Current prints installed in lobby gallery are by the artists Sam Gilliam, Belkis Ayon, Napoleon Henderson, Curlee Raven Holton and Hiroshi Murata.

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Brandywine Workshop

Philadelphia, PA

College Internship Opportunities

for the Fall, 2011

The Brandywine Workshop, a Philadelphia –based non –profit cultural institution, is celebrating forty years or achievements in 2012. In addition to examining the work of over 350 contemporary artists in the permanent collection, Brandywine will be promoting a continued commitment to and exploration of printmaking as a Fine Art medium and its evolution from traditional and innovative processes to current collaborations in digital production.

The celebration begins in the fall, 2012 with a major exhibition at Brandywine galleries of recent works by African American artists who use historical archives, family albums and photojournalism as source material for narratives.  The exhibit will include works in the Brandywine Collection and those borrowed from participating artists. The curator for the exhibition, Renderings, is Professor Cheryl Finley, Ph.D., Cornell University.  A second major exhibition of culturally diverse artists represented in the Brandywine Collection is being organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and will open in its galleries in December, 2012. The exhibit is being curated by Ruth Fine, curator of Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery of Art.  Brandywine will prepare a duplicate exhibit from its collection, which will travel after the conclusion of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit in 2013.

Both of the above exhibitions are being prepared for touring in mid-late 2013. The Workshop would like to engage interns from the University of Delaware studying in the Art History and Collection Management program (preferably seniors and grad students) to work in our archives assisting in the preparation of both exhibitions for touring. The interns will be exposed to all aspects of exhibition preparation for touring collections and original exhibitions and documentary materials that support interpretation and learning. The duties and responsibilities will include:

Internship in Archive/Collection Management 

The organization of a traveling exhibition program, including documentation and cataloging of works in the general collection and those specifically being prepared for the touring exhibitions, including:

·         Updating data on individual works and inventory sheets.

·         Updating files (i.e., resumes, address, other contact information) on all artists included in both exhibitions.

·         Digitalization of all images.

·         Write condition assessment and develop condition reports for all works to be toured.

·         Assist in coordination of crating, shipping and scheduling.

·         Assist in communications with tour venues, artists and curators.

·         Securing permission forms for any works borrowed for the Renderings exhibition.

Qualifications (preferred):

Microsoft Windows 7 – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access,

Dreamweaver, Quark Xpress, Adobe Photoshop

Content Management Systems, Joomla, Drupal

Languages- Java Script, HTML

Benefits to Interns

“Visiting Artists from around the country are met

at Brandywine”

Although this is a non-paid assignment, interns gain valuable experience in organizing a major traveling exhibition, learn about the various funding and marketing strategies and can establish lasting relationships with museum professionals around the country. The ability to network and build references is a great benefit.

Internship in Video Documentation  

In support of the two exhibitions, Brandywine would like to record and edit several new and existing videos taken during the residencies of participating artists, related panel discussions, lectures and other special programs. The goal is to provide easy access to the thinking of the artists and the printmaking processes used as an educational enhancement to the touring exhibits. Edited videos would be uploaded to the Brandywine Web site and “outtakes” placed on YouTube and other sites to promote the exhibitions and direct them to online sources of information (i.e., Brandywine and among the various Webb site of artists and institutions that have collected their work or wish to include it in their curriculum) . Assignments include:

·         Video Editing (full and outtakes)

·         Assist in videotaping artists-in-residence interviews, artist lectures

·         Uploading videos to Web sites

Qualifications:

Work within a MAC environment using Final Cut Pro and other editing and graphic software to edit videos.

Camera operation, lighting, sound, etc.

Benefits to Interns

Although this is a non-paid assignment, interns gain valuable experience in a cultural organization, video documentation and work with an establish filmmaker in Philadelphia and can establish lasting relationships with others in the field locally. Interns will be able to explore the process of getting videos shown on various national outlets such as social networking, Cable TV, Commercial and Public TV.  The ability to network and build references is a great benefit. 

High School Internship Opportunities for the Summer and Fall, 2011                       

The Brandywine Workshop provides paid internships for disadvantaged high school students from Philadelphia who are preparing for a career in the fine arts or related media technologies.

Summer Internships last six weeks and a minimum of ten hours per week.

Fall Internships are afterschool and last twelve weeks and a minimum of six hours per week.

All interns are engaged in:

·         Assisting in the Print Studio with the production of prints

·         Assisting in the permanent collection and archives with print storage and data entry

·         Assisting in the office with data entry, filing, mailings, and website updating

·         Assisting in video production program with recording, editing, and reproduction.  

All student interns will receive training in the above areas.

Benefits to HS Interns

High School Interns receive a stipend equal of $7.25 per hour and become trained in software and skills that will benefit their future preparation for a career as an art professional (i.e., creation, management, marketing, etc.). Interns are also able to network and build references.

TO Apply for Any of the Opportunities Listed Above, send an email with your resume or personal summary of activities in the arts to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to the attention of : Jamil Moore, Internship Coordinator. Please specify the type of internship you are seeking.

