“Ask me a Question. I am an artist.”
The sign was perched on top of a tiny table in a giant gallery at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, a contemporary museum commonly referred to as PAMM. The artist was young with close-cropped reddish hair and beard, wearing a denim jumper, colorful tattoos, and Nikes. He sat on a stool, hands immersed in a small weaving project, needles and yarn splayed out. Although museums can be intimidating and cold, he exuded friendliness, so I approached.
“Can I ask you a question?” I nodded in the direction of the small sign advertising his availability to answer.
“Of course,” he replied, smiling.
“How does this work, exactly? What are you doing here?” I gestured to the wide gallery with slick concrete floors and oversized works of contemporary art by Ledelle Moe, Enrique Martinez Celaya, and Yoan Capote.
He smiled again. “I’m here to answer any questions you have,” he said. “About the artwork, the gallery, the museum. I’m just here to engage with visitors so that you have a good time here.”
“Are you an artist?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you work at the museum?”
“Yes.”
“How often do you do this?”
“I’m here every day,” he said. “There are around ten ‘teaching artists’ employed here.”
My eyes grew wide at the idea of a museum employing one, let alone a whole team of fulltime self-identifying local contemporary artists. “What do you do here?” I asked.
“All kinds of things,” he said. “We plan and execute educational programming and events for kids and adults. We set up stations like this one in the gallery to start conversations about certain works of art.”
“And you all self-identify as artists here, rather than being the ‘educational coordinator’ or the ‘community outreach specialist’ or some other title?” I was shocked at his revelation that the visible presence of local working artists was seen as an asset, rather than a liability, by this particular institution.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “Our experience as creative makers, as artists, is part of the museum culture here, and it’s a way to create connections between the audience and the art. For example,” he added, gesturing to the work on the desktop, “what I am working on now relates to the piece I’m sitting next to but on a much smaller scale.”