As an assistant curator at the Michigan State University Museum, Mary Worrall has the opportunity to turn her passion for learning into tangible exhibits for everyone to see and learn from.
In the traditional sense of the curatorial role, Worrall creates exhibits. She develops ideas, does research and then puts together the writing, design and related programming that goes into the exhibit.
Worrall’s specific research area is quilts. One of her big projects is the Quilt Index, which is an online digital library of quilt related materials throughout the world. She does everything from write grants to help fund the index to communicating with other museums about adding their materials.
Worrall is also involved with the Virtual Outreach Program at the Museum. With this program, a lesson would be conducted in a museum space and a classroom somewhere around the country would interact. She is currently working on programming that will coincide with the MASK: Secrets and Revelations exhibit and another dealing with quilts and human rights.
She was also been working on re:Dress, an exhibit currently on display at the MSU Museum that features sustainable fashion design.
“I love working with the objects,” Worrall said. “And I love the fact that there is a lot of curiosity and I’m always learning something new.”
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