For Women’s History Month, the BYU MOA wanted to highlight the incredible women who work inside the museum. Let us introduce you to Clyda Ludlow, Collections Manager.
- How long have you worked at the MOA?
In my current position about 3 years but I have been at the museum in other capacities for over 10 years.
- What is your favorite part about your job?
The variety of the responsibilities, every day is different.
- What has been your favorite exhibit at the MOA?
Carl Heinrich Bloch: The Master’s Hand
- What’s one challenging aspect of your job?
The technology learning curve; I learn something new almost every day!
- What did you want to be when you grew up?
An art restorer. I was obsessed with Michelangelo and wanted to help clean the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
- What types of cool opportunities has the MOA given you?
I love that I spend my days in the vaults with the artwork itself and I love doing research on how works were acquired. I have also had the opportunity to act as a courier.
- Where is your favorite place you’ve traveled?
This is a hard question for me in that each place I have visited has found a special place in my memory. I lived in New England for many years and it is still a favorite place to visit. I love to either visit a place and then read about it or read and then visit. I read a history of the Plantagenet’s and then loved visiting their castles and after visiting the Normandy beaches I read everything I could about the heartbreaking and inspiring events that happened where I had stood. I always struggle with the question do I go back to a place I loved, like Mont Saint-Michel, or go somewhere new, like Venice! (Which is still on my bucket list)
- What women do you most look up to/ are inspired by in your life?
Interestingly, I have never been asked this question and it ended up being very thought provoking. I felt like I should choose someone famous or noteworthy but I kept coming back to my two grandmothers, who were very different women and yet both amazing in their own ways: my maternal grandmother was born at the end of the Victorian era and yet became one of the early career women, my fraternal grandmother was sold into marriage at age 12 and by 18 was a widow with two children and in spite of all obstacles she made a good life for herself and her family. They both came from a generation that put others ahead of self, which I find inspiring in our world of today. On the other side of me, I have a daughter who is so bold and brave I regularly stand in awe of her.
- What’s a typical day like for you?
Here in Registration there is no such thing as a typical day!
- How do you stay motivated?
Whenever I begin to lag here at work, I start a research project and that invariably gets me going again.
- What are some of your hobbies?
I love to read and, when we lived in New England, I loved to go antiquing.
- What advise would you give students?
Study something you love even if you do not yet know how you will make a living at it.
- If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
This is a trick question in that it is really not possible (you would eventually end up hating it); however, I do refer to Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bears as my crack cocaine.
- Who is your favorite artist/what is your favorite artwork?
Again, it is difficult to choose a favorite but I can tell you that I believe my love of art started while holding my grandfather’s hand as we stood in front of a Rembrandt in the de Young Museum when I was about seven or eight years old.
- If you weren’t at your current job, what would you want to do?
I have often thought that I would love to be a book editor.