Position Summary
The Mount Maker/Preparator is responsible for designing and constructing museum-quality artifact mounts from initial design through completed fabrication. This role is key to ensuring the safety and well-being of MoPOP’s permanent collection and loans, maintaining collection storage facilities, safe handling, packing, presentation, installation, transport, and storage of museum collection artifacts. Working closely with the Director, Collections + Registration, Registrar, Associate Registrar and Registration Assistant, the Mount Maker / Preparator preserve the history of pop culture hosted in MoPOP’s collection.
Work Schedule: 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday.
This role had flexible start and end times, most often +/- 3 hours to the standard 9-5 to best support install and desinstall before or after public hours. This role occasionally travels to support MoPOP’s traveling exhibitions.
Salary: $30.77 - $32.91 / hour, FLSA Non-exempt
Essential Job Duties (other duties as assigned)
Mount Making and Artifact Care:
- Design, fabricate and prepare mounts for artifacts.
- Design and construct or retrofit crates, display cases and archival cardboard cavity containers.
- Oversee and participate in packing, transport, and storage of collections.
- Install and deinstall objects for exhibition.
- Prepare artifacts for exhibition, loan, photography, etc.
- Write and file condition reports, processing, and documentation of collection artifacts.
- Safely operate a variety of machinery and vehicles including a forklift, box truck, and scissor lift.
Prep Space Organization + Safety:
- Order archival supplies, tools, and specialty products and submit receipts for monthly reconciliation.
- Maintain collection storage areas and maintain an organized, clean, and functional working prep space.
- Guide and mentor staff, interns, and/or volunteers in performing related work ensuring proper safety measures and PPE are followed.
MoPOP Community:
- Support our internal culture which inspires and empowers our staff to live our mission to its highest standards.
- Contribute to a consistent customer service standard across all departments.
- Work to ensure customer service is ingrained at the core of the team and is reflected outward to our guests and other staff.
- Commitment to participating in anti-racism work, learning about the ways institutional racism impacts the workplace, and supporting teammates in operationalizing DEIA strategies in the department.
Preferred/Desired Qualifications
- At least three (3) years’ experience with object mount making with at least three (3) years working in a museum or gallery setting.
- Experience handling historical artifacts and/or art objects using best museum practices.
- Fabrication skills:
- Experience with metal, acrylic, woodworking, and machining.
- Experience with silver soldering of brass, stainless steel and TIG welding.
- Knowledge of fasteners, mounting hardware, magnets, adhesives, paints, finishes and textiles.
- Sewing experience is a plus.
- Working knowledge of
- Museum-standard HVAC, RH, and light meter settings.
- Museum and archival standard fabrication, storage, and display materials and ability to keep current on updating ideologies and sustainability practices.
- Paint applications including spray booth, rattle can and hand painting as well as proficiency with safety gear and ventilation methods.
- Familiarity with:
- Vinyl, cling, and graphic installation methods on glass, Plexiglas, fabric, and non-traditional substrates.
- Installing/deinstalling large panels of tempered glass.
- Weight bearing maximums of mounts and installation hardware.
- Experience with fitting and modifying mannequins is highly desirable including experience with shaping/carving ethafoam.
- Experience with matting and framing artwork is a plus
- Must possess a valid WA driver's license, or the ability to obtain one, and be willing to drive a 15-passenger van.
- Valid Passport. This is needed to transport artifacts internationally as part of our expanding loans program.
- Must be able to drive a variety of vehicles including forklift, box truck, scissor lift.
- Must be able to work at high altitude on a lift.
- Computer experience, including MS Office applications.
- Willingness to become proficient with The Museum System software.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and demonstrated customer service orientation.
- Ability to work comfortably in an environment where workloads and task priorities vary daily.
- Demonstrated organizational skills to manage a continuous high-volume, multi-tasking environment.
- Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment with a dynamic range of people.
Benefits
This regular full-time position includes Medical/Vision insurance, Dental insurance, Life/AD&D/LTD insurance, 3.08 hours of accrued Vacation per bi-weekly pay period, Seattle Sick/Safe, 2-7 Floating Holidays dependent on hire date (prorated first year dependent on hire date), 8 Company Holidays paid throughout the year, EAP, 401k plan with vested match schedule once eligible, and subsidized transportation benefits for Orca Pass or parking.
Why MoPOP?
We’re really glad you’re thinking about joining the team at MoPOP! We believe pop culture is a universal language capable of building connections across a range of people, no matter our differences in race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, education, socio-economic status, ethnicity, country of origin, or any other characteristic that makes us who we are. For more than twenty years, we have been showcasing how music, film, fashion, video games, sports, and more spark those connections and create a lasting cultural impact.
MoPOP provides both a physical space and an emotional and intellectual opportunity for people from any background to explore, find and build community, and recognize their own creative potential. This applies not only to our guests, but also to our staff — be it in designing an educational program to engage the next generation of creators, trying to reach a new audience with a marketing initiative, preserving an artifact in our collection, or providing excellent customer service to a visitor. If this sounds like something you’d be into, we’d love to hear from you!
MoPOP’s Mission and Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
Our mission is to activate the world-shaping power of pop culture through participative experiences, discovery, and play. We believe pop culture connects us, and that it is powerful, complex, alive and who we are. MoPOP is actively committed to ongoing learning in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). In partnership with our community, we hope to also develop safe spaces for their application. This includes taking steps to continue increasing our awareness of institutional “-isms,” as well as uncovering and undoing the ways they show up in museum culture. We recognize this is a process that requires intentionality, energy, and resources, and we are developing a DEIA framework that can cultivate a work environment and museum experience that is truly welcoming for all.
We are committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We believe that having staff, interns, and volunteers with diverse backgrounds enables us to better meet our mission and encourage BIPOC, women, and LGBTQIA+ individuals to apply. We acknowledge that our work to build safe spaces and better systems for traditionally marginalized groups is ongoing and will require constant vigilance and expect all MoPOP employees to be part of our DEIA journey.
Please email jobs@mopop.org if you need reasonable accommodations during the application or hiring process.
