A very special opportunity.

It was the rarest opportunities to have as a mid-career professional: a summer job! Before assuming my current role as Director of Marketing & Programming at IIDEXCanada, I had a summer job at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was a quick 4-month contract where I managed their adult learning program at what I quickly discovered to be an exceptional cultural institution: the AGO.

In many ways, the AGO is not much different from many museums around the world. It manages a permanent collection of art while struggling with the challenges of keeping its audience engage, raising funds and wooing patrons, maintaining an active board, or pursuing myriad partnerships with a host of stakeholders. Wearing the staff badge with a red lanyard gave me insight into a world seldom seen by the general public. In the short time I was at the AGO, I was able to meet so many incredible people. For starters, there's the security staff who meet regularly for their briefings and who are far more interesting than any other team of security staff that I've ever encountered. They are engaged, chatty and very engaged with patrons and the art they protect. Then there are the folks at Food & Beverage who represent an important revenue stream but who are also dedicated at their own special kind of hospitality. Every museum depends upon their interpretive planners, curators, exhibition and publication specialists, and installation crew. I had a chance to meet many of them. Some are as geeky and focused as you might imagine, while others spend years fulfilling a dream to arrange special loan so that it can be juxtaposed against another work to demonstrate an important often sublime point. There are a couple of curators (I'm not giving any names away!) who seem to play the role of host 100% of the time and who will sit outside on the steps of the "Jackman Pit" to talk with interns, tourists, or just about anyone willing to talk about art. And then there are those who make up Visitor Services. Some of those folks seem to be everywhere, often running off to manage a public program, an in-gallery activation, a ticketing issue, or whatever the call of duty might entail. A few of them would excel at managing a department store, possessing all the grace of a concierge at a top-tier hotel. 

And my own department? An incredible group of smart, dedicated professionals responsible for the AGO's day camps, youth programs, school visits, or tours given to those suffering from Alzheimer's. The amount of work these people put into their work is impressive, awe-inspiring and sensitive the broad, yet specific needs of their audience. 

My own role focused on managing the various adult art classes at the Gallery. With a series of courses and nearly two dozen instructors, the AGO offers a very unique art education program. Many of the classes take place up in the Gallery spaces and all of the classes are staffed with the support of Gallery technicians deserving their own story--very special people in their own right, each with their own unique connection to the visual arts. Inevitably, I was drawn into helping out with other programs and initiatives. My time at the institution was short, and so any opportunity to help out wherever I could was worthwhile and personally rewarding.

The list can go on, from the various members of the leadership team all the way up to the new director who is eager to make the institution increasingly inclusive and accessible. But for me, it is the various challenges and struggles of the AGO that are most fascinating to me. The nature of the work, the budgeting, and other priorities often mean that many of the staff are on contract, short-term contracts, or other forms of non-permanent status. Every department has its own personality and culture. It works out because every one must work it out.

Fold in the management and leadership teams, and combine this with the factor of unionized labour in some areas of the gallery, and you have a very complex institution juggling a variety of staff tenures. But it is the overall mission of this cultural institution which keeps everyone working together.

On a personal level, working at the AGO offered me an incredible opportunity to transition back to Toronto, and a chance to work for an institution striving to be evolve its status as a leading cultural institution. It is rare to work for an organization that constantly refines its process of responding to an exceptional range of stakeholders from all backgrounds, ages, and connections to art and culture. This is not something that should be taken for granted.

It is rare in one's career to have such an intense, finite, and positive experience in a workplace environment where all levels of staff strive for personal and professional growth--and manage a host of associated challenges in their respective areas of responsibility. My time at the AGO was a highly restorative period in my career, readying me for more exciting work that lay ahead!