Working PR in an Art Gallery

Drew

Experience Information

Employer: Open Concept Gallery
Job Title: PR/Marketing Internship
Major: Advertising & Public Relations
Received Credit?: Yes
Paid?: No

Description of the Organization

The Open Concept Gallery is a non-profit art gallery located in downtown Grand Rapids. It is focused on promoting contemporary art and culture in the Grand Rapids area and provides a platform for artists to showcase their message and their work.

Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed

While working at the gallery, I worked to start the facility rental aspect of the organization. This meant writing up a rental agreement, finding caterers, and promoting the gallery as a venue for facility rentals to the area. Along with this, I worked to promote the gallery during ArtPrize and during other showings by writing up press releases. I created a newsletter that was sent out every month or twice a month as well.

Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience

I learned how to create a newsletter and send it out to a database and I also learned how much work goes into creating a rental agreement. I learned a lot about how non-profits struggle to find funding and how the art world works. Working public relations for an area that I was not familiar with, in this case art, was an interesting endeavor and it helped me learn more than I would have had my internship been with a discipline I was more familiar with.

Favorite Part of the Experience

Creating and writing the newsletter was my favorite part of the internship. I liked the creative aspect of it and it allowed me to write more freely in comparison to the press releases.

How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals

Since working at the Open Concept Gallery I have decided that I want to work more with non-profits. Despite the troubles they have in funding public relations departments, they present interesting scenarios to work in and they allow you to have several different projects to work on at once. I would much rather have this variation in my job than a singular focus.

All opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of GVSU.