Internship Profile: Max Sweeney

This week the Sm[ART] Commons Blog features:

Max Sweeney, of the Berkshire Art Center

Intern, Assistant

Internship summary:

Help instructor guide classroom activities, encourage and prompt students to develop their thinking, help students with technical artmaking skills, answer questions, and manage classroom behavior to ensure a safe learning environment.

Max's Reflection:

"I’m very lucky to be working with an instructor who has been leading after-school art programs for 11 years. This session, we are working with 3rd and 4th graders at Colegrove Park Elementary to run Berkshire Art Center’s Artists At Work curriculum, which focuses on artmaking as a career. Students learn about the daily practices of working artists, using examples from in and around Berkshire County. They explore the creative process from start to finish, starting with brainstorming and dreaming up objects they want to make and an audience for their work. They expand on their ideas through sketching, editing, sharing with their peers, planning, and then constructing finished works of art. We’ll guide them through making stickers, toys, plush animals, logo designs, and more. The session concludes with an ‘art market’ exhibition of their work, where family and friends are invited to see what each student has created.

I’m also working independently to create a promotional video for Berkshire Art Center to showcase the expertise and learning outcomes of their program. I’ll be collecting responses from parents and students, photographing artwork, and illustrating the goals of Artists At Work with video graphics. The program is unique in that it foregrounds established, local artists, representing a diverse range of possibilities for building a career in the arts."