Latest / K12ArtChat the Podcast / Episode 263 – Carolyn Keogh – Curating Curiosity-Inside Museum Education

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Episode 263 – Carolyn Keogh – Curating Curiosity-Inside Museum Education · K12ArtChat the Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, I'm Matt Grundler.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Laura Grundler, and today on K-12 R Chat the Podcast, we'll be chatting with Carolyn Keogh about museum education and community spaces.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think our last couple of episodes have been sort of like uh homecoming week and a week.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um just I'm just really excited because I have another another Sal pal, another, another Sal friend.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: They're all amazing, so yeah.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we are really excited to have Carolyn um on our podcast today because of all the amazing things that she does outside of that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, Carolyn, just thank you for being here today on our on our episode.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, we we're thrilled to have you.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Could you take a few minutes to tell our listeners uh who you are, what you do, a little bit about your journey to where you are right now in your career?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So my name's Carolyn Keogh.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the director of education and public programs at the Olana Partnership currently, which is uh the historic home and designed landscape of the 19th century artist Frederick Church.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: So currently I work in a kind of hybrid park museum historic site, which is really exciting.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but previously I worked at the Guggenheim Museum overseeing studio programs, youth programs, teacher programs, and I have an art history and museum education background.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really have only ever worked in museums, which is kind of crazy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's been my kind of bread and butter for a long time now, and is the place where I've really kind of forged my path and um have found my my tribe and hopefully am carving out um spaces for folks to also feel as welcome and as at home in museum spaces.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's been my kind of longstanding goal.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that was I think that was what um you know drove me or connected me to you as far as having you on here because of how passionate you are about Museum Ed.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but there's also a a funny little story that um you were telling me about when we first talked about your your shot, if you will, of of Museum Ed.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Can you kind of share with our listeners a little bit about how I mean, because you mentioned the Guggenheim, and you know, that's kind of a kind of a big deal.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I was very lucky.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've been very lucky to work in, you know, uh institutions that are amazing, unique places, uh place specific organizations and museums, um, which has been a wonderful opportunity, but also have been really cool, amazing stellar places.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I recognize the kind of uh question, which is like, how do you get that job?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'll just share, you know, I was very fortunate in that I really started my career at the Guggenheim working as a kind of administrative assistant.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was applying right out of college, I had studied art history as an undergrad.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I originally started as a journalism major.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that I was gonna be Christian Amanpour.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then when it became time to talk to people in the street and interview them, I totally clammed up.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um but thankfully I had taken on an art history double major and I um had interned at my, I was interning at my college art gallery.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that while I was really shy talking with people for my journalism assignments, once I got in front of a work of art in a gallery space, I was like, oh, I love talking to people, engaging with folks about what they're seeing with a work of art, about their own creative impulses really energized me.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the moment when I got the bug.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So when I graduated college at NYU, I just kind of was throwing my resume everywhere.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And thankfully at the Guggenheim and the education department, they were looking for someone who had some office experience.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I had worked at a law office and I had in, you know, done some kind of summer jobs doing filing and things like that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, my um Sharon Vatsky, who's one of my wonderful mentors who I owe a great deal to, she's uh a wonderful writer and expert in the museum ed world.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: She has told me she like pulled the resume out because they saw some office experience, and that's kind of what gave me my foot in the door.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I I kind of from that moment really just wanted to keep at it, and I was just eager to learn everything about working with the public and working with youth audiences, particularly in the museum space.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So every opportunity I had to like try something else, work with a different audience, lead a different program, I jumped at because it was something that was just so energizing for me.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Carolyn, you mentioned uh place-based.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think of museums and uh as such a vast world, you know, like it's it's not just, I mean, I think in the art ed world, sometimes we think about, you know, the big names like the Met and the MoMA and the Guggenheim and things like that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, museums are really diverse in what they house from ancient artifacts or high, high, you know, concept art to contemporary art to all the different things.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, you're even in a unique space right now that is, you know, the historical as well.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just wondering how you break down, like there, there's a lot of things here, like getting getting people excited about being in the different spaces and then getting them excited about engaging with this, the place and engaging with the work.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and how do you make that accessible to you know, anywhere from pre-K all the way up to your retired folks?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think, I mean, firstly, I think it's important to acknowledge that these places are often not accessible.