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Student Committee

CAA Annual Conference, New York, 2000
"Entering the Job Market: Tips for Visual Arts, Art History, and Art Education Students"

Chair, Michele Greet, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
Date: Friday, February 25
Time: 5:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

The CAA Student Committee session is designed as a panel discussion on the challenges of making the transition from student to working professional. The panel will consider both traditional and innovative job options open to artists, art historians, and art educators. Working professionals will describe the nature of their work, the necessary qualifications for the job, and the advantages and disadvantages of their position.

The panel will include three art historians: a curator/ director/ educator/ free-lance lecturer who will discuss "combination job options;" a recent graduate who is directing a gallery instead of pursuing a career in academia; and a founder of a full service art advertising business. Three visual arts professionals--a visual arts professor who implemented CAA's Career Development Workshops, a professional artist who also works as a public school teacher, and a director of a college career services department--will also participate.

The panel will address such issues as building a c.v. while still in school, anticipating the expectations of a hiring committee (i.e. teaching experience, publications, lectures, exhibitions, etc.), and taking advantage of the increasing demand for non-traditional areas of specialization.

The Student Committee has designed this panel to address the needs and concerns of students attending the CAA Annual Conference. It is meant to be informative for graduate students preparing to enter the job market.

Ena Heller, Director, The Gallery at the American Bible Society
Ten years ago I started graduate school at the Institute of Fine Arts, hardly believing my good luck of having been admitted and slightly overwhelmed by the usual combination of anticipation and fear, excitement and intimidation. I settled in pretty easily, and within a few years I was (or so I thought) on my way to the "expected" academic career that all lucky recipients of degrees from the venerable Institute are entitled to. (Or are they?) I worked for the Cloisters, was a teaching assistant downtown, and even landed my own classes at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) after my orals.

Today, I am the director of a not-for-profit gallery dedicated to Biblical art in New York City. I am enjoying my work enormously and forging a new career path, in spite of the fact that early on I never really considered museum work as an alternative (not to mention that "museum work" in Institute parlance meant only established museums with enviable collections, and a curatorship in one's strict specialty).

When I was hired by the American Bible Society almost 3 years ago, the gallery did not exist; my challenge was to make it happen and to create an identity for it. In trying to do so, I have been involved with everything from the renovation and design of the space, to the immediate and long-term exhibition planning, educational programs, publicity, marketing, fundraising. I have been in turn curator, spokesperson, registrar, designer, art handler and overseer. I have learned tremendously; made a lot of mistakes, tried to mend them as best I could, tested different strategies, and worked overtime most of the time. But most of all, I've been having a really good time. How much of all this did I learn in graduate school? A lot, and at the same time not very much. A lot when considering that:

Not very much when considering that:

Overall, however, if the gallery is at all successful, it means that I was ready for the job. It isn't exactly the standard job the Institute prepared me for; yet I decided to be creative in using my background and skills and discovered that I could not only rise to the challenges of this particular job, but also have fun doing it.

From my experience, I would advise those of you entering the job market to:

  1. Be flexible (there is more than one type of job that's right for you or that will prove rewarding).
  2. Be confident and learn to market your skills (skills we take for granted in grad school are very valuable in the outside world; don't sell yourselves short --getting a graduate degree is a big deal and should be appreciated).
  3. Go on interviews (even for jobs you think are not for you: some may surprise you in being more interesting than you thought; even if that's not the case, interviewing well is a skill that needs practice. Use the interviews as networking opportunities, too--you never know when you'll interact with these people again).
  4. Do your research and learn to network (one good thing they teach us in graduate school, right?)--target certain institutions you think you want to work for, and try to meet their staff even if they don't have a job opening at the time; find out about them and let them know you're available (networking, maybe offer to volunteer if you can afford it). When I was in school I felt like: I can't bother these people, they're all busy and won't want to waste time w/me when I have nothing to offer--wrong. You'll be surprised by how accessible and supportive at least some of the professionals in the field are. For all it's worth, I'll be glad to further discuss any issues related to the field and my experience w/any of you if you call or email in the future.
  5. Diversify your skills and work experience while still in school (incl. internships, volunteering etc.). Spending an extra ten hours in the library on that research project can be wonderful (and wonderfully tempting), but the years of graduate school should also be used to get exposed to various jobs one may consider after graduation. Get the experience you need now, it'll be easier to get hired later on (see the catch 22 of having all the degrees but also work experience); and in the process you'll learn a lot about various types of jobs and institutions, and what you would and would not want to do full-time.

