Yenny Martin

Project: Facility Management Project Documentation

School: Bennington College

Major: Visual Arts (Video)

Narrowing down on a few projects isn’t simple. There are an endless number of stories to be delved into here, each with a lot of potential, enough to consume you for the entirety of the summer—but you have to pick and choose. We have a lot of freedom to define our own projects: we’re encouraged to only dedicate ourselves to projects that inspire and excite us, things we really want to explore.

I’ve been simultaneously working on making illustrations for a book that Sarah Hamad, another intern, has written a rhyme for, and working on an animation to accompany the book. The book and animation will encourage kids to be mindful museum visitors to help protect our facilities. Though these projects weren’t at all what I had expected to be diving into, I was thrilled when the idea for them quickly evolved: so much of what I enjoy is incorporated—children, teaching, and art.

So far, I’ve painted, done some monoprinting, puzzled out the obstacle-consumed art of claymation, filmed interviews and elephants, experimented with Photoshop, and edited all of it together.

At the Folklife Festival, which concluded a few weeks ago, Sarah helped me interview the Peruvian participants. This was my first experience interviewing in a festival setting, as well as interviewing through someone else in another language. There were many challenges, but sound proved to be most challenging, as music blasted from every direction—muting the words of our interviewees. There was much to learn.

Last week I recorded a mini podcast series with Sarah Gaines (yet another fellow intern) on questions regarding how to be more sustainable. It was a lot of fun! This, too, is in line to be edited and uploaded to the OFMR website.

But in the meantime, all editing is on hold as I focus on producing more illustrations for our book on museum mindfulness, which we’ve decided to expand. I wish we had months more to devote to Potato the Pig, our main character, but unfortunately time is running out! We only have three weeks left of our internship and I’m already feeling nostalgic!

A brief bit more about what it’s like here:

I have a dinosaur on my desk. There would be a larger stuffed one named Bob to accompany this Trex made of plastic, but I felt I had to draw the line somewhere. Across my desk too are watercolors, femo, little figures, sketchbooks, and clothespins…. I consider myself very lucky.

I’ve been amazed at how flexible and supportive our supervisors are. They love ideas—if only there were more hours in the workday and more days in the summer to fulfill them all!