End of Junior year. Beginning of Zeum Summer.

My junior year has come to a close. I made it through finals. This past year was stressful and very busy, and working at Zeum only added to my crazy schedule. Although my Saturdays were always occupied from the hours of of 10am to 5:30, I'm glad I had Zeum this year.

It's hard to believe that I've been at Zeum for an entire year. The time has gone by so fast partly because working at Zeum is so much fun. The kids are great, the staff is even more amazing but I cant lie though, it is hard work. Overwhelming crowds made me question how much I wanted to work with kids. Some days were crazy, running from room to room, trying your best to please every visitor, pay attention to every creation, always an impossible task when the numbers reach the 500 mark.

The only way I was able to survive and have such a good experience was because of the other staff, seriously. We made the hard days go by faster by laughing.

Saturday mornings at Zeum are always fun. We'd spend the first few minutes before morning meetings trying to catch up and explain what had happened during the past week. Eventually Christian would summon us to "Animators" for our morning meeting. That never stopped us, we would still be telling our stories from across the table. We have our own inside jokes, our favorite songs, and Angee is the founder of the ZeumMaster hand sign. (see me demonstrating in photos)

Like most Zeum Masters, this is my first real job, and working on a team is not new to me, but not something that I've had a ton of experience with. A big part of life at Zeum is teamwork. We work together with the common goal: to try to make the best overall experience for the visitors, most of the time that includes making a fool of ourselves. We perform all the time. High School musical is a favorite - we'll act as silly as possible to embarrass ourselves and try to encourage shy kids to perform.

People constantly ask me "What do you do at Zeum?" That question often stumps me. I have to think about it for a while, but eventually say "We help kids perform and create art." and they just give me that puzzled look and I know they're thinking "thats all." But the truth is it's so much more than just helping kids with art.We ZeumMasters facilitate and practically run the museum with the help of the educators. The ZeumMaster team helps with not just the art and the performance, we help make the overall experience an amazing one, a hard but possible task.

I now look forward to another busy summer at Zeum. This summer I can call myself a senior staff member and have the pleasure to help the newest Zeum Masters. The summers at Zeum are always with swimming with camps of kids and visiting families. The most exciting experience is meeting all the new Zeum Masters.

I met so many new people this past year and at times we had just as much fun as the visitors. Summers at Zeum bring out the kid in all of us.

How Do You Define Human Rights?

Through the years my ideas about human rights have changed. I grew up with the perception that human rights violation happened in countries distraught by war and corrupt politicians. The media has presented human rights violation as torturing prisoners and murdering entire villages and I easily accepted the idea that this had no relation to my environment. That changed when I took notice of what was going around me. I have come up with my own definition on human rights: The right to feel safe.

For Example, a ZeumMaster left her purse near the programing station in Main Gallery and later found it at the bottom of the stairs with all her belongings stolen. She lost her phone, her iPod, but more importantly she lost her sense of safety. Having your belongings stolen - Could that be categorized as a human rights violation? When we're in an environment where we feel completely comfortable, having something as unfortunate as this happen makes the experience that much worse. You have the right to feel that not only you are safe, but your processions are as well. Although some may not agree I would categorize this event as a human rights violation.

It could have happened anywhere. And I love Zeum. But I just want to say that even your safe places can be violated.

I'm doing a documentary project where I'm interviewing Zeum staff members and strangers and using their experiences and their definitions of human rights to create a video. I'm going to record them as they answer the following questions: How would you define human rights? What do you need to feel safe? Have you ever felt unsafe?

I hope to show that feeling safe is a simple right that everyone deserves. Human rights violation does not have to be as intense a physical torture, for it to make someone feel uncomfortable. Everyone has stories and I want to share them.

Creating a documentary will not only give me the opportunity to use a video camera and edit, but using real stories with real people will create a strong message.

Creativity Explored visits Zeum

"Through art, many find voice for the first time. The work they create is uncensored, fearless, innovative and fresh."
- quote from creativity explored brochure

My first day back at Zeum after a long list of leave requests met me with the opportunity to hear about Creativity Explored. Catherine, a friend of Mathew, came in this morning to speak about a local bay area organization, Creativity Explored, a program that works with mentally disabled adults, helping them create art. The pictures you see are from their website: www.creativityexplored.org.

She began by describing the various disabilities many of the artists have, ranging from autism to down syndrome and their ability to create amazing art with their different physical and mental obstacles. Catherine then walked us through various pieces of art and how they came to be, describing the artists and their specific stories. She explained that each artist had their own unique style and most used the repetitive colors and shapes throughout their pieces. I remembered thinking that if i had seen these in an art gallery i would have never thought that the artists had disabilities. They were that good.

Mathew then brought up the issue of communicating with people who have different needs. How do you communicate with someone who can't talk? I thought about it more and more, how could this possibly work. I related this to life at Zeum. Children come in all the time too shy to attempt anything. Some kids just need a little inspiration, others an example or two, and some kids would rather you walk them step by step. Making it simple, is the way I usually handle the oh so common "I'm not good at singing" or "I can't make that" or "How come my character didn't come out like that" pointing to the collection of infamous Miguel clay characters.

I admit i feel the same way as these children do, I limit my creativity ability based on my past experiences with art. There was always someone who had a more popular collage in the fourth grade or a more impressing combination of similies and metaphors in my seventh grade poetry exhibition. Catherine brought up a good observation, many of these artists are so talented and unique because they aren't affected by others. They create art without questioning themselves because they don't worry about the times or the latests trends.

I was inspired.