Milwaukee Recreation Arts Internship Program

By: Liliana Reyes (UWM Peck School of the Arts) Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an art intern in the middle of a global pandemic. Join Liliana on her very first summer being an intern under very unusual circumstances.   Hello my lovely people, I am Liliana Reyes.  I am an artist and student who was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am currently enrolled at Ronald Reagan Highschool and will be a senior this fall. Through my IB level art course and previous experience with the University of  Wisconsin-Milwaukee I learned about the ArtsECO internship program. When applying for this internship the one thing I knew I  wanted to take away from this experience was making new connections. Being a part of an internship for the first time with new people is nerve racking as it is but when you add in a global pandemic to the mix things get a little tricky. Being an intern while in the middle of a global pandemic is very difficult. Everyday is a struggl...

By: Stacy Whiters (Walnut Way) A typical day in the life of an intern at Walnut Way Conservation Corps is basically working to achieve a goal putting in effort. Making the neighborhood a better place more so welcoming . Offering an opportunity to grow as a leader  Here is a photo of the first week I’ve worked with new interns completing task of building new beds and also weeding.  Here’s a photo of our hard working driven team.  Here’s a photo of my fellow interns working putting compost to help the soil  Also here’s a photo of us all after completing task of weeding the beds we have planted.  To sum it all up a typical day in the life of me working at Walnut Way is a way to gain skill and make me a better leader in life. Working with new people brings our skills together and strengthens my mind and help me expand my knowledge. My task is to weed water take care of our crops and be a leader.

By Alexander Gramajo (Walker's Point Center for the Arts)

By Zeniyah Williams (TRUE Skool)

By: Georgia Fritsch (Artists Working in Education) You can read Georgia's blog post over on her blog here . 

By: Catcher Stodola (UWM Peck School of the Arts) Maria Knier, AKA The Bezert, is an artist based in Milwaukee, WI. She is known for creating magical creatures out of clay called Totum Faunas. She uses elements found in nature, such as twigs, feathers and gemstones to help shape their personalities. But what really makes them unique are their eyes! The Bezert uses photocopied images of human eyes to help her fantasy creations to come to life. You can find many bees, a variety of birds, butterflies, elves, woodland creatures, storybook characters, and many others you may recognize but all envisioned with The Bezert’s unique spin Maria has loved art almost her entire life. Around age four she became obsessed with art and has never looked back. Before she began creating Totum Faunas, Maria illustrated and published two storybooks while also doing graphic design full time. Prior to the manifestation of her books Maria went to school for illustration at MIAD and became a freelance editorial...

By: Bazil Perez (UWM Peck School of the Arts) Daily routine of mine now and what it might be like soon Mornings between 5-12 pm & till 6 p.m. 5:30 a.m.: I typically wake up at this time and tend to scroll through my insta for 5 minutes and read the news for 10 minutes I assume once I start the internship I will be waking up later at around 7:30 a.m. 6:20 a.m.: at this time I typically start heading out with my dad to his job sites. Oftentimes this includes staying there since he does construction work. 12:15: at this time we take our break so we can eat lunch, sometimes homemade other times takeout. It depends (with the internship I’d definitely be having more homemade meals!) After forty minutes we get back to work and work until around 6. Then we head back home Once back at home I go through my emails to check what I have to respond to. At this point I really to take a nap or sleep.  Days off and times I had to go to ArtsECO Oftentimes a lot of the meetings would be at n...

By: Nebiyah Jordan (TRUE Skool) Greetings, my name is Nebiyah Jordan Before I dive deeper into my personal life as an arts intern, I first want to vaguely introduce myself. First and foremost, I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin all of my life. Recently, I graduated from highschool in May at a later date than what was originally planned. It was a rather interesting graduation due to covid pushing the ceremony into an outside event, but I digress. I will continue my higher education in this city for 2 more years at the Milwaukee Area Technical College before I transfer to Columbia College Chicago. With that out of the way we can finally journey into my life as an arts intern. I started my internship at an organization called True Skool who has also partnered with Milwaukee Public Schools for their Arts Internship program. I have only been with this program for 2 weeks but the experience is still plentiful.  5:00am- The alarm in my phone is set to go off at 9am every Monday...

By: Clarke Hamilton (Lead2Change) Hello, I’m Clarke! As a rising Junior, I am also in my second year as a film intern at Lead2Change. This year is a bit different than last year with the pandemic controlling the way things are executed, restricting me from exiting the door of our loft. Participating in Perspective Media, the film crew at Lead2Change, remotely may make filming physically harder for me, but thankfully, I have excellent communication skills and am able to help with scheduling and editing film and photoshoots, as well as control parts of their social media platforms. You may be wondering what my day may look like if I am restricted from going out, interviewing people in person, and editing together with my other peers. It is an extremely different experience, and I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in the midst of a pandemic. So, how does my schedule look?  Let’s take a look: 7:00a.m.☼ [*Bon Bon Chocolat (Marimba Cover) and my Google Home alarm plays in t...

By: Griffin Wilson (Artists Working in Education)  My internship involves many different projects and assignments. It involves getting the art vans ready, giving my employers suggestions about events, researching information so that I can be more useful, and any other tasks I am needed for. I am going to go in depth about getting the AWE art trucks ready. I got to the work site at 8:00 Am. We started by going over some documents that are related to the artists that drive the vans. After that, we went outside to look at the vans and see how much work needed to be done. We had a checklist of things that we thought might need to be done. I cleaned out the front of the van, throwing away trash and cleaning the windows. Then we moved on to the cargo area. We had just started to move out the bins of supplies, when we noticed wasps flying around the vans. Since the vans had not been driven in awhile, the wasps had made nest in many of the doors. We were able to get the supplies out of the...