I have interned at Gallery Aferro for the past five months. It has been an amazing opportunity, full of chances for growth and gaining new knowledge. But nothing can go on forever. This week marks the end of my time here as an intern.

Working at Gallery Aferro allowed me to experience a wide range of events, from the larger projects and preparing for shows to the smaller day-to-day tasks of running an art gallery. There were big important projects, of course. For the tenth anniversary auction Come As You Are, I made the retrospective slideshows of past Aferro events playing throughout the night. The last project I had a hand in was creating fresh, accurate floor plans of the gallery space with my fellow interns, Alex and Remina.

But there were also so many smaller tasks that contributed to keeping the gallery up and running every day. For every day I came in with a big project to work on, there were as many where I came in and had to water the plants and sweep the floor. Or figure out why Facebook won’t let us post gifs and how to get around that. It really demystified the art world for me; every big spectacular show or work you see had a million smaller mundane tasks that led to its accomplishment.

My time at Gallery Aferro has taught me many things. I can handle and store artworks, use a wide variety of computer programs, make old TVs obey my will, run a sales station at an auction, and work with a variety of people to make great things happen. I hope to take what I have learned here and apply it when I go forth into the world.