In the below poster, feel free to read about my positive summer work experience as the Collections Assistant for the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, an experience that led to an extended contract for the fall 2020 co-op work term (September to December 2020).
Reflecting on My Poster Creation Experience
Creating this poster helped me reflect on all I have done so far in my position as the Collections Assistant at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. The poster-making process only reinforced my decision to extend my co-op work term. Revisiting my experiences have made me look forward even more to the continuing my work at the Belkin. Simultaneously, this poster helped me reflect on challenges I can learn from and recommendations that I can continue to apply to the upcoming term and my career—especially with remote work becoming integrated into workflows.
In creating this poster, I struggled with condensing an entire summer of experiences—in a position that requires a variety of task—into a poster that was visually appealing and not too text heavy. Another challenge was thinking of images to include, especially since I was not working in-person at the Belkin. I did not want to include images, like one of the Belkin’s building, that did not reflect my remote work experience. Since one of my tasks was to request permissions and reproduction rights for copyrighted materials in the Belkin’s collections, I decided to request permission to use an image of one of the works I was fortunate to work with this summer. When reaching out to copyright holders about permissions one particular work caught my eye (as well as others): Sherry Grauer, Dog-faced Boy and Friend, 1973. This drawing immediately came to mind for my poster and the artist graciously granted me permission to feature it on my poster. As for the other images, my main task this was assisting with the Belkin's database project. As such, screenshots of the prototype of the Belkin's CollectiveAccess database and a Zoom project meeting (both taken with permission), fittingly capture my summer work experience.