The Gallery Director Internship Program was off to a good start, and 2008 was a year when our organization was really shining. In the spring we had three interns join the Gallery Director Internship Program: Kara Hendershot, Joe Iverson, and Summer Scharringhausen. Kara was an amazing painter that had shown several times already and was looking to get more hands-on gallery experience. Her works were among my favorite ever shown at Altered Esthetics, deep and vibrant works with layers of color and meaning. She had an artist studio in Lowertown, St. Paul, our sister city’s equivalent to the Northeast Arts District. Joe Iverson was an ambitious and meticulous curator who came to the program already with a great bit of experience under his belt. Like the others, he wanted more hands-on work in a gallery setting. He took on as his intern project the installation of a hanging system. He installed pipe and chain so that we could hang works in our ambitious annual schedule without turning our walls completely to swiss cheese.
Penelope—Kara Hendershot and Summer Scharringhausen
Summer Scharringhausen was an art teacher working at the time at Lighthouse Academy of Nations in Minneapolis, a charter school with a student body of mostly first-generation Americans and new immigrant families. She wanted to transition into the nonprofit arts sector, and the internship was a perfect fit for her next steps. Th is cohort did what we had hoped all cohorts would do— bond and build solid relationships with each other as creative professionals. For example, Summer and Kara would go on to collaborate on a recurring, large-scale painting series they themed to select exhibits called Happy Accidents. This cohort, however, also had a great time giving me a hard time!
They decided to title their cohort “Jamie’s Bitches.” Not to be outdone, they also used that self-descriptor at every possible turn—for meetings, for notes, and especially in public. Apparently it’s easy and fun to make me blush. The relationships we forged with each other and the continued communication and collegiality we had subsequently (thanks, modern internet!) was part of the beauty of Altered Esthetics. It helped connect artists with other artists, nerds with other nerds—a great panacea for creative isolation.
This post is adapted from It’s Never Going To Work: A Tale of Art and Nonprofits in the Minneapolis Community. Book includes illustrations by Athena Currier. ©2019 Jamie Schumacher.
It’s Never Going To Work is a light-hearted, illustrated book that offers real-life insights on founding a community space and nonprofit. It provides tools, tips, resources, and camaraderie to community organizers and anybody attempting something new.