Grace Moorman

I'm from Jackson, Mississippi, so it made a lot of sense to me to come in-state. But when I came in, I was actually an education and history major. I always knew I wanted to work in a museum but I didn't actually know art history was a major until I took Dr. Arrizolli's Art History 101 class my freshman class and I absolutely loved it and switched over. I also started at the UM museum my freshman year and so that kind of threw me in. I was just happy once I got here and fell in love with the museum and art history.

I chose anthropology because it goes hand in hand with art history. Especially when you are talking about archeology and the study of objects and artifacts. But also, art can tell so much about a specific culture, which is an aspect of anthropology that I am really interested in. Whether you're looking at ancient Greek pots, a portrait of Marie Antoinette, or ancient jewelry, they're all art and all connected to human culture. I think that any art historian that is interested in how the art connects to the social order of things has some interest in anthropology. I just think that anthropology offers another way to understand human culture that goes along with looking at the art.

Yes. I had to take three. I took 2D Design, Ceramics (my 3D credit), and Color Theory. I took Stacey Rathert's 2D class, Matt Long's ceramics, and Josh Brinlee's Color Theory. I was not particularly good at any of them, but I had a really good time. I literally cannot express how much I appreciated the professors being so sweet and wonderful and recognizing that studio art is not my forte. I actually really enjoyed them, though, and they're really helpful in learning about the processes used to make the works of art that I study and write about. I gained a new appreciation for the work that really goes into everything that artists produce.

Oof! The art department, love them! I can't speak highly enough about Dr. Kris Belden-Adams. She was my academic advisor and held my hand throughout this entire four-year process of undergrad. She was also my thesis advisor for Honors College. She was there literally every step of the way; answering my crazy emails and letting me just have meltdowns in her office. But she really encouraged me to apply for internships and wrote letters of recommendation. It's just a fostering environment where they encourage you to do whatever you want to do and make it seem like it's actually a possibility.

Yeah! I started my freshman year in the Honors College, and I think that was actually another reason why I ended up liking art history because it was Dr. Arizzoli's Honors AH 101, so it was a smaller class and more one on one. I really enjoyed that. The HC has been awesome because not only do you get the smaller classes but then they also allow you to write a senior, undergraduate thesis which is really important for grad school and art history, as it’s such a writing-based discipline. So it can only be a good thing that they are giving me the opportunity to practice a big writing and research project. I've actually learned a lot through writing my thesis, so I am thankful for the opportunity that the HC gives to us seniors.

I did an internship at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C for the spring semester a year ago. I was in D.C. for the entire spring semester working under Robin Asleson who is the NPG's Curator of Prints and Drawing. I was basically a researcher for an exhibition that is upcoming in 2021 called Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939. It focuses on all of these super avant-garde women creatives who left America for Paris, in large part because America had a pretty conservative culture compared to early 20^th century Paris. all these different women; writers, artists, musicians, and poets found their artistic freedoms to varying degrees in Paris.

These brave women left the U.S. to find their artistic freedom, and the exhibition is celebrating them and trying to understand why they could be successful in Paris and not in the U.S. and also why they've been overlooked in a bigger art and history cannons. Trying to establish why and how some artists (particularly women) are left out of the major textbooks is actually one of my favorite parts of art history. So being able to have a real role in reimagining the cannon was beyond amazing. That's one of my real loves of art history.

There are so many that I haven't been to. Can I say the University of Mississippi Museum? There are so many museums that I haven’t been to. I've never been to Europe, and Europe is the hub of Western Art History. I've never been to any of the places I study outside of the United States. I've never studied abroad, so I feel like I haven't seen enough to make a real judgment on what my favorite museum is right now.

I do always try and keep a record of where I've gone. I have a collection of exhibition and museum brochures with the date I visited written on them. I did really love the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. It's really nice, and there’s actually some artists there who we have in our museum and who are actually from Mississippi. So that was fun to see. We have a Valerie Jaudon hanging in the Speaker's Gallery right now, and she has a piece in the NMWA. I said, "Oh! I know that name. I know her!" So that was really cool. Also being big, pro-women in the arts, I loved that there was a space dedicated entirely to promoting that.

If possible and if you have time, try and do internships. If you have the time for a semester, try and do them in the spring. Everybody can do a summer internship, but in the spring they still need people. Also, be flexible. I had my ten-year plan and was following it, but I realized just this year that to be the happiest me I needed to be flexible. I don't have to go immediately to grad school, and I'm not. I'm taking some time for myself. I think that's important for college students in general; the path doesn’t have to be superlinear. I never imagined myself leaving for a semester, but it was truly one of the best things I ever did. It completely reframed what I wanted to do for the near future. So be open to opportunities that you may not have even known you wanted; I think that's the best piece of advice that I can give.