Stephen S. Roach, NYU, Ph.D. in Economics and today the chief economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter: "My theory on education, and especially graduate education, is that it gives you a framework, a set of tools. It is not a license to ply a trade but a set of tools for the discipline--for research and for analytics." It is indeed important to understand the value of the tools we've been given in graduate school and the many ways we can use them. I wish I hadn't been so narrow-minded about my future career while in school--it would have saved me a lot of heartache and dissatisfaction along the way. My advice, therefore, is to keep your eyes open to all kinds of opportunities--traditional as well as less traditional--and see if they fit your skills and preferences. And, as Bill Gates is quoted to have said, "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one."

Melissa Kepke Grobmyer, MKG Art Management
Text not available

April Kinser, Parsons School of Design
I am very happy to be here to speak to you because, as a visual artist, and as a director of career services, I am on a mission to help creative people feel more optimistic about the job market out there, identify their opportunities, see the potential to create the lifestyle they want, and earn a living that rises far above being a "starving artist". I really hate that phrase. There are so many myths that creative people are old at an early age, and these myths are very hard not to buy into. It's really a downward spiral thinking that there is nothing out there and the opportunities are very limited, when they are really limitless.

When I think back 20 years ago when I graduated from Pratt with an M.F.A., one thing that I wish I would have done is use their career services office. I did not bother to do that at the time, and I did not understand what career counseling is. That's something that I find that most people don't understand. They don't understand what career counseling is. I'm going to tell you a little about that, and I encourage you to use your career services office.

If you don't remember anything that I say today, just remember one thing. Your career will hinge on relationships. It is so important that you understand the power of relationships and how they are going to either make or break your career. And that's both in terms of your fine arts career if you are an artist, and that's where I'm coming from, or if you are pursuing another career or a secondary career to support your fine art. You have to have relationships to get work, to show your art, and to really forge ahead.

Career counseling is a practical tool to help people better understand who they are and what they're strengths and weaknesses. If your career services office does offer any assessments, it will help you in a very quick way, to understand how to target your career direction and what jobs would be appropriate for you.

When I earlier mentioned the importance of relationships, I want you to note that 70% of people get jobs from networking. So, you have to be somewhere, out there, in order to make friends and/or develop relationships. Creative people tend to be more introverted and I believe that visual artists do like to spend time alone. They like to be in their studio. Usually their favorite thing is not going to an opening and networking. If they go to an opening, they stand in the corner with their best friend and visit. It's just a natural inclination for introverted people to operate that way. Force yourself out of the corner. Encourage yourself to meet people that you wouldn't normally meet. It will be so important to you for the job offers that are out there and for possible fine art career opportunities. One of my disappointments in graduating with my M.F.A. was realizing it would be very hard for me to get a teaching position in New York City. That's where I went to school and that's where I wanted to stay. I didn't realize that you had to be fairly high profile, and usually people aren't when they just graduate from graduate school. And so, I really didn't see that there was any place for me in higher education.

There are lots of opportunities in higher education that are not in the classroom. I see myself as an educator. I'm educating people about careers about their own potential, about the industry and opportunities out there. So, I would encourage visual artists to try to understand the structure within a university. Art and design colleges that have a strong program, like to hire people with an advanced degree in art and design. There are whole departments of students services which include admissions, career services, student advisors, student support programs, any kind of student service that you can think of, the individuals in those positions are often from creative fields. So, if you are interested in working in the college that you studied at, or if you think you would like to see some new faces, contact the personnel offices or the HR departments, at other universities that you might be interested in working in. Universities are a good place to work, because for visual artists, the goodies that you get are comparable to what faculty will get. Vacations so that you can have time to work in your studio, a schedule that's manageable, its regular working hours 9-5, until you become a higher level administrator within the college. So that's one area that I really do encourage visual artists to consider.

Other areas to consider, and this has to do with the career planning that you will do, and that's, so I just want to step back for a moment and say that when you are thinking about your career, think also about your visual arts career. Are you planning, are you aspiring to be a successful artist? And, I define a successful artist as, and you may have your own definition, but in my eye, it's someone who is getting recognition for their work and/or selling their work and making money from their work. You can be successful and working alone, but we are defining it in terms of job opportunities, and making money, and being seen out there. So, you have to really do some soul searching on how much you want to focus on your fine arts career, and being successful in that career, and how that fits into getting a job. I think this is where using your career services office can be very helpful to you in sorting out these issues, of where you are going to place your fine art in terms of your work priorities. If you have decided that the art comes first, then you have to make some compromises in the kind of work that you will be going after. But aim high, think of what out there now presently pays the highest hourly rate. Certainly, you can take any sort of low level, entry-level positions, which many artists do, where you might not feel that its a conflict with your creative self. That's kind of hard because often those positions don't pay as well on an hourly rate.

