.”

But one of my high school friends commented: so ugly.

My first thought was: what’s wrong with this guy!? Didn’t he know what fashion is? It was a shock to me that someone regards what I see as beauty as ugly.

But it’s not my friend’s fault. In fact, it’s not anyone’s fault. Just different people have different “tastes.” In addition, I realized that since I went to college, there were fewer and fewer comments on my various “tastes” on books, fashions, movies, music, etc. Is it because my college environment is much more tolerant than my high school’s, or is it because my college friends a nd I have similar taste?

Whatever the reason is, I don’t think this situation is helpful. In such environment without any critiques on my “taste,” I will gradually take my taste for granted and think that my taste is the RIGHT one. Another bad thing is that, with no critiques from others, I can’t grow stronger (to survive possible future setback and critique).

I don’t mean I lose my confidence, but I hope people can point out what they don’t like about me or my “taste”—and I will have the opportunity to look at myself again and decide whether to continue or to stop something.

Haha see my taste:  (from http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/style_bubble/)

Hello Everyone.

Hi Everyone, I finally kick off my blog!

I love art and I do research on random art works -- as long as the art work makes sense for me. I study Art History, but I would like art to be more fun and more involved in everyday life (and of course less academic seriousness). Art really has different functions in different societies and different contexts (in my opinion) and I hope that I can start a research on teh functions of art as soon as possible.

Also, it's my first time to write something in English and get "published" online. No one will check my grammar, but I will try my best. I haven't decided whether I should write my blogs in both languages. But anyway I will do English first.

I may post my various little research on art and other interesting things on my blog. I hope that you will like it.

By the way, happy April Fools’ Day!

: )