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that, you know, I had the great fortune and privilege of growing up going to museums, but I recognize that for many people, these are places that are not financially accessible.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, perhaps there are boundaries of perception.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: They don't feel like places that um are welcoming to all.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's something that is very much the kind of first boundary when we're thinking about engaging with the public of all ages and of all backgrounds, is that these places in many respects can feel kind of like castles on a hill.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I currently work at Olana, which actually is literally looks like a castle on a hill.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So if you haven't been, um it's in Hudson, New York, in upstate New York.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a 19th-century uh designed home that looks very much like a castle, and locals affectionately call it such.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it's on the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so at this particular location, we have the great challenge of kind of encouraging people to feel welcome in this space.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: But then once you do get inside, there are all these different barriers to understanding the place.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the place itself is filled with the artist Frederick Church's collection of items that he gathered while he was traveling abroad, his own artworks, his landscape paintings, and then it's surrounded by 250 uh acres of designed landscape.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of kind of interpretive challenges for us when we're working with young visitors and visitors of all ages.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the first step for me is always to engage people in what they're seeing, to really prioritize and front load observation.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think the great fortune of working in museums as an educator is that we have the object to orient and engagement around.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So whether you're interpreting a painting, a work of art, a landscape, or a view, like we often do at Olana, you can engage with the public by asking them what they're noticing, what they're seeing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And any visitor who can kind of engage with that, whether it's through multi-sensory experience or through visual experience, can participate in that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think oftentimes at the Guggenheim, um, I was so excited when we had exhibitions on view of contemporary artists or conceptual art, because that presented a challenge that was always really fun.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think younger audiences are often, you know, uniquely primed to dive into those sort of conceptual conversations, even sometimes more than adults or older audiences.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the way-in was often through, you know, looking at the work of art, but then making personal connections, thinking about, you know, what the artist was doing, how the artist is thinking about their own creation, and then framing that back at the viewer and the maker.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me in the museum space, I'm always looking, you know, this is why I was so excited to be on this chat with you both, is I've learned so much from art educators because that process of unpacking how an artist is making a work of art can be a really powerful entry point for visitors.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And having that dialogue about, you know, have you ever had an object that was meaningful to you?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Frederick Church is doing something very similar when he chose something he collected abroad and he's hanging it in this particular spot in his historic home.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that I think is just one very small example of that process.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I think looking and personal connection are often the first two points of connection that I foster for visitors of all ages and backgrounds.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that's a that's a perfect segue into the next question because, you know, there are some maybe some educators out there that are thinking, hey, you know what?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I really do like the history side and and having all those things and you know wanna want to get into museum ed and how you know you started to mention being able to unpack things.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: What are what are some other skills or some other experiences that you think might be valuable for those for those art educators?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I love when art educators or educators of any sort want to get into the museum, I'm like, yes, join us, come to the museum.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I'm always so excited, but I think you know, so many more museums and places, um, you know, museums and places that have collections are reorienting their focus away from the kind of objects, or maybe perhaps inviting the focus to be also on the contemporary people visiting the the spaces.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think as an educator, educators know people.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that is such an important and valuable skill when you're working in a museum.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I also think you know, being able to speak to the value of um engaging with creativity, being able to speak to that when it comes to things that are maybe a little less um glamorous, like grant reporting, you know, that is a skill that I know many educators and many teachers do for their own advocacy and for their own work.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that can come in really, really handy when it comes to working in a museum space.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also think I, you know, this is kind of my own bias because this is how I got my start, but in a nonprofit and a museum space, having administrative budgeting skills, knowing how to balance a budget, knowing how to kind of work with um, you know, uh maybe a limited amount of funds is a really unique and wonderful skill, especially that smaller museums um can can our value, I think.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that's something that really comes in handy.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I know educators are often um facing some of the same challenges when you're you're you know maybe not the as well resourced as you'd want to be.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think working in the arts, that's something that we all um might share.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: And those skills um are definitely transferable, yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, and and something I would say to add on that is it's it doesn't have to be like a full-time job in the the education space.