On the Seen in Philadelphia…

Anne Bouie

New Narratives and Reinterpretations was the theme of an informal panel discussion that explored the trend among African American artists to use historic text and images in their narratives, examine new perspectives and utilize new creative formats. I first learned of the event from George-McKinley Martin‘s blog, The Black Art Project— a great place to keep up with all that’s going on across the country.  The moderator of the panel was Professor Keith Morrison, Tyler School of Fine Art, and included Tanya Murphy Dodd, of Philadelphia, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum from Baltimore, Leticia Huckaby from Ft. Worth, and Nsenga Knight of Brooklyn. 

August 7 was one of those “this-is-why-we-live-in-Philadelphia summer evenings”---immensely walkable and enjoyable: people on the street strolling, with great energy which flowed right into the Glass Lobby Gallery at Brandywine Workshop’s Print Shop and Archive. Located in Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts District at 728 South Broad Street, the Workshop opened its printmaking studios to guests and participants, who had come to mingle, share and incorporate new knowledge, meet new folk, and reconnect with old friends. I finally remembered the old Woody Allen quote: “eighty per cent of life is just showing up!”  Allan Edmunds, the Executive Director made the evening sound so exciting that I could not bear to have said I could have gone and didn’t; good friend Aziza Gibson-Hunter asked that I make sure to tell her about it.

So… I got the bus schedule, checked around for hotels, and booked a room at the Latham that beat the price at the Holiday Inn— nothing like cash flow as a sign from the Universe! I felt even more at home upon seeing Otis Robertson, a long-time Board member at Brandywine, and frequent presence here in Washington, DC. He is a regular at the Millennium Arts Salon, and worked with Lynn Sylvester and Margie Bates to establish a Friends of Brandywine chapter here as well. John E. Dowell,Jr. Professor at Temple University was in attendance, as was A.M. Weaver, who is curating a retrospective of E. J. Montgomery’s work at Morgan State University’s James E. Lewis  Museum in October, 2010.

Keith Morrison, the former dean and currently a professor at the Tyler School of Fine Art provided context for the panel, stating that the convergence of the artists at Brandywine prompted organizing the panel around the notion of the past is not really the past at all—it’s all around us. He stated that we cannot avoid history and that our definition of self shifts as we reengage with historical documents.

Tanya Murphy Dodd, shared it was the realization that all the elders of her family were passing which stirred her to “want to know who these people were”, and document their existence before it was forgotten and lost”….One strain of her work incorporated her photography—she “still uses film” and actually makes her own cameras! She was interested in, and motivated by “the recovery of history”, and felt that being a storyteller she presented an “evolving definition of truth” in her work.

Letitia Huckaby of Houston stated that much of her inspiration and use of textiles---quilt pieces and remnants, old fabric and flour sacks---stemmed from a desire to affirm and validate people who were often seen and treated as if they were “leftover and tossed away scraps”. Her wedding dresses made from yoyo quilt pieces emanated regard for the work, creativity and practicality of the women who created this still-popular quilting piece, and she  incorporated traditional African American quilt pieces—Blocks and Strikes, and the Double Ring quilts; she also spent time with the legendary quilters of Gee’s Bend. Her “conversation with historical documents” helps her grasp the meaning behind them, and shared her deep identification with the pieces, “they are so personal”.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum of Baltimore, who was born in Botswana, and has done installations in such places as Johannesburg, South Africa, used the creation of an alter ego, Asme” to chart and document journeys across time and space. Like many mythic characters, what Native Americans, Africans, accompanied Asme and other pre-conversion cultures would call a “totem”-the Canadian grey goose. The traditional meaning, or “medicine” of the goose is that of travel, instinctive guidance, or direction. At one point, Asme has to sacrifice her goose in order to survive; one only hopes that there will be some way to resurrect her…Asme travels took her far way from home to new and strange lands where she had to recreate herself and make meaning of strange new settings and beings---a very telling theme in the history of Africans in the Diaspora….

Finally, Nsenga Knight of Brooklyn presented photographs and compositions based on Islamic and New World motifs and incorporating iconic figures in African-American history, and experienced “art as a political platform for community activism and awareness” because we need to revisit the past. She spoke of the need to revisit the past because its residue persists over time and leaves their mark on us…

Audience members asked panelists about how they saw their work evolving, what were the current challenges they faced, and, of course, when and where was the next exhibit going to be.

I found affirmation and a sense of community as an artist and a historian. I will confess that I share the same need to affirm my ancestors and reinterpret the ways in which their lives and experiences have been defined and articulated by the larger society. History is being rewritten and experienced but, more importantly, truth that is crushed to earth does and will rise again. The panel sparked me to reflect in these ways.

·      What did the lives of our ancestors mean to them; is it different from the meanings that we attribute to them?

·      How do we think of what their lives were and meant?

·      Just how did they view their world, and all its complexity—and how did they respond to it?

·      Did they respond in the ways we thought they did, or the “historians” –and we do need to ask ourselves which historians—depicted and interpreted?

·      What is the legacy of the past—in all spheres-social, politics, economics, spiritually-- and how are we building upon it? 

·      How do we experience the river of our roots running through us? What do they water; where are the dry spots, and how do we direct the healing streams to them?

I look forward to continuing this discussion, and certainly my next visit to the Brandywine Workshop.