Meet our 2020-21 Sherman Fairchild Fellows. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the Sherman Fairchild Fellowship is a comprehensive, yearlong paid program that includes hands-on experience, mentoring, and professional development. 

Edwin Calderon

Why are you interested in working at a museum?
I am a painter, multimedia artist, and Maryland native. I’m currently a resident artist at Red Dirt Studios in Mt. Rainer. I earned my BFA at Morgan State University. It was there through a community art partnership that I got my introduction to creating public artwork. I participated in planning and completing murals across Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS). I have exhibited my paintings and sculpture in group and solo shows throughout Baltimore City. I continue creatively engaging with the community in the DMV by organizing and hosting painting events and color workshops.

My grandmother was the first artist I ever knew; a painter and a poet. Early on, she recognized my artistic abilities and encouraged me to develop my skill. She instilled in me that knowledge is power, and inspired me to be a professional in my field. Her pastel portraits with ancient-Egyptian themes are the earliest paintings I remember seeing as a child. I dreamed of reaching her ability in portraiture and shading. Her paintings held stories of rich experiences, brought to life with gold leaf and bright colors. They also conveyed the beauty of brown skin tones set against mysterious dark backgrounds.

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?
I was captivated the first time I attended Phillips after 5. Experiencing the collection of artwork in a warm, casual setting felt more like a friend’s housewarming party than a night at a museum. I loved the way the community was invited and engaged with one another. A few short months later, I had the opportunity to virtually host my own color workshop at Phillips after 5.

Please tell us about your work at the Phillips over the fall, and the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?
As a Sherman Fairchild fellow for 2020-21, and member of the Community Engagement team, onboarding into the virtual workplace has been an exciting journey. My focus has been bringing about professional development opportunities that bridge entry-level positions in the museum into administrative roles.

I am currently working with my colleagues on reimagining our centennial year’s staff show in new digital forms.  One of the goals of this new staff show is to bolster relationships between Museum Assistants and administrative staff. I am also playing a role in the design of a public artwork memorial in partnership with the Black Coalition Against Covid to honor the lives lost in DC to the pandemic.

What is your favorite painting/artist here?
Sam Giliam’s April painting is the first to come to mind. It has a resemblance to a painting I did before I saw it. The similarity in color palette and shape convey related language, which inspires me to continue the conversation in my own work.

If you were to describe the Phillips in one word, what would that word be?
Exuberant

What is a fun fact about you?
Next to the visual art world, BMX-bike riding is another creative outlet that invigorates me. Skateboarding and car culture had large influences on me growing up. Each of these interwoven communities creates such progressive competition, and brings color to my life.

Meet our 2020-21 Sherman Fairchild Fellows. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the Sherman Fairchild Fellowship is a comprehensive, yearlong paid program that includes hands-on experience, mentoring, and professional development. 

Why are you interested in working at a museum?
I have always loved museums. As a kid, they stoked my imagination and led me to imagine realities outside of my own experience and time. When a collection or idea is interpreted well, it creates an enrapturing and transportive experience for visitors, and eventually I started wanting to be a part of creating that for others. To me, museums are the purest possible embodiment of the joy of learning and have an unparalleled capacity to share the fruits of intellectual and creative rigor with the broader public. I want to work for an institution with that sort of mission.  

Chloe Eastwood

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?
I graduated from American University in 2019 with a Master of Arts in Public History, and for a year afterward, I worked as a tour guide at the US Capitol. While it was still possible to give tours, I had a lot of fun discussing and sharing art, architecture, and history with hundreds of visitors each day, and I learned a lot about presentation through this experience. By mid-2020, the museum field had largely closed down, but as I was and am still very early in my career, I was ready to learn new skills and develop as a professional. The Phillips Collection offered that opportunity through the fellowship program, and as digital fellow I’ve been working to expand what we do online and digitally.  

Please tell us about your work at the Phillips over the fall, and the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?
The Phillips is in a really interesting transitional space in terms of its digital approach. Throughout the early part of 2020, the greatest need was to make what the museum does on-site available online. As we continue to digitize our museum offerings through our website, on an upcoming app, and through social media, we are finding that we can reach interested visitors from around the world, whom we could never serve in our physical museum. The mantra of late 2020 was, “The digital age is here to stay,” and so I’ve been working to create a conceptual and philosophical foundation for a sustainable virtual model for The Phillips Collection. By the end of my fellowship, I hope to have put in motion a “virtual” membership tier as an extension of our membership program so that virtual visitors can make the most of our online programming and interpretation.    

What is your favorite painting/artist here?
The Uprising (L’Emeute). Consider the Age of Revolution.  Liberalism—the politicization of liberty—encompassed ideas of free trade, free speech, religious freedom, and the right to vote. These ideas harken back centuries, but the struggle to achieve them was neither a singular moment nor of the distant past. Notice the style of this painting and consider its inclusion in a modern art museum. These struggles and politics persist through the modern era and into our contemporary space. The clean through-line between ideas, movement, style, and space compress the timeline as if daring us to dismiss or forget.   

If you were to describe the Phillips in one word, what would that word be?
Synchronous. 

What is a fun fact about you?
I’m a quilter. I feel like there aren’t very many quilters anymore, and I get it: it’s a lot less work to buy a bespread! But for me, it’s a good way to balance out the end of my day. The work I do tends to be pretty intellectually demanding, so I like to unwind with what’s essentially just cutting and stitching fabrics into pleasing arrays. It’s a low-stakes activity that always produces something nice.   

Meet our 2020-21 Sherman Fairchild Fellows. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the Sherman Fairchild Fellowship is a comprehensive, yearlong paid program that includes hands-on experience, mentoring, and professional development.

Why are you interested in working at a museum?
I am pursuing a career in industrial/organizational psychology so what interests me most is the societal role of museums. This is my first experience working at a museum so I not only have the opportunity to analyze the policies and systems of these institutions, but how to reinforce and perpetuate change.

Marjorie Bryant

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?
I was drawn to The Phillips Collection because of the chance to use my psychological background in a museum setting, which is a rare opportunity. I stayed because of the support and the genuine effort to become a more diverse and inclusive environment. The commitment to transforming this institution to a place more representative of its community, as well as Duncan Phillips’s vision of what this museum would be, is admirable.

Please tell us about your work at the Phillips over the fall, and the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?
I am the Training, Learning & Development Fellow and I work with the human resources and DEAI departments. So, much of my time here will be spent in collaboration with these departments on the coordination and implementation of training programs for Phillips staff. During my fellowship, I hope that I am able to create new processes—and also enhance the existing processes—for Phillips staff that facilitate the development.

What is your favorite painting/artist here?
My favorite artist in the Phillips’s collection is Janet Taylor Pickett. She creates such beautiful representations of Black women. Also from Riffs and Relations, I was very fond of the pieces from Henri Matisse’s project Jazz (1947). Oh, and I really liked Felrath Hines’s Yellow and Gray.

If you were to describe the Phillips in one word, what would that word be?
I would describe the Phillips as golden.

What is a fun fact about you?
A fun fact about me is I am a nail polish enthusiast. That is the art I create: a nice manicure.