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: You can still be a full-time teacher, art educator, and then I have plenty of friends who work in the museum spaces either um over the breaks or you know, volunteer on the weekends, different things, and they find it incredibly rewarding.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: So just putting that out there.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, kind of on that note though, um museums.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's interesting.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: I even had a conversation with one of my daughters the other day about museum spaces because she was talking about I would never bring a baby to a museum.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, why?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: We took you guys to the museums all the time in your stroller.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, Well, they're they're allowed.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: What if they cry?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Honey, museums are not libraries where you have to be quiet, they're places where you get to engage and have conversations.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: And and I said, you know, they're there's spaces of activity a lot of times.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, a lot of the museums that we spent time, especially when our children were little, had like whole family areas, you know, that kind of thing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: And we see in the role of the museum, I think, and the perception of museums, uh kind of evolving from a place of guardian of objects to community hub.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I even think of the new Obama Center in Chicago as a perfect example of a community hub.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's so much art in that space that it could be deemed a museum.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: However, it's got basketball, it's got all of these things.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: It is literally meant to be a community center as well.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm curious how your work has changed over the last few years or evolved, or what you're seeing in the museum education world that opens up that idea of uh community and community involvement and uh a space to connect in museums.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's such an important, such an important change that's happened.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another example just before I dive in, because I could talk about this for days and days, is um the Mets new education center on 81st Street in New York.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: They have put in like a huge amount.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as a leader in the field, looking to what they're doing as kind of setting the standard, they've invested so much into this new um, you know, all ages family center that's really hands-on, really designed for families to just stop in and make themselves at home and be comfortable in this space.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's something that more and more museums are realizing is an asset that they provide.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think for a long time when I was working in museums, um there that notion of, you know, the collection and the objects are the most important thing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what has changed is that we're realizing that without the people looking at and engaging with the collections, what's the point of the collections, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's been a slight shift towards looking at museums more akin to library spaces, perhaps more akin to these community resource centers.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think um something that I've really been excited about in my work is breaking open those expectations, the, you know, or shattering kind of those expectations.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you mentioned, can you bring a baby to a museum?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is that something that's okay?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was at the Guggenheim, we had this wonderful program called Stroller Tours that a colleague of mine had started, which was really designed to, you know, make new mothers and new caregivers and new parents feel welcome in the museum space with their little one in the stroller.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we learned that um this created a moment of engagement that they wanted to extend.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Once the baby was no longer in the stroller, they wanted to keep coming.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: The museum had become a really important focal point for their family having an engagement together.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so we decided to um extend that by doing a program called Little Googs, which was uh for two to four year olds.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And when I proposed it, you know, to folks, it sounded crazy.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, let's get little ones who are in diapers and roaming around and let's get the making art and you know, crawling on the floor of the Guggenheim.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: But we did it, and it was a really wonderful way to just make it clear to the families, but also to visitors who are seeing it happen that the museum space is also a family space, is a community space, and is a resource.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that that's something that that I've kind of tried to carry throughout my work since then.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: So at Olana, currently, um, we have actually been doing a lot of this work.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what's changed in the more recent time is we're learning that doing that work also necessitates talking to the community and uh inviting participants in.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So just as at the Guggenheim, when we learned that young families wanted to extend and continue their engagement with the museum, at Olana, what we've been doing over the past couple of years is going out into the community and figure out like, why aren't you coming to this site?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're a free public park and we're historic house, but what is maybe preventing you from visiting?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: What are your perceptions?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want to see here that we're not providing?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the answers have been sometimes surprising, sometimes really exciting.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, something that we've learned over the past couple of years through a grant that we received from Art Bridges, uh called through the Access for All uh grant.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's the name of the grant that we've received.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that grant has prioritized opening access to all museums.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And through those funds, we've been able to say, like, community members, what do you want to see?