Museums spend enormous effort getting people in the door young. Nicole Combeau’s job is to keep those folks engaged as older adults.

Vitality Arts programs are skill-building art workshops for adults 55 and older, sustained courses taught by working artists, where participants actually get better at something over weeks. Nicole Combeau coordinates them, which means recruiting teaching artists, designing the curriculum, making the room work for a range of bodies and abilities, and advocating for a population most arts programming treats as an audience rather than as makers.

Sejuti is back from her wellness break and has thoughts.

Find Nicole at @beau_nicole

Museums Are People is hosted by Lauren Baccus with Sejuti. New episodes every other week. Follow the show wherever you listen, and leave a rating

Ticket sales cover almost none of what a museum costs to run.

So who pays for it? Someone whose entire job is asking. Episode 2 is with Alexandra Fields O'Neale, an Institutional Giving Manager. We talk about her career path, the creative aspects of fundraising, and how her artistic practice influences her museum work.

Link to work installed at MOCA North Miami
Bound//Unbound, 2024
https://www.mocanomi.org/posts/alexandra-fields-oneale---bound-unbound-2

Art handlers are the people with their hands on the art. They unpack the crates, build the mounts, hang the work, and move it through storage and largely go unseen by the public.

Jethro Gedeon does it.

We talk about how he got into the field, what he wishes people understood about the work, and get real about getting paid in his field.

Find Jethro at @jet_da_artist.

Museums Are People is hosted by Lauren Baccus with Sejuti. New episodes every Tuesday.

Follow the show wherever you listen, and leave a rating.

Instagram: @museumsarepeople

Work in a museum and want to be on the show? Get in touch.