INTERNSHIP STORIES

My name is Taylor Shuck, I am a painting major with a curatorial concentration going into my senior year at MICA. Over the summer of 2014 I was a museum management intern at the Dali Museum of St. Petersburg, Florida. I first visited the museum in high school and loved the collection and what the museum has done for St. Petersburg, my hometown. I first learned about the internship on the museums website, which is where I got the application. Family friends on the board of the museum also recommended me for the internship. I heard back from the Dali a month later in April that I was accepted for the position.             The Dali museum houses the largest collection of Salvador Dali's work in the United States. A new building was built to better protect the art and have a more appropriate architecture that reflects Dali's work. The museum and the grounds are stunning, including large geodesic dome architecture and ...

My name is Addie Rodger and I am an Illustration with a Biology minor. Over my winter and spring semester of my senior year at MICA, I interned and eventually was given freelance projects at the Natural History Museum (NMNH). I regularly check the Smithsonian website to see what upcoming exhibits they have, which is how I found out about this opportunity. Having gotten into natural science illustration over the past couple of years, Iʼm always on the lookout for opportunities, mostly within museums, where I can express that. After doing some digging and sending out about a million emails, I was finally contacted by Matt Buffington, a research scientist in the Entomology Lab at NMNH. He called me in for an interview, and I got to meet most of the staff and tour the different floors of this department. The National Insect Collection is among the largest in the world, so most of their job centers around the research of the nature, inter-relationships, origin, and evolution of the insect...

My name is John Vetter and I am a Junior Graphic Design major. During the Summer of 2016, I was an intern under Brian Kaspr at his studio in Norwalk, CT. I first met Brian as my Graphic Design 1 professor during the fall semester of my sophomore year. Over that semester, we found out we had a lot of common interests, including music, screen printing, and most importantly, sign painting and lettering. On the last day of class, he asked me if I was interested in being his intern. I have always loved hand lettering and sign painting, so I jumped at the opportunity. This was a great opening to learn about what goes into being a successful freelance designer and letterer. When I got started, my first assignment was to scan in, adjust the curves, and retouch some lettering he had done for a client. Since I was commuting and only working with Brian two days a week, I did a lot of work from home, and practiced my sign painting techniques from home as well. The more I worked, the...

My name is Peter Favinger and I am a junior Drawing Major. During the spring of 2014 I have had the opportunity to be an intern at the Herman Maril Foundation, a foundation dedicated to the life work of Baltimore native and MICA alumni Herman Maril. The foundation is run by Herman’s son, David Maril. The foundation appeared at the the internship fair in the spring of 2013. Upon seeing the internship listed on the MICA website, I knew I wanted to work at the foundation. Dressing in a suit and tie, I presented myself in the most professional manner as I possibly could to David, gave him my resume, card, and a cd of my artwork and conversed with him at his booth for several minutes. Before leaving to view other internship booths I was offered a chance to meet again with David discussing the internship in more depth at his home in Mt. Washington, Baltimore. The home is also the location of Herman Maril’s studio, and former winter and spring home in the city. David has been my direct s...

My name is Emily Mason and I am a Senior Photography Major. For the past year I have been working as an assistant for the founder of the Current Space Darkroom, Ginevra Shay, in Baltimore. I first heard of the position at Current Space from my teacher’s assistant in a photography class who was also involved with the Current Space darkroom. Through speaking to him I was able to set up an interview with Ginevra to discuss my interest. Shortly after meeting with Ginevra she asked me my availability and started working the next week. At Current Space I was responsible for finalizing the building of the darkroom, emailing Kickstarter donators, attending show opening, installing/de-intalling shows, acting as dark room tech/assistant, acting as curatorial assistant, and designing T-shirts for kickstarter donors. Through out this year long internship there were a lot of bumps in the road that prevented us from opening up the darkroom on time. Though the wait was long, I am most prou...

I am Aubrey Vinson, a rising junior Art History major, concentrating in Curatorial Studies. I interned at Gallery 1301 in the summer of 2014. I actually found this internship through a friend; it seems simple and coincidental, but word of mouth is very important in the art world. I got the employer’s contact information through this friend, and sent him an email with my resume and some information about me. I actually didn’t hear back at first, but I went to the gallery’s first opening anyway. I met the owner, Joe Bradley, then and he knew exactly who I was and apologized for not responding. We arranged to meet that weekend, and after a brief, relaxed interview, I had an internship.     How I found this internship is fairly representative of my experience at the gallery, and with Joe. It’s a very relaxed and friendly environment, and I was always given a lot of respect and influence in the gallery. There’s a very small staff, all of which are practicing local ...

My name is Kelly Johnson and I am a Curatorial Practice MFA candidate graduating in 2015. This summer i did my internship at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I found out about this internship as an undergraduate, while doing a general online search for paid museum internships. I bookmarked the link for future reference, and when I decided to move to Baltimore, I sent an inquiry email to the intern coordinator asking about expectations, then applied for it ahead of the deadline. Founded in 1987, NMWA is the only major museum in the world solely dedicated to recognizing women’s creative contributions. By bringing to light remarkable women artists of the past while also promoting the best women artists working today, the museum directly addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art in the U.S. and abroad, thus assuring great women artists a place of honor now and into the future. The museum organizes exhibitions and programming related to women arti...

My name is Amanda Almarshoud and I am a Junior GFA major. In Summer 2014, I completed an internship at The Third Line Gallery in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. My own Arab background influences me to explore the art that is being produced in the Middle East. This summer I had plans of going home to Kuwait, and I thought it would my trip to the Middle East worthwhile if I also worked in Dubai. Dubai is a successful, thriving, and growing art and business center in the Middle East, and an extremely international community for the world to gather in. I started to research and contact galleries during my Freshmen year hoping to have an internship in Dubai during Summer 2013.I contacted almost all of the art galleries in Dubai. Three galleries accepted my resume and cover letter, and notified me that I was allowed be their intern. Due to unexpected circumstances, I was unable to go to Dubai that summer, so I contacted the galleries back apologizing for my decline of the internship offe...

My name is Julia Kim and I am a Senior Graphic Design major. During the summer of 2016, I was a UX and Product Design Intern for MTV News, a company that is owned by Viacom in New York. Viacom is the largest portfolio of ad-supported cable networks in the United States. It is also among the most vibrant, diverse and culturally relevant collection of brands in media and entertainment. Viacom Media Networks brands are divided into three groups: BET Networks, MTV, Comedy Central, Spike, TV Land, CMT, Logo, VH1, and Nickelodean Group. The team that I interned for sits under the Music & Entertainment Product Development Group. We are the UX & Product Design team and work on all products across the M&E brands. It’s funny how I got this internship. I actually applied online through Indeed, and was scrolling and saw the title Viacom. I remember thinking, ‘Why not.” I uploaded my resume and gave my portfolio URL and I thought to myself that I probably wasn’t going to get a repl...

My name is Sophie Fisher and I am a Junior Illustration major with a Book Arts concentration. This summer I was a design intern for a graphic design and public relations agency, M Studio, based in Asbury Park, a town known for its music and arts culture on the Jersey shore. I was searching locally for a creative work opportunity for the summer since I live in Asbury Park, and I quickly found and was captivated by the logos, branding and signage created by M Studio for local businesses I was familiar with, as well as their national work with brands such as Liquitex, Winsor Newton and many more. I had discovered a passion for graphic design and typography back in high school in my role as the art editor for the school’s newspaper and found that this interest would align with the design work done at M Studio. I sent M Studio an email with a letter of inquiry containing a link to my website. The creative director, Jenna Zilincar, responded quickly. She was enthusiastic about...