Staff Show 2014: Ashley Meadows
Education & Community Engagement, Exhibitions & Events
In this series, we profile participants in the 2014 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show.
Ashley Meadows, They have been around for at least 565 million years, and probably far longer. And they haven’t needed to change their body form or lifestyle in all that time… because they work. 2013, embroidery on cotton
Ashley took a few moments to give us some insight about her role at The Phillips Collection and her piece in the Staff Show. When not stitching, Ashley Meadows is a museum educator who splits her time between leading tours at The Phillips Collection, cyber navigating at ARTLAB+ at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and creating art+science workshops at the National Museum of Natural History.
What do you do at The Phillips Collection? Are there any unique/interesting parts about your job that most people might not know about?
I am just one member of the excellent School Programs Educator team! We design, write, and lead arts-integrated lessons both in the galleries and in DC public schools. We create unique tours for groups visiting the Phillips just once and for our Art Links partner schools. If you’re in the museum on a weekday morning, you’ll likely see (and hear) us moving through the museum with groups of students from Pre-K to high school.
What is your favorite work in the collection?
The Open Window by Pierre Bonnard is one of my favorites because I also live with a little, trouble-making black cat.
What is your favorite gallery/space within The Phillips Collection?
The Sant stairs have the best wooden treads and acoustics for boot heels I’ve ever encountered.
What would you like people to know about your artwork on view in the 2014 Staff Show (and/or your work in general)?
This jellyfish is just one in a series of six completed early this year. I became interested in jellyfish because they have been successfully going with the flow for hundreds of millions of years and are quite powerful, especially in large numbers. Each jellyfish is reduced from its shapely form to a linear drawing and the colors are fictional. Each jellyfish requires about fifteen to twenty hours of stitching.
The 2014 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show will be on view December 16, 2014 through January 19, 2015. The show features artwork from Phillips Collection staff.