I, personally, am looking very hard at the Internet businesses, because there are so many opportunities out there. These companies pay very well, I think it’s a very exciting industry for creative people to enter. Its a very interesting industry because its extremely unconventional, and artists often prefer to work in a more unconventional environment, meaning an unconventional environment where a dress code is not mandatory, where the hours are more flexible, where you can be an individual a little more than you could, say, if you were working at IBM or a stricter corporation. The Internet industry is fast-paced and they are looking for young, creative people. I am not only talking about, for visual artists, the programming or doing the actual creative direction in the Internet business. I am talking about all the other kinds of jobs. And the parallels are very similar to higher education. There are lots of jobs out there for creative people that are not what you would traditionally think of applying for, not the teaching or the creative programming, but working in different services or departments that the company may have. They are looking for creative people with advanced degrees that are flexible and can think out of the box. Recently I met with some people from a company called Concrete Media, an interactive new media company. Their HR people are very unconventional; they are M.F.A. graduates from NYU with theater degrees. They like people who are very diversified in their interests and they like people who are creative problem solvers and people that can think out of the box, which visual artists are often very capable of doing. Artists are often big picture people and problem solvers. So, I think that's an industry that's worth looking at in terms of getting part-time work or full-time work.

There are career fairs that you should be aware of. They are usually in the classifieds and these Internet companies are advertising their jobs in newspapers and also online. The other place you should really be looking at, of course, is for jobs online. Check different search engines to find positions in creative fields and be very open-minded about the kinds of positions that you are willing to take.

Jobs that are in the museums and the gallery world, although they typically pay much lower than anything I have mentioned so far, can be very instrumental in terms of helping your fine arts career. So, if you are in a financial position to take a slightly, not a slightly, probably quite a bit lower, annual salary or lower hourly rate, the benefits can sometimes outweigh the monthly pay check by the connections that you can make particularly as a young artist just finishing an M.F.A. program.

Again that goes back to the relationship stuff. This is so important. You cannot operate in a vacuum as an artist or as an arts professional. You have to have a network of people, literally, to connect with, that are going to tell you what's out there and help you make connections. Make sure that you tell people what you are, what you are looking for, and try to be as concrete as you can in describing your career goals. Let people know what it is you are looking for. And, if you need help with that, again, do use your career services office.

Sometimes career service offices have a lot of hoops you have to get through in order to use their service. But, don't be turned off by that. If the hoops are rather rigorous, resume approval, portfolio approval, references, whatever, go ahead and do what you need to do to get access to the job listings. Even if it takes a few hours to get the pieces together, even though its annoying, go ahead and do what you need to do so you can have access to those job leads and career counseling. Most career services offices in art and design literally handle between 5,000-10,000 job listings a year. The students and the graduates that are the most demanding are the people that get the best service. You might go into your career service office on a crazy day and you may be turned off by it, but go back another day and demand to see the director if you are not getting work or are stuck in your job search. Career staff are there to help you and as an alumnus you are usually entitled to get help from your career office. But, career staff can't help you unless you let them know what your needs are.

Matthew Lawrence, George Ross Elementary School
When I graduated from Tyler School of Art in 1990 with my M.F.A. in printmaking I believed that it was purely a matter of time before the phone started ringing off the wall with professional galleries offering me shows.

After a lengthy period of sitting staring at the silent phone I shifted my emphasis to obtaining a tenure-track university position. I started working in an adjunct capacity at varied universities up and down the East Coast. In the same naive manner that I believed the galleries would call I also believed the universities would be begging for me to teach there.

As you can imagine, I am sure there are a few of you sitting here today, who have been in a similar position. As the eternal optimist I believed that at any time things would kick in, but just in case I put into play the back-up plan. That plan was to start to obtain Pennsylvania certification to teach art in the public school system.

It was with a great deal of shock that before I even obtained my certification I was offered two full-time jobs.

Hence, I do not sit before you today to talk about my illustrious career with a famed New York gallery. I do not sit before you today as the professor emeritus of some hallowed Ivy-League university. I proudly sit before you as the art teacher of George Ross Elementary School in Lancaster, PA.

I truly have a wonderful job.

In whatever aspect you choose to define a career, working in a public school setting is enriching and rewarding. As art is still the essence of who I am, the job allows me to spend plenty of free time creating art and exhibiting art. As the job is a professional career, I have a professional wage, with professional benefits. A factor that relieves a great deal of stress from your life. And probably the most important thing to create art with young children is to create art at its purest level. You have a captivated audience (figuratively and literally) who still have an innate love for art.

