“So Ya Wanna Work at the Art Museum, Eh?”

By now you should have a good idea of what my volunteer work is: helping out the art museum with their different programs and events. The job itself isn’t that taxing or difficult, but you’ll want to be prepared for a few things.

First off, make sure you go with friends. There’s a decent group that goes to the art museum, and without friends, the slightly monotonous tasks that you may be assigned won’t be enjoyable. Though mixing sugar for two hours may not be the most fun thing to do, if you have a partner helping you, it can really improve your view of the activity.

Second, be prepared to help with anything you feel comfortable doing. I never expected to be hanging up shirts or mixing up icing, but the program runs on our help, the TALH volunteers. Everything they ask is something that they need to be done, and something that they know they can rely on us volunteers to do.

Third, try and have a good time. Sure, you’re volunteering, and it may be for the betterment of you as a person, but that doesn’t mean it has to be something you hate doing. How can you grow as a person if you can’t enjoy your work? Even if it gets to be tedious at some points, make sure that you come out of each trip to the art museum feeling glad that you went there; otherwise, it may not be the best place for you.

Now, there’s one last piece of advice that I must impart to you if you’re going to volunteer at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. Do not, under any circumstances, eat the sugar you make for the sugar skulls. It will ruin your taste for sugar completely. It is the reason I now hate sugar, hence the URL of this blog. Let me reiterate: eating the sugar used for the sugar skulls is bad, and you will feel bad.

Levity aside, I hope you consider this service opportunity as one you can take part in. The Art After School program runs on your contribution to it, and without you, it can only function at a fraction of what it should be. When everyone chips in and helps with the odd jobs of this service, you really can make a difference, especially for the children that attend it. Personally, it’s one of the best experiences of my life, and I hope it becomes one of yours as well.

Sincerely,

James Starkey

“When It’s Time to Say Goodbye”

I’ve been volunteering at AMSET (the Art Museum of Southeast Texas) for about two months now. The work is difficult, but it’s necessary, in the fact that without mine or any of the volunteer’s work, the whole Art After School program would collapse. I may not be the most important piece, but I’m still a necessary component in keeping this program as a great extracurricular for the elementary school students from all walks of life.

Knowing that my work is so necessary to this program, I’ve come to respect even the little jobs that I need to do. Even when I’m just sitting with the kids and watching them, making sure that they’re focused on their work, I know that the art museum and my friends trust me to keep my end of the task up. Although watching 4^th graders isn’t that difficult, I’ve learned to keep the same sense of responsibility in every task I do. It helps that I treat a simple task such as watching the children with the same gravity as prepping sugar skulls, checking for cracks in the molds, or overseeing the mixing of icing to decorate the skulls.

Carrying this mindset out into the rest of my life has produced some very good results. I’m required to study for eight hours a week, but I always used to treat those hours as a waste of time, and didn’t really do any work when I was “studying.” By buckling down and doing the work that needs to be done, I’ve actually improved my grades in several classes and given myself more free time than normal, as I’m not scrambling to finish homework that’s due the next morning.

Due to having specific class times, my volunteer hours, and the study hours, I’ve learned how to manage my time wisely through the same application. I don’t waste much time anymore, and I’m consistent in how I manage my homework and classes.

Working at the art museum has also provided me with a greater sense of community, and a stronger friend-group. Working side-by-side with five other TALH students (The Texas Academy of Leadership in the Humanities), I’ve definitely formed a closer bond with them, and I’m happy to consider them as friends. Getting covered in paint with others is one of the few true bonding agents between people, like glue for souls.

Still, it’s very humbling to be thrust into a room of elementary school children, with no real filters. It’s like the movie, “The Invention of Lying”; everything they think, they say, and it’s not all compliments. I can’t blame them, though; they just haven’t grown the social barriers that life experience slowly ingrains in us and our thoughts. It’s almost like a look back into the past, seeing the thoughts that I had at that age and realizing that I was really rude. It made me look at how I act today, and I resolved to try and be a bit nicer to people. No need for me to act like a 12-year-old; there are enough of those around as it is.

“Sugar Mixers and Shirt Stampers”

The Art Museum of Southeast Texas is a mid-sized building in downtown-Beaumont, Texas. Though it runs mostly on donations, its exhibits change about once a month or so, and they have a large local support to keep them running strong and offering numerous programs for the community.

One is the “Art After School” program, where elementary children go to the museum afterschool for a week and learn a lot about the basics of many different art styles, from clay vessels to shirts printed on a silkscreen. My volunteer work is helping this program keep up with the multitude of different tasks that it requires to keep it running. Though I never know what exactly I’ll be doing, there are several basic tasks that myself and the other volunteers are assigned; I’ll try and give you a basic day at the museum.

When my group of friends and I arrive, we sign in at the front desk and get our nametags. Stepping into the Art Afterschool room, we’re generally greeted by the hushed roar of many children trying to keep quiet as they work, that classroom silence that many of us know quite well. Generally, we’re split into different groups to go and work on various jobs. One day may see me working with two girls as we mix together icing and food coloring, or perhaps a group of five of us in an assembly line to churn out t-shirts for the kids at the end of the week. Maybe I’m even doing what I consider to be the “worst” job, which is mixing up sugar, cream of tartar, and water to create a malleable sugar-substance; this substance is pressed into plastic molds to become sugar skulls, a traditional decoration for the Mexican Day of the Dead festival.

Though I may sound like I’m complaining, these jobs can actually be quite fun, and they really give you a sense of accomplishment. Nothing feels better than stopping for the day and realizing that you’ve made over a hundred skulls in less than two hours.

As we all slowly wind down our tasks, we return to the Art After School room, possibly covered in sugar, icing, paint, or some other backwash from our job for the day. We sign out at the receptionist’s desk and return to our lives, though the trip back to Lamar is generally spent blasting pop and show tunes to the world.

Though I may have made it sound tedious, working here is really fun. Though I’ve returned caked in sugar, or with an icing smiley-face on my back, it’s all been good fun and I’ve really felt as if I’ve helped the art museum’s community.