Trojans break barriers as Getty interns

Three students participating in the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship Program had the opportunity to browse the Getty Museum’s collection and pick a painting that they connected with to write a personal description on. The program provides undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds with the opportunity to gain practical experience in the arts and cultural heritage fields. The descriptions of their paintings were showcased in an exhibition last weekend.

Kymia Freeman, a sophomore majoring in public relations, wrote her description on the 1888 painting “Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889” by James Ensor. Freeman said she found the piece “super engaging, physically,” with an apparent loudness and vitality communicated through the artist’s minimal brushwork. This brushwork — or lack thereof — she said, is the way she experienced sensory details.

“I see how some artists will put more detail onto one aspect of a painting … I kind of get the sense [that] this part of the painting is something that the artist really wanted to highlight,” Freeman said. “Just seeing how the central figure of the Jesus statue in the middle of that was really detailed compared to the … disorientation of the other parts of the drawing.”

Elena Prado, a fifth-year majoring in architecture, had a more intimate connection with the 1755 painting “Dandelion” by Barbara Regina Dietzsch, because it featured her favorite flower, the dandelion. The painting depicted two dandelions against a brown background, the seeds blowing away in the wind. 

“You could see each little parachute on the actual dandelions and the tiny little fly in the corner that you wouldn’t notice until you look into it,” Prado said. 

From childhood to adulthood, dandelions have been a big part of Prado’s life. When she goes on walks with her sister, she picks dandelions from the sidewalk and blows the seeds into the breeze. Prado discussed the uncanny sense of displacement that comes with perusing the halls of famous artists’ work and how it can feel like this experience is not for the average onlooker. 

“There’s this weird out of body experience from going where I’m like ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here,’” Prado said. “So I feel like it was a really positive experience [because] other people might have also had that [same experience].”

Darcy Chung, a junior majoring in art history and business administration, wrote the description for the 1570 painting “A Sheet of Studies with French Roses and an Oxeye Daisy” by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. She was thankful that the interns could stray away from the “academic jargon” that is so often seen in museums, so she didn’t have to worry about conveying a historical perspective in her description. 

Chung also has a deep connection with flowers, as her mother and grandmother passed down their interest for gardening through her family’s generations.

“I … immediately connected to it for my own family background, which I thought was really special beyond … looking at it from a more academic perspective,” Chung said. 

In addition to writing descriptions of paintings, students worked in other departments of the Getty — including community outreach and historical site preservation. Freeman worked with the education department, teaching high school students how to be junior gallery guides as part of the Student Gallery Guides program. She enjoyed being the bridge between the “hyper-professional aspect” of the permanent gallery guides and a normal student experience. 

“We work with them on their public speaking skills [on] items in the Getty collection and they literally led tours … all over the center,” Freeman said. 

Chung also worked with the Getty Foundation in the grant department, helping to identify programs that required funding. Students in art conservatories and cultural institutions in Los Angeles and around the world received funding for a wide variety of projects. Some of the projects included presenting Latine art all over museums in Southern California, and another initiative was funded at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, fostering arts news coverage.

“I did a lot of research about those different initiatives that we have … that, as I said, is all about uplifting marginalized groups within the arts community,” Chung said. 

Prado worked at the Getty Conservation Institute, which, along with the building and sites department, identifies cultural heritage sites that need preservation across the local area. This department looks to raise awareness of heritage sites locally and remove the barrier between art and each individual.

“I think people struggle to see that [we’re] still affected [by colonization] today…  It’s built into the way the city is … you look at gated communities, you look at how stores [are absent] in certain [neighborhoods] … it’s geographical differences, but geographical differences rooted in structural racism,” Prado said. “[In] cities like L.A., urban growth is often way more prioritized than historical preservation.” 

After identification, the institute files sites for preservation with the Los Angeles City Planning Department. One of these sites happened to be on Prado’s street. 

“It was one of the first houses [that the] African American Women’s club [used] here in Los Angeles,” she said. “So it helped people who were first coming here so that they could get jobs and housing. It was one of the first Black queer clubs in the United States.”

Prado highlighted how people often lose their identity in a city as diverse as L.A. 

“People will differentiate between [identities] and be like, ‘Oh, that’s not L.A. history, that’s Black history,’” she said. “And it’s like, no, those things are synonymous.” 

Freeman enjoyed being part of the internship program, and said she felt welcomed despite it being her first professional internship and feeling slightly intimidated by the unfamiliar environment. 

“I was treated with so much respect and with so much trust at the Getty that I honestly don’t think I could find anywhere else, and I’m still grateful for [that],” she said.