National Museum of the American Latino - Francisco Ciraulo, Weeks 3+

Weeks 3 + 4 +5  combo incoming...

Preface for the combo post. Weeks 3 and 5 were my two day weeks.

Week 3 was short week. Most of the NMAL staff I was working with were out on vacation and I ended up working from home up until Thursday. During my at-home working time I had a couple tasks. Along with continuing with idea development for my project, I compiled 200ish pages of documents from NMAL's Latinas Talk Latinas online resource in preparation for translation to Spanish. Thursday was my community outreach reading day. Departing from Virginia around 10:15, I arrived just before eleven at a community center in Maryland connected to their Takoma Park library. With awesome support from librarian Veronica, Carmen and I teamed up to read and lead activities for two batches of kids. Our first group was ages 3-5 (although a 2 year old or two managed to sneak in as well) and our second group was ages 6-12. We had similar success (or on occasion lack thereof) with reading between the two groups. Carmen read for group 1 and I read for group 2. We both attempted to read a bit of Nuestra Historia but found that reading the backup children's books I brought were better for the kids. After reading the majority of the time was taken up with the drawing activity we were provided with. A couple notable events: 2 year old flooded the floor with a water dispenser, two girls drew each other as each others role models (aww), and one boy's Picasso-inspired drawing was especially impressive.

Week 4 was more action packed on my end. Both in the office and museum, it felt good getting back into the rhythm of taking the metro more frequently. In the office I continued to work on my project for the upcoming December event that NMAL will be coordinating with the Cheech Marin museum in California. My best piece of work for my project with regards to craft ideas is my lenticular activity. In short, this event will center around a museum exhibition that includes lenticular art among a slew of mixed media pieces. You know those cool bookmarks that change images as you tilt them? You know what a lenticular is. Basically my activity includes taking three pieces of paper and creating your own paper lenticular image which changes based on how you tilt your accordian-shaped finished product.

This week also saw me back in the Learning Lounge at the museum. Having shifted my gallery days away from Monday, increased foot traffic made for some great interactions. I have always been hesitant with the idea of jobs that require interaction with random people, but the subset of people who venture into NMAL's Learning Lounge is a special crowd. Among many amazing interactions, I'll highlight a couple: one mom who knew of/was personal friends with multiple authors with books in the Learning Lounge library, a professor who connected me to his friend who teaches in the English department at Stanford who I may need to connect with, many a family I got to play dominoes with.

Week 5 my two day wrap up week.  Time was fun. I had flies. Something like that. And my internship came to and end. I finished up my Cheech project notes and shared them with Adrian. Tuesday I had my farewell lunch with Adrian, Emily, and Josh. I cannot thank them all so much for the amazing work they did making my Washington Week and NMAL internship experience so amazing.

Signing off,

Francisco


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