History major Alyssa Lawhorn ’26 has always wanted to work in museums, and during her time at Hollins she’s dedicated herself to seeking out internships that offer real-world experience in the museum environment. Last January, she got the opportunity to complete a Short Term internship with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, one of the largest comprehensive art museums in the United States.
Subsequently, Lawhorn says she “wanted to see an art museum through a different lens” and work with a smaller staff in a more intimate venue. Career and Life Design at Hollins collaborates with Handshake, a premier career management system that connects students with jobs and internships. Through this networking platform, the history major who is also completing a Certificate in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) discovered that Hollins’ Eleanor D. Wilson Museum was offering a summer internship this year.
“I had taken a class with [Wilson Museum Director] Jenine Culligan, so I was already familiar with the museum and its staff,” Lawhorn explains. “With the internship, I would not just be able to see a different side of art museums. I would also be able to experience the entire process of uploading an exhibition.”
The opportunity was sponsored by a grant from the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Foundation, which stipulates that an intern focus on curating an exhibition of prints. At the same time, the Wilson Museum has in its collection over 150 artworks from the Andy Warhol Foundation that include several prints by one of the 20th century’s most important artists. In return for receiving these works, the museum has to exhibit a selection of them every few years.
“The two just kind of came together,” Lawhorn says. “When I interviewed for the internship, we talked about how the roles of appropriation and stereotypes can impact the development of art and could come into play with this exhibition.” It all came to fruition with Warhol Revisited, which premiered at the Wilson Museum August 8 and continues through October 6.
Lawhorn’s favorite part of curating Warhol Revisited “was doing the research. I wasn’t that familiar with the artist, so I started off by researching Warhol himself and his personal mindset about art. One of the great questions I received when I did a gallery talk about the exhibition was how I differentiated Warhol’s personal beliefs from the perceptions he wanted his audiences to have.” Since she doesn’t have an art history background, Lawhorn also delved into learning more about the printmaking process and the different types of prints the Wilson Museum has in its collection.
After completing her research, Lawhorn was tasked with organizing the exhibition and “learning to do the hands-on work from start to finish, from framing the prints, hanging them on the wall, and lighting them, to creating an order and flow for the pieces.” She also wrote the text that is posted with each print and for the fully illustrated catalogue that accompanies the exhibition. Throughout the entire process, she actively collaborated with, and gained valuable feedback from, the museum staff.
“I was really fortunate to be able to work so closely with the staff, particularly when creating the text for the exhibition,” she explains. “Museum text requires a specific style of writing that I wasn’t used to, and the staff helped me so much with my writing and ensuring it conformed with museum standards. It allowed me to improve as a writer, which I really appreciated.”
One aspect of Warhol Revisited that Lawhorn is especially proud of is the addition of space where museum visitors can reflect on experiencing the exhibition. “A lot of the prints are capable of stirring a range of emotions. We decided to give visitors an area where they could express their reactions to these pieces, a place where they could write down their ideas. We even established a small library area where they can read more about Warhol.”
Lawhorn hopes that visitors will come away “thinking about Warhol in a different way than what they thought of him before seeing the exhibition. People may come into it with prior conceptions about Warhol because he is so famous, and everybody knows about him to an extent. But since we identify so much provocative information about these prints, we want to foster a realization of how they can still exist in the modern world.”
This fall, Lawhorn is studying abroad in London where she will be taking a wide range of history classes and spending a lot of time exploring the city’s wealth of museums. “We will be doing a lot of field work where professors will be leading excursions to museums as part of the courses. They will also give us ample time on our own to visit museums that are connected to the classwork.”
Lawhorn is looking ahead post-Hollins to graduate school and studying museum education. “Museums are here to serve communities. I’m really interested in how audiences can connect with museums and in turn how museums can connect with their communities and continue to thrive. I gained a lot of knowledge in my Wilson Museum internship that I can bring to my future career on how we can get the community involved with an exhibition as much as possible and give them a space to react to it.”
