Loose Endings

Today was a day of tying up loose ends and endings. I started the day with retrieving my keys and going up to the galleries to look around, on my own, behind locked doors, one more time. I went through each gallery, recognizing many of the pieces and knowing their histories now from my label writing stint, looking at some of my favorites. But mainly it was to bookend my experiences, and take advantage of a privilege I hope to have in the future, but probably will not for some time.

The rest of my time was spent in finishing up the research on trade and cleaning up my findings so that they were actually intelligible. In the end, I had information on the anthropological categorizations of trade, general patterns (mainly direct and indirect), and separate histories of lapis lazuli and the Silk Road. I sorted out my other documents and research, went through some of it, and sent all of my work from Winterim to Adam for him to look at. Hopefully, this will not be the last that I see of that work and the museum, but it is still an ending, at least until January when I will potentially start an internship up and continue work on Global|Local. 

The experiences I've had and the skills I've learned, not to mention the ability and opportunity I've had to produce my own work, has made this a fantastic Winterim experience. Not only was I able to experience, on a very small scale of course, the workings and life of an art museum, and the duties and obligations of an art historian working in such an institution. I not only had a fantastic time within the boundaries of the three weeks, but also will likely continue work outside of Winterim, and so make it a lasting and comprehensive project not limited to the wonderful time window we have in November.