I woke up this morning far more anxious than on the first day of school which is saying something. As I made breakfast, I checked the clock about every ten seconds though I woke up two hours before I had to be at the museum. I was quite proud of the way I remembered the route to the museum and had no panicky moments though the traffic on the North Central Expressway was significantly thicker than it was this weekend.
"So far, so good!" I thought, as I pulled into the DMA underground parking garage as my supervisor, Carolyn, instructed. So good, that is, until the parking garage monitor man told me to turn around, I wasn't in the right place, but I needed to park further down St. Paul's St. Confused, I pulled into the loading lot farther down the street and called Carolyn, who rescued me from a different entrance, and all was well despite our thwarted plans.
Carolyn, a Sewanee alum, gave me a brief tour of a couple levels of the museum and introduced me to some of the staff. She also took me across the street to show me some lunch spots at the Trammell-Crow Center, which also houses what looks to be a spectacular Asian art collection. After treating me to a green tea at Starbie's (new nickname for Starbucks I learned today), Carolyn took me back to the lobby of the museum office to meet Natalie from the HR department who would take me and a group of quiet, awkward "newbies" down to the basement to get our badges and give us a thorough tour of the offices and museum entrances.
Lesson One: Intern= way bottom of the heap. Natalie made a conscious effort to tease me (good-heartedly) about my low status among the other new employees. I was placed in the back of the line for badges, though my folder was ordered among the first. No employee number was assigned to me. I do not get to enter through the special staff entrance, nor am I allowed to be in the basement level at all unless I have an escort. Hello, reality check.
The other intern that was supposed to arrive today was an hour late so making badges took even longer than expected because we had to wait for her to find us in the basement before we could continue on the tour. I sat on a tall office chair in the security office while a man interrogated me about my car and license plate, and why the name of my emergency contact "Isabella Reeves" is the same as mine and what do I really go by? Despite the formality of his task he was a very nice man, and raved about Savannah and Tybee Beach and ghost tours. Evidently a family member was assigned to a military base in the area. It was nice to have a spot of comfort in an unfamiliar setting.
Lesson Two: the art is more important than your life. Just kidding. Kind of. When in the basement, it is imperative that you stand to the side when any piece of art comes rolling by in transport. There can be no risk of it being damaged by the slightest misstep.
The basement might be the coolest part of the museum. All along the pure white concrete walls there are boxes upon boxes that are used to transport and ship artwork. The Dallas Museum of Art is TSA certified, which means, when we ship artwork for exhibitions elsewhere, our packages are not subjected to airport security search. Because of these requisite and precise regulations, I am unable to explore that part of the museum alone.
After my badge was made, Katie, the head of Arts & Letters Live (a programming series within the museum and my department), whisked me away to meet the rest of the staff of Arts & Letters and Adult Programming. This done, she introduced me to my desk in the "intern pit." Sounds lovely, right? It's actually not bad. It's about six cubicles all clumped together in between the Arts & Letters offices and the Adult Programming offices so that we are easily called upon and assigned various tasks. I was the only intern there today except for Ashley who stopped by occasionally. Ashley is a McDermott intern (post-graduate, 9 month internship), who is staying on for the summer to assist with paperwork for some thing or other.
Carolyn took me out to lunch with the other staff members: Stacey, Denice, Katie, and Lisa. We went to the Nasher Sculpture Center right across the street for delicious salads in a clean contemporary cafe with big windows overlooking a lovely green and lush sculpture garden.
My email account and computer password have not yet been set up at work, so there were no particular assignments for me to do. I took the liberty of exploring the exhibitions in the museum for a couple of hours before meeting with Katie to discuss important upcoming dates in my calendar.
I started with the contemporary gallery, which I rather liked, despite my long-term frustration with the genre. Before, blocks of color and straight lines struck me as too basic and simple to call true art, however, I now believe in it's power of captivation. Standing before an enormous orange and red Rothko painting ("Orange Red and Red," obviously) issues a sensation of ensnarement as dazing as an optical illusion. Jackson Pollack's "Cathedral," likewise, achieves monumental awe in it's layers upon layers of texture, tantalizing pops of contrast between white and black splotches and splatters, and mediating, soothing pools of grey.
I left the museum today slightly overwhelmed by this influx of new experience and new information, but mostly excited to begin applying myself tomorrow in this wonderfully engaging artistic community that has welcomed me so warmly.
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