My Spring 2019 Internship!

My 701 CCA Experience

When Hannah offered me the position as one of the spring interns for 701 CCA, I was so excited. At the first intern meeting in February, I met the other two interns, Cole and Erich, and we discussed what we would be working on during the next several months. I was happy to hear that there were opportunities to try different things regarding installation, marketing and social media, and events.

During the first week of the internship, I worked to organize the preexisting donor database that was a compilation of records and documents from the past ten years of 701 CCA. Over the next few weeks, I learned how to use MailChimp, post 701 CCA events on local online calendars, draft content for the youth summer workshops and more. I learned a lot about the day to day communications that are essential to the organization.  

The next project that I worked on was helping Hannah install the South Arts 2019 Southern Prize and State Fellows exhibition. Over the span of a few shifts, we worked to organize and hang the artwork sent by the nine artists. The most challenging installation required about 25 shelves to be hung in a grid system. The difficulty came with making sure each shelf was level with neighboring shelves.  Hannah, the other interns and I all worked to hang the larger, heavier pieces in the gallery such as Bo Bartlett's painting. I have never worked in a gallery before, so it was really rewarding to see how everything came together.

Bo Bartlett- South Arts

Amy Gross-South Arts Exhibition

Stephanie Patton-South Arts Exhibition

      Another aspect of the internship that I particularly enjoyed was events. Over my internship session, we hosted an opening reception for South Arts, an opening party for Columbia Open Studios and a dinner for the announcement of the South Arts winner. In addition, a lot of preparation went into Columbia Open Studios even though it was not held at our gallery. I enjoyed coming to set up for each reception and interacting with the guests, board members and artists that attended. It was fun to see how each event came together and to watch guests enjoy themselves. The added bonus of helping with the events is that you get to take the left-over flower arrangements home!

Flowers from South Arts

The last event that I participated in was Columbia Open Studios, where the public is able to tour 69 artists’ homes/studios over two days. Most of the preparation I did revolved around distributing flyers around town, distributing materials such as road signs and posters to participating artists and recording sales and zip codes reported from the event.  Since I had the Saturday and Sunday off, I was able to tour some of the studios with my family. We went to Stormwater Studios, One Eared Cow Glass and Louis and Clark. My favorite artist was Anna Redwine, who has simple black and white drawings on canvas.

Overall, I really enjoyed my internship here and I would recommend applying, no matter what you are interested in or studying. There are so many opportunities to try all aspects of running an organization, all you have to do is ask if you want the experience. I loved working on different tasks each day that were actually relevant and important. I am leaving with new skills, work for portfolio and a greater appreciation for art galleries. 

P.S. The best part of working at 701 CCA is Muffin the pug!

Muffin!