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And people want to see concerts, people want to have parties on the lawn, people want to engage in performances and do kind of educational and recreation-based activities.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so for us as museum educators, it's kind of forced us to maybe pivot the focus slightly away from traditional quote-unquote learning.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what we've learned is that those moments of communion and gathering together and engaging in performance and um recreation, there is learning happening.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're learning from each other, we're learning from the performers that are bringing perhaps their cultural heritage, we're learning from the site itself, because we're mining the collections, trying to find um salient connections with our current community.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And from that experience, we've we've learned so much.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I could go on and on about this because it's a topic.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm really excited about, but yeah.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't really want to let it go just yet.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm curious, one of the things that has really opened up in my world lately is this idea of creative aging.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I think because my brain has always been focused on the the pre-K through 12 education lens, and and now in my role with NAEA, it's certainly much wider than that.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: And um, over the last few years, I've really gone uh really worked to understand, I think, higher ed, but now I'm really now looking at it, it it really needs to be the whole span of our lives, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the one, yeah, and I think that creative aging piece is like, you know, one of the things I think maybe it's because I'm I'm getting closer to someday retiring, but you know, you want to have spaces where retirees can come in and connect as well.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I'm also seeing this whole explosion of health and wellness in museums that's very interesting.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned Art Bridges, and uh which is uh it's connected to Crystal Bridges and their philanthropy wing.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, in at Crystal Bridges in in Arkansas, you see a lot of health and wellness.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they have now a entire connection to the University of Arkansas Medical School.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I'm just curious, are you seeing that as well?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is that just is that it's I'm sure it's not isolated to the things that I'm seeing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm curious what you're seeing or what your patrons are asking for if that's connected to that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think we're in this unique, we're in this unique um place where we are at public park.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there's 250 acres of design landscape, kind of similar to Crystal Bridges, in that they're right.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I would yeah, that outdoor component that we have to play with.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we have the historic house museum, we have the art, we often have uh contemporary artists who engage with and bring public art engagements on site, but then we also have trails and carriage roads, and we do hiking programs and walking programs and ecological engagements.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have that kind of benefit of having all of those interdisciplinary focuses to play with.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of what people are asking for, I think they're asking for more opportunities to recreate at their own, um, at their own speed, at their own time, to drop in, to feel like, you know, if you are a recent retiree or someone who's ex who's interested in kind of a moment for a lifelong learning, you might not have to pay a high fee or pre sign up because life is so busy.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so having these opportunities of engagement with lower stakes and fewer boundaries is something that we've been experiencing and seeing more of.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so the way that we've kind of met that need is um through this program we've been doing called Third Thursdays, which is with the support.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of Art Bridges.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: We've done a free third Thursday program every month, and we do free access to the historic house, free programs, free concerts.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: We've brought mariachi bands, local musicians, folk music, and it's just been so fun.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: We've done fishing in the pond.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: So a kind of hybrid of recreation, art, information, and uh tours of the historic museum.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then we've also done a series of drop-in programs that are really creativity-based.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a program called Art Making in the Afternoon, and it's for all ages.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes adults don't believe us.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, oh, that's for kids, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's for families and kids.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we're like, no, it's for everybody.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely everyone.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And one of my colleagues is always saying, like, their dream is to see families with little ones and adults and recent retirees all in the same space, creating together, because we specifically design scalable prompts so that folks can stop in and do one drawing or two or one activity or two, or spend the whole afternoon there, whatever their comfort level is.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's been an exciting addition to our roster of programming as well.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love that.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about um when we took our our kids to a museum and they had a uh a making space where it was like take one, leave one kind of where you made something, you left it there, but you could also take one of somebody else's that was there, you know, that that they had left.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't just for kids.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's I think it's really interesting that I think it's kind of funny as as adults, sometimes there's this idea that art is only making art is only for children.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, that's really not accurate, but it's it's an interesting concept.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I think along those same lines, what you know, as as many art educators can probably relate that moment where you're you're in the middle of a lesson or you're starting a lesson and you kind of have your students check out, or you know, or if you're you're at a museum and you're trying to show someone around and they you can tell they just have completely checked out.