06 Jun Merging Entire Universes

“The ability of the unique moment, person, or story to evoke an entire universe is a quality of an aesthetic experience in any medium, including exhibitions.”

– Leslie Bedford in The Art of Museum Exhibitions

There are two places in my life where I experience the “entire universe”: Nature and Museums. When spoken aloud, the feelings and emotions I experience seem ridiculous and overt but they are the truth. These places provide me with a spiritual fulfillment.

Just look at my featured image. The water rushes down the river, crashing into the rocks, foaming as it settles, swirling around an inlet and continues its path. The roar of the river echoing off of the rocks. This is form of serenity.

Where I find peace in nature, I find elation in museum exhibitions and collections. To me, there is something about viewing an object that has influenced a person, a group, a whole society’s lives that makes me feel closer to history. I can never go back to experience it as it is happening but the knowledge of how and why it influenced them is more than I can explain. May the object be the stools from the lunchroom that were in Greensboro, North Carolina where African American protesters sat during one of the first sit-ins or a postcard a father sent to his family on a trip; these objects were important because they tell a story. Because they mattered to someone.

I won’t always speak this formally, but it is important to me that everyone who reads this and any of my future posts know that when I say that this is what I want to do, what I love to do, I am 100% genuine about it. My internship will be taking place at the George Washington Parkway working primarily with the collections management of many of the historic sites under the jurisdiction of the Parkway including: Arlington House, the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, and the US Marine Corp War Memorial. This is the perfect opportunity to combine my two universes. Though I do expect for this summer to get hectic, I feel that the stress that I and my fellow interns will endure will help teach us the tools we will need for our future careers. I know that this will be the case for me.

My internship begins tomorrow, 5/31. If you would like to follow my journey in real time I am @aprlshower on Instagram and Twitter. Good luck all!