Lilly Winter

Can you tell us a little about the museum studies minor?

In these courses, I've learned about the physical space of the museum where the art is displayed, different display methods, and even how to build my own arts entity. In the Arts Administration class, we created our own art non-profit and had to come up with everything that went into it—we even had an actual budget. 

What are some of the opportunities at Knox that have benefited you?

I would say curating shows for class has helped a lot. It gave me the experience to learn how to properly write didactics for art shows/works. Also, the Arts Administration course put me in a realistic space that made me create something with two other students from scratch, which was extremely challenging but fun! 

For that course, we had to create a fictional art-related non-profit. My group created an arts redistribution center where we would also teach classes. We met with business owners to get advice on how to create our fictional non-profit, and each person in my group had different responsibilities and roles. One handled finances and figured out how much everything would cost, another looked into the future and planned events, and I looked at a location for where we planned to have the non-profit and thought about our target audience and how we would connect to them. 

What drew you to major in art history and minor in art museum studies?

My mother studied studio art and education when she was in college, so I grew up around art books. When I was in high school, I loved art and history, but knew creating art was not for me in the long run. So I thought I should combine my two favorite subjects and study that. I had never taken an art history course until I came to Knox so it was new and different for me, but I still really loved the subject. I also discovered museum studies as a subject while at Knox and fell in love with that even more. In high school, I was an intern at the Galesburg Civic Art Center. Working at a non-profit art center helped me learn about basic art organizations, as well as how to work in a gallery and with artists. 

What do you plan to do after Knox?

After Knox, I plan to work at the Galesburg Community Art Center. I was recently hired and will continue my job there as registrar and education coordinator. Then, ideally, I will pursue grad school for museum studies. 

What would you say to someone considering going to Knox?

I would say come check out the College if you can and see all the cool spaces around the campus! If you are interested in museum work, there are a lot of neat spaces on campus that will aid in your learning, but there are also a lot of useful places in the Galesburg community that you can check out if you are interested in art!