@SheratonYYZ @ROMtoronto My favourite souvenir from the ROM is a career in museums carved from a life-long love affair with the place.
— Maya H. (@mambolica) March 24, 2015
We would love to post that blog @mambolica! Maybe for #inspirationMW? #souvenirsMW @SheratonYYZ
— Royal Ontario Museum (@ROMtoronto) March 24, 2015
If you're at all familiar with my career path, long and winding as it has been to this point, you'll know I was already working in museums before I decided I wanted to make it my life's work, and the Royal Ontario Museum is central to the story. If you'll allow the anthropomorphising, the ROM was kind of like the
mysterious relative in children's stories; you know the type: the one who
seemingly takes no interest in the protagonists, but turns out to have
been supportive and guiding all along. I do not work for the ROM now; in fact, this coming August, it will be 10 years since I left. When I left, I went in bitterness. I left during a difficult time. 2005 was the peak of the renovations which saw a giant crystal (some have called it a 'space pyramid' others an 'iceberg') attached to an historic, if traditional Romanesque and Byzantine-styled building. Change in any institution, especially one steeped in history and academia, can cause paroxysms of angst, fear, and anger. I left to take a 4-month internship at the Manitoba Museum, for which I had requested an academic leave of absence, not unheard of, but my supervisor said no, so I said "buh-bye." Not only was I watching beloved gallery spaces being torn apart and staff being reorganised, I personally felt slighted. I left. It turned out to be the best thing I could do.
The reason I'm sharing the negative stuff is because it's part of the story of how the ROM inspired my decisions. Inspiration can come from wonderful, positive events, but it can also come from painful, negative experiences, too. We draw inspiration from many places, and for some people, negative emotions can be very powerful tools to rise up above and do great things. I don't see my leaving the ROM negatively now, and the anger I felt during the renovation upheaval has dissipated. Rather, like a grown-up child leaving their parents' home, or the fledgeling bird leaving the nest, leaving the ROM was what I needed to do, and it took equal measures opportunity and dissatisfaction to make it happen.
When I left, I had been employed in front-line work and education for seven years, which for a 20-something is a long time with a single employer, but my relationship with the ROM actually stretched far back into my early childhood. I first visited when I was 5 or 6, I think, right after the museum re-opened following its 1982 renovation. We had just moved to Toronto from Brooklyn, NY. Although my earliest museum memories are from the American Museum of Natural History, which remains a favourite museum of mine, the ROM's dinosaurs were mounted in mind-blowing dioramas and had cool lighting and sound effects. There was a rattle snake whose tail rattled when you stepped on a certain floor tile. It was awesome! And there was this brilliant little gallery space in the sub-basement, called 'The Discovery Room' where kids (and adults) could explore the artefactual world though touch and interaction. A visit to the ROM was an all-day affair for curious kids and I spent many, many days exploring.
My mom signed us up as members in 1984 and I remained a member until I moved across the country and was living in Whitehorse, some 22 years later. Christmas, March Break, PD days, Members' Previews saw us paying a visit. We dined in the Members' Lounge. And when I was a little older, my mom started sending me to ROM camp. It was expensive, so it was balanced with other ways to fill my summers while my mom worked, but I can look back and recognise that it was hands-down the most creative, thought-provoking, intelligent camp experience I ever had. I learned about photography, biology, archaeology, different cultures, architecture, and so much more. It was a place where a nerdy girl, picked on at school, could be surrounded by other intellectually curious kids from all over the city. It was a place where I fit in.
Those early experiences directed me to choose the ROM as the place where would do my co-op. I remember that the co-op placement office had a hard time figuring out how to get me in, as most of the available work experience placements went to university students. I remember being interviewed for a placement with the Ethnography department. I was heartbroken when I didn't get the co-op, because I would have been working with archaeological collections, and I was so sure I wanted to be an archaeologist. But then I got a call from the Outreach department. "Do you have a portfolio?" they asked. I told them yes, though I didn't, yet. My mom helped me put a little portfolio together from the work I did in my studio arts classes. I took it in for my interview, which I don't even remember now, but I got the co-op placement and suddenly, three half-days a week I was spending working with artists and designers, writers, and a taxidermist, building a travelling exhibit, and repairing and cleaning school case resource boxes. It was heaven. Each shift was supposed to reflect my school day schedule, but I usually stayed late. I was surrounded by glorious weirdos, just like me, and they immersed me in their wonderful, creative world where the core purpose was to create content that could be sent out all over the province to engage kids, adults, even whole communities.
I didn't understand the value of that work until years later. Growing up, I was spoiled for high quality school programs and overnight field trips to other places. I have since taught museum programs for diverse populations and demographics in Toronto, Winnipeg, Whitehorse, and most recently London, Ontario. I have met people whose only childhood museum experience was receiving a travelling school resource box from the ROM, because they lived on a reserve in northern Ontario. I have seen how outreach can amaze and inspire as much as a physical visit, sometimes more. But, as a teenager doing a co-op at the ROM, I just knew what I was doing was fun and it meant I could do it in my favourite place.
It's no wonder that as a third-year student, living in my first appartment and suddenly needing food money, that I found myself answering an ad for part-time work selling memberships at the ROM. I'd only ever worked in the deli of a small grocery and mucking out a horse barn. I had no sales experience. But I had solid 15 years of ROM experience and probably knew its floorplan better than most of its own staff. I was hired on the basis of my enthusiasm, how I gushed about the ROM's importance as a destination for people of all ages, but especially the coveted family market. I talked about the ROM in a way that made people want to go there.
There have been two geographical constants in my life for which I give equal credit in 'raising' me. The first is my family cottage in the ancient Laurentian mountains, and the second is the Royal Ontario Museum. I'm not saying the ROM is the best museum in the world, or that it is a model of museological perfection, because it isn't. Its history is not without controversy, its directors have made difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions, it has objects in its collections and on display that have frought, contested histories, it has mounted exhibitions that baffled, and occasionally offended, its audiences. At best, some of these have become incredible learning opportunities for other museums, designers, curators, historians, etc., usually, they become interesting (albeit sometimes heated) conversations. No museum has a perfect record, and I'm sure there are plenty of detractors out there ready to argue with me over the ROM's strengths and importance as a landmark museum in Canada. I accept that. At the very least, the ROM continues to strive for excellence, for engagement, for education, creativity, discovery, and inspiration.
I'm just one person who was deeply inspired by a museum. But I have taken that inspiration and run with it. If I can inspire someone to look at history in a new light, to dig a little deeper into a story, to engage in their community, to look at a challenging subject with fresh eyes, or to make a point of visiting a museum when they might have done something else, then I'm doing it right. I'm good with it. Leaving the ROM put me on an amazing journey that has taken several turns, and like the museum itself, occasionally not without its challenges, but I am grateful now to that supervisor who wouldn't grant the leave of absence. I love returning to the ROM now, an alumna, if you will, feeling proud of what I did and accomplished in my years there, even though I was just one of hundreds of worker bees in big, complex hive. The ROM was the catalyst for my passion and helped me become the person I am today. I won't become wealthy for working in museums, but I will be doing what I love, and I will be rich with passion, experience, and inspiration.
Thanks, ROM, for always having my back and encouraging me to do awesome things, even when I neither realised it nor appreciated it.
#inspirationMW #souvenirsMW
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