On-the-ground

Many young people want to live and work creatively. But large numbers drop out before they can contribute their energy, perspectives, and talents to the arts and culture. Yes, there are the challenges of cost and the hard work of charting a path. But we – organizations, programs, teachers, mentors – may not be providing young people with the kinds of skills and experiences that would help them translate their hopes into realities. Using the example of the Bloomberg Arts Internship, the WolfBrown team examines how young people can explore the full range of careers in multiple arts and culture fields, learn about work in arts-adjacent fields like graphic design and journalism, and get to know powerful role models who exemplify how to cut a hybrid path or invent an entirely original one. Giving young people that kind of know-how could reap big returns. In fact, it may be one of the most important ways to sustain and invigorate the arts and culture with new sources of talent, perspective, and energy.

By Creative Opportunities team at WolfBrown

Many young people want creative lives. But for many pursuing a career or a life enriched by arts and culture seems out of reach. Some cite the cost of training in college and beyond. Still others, as the first in their families to enter the arts, wonder if they will be able to build the social connections needed to navigate in new territory. Many point to their own and their families’ questions about whether they can gain entry to historically exclusive spaces or find steady income. These deterrents are further compounded because we—schools, programs, organizations—rarely teach or explicitly model the many sustainable ways it is possible to live and work creatively.

The Bloomberg Arts Internship (BAI) offers one solution. Since its founding in 2012 in New York City, the program has supported 1,700 paid internships for rising high school seniors at more than 250 cultural organizations across seven cities: Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The program has recently expanded its scope to include internships at cultural institutions during senior year in high school and in a summer internship during college for program alumni, creating a sequenced pathway of opportunities. 

In the 6 to 8 week summer program, interns work three days at a worksite, ranging from theater companies to glass studios to botanic gardens. Those days are combined with a day of intensive professional learning (writing, presenting, self-advocacy, and more) and a cultural immersion day that takes interns to centers of creative activity throughout their cities. One goal is for young people to acquire the transferable skills (like time management, communication, and collaboration) that they will need throughout their lives. A second goal is to help them prepare for whatever post-secondary education they want to pursue. Finally and just as importantly, through interactions with supervisors and co-workers, presenters, mentors, and peers, young people learn about multiple pathways into the world of arts and culture through three strategies: an expansive view of artistry, experiences in arts-adjacent careers, and role models whose lives speak to hybrid paths to a creative life.

Expanding What Counts: Internships at the Intersection of Art, Design, Craft, and Business

As the BAI has matured and spread, host sites have reached out to involve an increasingly wide range of work placements, expanding interns’ conceptions of careers in the arts. In Baltimore this has included positions at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, a non-profit metals and jewelry maker-space offering classes, workshops, and studio space for anyone interested in contemporary jewelry-making. Working in an independent maker-space that combines bench work with education, gallery exhibitions, and community-building, interns at the Center learn a craft that they may never have considered, but they also witness the many roles a jewelry designer might have: teacher, mentor, exhibition designer, and small business entrepreneur. As one intern writes:

“Since BAI, my skills as an artist have only grown. From learning about a completely new medium to learning about marketing and teaching. During my internship at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, I was able to learn metalsmithing from hand-sawing and piercing out different types of metal to annealing a wire with a torch to manipulate the metal’s ductility. I was also able to learn the marketing process of different procedures to do regarding logos, color schemes, and product placement by making flyers for different events the studio was hosting. I was even able to give my own demo about a metal technique called riveting. Overall, I was allowed to do something I’ve never even considered doing before and came to learn that I’m good at it! It’s just that easy!”

– Sumaya Sawyer, 2023 BAI intern

Below is an image of Sumaya Sawyer’s striking pirhrana earrings, along with her artist statement:

“Nickel silver is connected by red brass and a single pearl. It looks so simple yet it took almost two weeks to make. Although, I’m not complaining because they look exactly like I wanted them to look. I imagined a fine, distinguished woman wearing my earrings or maybe a beautiful authoritative woman. If no woman at all then maybe a fierce man since the two correlate.”

