My name is
Valeria Eades and I'm currently and rising Senior with a major in General Fine
Arts and a concentration in Curatorial Studies. This summer I worked with a
well known organization set here in Baltimore called Baltimore Offices of
Promotions and the Arts in their gallery, School 33 Art Center. As an artist I
always loved to work with a community and as a lover of exhibitions, working in
a gallery or museum was what I always wanted to do. Since School
33 is located in Federal Hill and not at BOPA’s headquarters, I was able to
work closely with my supervisor, Melissa Webb who was the Exhibitions Manager.
Melissa is also an artist and a professor at MICA, which gave me a great all
around perspective on how much a person can be a part of the art world. 
School 33 was
a great place to be since they not only had three gallery spaces, but studios
and artists that worked there. Handling paperwork and seeing the behind the
scenes of a gallery was eye opening and was where i learned the most on
managing a gallery. One of my favorite projects I got to work on was helping
them put together their annual summer biennial that featured the artists that
work there. I prepared the walls, handled the artworks, had conversations with
the artists, and got to be a part of the opening reception to see the
exhibition come to life. I also helped prepare for Artscape, Baltimore’s summer arts festival.
This
internship really helped my realize that in the end exhibitions and galleries
are all about the artist and the
artwork. It’s not one person that
runs the whole place, but a great group of people that want to see art come to
life, which is what i love about working with a community. I hope to use the
skills I’ve learn to expand my knowledge more in my last year in college and to
hopefully receive more opportunities like the one I this summer.
