From the first day of my fellowship, I’ve been on a mission to spread the word about the amazing art collection at Arrowhead Stadium. There are over 50 local and regional artists in the collection and the range of size, style, and medium is unmatched in the Kansas City area. In fact, the Chiefs were applauded by the National Endowment for the Arts as wonderful example on how large sports franchises can support the arts.

The Arrowhead Art Collection is nationally acclaimed and yet those in Kansas City are often shocked when I tell them my role with the organization. So the primary focus of my fellowship, in addition to supporting the day to day operations involved with the collection, is to forge strategic partnerships in the community.

I am the fourth fellow from UMKC to have the opportunity to work with this collection. The ground work that those before me laid has allowed me to advance the collection. Matt Reeves, Austin Williams, and Brooke Leisinger all had a major role in curriculum development for the children’s groups who tour the art collection at the stadium. Up until recently, the children’s groups had been the primary focus of the fellows. The organization wanted to support the children’s tour with Visual Thinking Strategies developed by the fellows. They are awesome!

Over the last year, in addition to the children’s groups, the fellows were able to organize events such as “paint and sip” and “cookie decorating” that allowed adult groups the opportunity to engage with the collection for a fun event.

Since I started, I have met with organizations in the Kansas City art community to expand the opportunities for adult groups and specifically arts related groups in the city to experience the collection. Over the last five years working in the Kansas City art community, I’ve found that the best partnerships are formed when both parties have a deeper sense about the mission of the other organization. So, I have been working on bringing outside arts organizations in and the Chiefs organization out into the arts community.

I have been pleasantly surprised with the enthusiasm and support that I have received both internally and externally in the work I have done this semester.

On November 2^nd, November First Friday, I organized an event for members of the Chiefs organization to visit six (!) arts organizations in the Crossroads. I led the group through the venues and spoke a bit about the differences in the arts organizations and the exhibitions. The variety in the Kansas City arts community is vast and something to be celebrated. I believed that if the Chiefs organization was to begin thinking about strategic partnerships with organizations, they should have a better idea of the different types of organizations in the community.

Conversely, on the night of November 20^th, I was able to successfully plan and execute an event for the members of the KCPT to come into Arrowhead to experience the art collection. The event invited 150 of the patrons who support KCPT to come to the stadium for a behind the scenes experience with the art. I was able to recruit ten of the artists who are affiliated with the collection to come for the event to share some of their personal inspiration behind the works. The response to the event was overwhelmingly positive and many avenues to continued partnership discussed.

Although its only my first semester with the organization, I feel that I have been able to make a positive impact. I’ve honed some of the skill I’ve developed in my school and professional work and have been able to translate that to a large-scale organization.

I’m excited to see what next semester will bring!!

So, it has been a crazy week at APS! APS has officially moved into the Westport Plexpods and they are still moving quite a bit of office stuff! So, I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible this week and focus on the APS HISTORY PROJECT. It is going well. I met with APS designers for their social media platforms and we decided to use this great app called blurb and I have been learning a lot about Blurbs uses. I have chosen to form a Trader book for APS that they can hand to their Fundraisers and then I am still trying to come up with a pamphlet styled sheeting system they can adopt and change to their ongoing platforms, so we will see how that goes. So this week has been kinda in the middle of craziness for APS And just trying to assist and stay out of the way, much as possible!!! I am using all of the material they have been housing and trying to find that cohesive collection from the beginning to the present of what APS consists of.

Until next week, my goal is to keep knocking down this major project and find bits to work on within the #metoo presentation that is taking place later on this year.

I have been working steadily to create an accurate account of APS HISTORY. It has been a rough start due to an office move from their Troost quarters to the new Plexpods in Westport and not having access to certain computer programs but their design team had been helpful in getting a flow started. The APS team and I are gearing up to make sure it comes together nicely for the teams use. I am just very overly cautious about having control and time to set myself up for success. I want to present a final piece that they want to use over and over for their as an introduction binder to their finders. I do have a format happening against PowerPoint and bringing PDFs in one area to help contain project. I have piled all the information that had been doubled up and extensively used. Ideas are flowing and I am cutting down the unnecessary information, which I have been practicing fiercely!!!! So far, I have enjoyed jumping in on the projects that APS needs an extra hand and steadily working on this Independent project for their team to present at the end of my time. I will keep at it.

Next week I will be working APS social hour to present their new facility to their clients. So this will be an opportunity that I need to work in the community and network.

A low key setting that is a perfect setting to begin that community networking!

Until next week. I will provide a look of the project hopefully if we get to work with APS design team and computers work right!! Fingers crossed!

This will be my last post for my internship at APS. I have learned a lot from my experience with working with this small non-profit organization. Adam, Claire and Alana have given me quite the freedom to find what I felt fits Public History and what could benefit their organization too.

In the end, I put myself in areas most helpful during times of their move from their new home at the Westport Plexpod and provided assistance during their Fundraiser ‘Social’ to introduce their new site too!

During my Summer Internship, I kept busy with a side project that fit into the Public History program at UMKC (despite some computer issues at APS, I am speedily finishing the project to be able to present it to the APS TEAM! It fits perfectly for both organizations. The project contains the research of who and what APS stands for. I have to say, it was a bit tricky in the beginning, the CEO of APS really did not want the organization who owned APS PRIOR, to be present within the research. I had to meld both together to find cohesion to make sense in the end. I have written about this prior blogs about presenting a Trade Book to the team to be able use for their clients! Something to actually use and reuse, and change at will.

I have also worked closely with the APS Team on their next panel which is the #Metoo discussion. I did preliminary research on all the panelists and completed the APS fact check sheet they use during the discussion. So I am pretty proud about this! APS chose several of the candidates I selected as well!

I also assisted their Project Coordinator, Adam, through out the the Summer in any Office data entry he needed done as well.

Over all, the internship was a success. I found more connections in the community that I sought and a new support group! There is also a brand new type of discussion panel to come and visit as well that I had no knowledge of before this internship.

Thanks to APS for opening your office and workspace to me and UMKC.

I will provide Dr. Sandra Enriquez a copy of my APS HISTORY Project. Thank you!

I will see you in Sept, to assist with the #metoo panel on my on time! Thanks. Kat Miller