Emily Wesenick, youth and family program manager
Picture it: The Glass Box Studio. 2025. A young group of Museum educators open the doors for a day of screen printing. The red clotheslines were heavy with t-shirts for the online store. After hours (okay it was only like forty-five minutes) of grueling ironing (fine there was calm piano music playing), the educators finally welcomed volunteers into the space. For the next two hours, the studio was filled with laughter, joy, and hearty discussions of the Brewers’ chances in the playoffs.
I’ll admit it. I have been binge watching too many episodes of Golden Girls lately. How else would you explain the Sophia Petrillo-style monologue?
While Birds in Art opening weekend has long since passed, the busiest time of year for our volunteers is just getting started. The Museum’s greeters, docents, and even gardeners help keep us running in more ways than I could count, so small gestures like DIY screen printing at the Glass Box Studio are essential. To celebrate our volunteers, myself, educator Rachel Hausmann-Schall, and volunteer coordinator Andy Jacksack hatched a plan to host two special screen printing days for our beloved volunteers.
On Monday, September 29, the Glass Box Studio was filled with our greeters and docents. Through the printing tutorials and messy ink encounters, the studio was bubbling with joy. It always makes my heart happy to see everyone together, bonding and creating community over something as simple as a printed t-shirt. While the adventure was brief, the studio was once again filled with shirts to be heat set before they were sent home. The volunteer gardeners graced the studio on Friday, October 3, for a special end of the week treat. For this small group of folks who keep our gardens looking marvelous, matching shirts were in order.
While opportunities like this don’t happen often, being able to do special gatherings for our volunteers, even small events in-house, helps me get to know them better. Learning about their adventures while we are huddled over a t-shirt jig makes me feel like I’m part of their special volunteer family. I think the Golden Girls would be proud.
