The summer internship I'm applying for at The Cloisters Museum in NYC (a branch of The Met Museum) involves gallery workshops with children at their summer day camp and forming my own public gallery talk at the end of the internship. They accept 8 college students and hopefully I can be one of them. :)
Butcher me with criticism. Is anything redundant/unclear, and would personally accept me with this essay if you were the most selective reviewer? I'm particularly struggling with flow and organization/structure. Thanks in advance!
The prompt: Why would you like to participate in The Cloisters Summer Internship Program? Please discuss:
-What you believe you can contribute to this program
-Your interest in working with children
-What you hope to learn from this experience
-How this experience would further your education and career plans
Shy smiling faces of chattering children and feet dangling from pushed in chairs. Freshly sharpened pencils and pristine drawing papers about to be pulverized with colors mimicking Jasper Johns' work. The morning of a day of summer camp at Museo Art Academy.
It's safe to say that my most inspiring summer experience thus far was neither working alongside radio show hosts and editors nor siteseeing in the Seattle Art Museum or Seoul nor even drawing at the pleasure of my desk. But it was teaching as an assistant at Museo Art Academy. That summer, work was just as much fun for me as it was for the kids because communicating art to the children was a hands-on opportunity to inspire a life.
In my bright purple staff tee, I reveled in representing a venue downtown that flourishes in sharing and teaching art. The unexpected talent and creativity that bursted through the young'uns never ceased to excite me. As the kids smiled at their own and each others' creations and found new ideas while coloring away, I knew, in these moments, that art through any form held the power to spark a connection with the world and a life-changing happiness. With this love in mind, I started a fundraising charity, Fostering Tunes, devoted to providing funds for foster children in Seattle to learn and play music since 2010. Art holds the ability to allow that one time smile to permeate a lifetime to express and tell a story. Through the Cloisters internship and whatever work I do, I'd like to make sure one more child, during the summer of 2012, and one more human throughout my lifetime, does not pass the chance to discover art, creativity, the ability to speak, and realize themselves.
Taking from this summer's journey, I aim to learn how to more professionally communicate art to the masses and embed these tools in my repetoire while I trek towards a career in journalism and art. My vision behind studying journalism and art history at NYU revolves around speaking to the masses, in order to allow a piece of art--a living story in itself--to speak to an individual and that individual to express his or her life story. I seek to tie the loose ends of misunderstanding in this world through the stories that lie waiting to be shared because they have not found art. Witnessing and actively contributing to the inner workings of an established art organization, I hope to garner the insight needed to master communicating change and happiness through art.
Dabbling in the cultures of New Jersey suburbs, fast-paced South Korea and humble Seattle, I've come to realize that art is a global taste derived from the local and individual. A despite the frequent change of residence, one thing hasn't changed, my love for communicating. With a box full of journals from my childhood and blog teeming with art and writing posts, I have been a natural storyteller, ready to record and share anything that incites passion and curiousity.
Whenever I visit South Korea and peruse the art of my Korean culture, I find art to be a source of history and self discovery. Just as art adds to my identity, I wish to learn how to instill futures in children through art of a far away but very relevant medieval past.
Located in a bustling cosmopolitan hub that seems to only look forward, The Cloisters is not only a site to see, but moreover, an experience. I'd like to learn how such a unique and specialized location weaves nature, architecture and history to create a world based on the revolutionary past of medieval ages to stir new revolutions, educating children and influencing art of today and the future.
Through my visionary mindset, quick-learning adaptability and persistent enthusiasm, I am positive The Cloisters will find my experience and perspective supplemental to the summer camp and beyond. As an underclassman, the knowledge I gain about educating, curating and administrating in the infrastructure of a rich art powerhouse will boost every step I take towards an artistic communications career.
