Our spring break has arrived and I spent most of it in Chicago. I typically don’t go out of town during breaks, but I felt like it would be helpful to stay positive for the rest of the semester. Although I took the week of from making and teaching it has been extremely helpful to my practice. I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute, Hyde Park Center for the Arts and a few private galleries. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how much I love going to these institutions and spending my time there. I think it’s a shame the way many people view these “white cube” spaces, but I completely understand why they have the reputation they do. I believe I could fit very well into one of these institutions doing community outreach and education work. Being able to reach broader communities through education and outreach events could allow the curtain to be drawn back on contemporary art and allow people to engage with it. Most complaints I hear about contemporary art are all very similar. It’s as if people think there is some sort of riddle that they don’t have the answer to and the artist takes pleasure in the fact that the viewer simply can’t understand the work. Obviously this isn’t the case, in my opinion anyway. Breaking down this stereotype of the pretentious artist and the pretentious institute is very important to me within my own work and I believe as a teaching artist as well. I would like to get more experience working for institutions like these and see if it would be a viable career path.