Marlo the Intern

At the beginning of January this year, I was faced with a tough challenge: finding an internship in one week that significantly relates to my future career goals. I am only a senior in high school, but I knew since age 4 or 5 what I wanted to be.

My grade depended on finding this internship, but I felt that finding an internship that was worthy of my time was a higher priority than my grade. Alas, I set out on my extensive search, not knowing nearly the vastness of opportunity I was getting myself into.

To put myself into context for you, I live in the suburbs, born and raised on the East edge of Katy—a spread of cookie-cutter neighborhoods that used to be nothing but a giant field less than 20 years ago. Sure, I figured I knew what Houston had to offer, I mean, my mailing address says I live in Houston; I had been downtown a time or two more than most people at my 2,000-student, windowless public school, but to say the least, my eyes had been sewn shut by my conservative residential life for the first seventeen years of my life. I chose to take this “Professional Advancement through Career Education” class through Miller Career Center because I knew it was time for me to be released.

Once I began looking for a gallery to intern at, I was utterly astounded at the magnitude of art and art-related organizations, galleries, societies, and businesses in Houston that I never knew existed. After blindly sending out about 80 emails to begin my task, I started making visits to this master list of galleries that I had compiled (this process is still ongoing; I hope to visit them all by the end of the year). DW caught my eye right away, & I arranged an interview with Tracey one weekend during a Craft Attack. I instantly fell in love with the people and the atmosphere there, and suddenly my great search didn’t seem so hard at all. I had liked other galleries I visited, but with DW, I felt a greater sense of belonging and everything just seemed to fall into place.



-Marlo Weekley 02/26/09