Exploring Arts-Adjacent Careers: Internships in Curation, Graphic Design, and Journalism

Bloomberg Arts Internships also introduce young people to what might be called “arts-adjacent” careers in fields like curation, graphic design, and journalism that they may never have suspected were steady, reliable wage-earning possibilities, out there and open to them.

Three BAI interns worked at the Ukrainian-American Archives and Museum (UAAM) on the main street of Hamtramck, a small city embedded in Detroit. Because the organization is small, interns were immediately plunged into learning how to photograph donations, care for objects, and think through the design of exhibitions that could draw a wider public. Working with the executive director, Olga Liskiwskyi, herself an experienced curator, they cut their teeth designing a display of Ukrainian album covers to highlight the range of traditional and popular music that has poured out of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Building on that assignment, interns helped design, install, and host a photography exhibition showcasing the Ukrainian tattoo tradition that has been re-born as a way to signal identification and solidarity with the nation since the Russian invasion. One intern designed a poster to draw foot traffic that hung on the Museum’s door. At the opening, interns interviewed visitors and created labels and photographs of local people’s tattoos.  Over their time at UAAM, interns dived into the work behind the archive’s mission to save and share a vulnerable cultural heritage—something they, as young Black Americans, whose history has been fragmented and lost, could see as an urgent and vital line of work. 

BAI interns in Boston took on the role of graphic designers for their host organizations. At Massachusetts College of Art,one pair collaborated on the design of portfolios and programs for the final celebration and graduation from the College’s Artward Bound program. At the North End Music and Performing Arts Center, Will Neely, the Marketing and Communications Manager, mentored an intern in the design of program flyers for the adult music programs and the Jazz in the Park summer concert series. In both settings, students worked much as a professional designer would: researching programs and their potential audiences, brain-storming, drafting, revising, and creating final products – all processes that prepare them to be potential contributors and collaborators in the wide range of arts-adjacent positions that sustain the arts and culture in any community.

Journalism also opened up as a pathway for interns. In Washington D. C., an intern worked at Grassroots, a non-profit that teaches media activism to individuals from those DC communities most impacted by persisting social and political inequities. There she was part of crew that filmed a community meeting about the D. C. Omnibus Crime Bill where community members spoke about their concerns with the bill and the potential rollback of accountability and transparency regulations for District police in the wake of a spike in violent crime. While the intern had experience with and passion for narrative filmmaking, she had never worked in documentary film before. At the community meeting, the intern had to dive in and figure out how to capture the story, when she had no power to write or direct it. Back at her desk the following week, she had to wrestle the footage and sound from three cameras, into a compact, but complex, story.For the first time in the summer of 2024, staff at the Brooklyn Rail, an independent arts journal in New York hosted an intern as an integral part of their editorial and production team. Partnered and mentored by Thye Cooper, the intern learned the ropes of being an arts journalist, visiting exhibitions, taking notes, discussing ideas with colleagues, writing copy, taking feedback, and copy editing to professional standards. Through the process, she developed a full essay on LaToya Ruby Frazier’s exhibition, A Monument to Empathy, which was published in the journal’s Fall issue.

Below she writes about her response to Frazier’s photograph of labor leader, Marilyn Moore’s Hands:

“The image evokes a kind of nostalgic and sentimental quality: nostalgic because these hands remind me of my grandma’s, carefully smoothing and twisting my hair as a child; sentimental because the wrinkles denote experience in life. I imagine the rings on Marilyn Moore’s fingers on a stack, like my grandmothers—and her lightweight jacket coming from the front closet nearest to the door. I imagine she never forgets to put the chain on the door. I imagine the wooden table that those hands rest on smells of Old English wood cleaner. This image plays on portraiture, yet redefines it in that it de-emphasizes the need for faces, and places emphasis on an entirely new part of the subject. I got the spitting image of my grandmother without even seeing Moore’s face.”

