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Milwaukee Recreation recognizes arts interns at Milwaukee Art Museum

 

Milwaukee Recreation's award-winning Arts Internship Program is a paid summer internship program that provides high school students with practical job experience in arts-related positions. Interns explore the arts in an in-depth and applicable way while also gaining 21st-century job skills. For many students, these internships serve as their first paid job experience. Internships range from 40 to 400 hours between May and August and start at a minimum of $12.50 per hour.

Organizations are responsible for interviewing and hiring interns, setting intern schedules, and providing oversight and management of selected interns. In turn, Milwaukee Recreation provides funding for intern wages and benefits, transportation (in the form of unlimited M-Cards for the duration of the internship), as well as job-related training and career exploration.

This year, 14 organizations hosted a total of 56 arts interns, representing 29 high schools and 21 zip codes. Participating organizations included Art Start, Arts @ Large, Artists Working in Education, Bembé Drum & Dance, Casa Romero Renewal Center, Lead2Change, Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, TBEY Arts Center, True Skool, UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts, Walnut Way, Woodland Pattern Book Center, and Walker's Point Center for the Arts.

On Thursday, Aug. 15, Milwaukee Recreation hosted its annual Arts Internship Celebration at the Milwaukee Art Museum to close out the program. Throughout the evening, interns from all 14 participating organizations presented videos highlighting their summer experience and participated in Q&A sessions to detail what they learned, how they grew, and what they would say to next year's group of interns.

Milwaukee Recreation also recognized three standout interns with awards, as nominated by their host organizations. Read below to learn more about each award winner.

Creative Thinker Award: Ignacio Cutterback

Arts Interns Award Winner Ignacio CutterbackOrganization: Walker's Point Center for the Arts

Award Description: demonstrated a creative approach to solving problems and a growth mindset by overcoming a challenge or challenges.

Nomination Submission: Ignacio has been part of art programming since he was a young person himself. Seeing him grow up, he was mainly on the shy side, but as this internship went on, he rose to the occasion and grew out of his comfort zone.

Working with WPCA is his first official job, and he was faced with a lot of challenges, from youth not wanting to participate or youth not wanting to talk to anyone. Ignacio would always find creative ways to engage youth and have them excited to come back to class. We are glad to see Ignacio grow and become a better creative individual in and outside the art classroom.

Leader in the Making Award: Quincy Rupert

Arts Interns Award Winner Quincy RupertOrganization: Art Start

Award Description: eagerly took on a leadership role and gained confidence as a result.

Nomination Submission: We were lucky enough to have Quincy in our residency this past year and then again during this Summer Emerging Artist Internship. He's quiet, observant, and polite, but don't let that fool you, because that speaks volumes to his leadership style. He truly listens and thinks before he speaks in order to give you a thoughtful and meaningful response. Very importantly, he's a very humble leader who leads with a gentle heart.

His easy-going nature lends itself to effortlessly making others feel welcomed and supported. Having already been with us this past year, he was one of two of our interns who entered this summer in a leadership role. He did such a great job encouraging his fellow interns, showing them the ropes, and leading by example. His authenticity, consistency, reliability, and dependability work strongly in his favor.

We appreciate that Quincy is always quick to show his support, give thoughtful feedback to those who want it, and help with whatever is needed, no questions asked.

Work Ethic Warrior Award: Paxton Haley

Arts Interns Award Winner Paxton HaleyOrganization: Milwaukee Repertory Theater

Award Description: showed dedication to their job by being on time, being present, and working well with others.

Nomination Submission: When the summer began, this ensemble was very ambitious with what they wanted to accomplish. None of it would have been possible without the help of Paxton. She would stay late to make sure things were put away, work outside of our regular meeting time to create props, edit videos, create sound cues, and sourced many of the tech elements we used in the show (of which there were many).

Anytime that another idea or want was added, Paxton was the first person to offer to lend a hand. She created organization systems to help keep all the moving parts of our production on track, organized our collaborative documents so her other cohort members would have an easier time finding whatever they needed, and ran our backstage area during the show so everything could go as smoothly as possible.

Paxton also greatly contributed to making our ensemble a safe space for everyone. She would always make sure that everyone had everything that they needed and would do her best to make sure that all voices her being heard. She helped coordinate a potluck and candy salad for our final performance so that we could all celebrate our accomplishments over this internship. She was dedicated to making this production the best it could be for everyone involved in our Summer Youth Ensemble.

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