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm curious if you know, like you you started to mention something along the lines of a visual thinking strategy.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what's your what's your go-to?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: What's your what's kind of your your default of hooks to kind of pull them back in to at least get some honest, genuine curiosity from them?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's such a great question.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: And like what as you're describing it, I'm picturing so many groups of blank students that have faced me in the halls of museums and white cube galleries.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I have many memories.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I think we we definitely I definitely operate in a kind of VTS plus modality, and I think that that's very common of many museum educators, where you know, orienting visitors around their observations and then building that inquiry-based methodology with information can be a great benefit of doing a kind of object-based learning uh moment.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So in the museum space, we have the great um privilege of having these, you know, wonderful, delicious objects in front of us that we can kind of get excited about and orient people to look at, and then also feed some information to kind of pique their interest further.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's always a kind of um, you know, I would say maybe a lazy strategy that I have in my back pocket, which is like one really juicy piece of info to get people going.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I also think um something that I often invite, which I think this is common of a lot of, you know, educators across the board and many different subjects, is, you know, to be very transparent and have a dialogue around, you know, if what's exciting about this for you and maybe why isn't this exciting?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've had some of the most robust conversations I've had with students around a work of art is students who really didn't like a work of art and who actually found that this was something that didn't resonate for them.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And having that moment in the museum space where they are afforded the freedom to say, you know, I don't really like this and this is why, or I feel A, B, C, and D about this, but then tell me why.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the why I think is really an important piece of the dialogue.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for visitors of all ages, I always say museums afford us the opportunity to have um dialogue around something that's not each other, it's not politics, it's not religion, it's around an object and a work of art that we can kind of have that conversation around.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's that freedom, I think, of discourse that I hope to invite people into.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so students can sometimes get excited by that permission, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Where it's like, I'm sensing not everybody's engaged.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do we even like this?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes students will say, I really, you know, no, I really don't, or sometimes they'll say, Yes, but you know, want to kind of dive in further.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I don't know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a a loose strategy I often use, which is uh a sense of transparency that this is a place for dialogue.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: There is no right or wrong.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's no, I don't think that's lazy.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: You you said it's lazy.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's lazy at all.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's just giving kids voice.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I think you know, I will say the the back pocket juicy information also works.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, most of my career I thought eighth and ninth graders.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: And if you were looking at Carvagio, I mean, that really relate a lot of times to a 14 or 13-year-old.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you had some juicy tippets, which there's plenty about Carvagio, that you could impart to the kids, they were like, Whoa, really?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I also remember Thomas Aikens, the kids were like, This is really boring, Mrs.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Grumler.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and there were, you know, if you think, oh, but think about, you know, I think the I can't remember the name of the painting, but the operating uh four they're in an operating um, yeah, and everybody's watching this this woman being operated on, and you know, talking to the kids about can you imagine no anesthesia and like what?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like that, you know, that actually gets them really excited when you have a little bit of because it it's it's a long time far, far ago, like that they they can't relate to.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to bring into some of those pieces.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think Matt and I always talk about the voice and choice, and giving students a voice is huge.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't know if you've had this.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna go off our script here.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I don't know if you've had this experience, but I also know a lot of my museum educator friends really work on bringing teens into the museum through some kind of teen, um uh, you know, either forum or teen um, like I I really want to say like almost like a Senate or an advisory board.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: Advisory council advisory board.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, you know, oftentimes we dismiss our especially our teenagers as being, oh, you're just adolescents, what do you know?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you don't have and and they have the best ideas and they're they have the pulse of like what like you know, we have three teens in our house, and I'm constantly learning new words.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um is completely different than the Gen X vocabulary I grew up with, and just like what's interesting to them, and all of those things.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm curious if you had any experience with any kind of teen advisory boards and and what that looks like in museum spaces.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: We so we at the Guggen have had a program called um GUG Teens that was like a teen internship that has actually evolved into a teen council and a robust teen program that I do think is steering the direction of things.