— Excerpt from Kamora Monroe’s essay on an exhibit of LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work, specifically a photograph of labor leader, Marilyn Moore’s Hands.

Hybrid and Invented Paths: Encountering Role Models

Through their program, interns meet people who followed anything but an expected path into a career in the arts and culture. They encounter individuals who have carved out hybrid paths sustaining lives that balance the arts with other kinds of work.  And they come face to face with people who up and invented a way to do creative work.

In Boston, BAI interns work daily with program staff who administer and run the internship, but who trained as artists and who continue to create: Jeremy Gooden, the Manager of Internship and Programs at EdVestors, works throughout the city, advocating for youth arts programs and career opportunities in the arts. One Boston intern spoke to the impact of working with people who work in hybrid ways, actively combining their experience in the arts with both careers and advocacy: “It really impacts my view on the arts industry itself… my ideal profession has definitely changed plenty of times while I’ve been here… A lot of the staff at BAI, they were actors or are still acting, so it’s very inspiring to see and to know that we have something in common, and that’s another part of networking that I can always use.”

But there are also those who invent their arts careers. In New Orleans, one arts immersion activity took interns to the House of Dance and Feathers, an extraordinary museum dedicated to its founder, Ronald W. Lewis’ participation in the culture of Mardi Gras Indians and skeleton masking. Located behind his home in the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward, his collections share the craft and traditions behind the celebration, but also the impact of Hurricane Katrina on his community and his fascination with frog garden statues. The trip is not only a deep dive into local culture and another lens through which interns can consider museums and their curators, but it is also an encounter with an entire family who made it their life work to preserve and share the full history behind Mardi Gras.  

I was working on my Mardi Gras Indian costumes for the Choctaw Hunters, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe I helped start in the Lower 9th Ward. While I was working on the suits, I had feathers and memorabilia all over the house. I came home one day & everything was in my backyard. My loving wife (who we call Minnie) said “I can’t take this no more. You’ve got to find something to do with this.” I moved the artwork into the shed and started putting up my various artifacts. The children in the community started calling it a museum and I gave it a name, “House of Dance & Feathers,” which means second lining and Mardi Gras Indians. I was at the point in my life where, “Okay, I can make a Mardi Gras Indian costume, but I want to educate the world about our great culture, how we do this, and why we are so successful at it even though the economics say we ain’t supposed to be.”

— Ronald W. Lewis, Founder and Director, The Museum of Dance and Feathers

Next Up

The Bloomberg Arts Internship helps young adults explore the many ways they can realize their hopes for living creative lives. It has spread to seven cities and reached nearly two thousand young people. 

But that impact could be greater still. Imagine if host cities:

• Sponsored career education courses that included jobs in the arts and culture sector as viable careers, allowing young people to learn from and shadow people like the supervisors and mentors mentioned here;

• Offered young people course credit for creative internships during their high school years and designed those internships so that young people learned life-long transferrable skills like oral and written communication, time management, and self-advocacy;

• Expanded the curricula of vocational and technical skills to include robust pathways in production and design; 

• Included internships in the arts and culture in the summer employment programs funded by the city and state.

These additions would create an ecosystem where the possibility of careers in creative industries and the arts was no longer an option for just a few young people. Such a system could open paths to many young people seeking creative lives. It could also bring their many traditions and languages, perspectives, and energy into the cultural life of their communities.

About Our Work and Our Collaborators

About Arts for Learning Maryland

Arts for Learning is a nonprofit organization devoted to enriching the lives and education of Maryland’s youth through educational and culturally diverse arts programs. Through Arts for Learning, professional teaching artists from all disciplines partner with educators, schools, and school districts to provide, on average, over 300,000 hours of learning in, through, and about the arts to more than 185,000 Maryland students annually.

Arts for Learning is a mission-driven organization that values community, innovation, and passion. Their staff, board, and teaching artists have a shared commitment to advance equity in the field of education by working tirelessly to generate opportunities for students to imagine, create, and realize their full potential through the arts.