But with the same breath, I want to paint a realistic picture of teaching in the public school system. Your job is at the whim of the school board, as public interest in the arts wanes, so can your position. Teaching can be emotionally draining when you are often the only positive male role model the children might come across. The teaching of art is often put on hold to be a child's counselor, father, big brother, doctor, or therapist.

Teaching children from kindergarten to fifth grade has changed greatly over the past twenty years. The days of random blobs of gluey popsicle-stick mountains have been replaced with detailed curriculums, comprehensive assessments and a broad range of concepts. I am not suggesting that at the elementary level we are working with a watered down university curriculum, but within the district I work in, we try to expose all students, K-12 with the fundamentals to be practicing artists or to acquire an appreciation of the arts.

Upon reflection, I do not regret the round about way I arrived at my current vocation. But I do think that when we are in college a greater emphasis could be placed on the notion of and the practicality of having a "back up plan." As you pursue your interests and dreams it is very nice to have the means to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Although from state to state individual requirements do vary I shall try and answer any questions you might have about teaching within the public school system.

Diana Mille, Fairfield University
This session explores the challenges faced by artists, art historians and art educators when making the transition from student to working professional. While existing educational and professional guidance tends to focus on single, and thus sometimes limited job options for the supporting artist, curator, director and professor, there remains a critical need to address unique "dual option" opportunities for the working professional in today's increasingly competitive and challenging art market.

In its effort to explore the broader and less conventional job opportunities in today's art market, this presentation will focus on the ways in which students of art history can combine various traditional academic and scholarly endeavors-- such as publishing and adjunct teaching--with practical museum and gallery related experiences in order to prepare for--and in many ways create--new and unique careers in the arts.

As a working professional--curator, director, educator and free-lance lecturer--in the New York and Connecticut job market for over twenty years, for example, I will discuss specific ways in which students can acquire a variety of skills to prepare for "combination job options" such as artist/art historian, gallery director/adjunct or assistant professor, museum and gallery curator/educator and free-lance lecturer/writer.

With intense competition for tenure track art history university teaching positions, for example, I have personally realized the need for an art history "generalist" who can fill in department teaching gaps, substitute for tenured professors on sabbatical and run a university gallery. I have also discovered from experience a significant niche for a museum/gallery generalist who can successfully combine curatorial and educational skills.

Furthermore, addressing the free-lance opportunities available for those willing to combine lecturing and writing skills in a variety of innovative art historical environments will prove significant for many students making the transition into the academic and professional world.

This paper will outline ways to build a unique c.v. for these "dual option" positions and outline the methods required to obtain the necessary qualifications, job responsibilities and potential advancement for such combination positions.

As a result, this paper, which surveys over twenty years of personal academic and professional challenges and issues in the art world, will establish a model which will ensure the financial survival of both the traditional and innovative nontraditional art history professional in the next millennium.

Clarence Morgan, University of Minnesota, Department of Art
ENTERING THE JOB MARKET: TIPS FOR VISUAL ARTS, ART HISTORY, AND ART EDUCATION STUDENTS

Identifying yourself as an artist and determining the best way to survive economically are not seamless activities accomplished with exactitude. For better or worse, teaching has been viewed as an acceptable arrangement for several students entering M.F.A. programs across the country. Teaching and the world of academe provides (in many cases but certainly not all) an atmosphere and climate conducive to empirical study, intellectual and creative stimulation within an environment of like-minded individuals. The potential for nurturing and mentoring completes this altruistic vision of the academy. But perhaps the most recognized and sought after attribute connected to academy is the modest, but nevertheless stable economic base it can provide. Likewise, let us not overlook the potential for long-term security, retirement and health benefits that tenure-track appointments can bring. Certainly these are not trivial matters and therefore deserve to be part of the equation when discussing career opportunities, advancement and quality of life issues.

