Internships

You will need to be comfortable with working from home. This was my foremost perception of my internship with the Burchfield Penney Art Center. 

Such a positive experience was only possible due to the open, positive, yet challenging attitude of the staff at the Burchfield... 

My experience at the Burchfield was one of the best I have ever had, both personally and professionally. I sincerely enjoyed working with the wonderful people I was surrounded by.

My choice was influenced by not only the museum’s proximity to home but also by my fond memories of visiting the Burchfield during my adolescence. Although I didn’t fully realize I wanted to work in museums until my second year of college, I’d like to believe the Burchfield unconsciously steered me onto my current career path.

My name is Mengyan Tang, a student at Buffalo State. I had an internship at Burchfield Penney art Center from November 2016 to April 2017.

When I got older I realized the inner workings of a museum are much more complicated than just putting artifacts on shelves! But learning about the hard work that goes into each and every museum made me appreciate them and want to work in a museum even more!

Kirsten Feigel has completed the first year of her Graduate Studies in Museum Studies at Buffalo State College. Kirsten looks forward to working in the arts and cultural fields, hopefully at the Smithsonian. 

Although I worked individually most of time, I never felt alone because lots of people are always prepared to come help me during my internship period. From that moment, I realized how everyone works together as team to form a better Buffalo State College and Burchfield Penney Art Center.

My experience as an intern at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center has proved to be extremely informative in spite of the brevity of my participation. Not only I observed the concrete mechanisms of a cultural institution which had never been disclosed by my purely academic background, but I also became aware of the vitality of an art center in a community were artists, collectors, art dealers and art-education are closely connected.

 Being able to intern under the incredible staff at the Burchfield Penney has taught me so many skills that I will be able to look back on the rest of my career. Working on and completing so many tasks throughout this summer has made everything I have learned in the class room come to life.

My tasks at the Burchfield Penney have ranged from spackling walls after an exhibition removal to transcribing Charles Burchfield’s journals to writing extensive finding aids that would eventually be published on the Center’s website.

I really felt a sense of family here at the Burchfield, between the other interns and my supervisors. There was always conversation, helping one another in our projects, and encouraging each other to be successful at the Burchfield and our ultimate goals.

Since day one of working at the Burchfield Penney I have been provided with a broad array of different projects. But surely every task I engaged with was designed to fit my needs as a museum studies student; whether in the archive or in the galleries I was persistently challenged by the diverse and nuanced tasks at hand.

As a Buffalo native, the love I have for my city only intensifies when I learn of its powerfully radiant past. 

 As someone utilizing this internship as a stepping stone in deciding what avenue I would like to explore after graduating this spring with a degree in Art History, it has been such a great experience to see all of the amazing materials housed in the Burchfield Penney first-hand.

As a fashion merchandising major at Buffalo State College, I was looking for something exciting that was different from the typical retailing internships our advisors normally set us up with.