NEW ULM – While coordinating the Brown County Historical Society’s programs is her main gig, Lauren McMackin is getting the chance to showcase her personal talents at the museum.

McMackin is the new guest curator who has their work on display at the museum.

The collection showcases photography work from 2015 to the present and digital art. She said she got her start in digital art at three years old when her parents gave her a laptop.

“My mom knew I needed something to do,” McMackin said. “Books kept me busy but I needed something to keep my brain going. I was one of those never sleep, always awake [kids]. The laptop I could have on at night and it had a light. I played around with the paint program, different photo editing programs old PCs came with.”

Over the years, McMackin said she has looked to continually hone her photography, editing, and digital art skills. She said she has never run out of ways to improve as technology continues to evolve.

“I love the technical aspect of art,” McMackin said. “I’m always watching as many tech videos as possible. Adobe programs I can fly through pretty quickly. The hardest thing with those tools, they’re built on a cloud server. They’re constantly updating each month and if I’m not staying up to date with some of the newest features I get way behind.”

In the field, McMackin said she always takes photos before or after noon. Taking photos during the noon hour often makes the photos overexposed to light and hard to correct.

Several muses have captured McMackin’s eye over the years. Her display showcases natural wilderness locations in Minnesota, Oregon, and Arizona. She said she has family in all three states and finds a personal connection with each area.

Besides school displays, this is the first art showcase McMackin has ever done. She said the experience has been both exhilarating and terrifying.

“You just have to choose whichever kind of tension you want from it,” she said. “It’s, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m finally getting to do what I want to do.’ But then it’s also, ‘How am I going to do this? I didn’t think the opportunity was ever going to come and now it’s here.'”

With her photographic and artistic display, McMackin hopes she can suck people in and bring them away from the world for a while.

“I hope people are happy,” she said. “One of the main things I want to do is give people an outlet. Have it be a distraction from all the other things going on in life. Life’s full of hopeless situations if you look at it hard enough. To find something that distracts you is fun.”

The guest curator display is located on the museum’s second floor.

McMackin’s display will be available for viewing during normal museum hours until September.