Florida Tomorrow is a belief...
that the transformative experience of art enriches each life it touches.
Passing the Torch
The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art — with more than 6,200 pieces — is one of the largest university-affiliated museums in the Southeast. It’s well known for building exemplary collections and designing innovative exhibitions.
Lesser known is that the Harn sponsors an internship program for students interested in pursuing careers in art museum procedures, issues and practices. So successful is this program, in fact, that Harn Museum interns often secure positions at nationally prestigious institutions.
Just ask Michael Bass, currently vice president and specialist in Chinese Ceramics at the famous Christie’s auction house in New York. A 1995 graduate of the University of Florida, Bass credits his internship for providing the hands-on experience that furthered his expertise and love of the field.
“The Harn allowed me to have direct contact with objects for the first time, to actually handle them, examine them,” he says, noting that such opportunities are both necessary and rare.
Another accomplished former intern, Jessica Theaman, also attributes much of her success to the practical experience she gained in both the curatorial and development departments of the Harn. Theaman maintains that such broad-based training was invaluable in helping her secure another internship at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, followed by a position as development assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Remarking on her good fortune to have been trained at the Harn, Theaman describes her intern experience as “a great opportunity at an institution full of wonderful resources.”
Notable for its training in critical inquiry, aesthetic exploration and museum operations, the Harn’s internship program has advanced the careers of other graduates, too, who have moved on to internships at out-of-state institutions such as the J. Paul Getty Museum in California and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Other former interns have chosen to continue their careers in various capacities at the Harn; and still others work in art-related fields regionally — one is youth program manager at the Ringling Museum, and another is a graphic designer in Tallahassee.
Part of the Harn’s mission is to promote the power of the arts to inspire and educate people by enriching their lives. All those at the Harn who work to ensure the future success of students can consider their mission accomplished, former interns contend. From the fine points of curatorial responsibility — including acquisition, interpretation and collection development — to finance, marketing, education and public relations, the internship program prepares future museum professionals to continue the Harn’s tradition of excellence.
