Exactly five days before reaching the one year anniversary of starting my first, full-time museum job, I received an email that informed me I would be awarded a Wanda Chin Scholarship. I had spent the last 360 days settling into my role at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, my alma mater academic art museum, researching, writing, and leading academic program tours for undergraduate and graduate students who were visiting the museum as I had done not so many years ago, back when the thought of working professionally in a museum had yet to occur to me.
I was ecstatic. Yet, as September drew closer, I was also nervous. The WMA 2024 Annual Meeting would be my first professional conference. Prior to this, the only other exposure to the field other than my own colleagues were the kind folks on the Emerging Museum Professionals Facebook group (graciously hosted by the National EMP Network), and the anonymous submissions on Change the Museum. My last forays into the academic conference scene had been unfortunately cancelled or made remote through years of quarantine and lockdown. I frankly had no idea what to expect or what to do.
Of course, one I arrived those concerns and anxieties were swept away by uncountable friendly, welcoming faces and days of engaging programming. I eagerly took notes on case studies for community-based curation, learned to finger-weave and how to engage students with staff from the University of Arizona Museum of Art, and prioritized stopping in at both the emergency planning session and the ShakeOut inspiration station—Oregon is expecting The Big One, after all.
A photo of myself conversing with WMA attendees Alex Ellis and Ria Joshi
What has lingered with me, however, was the presentation by the keynote speaker, Seema Rao. While I believe most will recall the provocative phrase, “The museum does not love you,” I have been reflecting on Rao’s commentary on negotiating one’s identity as an individual and their identity as a museum professional, finding a balance between what we can give to the museum and what we should give, and doing what you love without harming yourself. In particular, I was comforted by the realization that the museum will endure beyond its staff, that I can come and go, and it will not be the end of the world. This was something that I needed to hear.
A photo of the keynote presentation
My position at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is inherently temporary. I am currently serving a two-year appointment as the Post-Graduate Museum Fellow in European and American Art, which will terminate in July 2025. I started in this position within a month of graduating from the University of Oregon with my master’s degree—this is my first “real” job, and I’ve loved every moment of it.
I have spent seven years in-and-out of the JSMA, as an undergraduate, a graduate, and now in my own career, giving time, energy, and love to the museum. I have been grappling, often quite poorly, with the idea that I will have to leave and spread my wings at a new institution. Where am I going to go afterwards? What if I can’t find another job in the field right away? Sometimes, it is honestly quite terrifying.
As a young professional in my very first years in the field, Rao’s keynote, as well as the other programming at the WMA, helped me realize that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to navigating the field, and that perhaps I had overly conflated my individual identity with my work and home institution. But it also comforted me to know that the museum will endure, and that I too will also endure and thrive.
I love museums. I love working in them and serving my colleagues, community, and the arts through my work. They don’t love me back, but that’s okay, because I also love myself. As I prepare to embark on my next journey and reenter the job market, I will take with me the lessons and resources from the WMA Annual Meeting, and hopefully, wherever I end up, I’ll have the opportunity to come back to the WMA in the future.
Photo of 2024 Wanda Chin Scholarship Recipients (author is third from left in first row)
Alexis Garcia is the 2023-2025 Post-Graduate Museum Fellow in European and American Art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the academic art museum on the University of Oregon campus. She earned her B.A. in Art History and Cultural Anthropology, her M.A in Art History, and a graduate certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Oregon. Prior to her current position, she interned with the JSMA’s preparator team for a year and a half.
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