About EdVestors

EdVestors is a school improvement organization that combines strategic investments, content expertise, and collaborative implementation to drive system-level impact in Boston schools. Since 2002, EdVestors has raised and invested over $42 million in school improvement efforts.

EdVestors drives toward their mission by activating people and resources; learning and iterating in context; and influencing system change. They believe that continuously attending to all three of their drivers ensures their activities will create impact.

About CultureSource

CultureSource is a member association for non-profit arts and cultural organizations in Southeast Michigan serving Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Livingston, Monroe, and St. Clair counties. As a regional service organization, they do this work through hosting professional development workshops that grow creative and leadership capacities, presenting programs that provide space for exchanging ideas about arts and culture, and leading initiatives that bring together stakeholders interested in the public accessing creative expression.

Founded in 2007 as the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan, on January 1, 2013, they became CultureSource, the source for arts and culture in Southeast Michigan. With its establishment, CultureSource filled a void that major organizations identified in the region based on shared needs for capacity building, advocacy, and marketing resources, welcoming small and mid-size organizations into the conversation. Quickly, CultureSource grew from 32 member organizations to 72, now serving over 170 annually. In 2022 CultureSource acquired the national arts consulting nonprofit EmcArts, with the aim of incorporating their unique models of adaptive changemaking into their programmatic offering.

About KIDsmART

For 25 years, KIDsmART has passionately addressed a critical problem: the limited access to high-quality arts education for children in New Orleans. In that time, they have impacted over 60,000 children and 11,000 educators in the New Orleans community and beyond through arts-integrated teaching, learning, and thought leadership.

About Studio in a School

Studio in a School‘s mission is grounded in a commitment to equity and access. In 1977, when drastic budget cuts virtually eliminated the arts from New York City public schools, Studio’s founders devised a strategy to restore visual arts instruction by engaging professional artists to support teachers in public schools.

In 2017, after 40 years of experience and success, the Studio Institute was created to expand their reach and bring their programs to schools, community-based organizations, and arts and cultural institutions beyond New York City.

About Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (GPCA)

Since 1972, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (GPCA) have played a key role in ensuring the health and vitality of arts and culture in Greater Philadelphia. In 1991, they helped establish the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (PCF); In 2008, they worked to re-establish a stronger Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy (OACCE); In 2009, they led the successful statewide battle to defeat the proposed “arts tax”; and in 2014, we successfully advocated for increasing the budget for PCF grantmaking programs, including restoring Youth Arts Enrichment Grants which provide project support for arts-education programs serving K-12 students in the Philadelphia School District.

The Cultural Alliance leads, strengthens, and amplifies the voices of more than 400 member organizations that generate over $4.1 billion in economic impact for the region. Their members, as well as the cultural community as a whole, count on the Alliance for signature research reports on the health and growth of the sector; grantmaking in partnership with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; robust professional development and membership services; marketing and audience development through their signature consumer marketing programs, Phillyfunguide.com and Funsavers; and leadership in policy and community engagement through their advocacy initiatives.

About Sitar Arts Center

Sitar Arts Center engages D.C. youth, from early childhood to young adulthood, in building a creative community of learning and belonging that removes financial and cultural barriers to arts education and career training. They provide affordable, high-quality education and workforce development in the visual, digital, and performing arts. Each semester, 80% of students are from D.C. households at 60% or less of the area median income. Programs take place year-round during out-of-school time in Sitar’s state-of-the-art facilities.

This post is a part of the On-the-ground focus of our Amplifying Creative Opportunities newsletter. This new feature will profile programs with which we work. To read previous posts from our newsletter, please visit the links below to read other ACO posts.

In this post, Kathleen Hill reviews her use of “ant trails,” one of the most common observational tools in museum studies. She explores what they make visible and the assumptions that underlie them.

In this post, Tom Wolf discusses the need to re-think the interview process by leaving behind the search for a “good match” and instead emphasizing the search for a good partner.