Author: Rachel McKay
Every Thursday at 5:45 pm, you can find me at Wick Monet, a little art gallery in the heart of Shadyside. This gallery is also home to The Commentary, an independent art magazine that publishes pieces focusing on local Pittsburgh art, artists, and communities. I attend a weekly meeting there, where my supervisor Heather Hershberger and I discuss my completed and upcoming tasks. Some of it is administrative, like reaching out to local businesses about potential sponsorships, but there are also a lot of tasks that draw on my creative talents, such as designing flyers or social media posts. The highlight of my internship is my work with the magazine itself by organizing its structure and editing its content.
This semester, after spending my first three years of college studying museum studies, anthropology, and english literature, the internship has helped me find my true calling: publishing. I love the written word, especially in fiction format, and The Commentary is the perfect intersection of my interests.
As I was nearing the end of my time interning with The Commentary, Heather asked me if I would write a piece to be published in a later edition. Before heading into this internship, I never expected that my work would be added to the canon of The Commentary, but when Heather offered, I was both excited and nervous to accept. Even though I am an English Literature Major, I haven’t taken a writing class in college and largely write academic research papers and essays analyzing novels. I had not yet written for an audience beyond my professors. But I do enjoy writing, especially when I get to infuse it with my own opinions and personal experiences, so I knew that this would be an incredible experience for me.
Setting into this new process, I had to begin with figuring out what to write about. Since I live off campus in Oakland, I wanted to stay local with my subject and decided that nothing could get more local than the senior studio art exhibition in the University Art Gallery! This was an especially good subject as the senior exhibition had just opened, and I was familiar with some of the artists exhibiting final pieces.
Heather guided me through the process, and during one of our meetings, gave me a series of tips on how to interview artists and how to let the conversation flow without being forced. She also assigned me slow looking practice so that I could develop those skills and be able to gather information about the artwork that I would be writing about in my piece. Her help was able to instill confidence in me and let me develop experience in interviewing and writing critique, which I likely would not have been able to do outside of this internship.
After interviewing one of the artists, Annie Du, I compiled the background information that she provided me with my own observations about her pieces and set to work writing around a page-long commentary on her artwork and the place that it holds within the context of the entire exhibition.
Now, I have written a piece that will someday soon be published in The Commentary Issue 5, and who knew that I would get the ability to call myself a published author out of this experience! Most importantly, this opportunity with The Commentary at Wick Monet has given me the unique chance to get a look behind the scenes of a publication that is directly relevant to local Pittsburgh communities, while growing my editing and writing skills and preparing me for my future career path.