As Museum Educators, sometimes we exist in the past, present, and future–at all times. Reflecting on this past activity-filled week has been difficult because we are preparing for so many things in the future, including an insanely fun Family Day tomorrow and a major Educator Open House next Wednesday. I am constantly proud of the team of Educators at the Rubin Museum because they are always present-in-the-moment and create meaningful experiences for all of our visitors. Here’s just a taste of what happened last week:
Our Saturday started off great with a Verbal Description and Touch Tour for the Greater NY Council for the Blind. Anay and Chantal led a group of 12 visitors through the galleries to explore Himalayan Art using their senses and verbal description. Our visitors were able to use two of our new touch objects (small bronze seated Buddhas) to experience the story of the Buddha through touch.
On Monday we welcomed the entire 9th grade from the Dwight School for an intense 3-D Mandala arts workshop. This was a great way to warm up 9th grader minds for viewing Mandalas in the galleries.
We were also able to grab a snapshot of our new Apprentice Museum Educators. This is an intense period of training for the AMES and soon they’ll be leading school tours.
We delivered a Teacher Tour for our neighbors at Winston Prep to warm up teacher minds for the semester on Wednesday. Winston actually borders our Education Center so we hope to see more of them throughout the year. Later in the day I spent a lot of time thinking about Educational Resources for two upcoming exhibitions. For every exhibition we have two “Interpretive Strategies” meetings, which brings together all of the designers, educators and curators for an exhibition to think about how we want to interpret a particular exhibition. This Wednesday we looked at an upcoming exhibition about the 10th Karmapa, who was an extraordinary artists and whose workshop produced incredibly unusual (and beautiful) work. We’re planning on interpreting a set of 9 paintings that depict the 12 Noble Deeds of the Buddha for the Explore Area, and making a movie that zooms in on some of the finer details.
A painting from the 12 Noble Deeds 10th Karmapa Set
Switching gears, Andrew and I sat down with our Editor (J.K.) to discuss a new panel exhibit that we’re developing for the Explore Area in the Mirror of the Buddha exhibition. We’re exploring Schools of Tibetan Buddhism by bringing together a number of images from the exhibition that showcases key figures of the different schools. The images we’ll use are reproductions placed closely together in the Explore Area (the actual paintings will be in the Exhibition, but not side-by-side). We’re hoping that this will help visitors make some interesting connections as they explore the rest of the museum and look for key figures as well. Wednesday also brought on our final session for the adult Writers Workshop. Ashley reported back that everyone wanted to keep the workshop going, so we’re meeting to discuss our plans for the next one soon. I was also happy to watch the Teen Guide Council receive some 1:1 attention from Pauline in the evening as they learned about works of art in the galleries to prepare for teen-for-teen tours later this fall.
On Friday Lyndsey and David R. led a terrific Mindful Connections tour for a group of Chinese visitors. One of new social media interns, Esther was able to follow along and posted a terrific blog article about the experience.
I was also excited to see a new set of gallery resource holders awaiting their debut for the Mirror of the Buddha exhibition. I know it may seem strange to be overjoyed about a brochure rack and magnifying glass holder, but the entire team has spent an incredible amount of time thinking about how we can best meet the needs of exhibition resources that help visitors to look deeply and learn more. So in honor of resources, my photo of the week is of a number of handsome modular fixtures waiting patiently for installation.