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: So past my departure, it's kind of evolved into something which is so exciting to see because it's really become, you know, the teens have evolved from being originally it was a volunteer program.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, under my leadership, it kind of went and moved into being a paid internship program.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We ended up serving students from all five boroughs, which was really exciting.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then since my departure, it now has become like they are now the voice, they give voice and direction to programming, which is, I think, what anybody would want is that the community voice is designing and serving and dictating what the community audience is getting.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think that's the kind of prime example of what uh museums are aiming for now.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: At my current role, we don't teens are like such an untapped resource and untapped market for us.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we haven't been working with teens uh yet, but it's something that has been perennially on our on our radar.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this past um year, we actually just started piloting a very small program called Creative Corner, which is designed to give teens and young adults that kind of free drop-in opportunity to get creative and bring an activity.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been uh offering it kind of in conjunction with some uh community partners that we work with.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we're trying to get something like that off the ground because what we find time and time again when we do tours for you know regional high school groups is teens are bringing a level of perspective and um insight about the site that I think we all could really learn from.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that they are bringing this kind of awareness about what needs to be talked about and what programs we should be doing, um, that is just essential.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: So they've been invited to some of our kind of community advisory groups, um, which we've been doing in in kind of other other capacities, but we haven't been able to do kind of a standard teen counsel yet, but it's been on my kind of wish list absolutely, because I think that um they're the future, right?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: If we don't get teens invested in museum spaces, then who is going to be the next generation kind of carrying this torch?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, agreed.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sitting here thinking about all of my middle school students and and the voice and the opinions that they have and giving them that kind of that forum or that platform to be able to voice that opinion.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, while Laura was sitting there talking about all the different juicy tidbits, I was thinking just gotta come back to it because I'm just like I was thinking about Rodin and his sculptures, and like the you know, kids are kind of like, Oh yeah, that's cool.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's the thinker and you know, whatever SpongeBob reference or whatever connection they have to that, and or night at the museum or something like that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden I tell them kind of about the the rumors or the you know, the back in the day back in the day, like seems to say that he wasn't that skilled, and so he would use, you know, I said so.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: They thought he would go and use more, you know, it would use parts of dead bodies, and all of a sudden kids are like, wait, what?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Did he?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I'm like, I don't know.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Rumors.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's I think what like on a high level, it's that historical context building, too, right?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think that there's this piece of what we're doing that, yes, feels like um salacious, you know, could be seen it that way, but it's also helping the student to understand how these people were perceived in their own time, which I think is is building a level of historical empathy.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're looking at these figures now as like lionized in the halls of museum.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that I think for students can feel very disconnected.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: You can feel disconnected from that.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: But when you start to talk about, you know, or even bring in, this is one of my favorite things to do, to bring in a piece of harsh criticism, an artist who now is really famous may have received, and to actually read, like, this is what a critic may have said.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Frederick Church, who's now my bread and butter at Olana, um, one critic famously called his work in a negative way, P.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: T T Barnum-esque, that some of his displays of his artwork were circus-like.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so unpacking what that means for students like can be how do you think it felt to say that, like, what if you put up a painting and someone said that it was like a circus?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how would that make you feel?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, can just be a way of fostering a connection with an artist that feels so out of reach, out of touch, and in and then can feel so disconnected.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we need to do an episode just based on the uh the juicy tidbits.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think that would just be a really fun episode.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: But like just that, you know, like I I went down a rabbit hole about PT Parnum.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: We re-watched the musical, and I was like, oh, and then I re-re-read about him, and I'm like, oh, people really did not like him.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: And to be a fine artist and to be compared with this kind of like hookster.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, this we can edit this out, but I'm like, you know, how would that what an interesting thing and to think of that happening now, you know, and even to then make a connection between that and like you know, an a comment on your Instagram.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: I there's so many connections that you can make of like how does it feel?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, anyway, especially when it's put in a newspaper or printed, you know, somewhere.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like posting it on social media somewhere.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: So kids can connect with something like that.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyways, yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Carolyn, you are such a joy to have on this.