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my job is cool (Sample excerpt from my recent to-do list): "...pull West African artifacts from storage; take to Menninger Room for Dr. Janzen’s African art class / eat pizza / introduce the collection and its provenance / find seating for 28 Washburn students; facilitate discussion; turn over to Janzen’s class; remain as back-up ..." After being told for years, “you’ll never get a job in the arts so study something more practical,” and then getting a job in the arts—one that’s located in a public library—well, it’s not just any art job. It’s better. I was reminded frequently during a talk last week how unique my workplace really is. We're located in an environment with instant access to multi-media materials. During Janzen's lecture, a student, having relied heavily on Wikipedia to research her assigned artifact, asked how one might extract truth from myth when studying a work which provides little information about the artist or function of the piece. Leaving Janzen in charge, I dashed out of the room to make 30 copies of Google's tips for refined searches. Because the students were here in the library, it allowed us to break from the art discussion, share research pitfalls and offer advice for more thorough scholarship. Can you think of another location where this would be possible in under 10 minutes? I can't. Surrounded by a vast collection of information, we are able to enhance individual experiences with related films, books, magazines, interlibrary loan services, databases or a "resident expert" on a subject. For example, another student later described the Madonna figure below (middle image from the Hirschberg Collection) as unusual compared to Western icons in that she appears nude clutching her breasts. It was explained how in Western Christian art, the Madonna is always portrayed as beautiful because in this tradition, beauty is a visual metaphor for purity and perfection, two of the Virgin Mary's characteristics. She went on to say how in most African cultures, the mother figure is portrayed in art for her primary role: provider of food and sustainance, so acknowledging the breasts is a sign of beauty. A second student added, "but I've seen pictures of Madonna where she looks unattractive, especially in those airport shots." Due to our location, I could run downstairs and grab the Library's copy of Signs and Symbols in Christian Art as reference that our resident pop-star (perhaps to her dismay) is not the original Madonna. Working in a public library underscores life's interconnectivity. As the Washburn class gathered its notes, I mentioned Cotter Hirschberg once again, and how his trips to West Africa are the reason we can provide authentic work for academic study and interpretation. The students were surprised that one person (well, two people, Dr. H and his wife, Jeanne) could amass such a relevant collection in one lifetime and in turn, leave it to the Topeka community. It reminded me of Newton's Third Law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". From a collector's perspective, the action of giving leads to multiple reactions. Here in Libraryland it could read, "For every question there is an equal and opposite connection" (opposite in the sense a gap has been bridged). Pockets of specialty information overlap and complement each other here. If a patron sees a craft exhibit in the gallery, their interest can be forwarded to a knitting workshop. If that interest grows and the same patron learns the history of knitting from books like Knitting Around the World from Threads, that might lead their team to win on Trivia Night because the winning question was "what is spinning?" And that same patron might one day leave a collection of antique knitting tools to the Library for future students to study. Having a gallery and art collection in a library setting provides for a broader user (and work) experience. Our work at the Sabatini Gallery is enhanced exponentially because of our information-rich setting, quick access to answers and breadth of perspective. My job is better because I can do a better job. It just wouldn't be the same somewhere else. http://www.tscpl.org/gallery/comments/my_job_is_cool_artblog_5/