Last month, the UNM Art Museum’s first cohort of Collections Apprentices honed their collections management skills during a full day of training and learning at UNMAM. 

The retreat prepared apprentices to take part in all aspects of UNMAM’s ongoing Collections Year, a yearlong initiative focused on collections management, including reorganizing vaults, cataloging, photographing and assessing the condition of artworks. The initiative also includes a major digital upgrade to a new collections database, which will make it possible for anyone to explore and search the UNMAM collection online. 

Designed specifically for Collections Year, the Collections Apprenticeship program builds upon foundational values of equity, access and trust. It creates early-career pathways for students who might not otherwise have such opportunities, modeled in part on the Diversity Apprentice Program (DAP) at The Broad contemporary art museum, Los Angeles. 

“I really appreciated the student retreat as I feel it has made me more prepared to handle diverse situations in the museum. It was also so much fun to be able to spend time with everyone – including those workers with whom I don’t often overlap. Being a Collections Apprentice this year is a dream come true for me. I am so excited to be working behind the scenes at the museum and to be able to participate in preparing it to serve our students going forward!” 

–Rebecca Shalliker, UNMAM Collections Apprentice and Graduate Student, Art History 

Hands-On Training as an Investment 

Training the Collections Apprentices is essential to helping them and Collections Year succeed, says UNMAM Collections Manager Andrea Perez-Martinez, who is a DAP alumna and serves as a resource for the program. “By investing in a full day of training, we are signaling to apprentices how strongly we value them and their contributions to Collections Year,” she said. “We could not undertake this project without students. In turn, we can give them hands-on training that they can’t easily find elsewhere, and that they can apply throughout their careers.” 

Led by UNMAM staff, the retreat covered the rationale that led to Collections Year and the plan for the year, safety and security procedures, marketing and communications strategies, and policies for the Beaumont Newhall Study Room and print vault. Apprentices also learned proper techniques for moving and handling artworks, including works on paper and photographs. 

Current Collections Apprentices are UNM undergraduate and graduate students as follows: Hannah Cerne, Christina Cook, Misti Jones, Cruz Davis-Martinez, Arykah Melton, Rymer Hewitt, Bre Kappel, Ariel Montaño, Idris Parker, Gianna Ramirez, Adrian Ricca Lucci and Rebecca Shalliker. 

“Collections Year has become such a fantastic opportunity for me to explore the wealth of personal and community stories that our objects can tell. Working as a Collections Apprentice has already taught me so many physical skills of working with these materials but has also strengthened my research skills and relational thinking. This wouldn’t have happened without the purposeful training and teamwork of all our student staff, and this retreat was such a great way to start this process for new employees and strengthen skills of long-standing team members!”

–Bre Kappel, UNMAM Curatorial Assistant and Collections Apprentice and Graduate Student and Hibben Fellow, Museum Studies