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: You you bring so much enthusiasm, and I'm like, if if people had these kinds of connections with someone at a museum, like I think everyone would want to just go into a museum all the time.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I feel like they are magical places.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, one of the things we do in our in our episode, or I should say at the end of each episode, is we have to ask your artist's question.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, what's what's one thing?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Word of wisdom, tidbit, you know, something we maybe talked about or didn't talk about that you want to leave our listeners with?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what a hard question.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Just one thing.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's one.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I think I think I think something that energizes me about museums are the fact that they there's this kind of wealth of possibility.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we've talked a lot in this conversation about how there are barriers to access.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: They are not neutral spaces, you know, they are spaces that for a long time perhaps have felt more accessible to certain groups of people.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think one piece of information, or maybe I would maybe call it a call to action, is to think about how, you know, to kind of make the places in your own life where you feel most welcome more welcome to others.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's something that a lot of um museum educators and folks over the recent years have been trying to do in museums.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, we can do that in all spaces where we feel where we feel very welcome to kind of extend that to others.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've shared a few resources.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's one particular person who I think has been doing a wonderful job writing and has some wonderful publications about um incorporating museum gallery activities to make them more accessible, and so I've I'm putting that in our resource doc.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my wonderful mentor and and and um you know hero, Sharon Vatski.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I just give a call out to her um in in this as well.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: Carolyn, uh Matt is right.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: Your joy and your enthusiasm is is amazing, and um we are excited to to know you and to have you on the podcast, and thank you for spending time with us.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: What a pleasure.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: This has been the best.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: What a great, what a great way to kick off my week.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you all.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, great job.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: On what?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you're just mining the Sal PAL group, and uh you're doing a great job.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Bringing some great great little chats to the podcast.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic people that are that I've had the opportunity to uh to meet and connect with.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: So um it's it's always nice connecting in those levels.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: But what uh I love about the chat is it gives it gives you know these really wonderful, enthusiastic experts, you know, 30-40 minutes to talk about something they really love.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: And um you can see and hear you can hear that and from Carolyn, like you can just it's she exudes passion for what she's doing, um, and really building these these community spaces of engagement.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, I love that she talked about you know mining bits of of you know uh artifacts and getting getting people excited to talk about what they're looking at.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a that could be a good episode.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_03: We should just do that and that part, but I just mean in general, like you know, how how do you connect a performance to the the space, the place, and the artifacts that you have there, you know, really building a comprehensive, connected uh program curating, if you will.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, it's always curating.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's one of the things as an educator we don't give ourselves enough credit for is that we're constantly curating.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um we're not community curators in museums, and um even Carolyn is not a curator, she's a museum educator, but you're curating the experience, you're you're choosing, you know, the the pieces to put together and the questions to ask, and the you know, how are you gonna put the lesson plan together?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: How are you gonna put the unit plan together?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's all curation, really, which is amazing.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was happy that she mentioned some of those resources and that she posted on there, especially from some of her mentors.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh where can they go to find those?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm really excited to dig into those.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: So um personally, the easiest thing for me to do, because I don't really do the behind the scenes work on this, is go to davisart.com and look under Freeze Resources.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and thank you to Davis for all they do behind the scenes and editing and and posting those resources.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: And they host every podcast episode and they host every um accompanying uh it's such a hard word to say.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: Shout out to Davis.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: Matt, if they want to reach out, if our listeners need to reach out to us for anything, how would they do that?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, one of the easiest ways, there's two actually.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the easiest ways is through our social media on Instagram, uh creativity, or send us an email.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we would love to get you know comments and and ideas or suggestions or topics of whatever um, you know, artists, and uh they can reach us at the creativity at gmail.com.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: The last thing that would be super helpful is if you listen to this podcast uh wherever you listen to it, we're available everywhere.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if you could subscribe, uh rate and review, that helps us keep it going, and we'd really appreciate it.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: But most of all, we really appreciate you and we wish you a creative week ahead.