By Aliza Davner
Editor-in-Chief/ Lycourier
Lycoming Senior Denyse Walters, an Archaeology and Religion double-major and medieval studies minor, spent her summer completing two internships, the first of which with the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tuscon, Arizona. There, Walters was given the opportunity to work with the Kress Collection, which she described as “home to many medieval and Renaissance pieces.”
One piece in particular with which Walters was able to work closely was a cassone, or an Italian marriage chest from the Renaissance period. Walters worked with the museum curator to both research this specific piece within museum archives and also perform research on such pieces in general.
While Walters wouldn’t describe the internship as “exactly thrilling,” due to the fact that it was “largely self-directed and research-based,” she did share some highlights, one of which being finding “a lead seal that had once been tied to the leg of the cassone and had later been misplaced. The seal was a customs seal and from our partial translation (which was achieved with help from Dr. Robert Downs who let us use his high power microscopes) we believe it to have come from Florence”
Dr. Downs’ microscopes also played a large role in what Walters described as the most exciting part of her internship experience, “Dr. Downs gave us a tour of the department and showed us the ‘tricorder’ he had developed and that would be sent to Mars in 2012”
Walters went on to say that “As a Trekkie I found it really thrilling that someone had developed a tool you could point at an object and would tell you what it was composed of.”
Walters second internship was at the Buick Gallery in her hometown of Flint, Michigan. The Buick Gallery, according to Walters, is “part of the larger Sloan-Longway cultural organization that has a system of museums and planetariums in the city.”
This internship consisted of working with “thousands of prehistoric and historic Native American pieces” and Walters spent the duration of her time at the Gallery “cleaning them, organizing them into the five different collections they belong to, photographing them, and entering them into the catalog.”
Walters recounted her favorite aspect of the Buick Gallery internship experience as “the sense of pride I felt once I finally found a home for each artifact and cleared out the corner. I loved knowing that because of what I had done, the artifacts were now safely stored and would be available to future generations.”
She went on to say that “Working to safeguard history is the thing about museums that I find the most fascinating.”
When asked how her summer internship experiences related to her studies at Lycoming, Walters replied that both internships provided her with “invaluable” experiences, saying that the University of Arizona internship “was my first real internship experience, and it tied into the curatorial aspect of my archaeological studies at Lyco because of the experience in handling and storing artifacts, as well as learning what they have to tell us, which is a field I would love to get into after graduation”
In addition, her time at the Buick Gallery awarded her with hands-on experience in her chosen field. “The curatorial aspect interested me and the internship provided me with invaluable experience. Working directly with the artifacts and storing them in a safe way is exactly what I would love to do after graduation, Walters said.
As a note to other Lycoming students looking for internship experience, Walters stressed the importance of putting one’s self out into the field and digging up your own information.“Neither of these internships were adverstised or listed by the institutions,” Walters said.
“I simply knew that I would be in Arizona for a portion of the summer, and later back in Michigan. I found the curator's contact information on their websites, then contacted them letting them know I was willing to provide them with slave labor for a while, and if they had anything I could help with … I met some …awesome people over the summer and made invaluable contacts, as well as gained some … references for when I graduate and start job hunting. So, do as my grandpa says, throw out a line and see if it takes. “
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