Editor’s note: Lilly McEachern interned with the Georgia Museum of Art’s registrars from fall 2018 to spring 2019. Currently, she serves as exhibitions and project coordinator at the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art(opens in new tab), programs and special projects assistant at the Lyndon House Arts Center(opens in new tab) and assistant curator at Athens Institute for Contemporary Art(opens in new tab).
In 2018, associate registrar Amber Strachan visited my Russian art history class to announce an internship at the Georgia Museum of Art in the registrar department. It was the first time I heard of such a thing. I figured somebody had to be responsible for looking after a museum’s collection, but the operative details had never occurred to me before. As she was describing the project (working with a new acquisition of Russian objects donated by the Parker Collection), my immediate intrigue led me to stop Amber on her way out and confess that, though I had no prior experience, I was very interested in being part of the program. What followed was two semesters in the museum’s vaults learning about a whole new world in the arts industry.
The tactile experience of collections management allowed me to interact with the art in a way I never had before. Being the person who would often get reprimanded by security guards for getting too close to the art in a gallery, I was quickly obsessed with the experience of art handling. I learned about conservation cleaning, condition reporting, data entry, proper packing and storage methods and more during my internship at the museum. I met other people who shared my interests and, for the first time, found myself truly passionate about a career path.
Since my internship I have sought out jobs that work hands-on with an art collection. I currently serve as the exhibitions and project coordinator at the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art in Buckhead, Georgia. As part of my job, I am operating registrar to the museum’s permanent and private family-owned collection of Steffen Thomas, a 20th-century German master sculptor, painter and public works artist. I am constantly employing skills that I first learned during my internship at the museum and building new ones based on that experience.
We are often making decisions informed by previous knowledge, but it’s important to be driven by potential interests, too. I sometimes wonder how my career would be different if I had not approached Amber that morning after class. Taking chances in the professional world can feel risky, but relying on intuition might place you in new arenas you never knew existed.