Furthermore, it seems the status accorded to those with an academic affiliation continues to hold some real world respectability (albeit barely). For many emerging scholars and artists, this legitimizing status can be very important in the way we mold our careers and take advantage of art world and publishing opportunities. If little else, teaching provides a good "cover" to avoid being exposed as a slacker, social misfit, outcast, malcontent, social deviant or in general a public nuisance. But are these really good enough reasons for pursuing a M.F.A. degree? Although the underlying reasons seem justified, are they really sound enough to warrant the high cost and time connected with graduate education? Even for the extremely ambitious and competitive individual, the importance of balance in your life cannot be over emphasized. Over the years, I have observed an escalating sense of anxiety among the graduate students that I have encountered. Among other things, this uneasiness about the future produces a good deal of stress and at times this can be intrusive. However, stress for students at any level is not that unusual. Despite this, the nature and source of this mental tension has perhaps shifted and intensified to the point where certain questions need to be asked. For starters: What is the purpose of graduate education particularly for those in the field of art and visual culture? Moreover, have you clearly defined your own expectations and considered the probable trade-offs to obtain them? And finally, what are you prepared to do in the short and long-term to work toward meeting your expectations? This pursuit or path we have embarked is not for the faint of heart. Consequently, the difficulties encountered along the way should not come as a complete surprise.

More serious discussion needs to happen on the front-end instead of the back-end regarding the motivations for going to graduate school. Even when these issues are addressed, circumstances change, hence motivations and expectations change accordingly. When I entered graduate school in 1975, teaching was not on my radar screen. By the last semester of my third and final year it had appeared. My intent in the 70's was to use graduate school to further my understanding of art and culture and to develop my formal and critical sensibilities as a painter. To this day, and after two decades of teaching, this remains at the core of my involvement in academe. The point that I'm trying to make is that you cannot predict the future and many situations require uncommon courage and faith.

THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE NEED TO MAKE ENDS MEET
Admittedly, I am confused at times over the popular belief that the value of knowledge and discernment is exclusively embedded in finite terms rather than in infinite possibilities. To ask the question: "How can institutions of Higher Learning better prepare their graduates for the competitive job market" is an example of a determinable mind-set relative to the broader possibilities afforded by a rigorous graduate program.

It appears that many are operating under certain assumptions and misconceptions about the function and value of graduate study. Is it reasonable to believe that simply investing in a graduate degree will bolster your chances of finding employment in your field? I'm not convinced that a course in survival skills, professional practices or studio pedagogy will make that big of a difference. If anything, these types of courses, seminars and workshop only succeed in giving the appearance that art is somehow a normal and acceptable occupational endeavor. I think not.

With so much attention and focus on preparing graduate students to teach, I hesitate to think about the repercussions this might have on the quality and depth of their studio work and research. TAs spend an enormous amount of time organizing class material, creating syllabi, holding office hours, evaluating undergraduate student work. In our craze to prepare students for the vocational after life the studio work ethic seems to have diminished slightly. My fear is that today's students are missing a unique opportunity to indulge and become absorbed in a level of activity that is philosophically, spiritually, creatively and conceptually enterprising.

Early in my student days, I realized it would be impossible to pursue this path without having faith in and passion for the things I felt most deeply about. It was also apparent that instant (external) gratification and acceptance shouldn't be counted upon to confirm my enthusiasm for the choices I made.

Not all students who enter graduate programs think about teaching as the primary objective or the crowning achievement of their ambition. However, soon after being admitted to the school of their choice, students get attracted to the idea and possibility of teaching as a viable career option. Naïve as it might sound; I viewed graduate school as a monastic order, a place where artists and scholars functioned like prophetic visionaries.

In her book, The Vocation of the Artist, the author (Deborah Haynes) includes the following quote: "Ivan Illich has written that schools teach students the need to be taught, which prepares them for the alienation and institutionalization of life that awaits once schooling has been completed." I think Illich was on to something important and I find comfort in considering that the solitary nature of our chosen path is its‚ own reward.

There is this troubling sense that many students arrive with a sense of privilege. Because I didn't possess this attitude of entitlement, I never presumed the function of graduate school was to accommodate my personal needs beyond the basics of instruction and a safe environment in which to pursue my work. I viewed my experience at the University of Pennsylvania as an opportunity for the purposes of making new work and considering the response from those who I shared this particular place and time. Moreover, I remain convinced that the graduate school experience should be essentially and emphatically an experimental journey, a place where definitions are questioned, reinforced--where canons are scrutinized, subverted and reinterpreted. At last, graduate school is a place where being vulnerable should not be viewed as a negative condition. If all of this sounds overly simplistic and mushy, it's because it probably is. For those who seek something a little more pragmatic, I'm probably not the best person to seek that type of advice.

Hypocrisy: There seems to be a fundamental contradiction, if not a deliberate conflict in my response to the topic of this panel. I was invited as a panel replacement to participate in a discussion about preparing students to enter the job market and to share any tips and practical advice I might have. Unquestionably this seems a legitimate area of concern for students, faculty and the administration to address in earnest. Therefore, here are a few suggestions and thoughts before I conclude:

TIPS AND ADVICE FOR STUDENTS:

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