Resume and Cover Letter

Next week you'll be writing and formatting a resume and a cover letter (email message). I found a wonderful resource from RISD. These are actual resumes and cover letters written by undergraduate art and design students. Unlike the cover letters included here, yours will be a single paragraph. 

Some of you might be eager to get started. Remember that it's 2033 and you're a successful 30-ish artist or designer. Make sure your resume aligns with your short bio and artist statement. Have fun. Aim high.

 

Let's Critique!

 Artist Statement 

My work explores the potency, malleability, and mystery of memory. Through the prism of reminiscence and recollection, my paintings depict abstracted personal moments from my childhood experience. Figurative imagery, vibrant color, and abstract shapes mix together to reflect the complex nature of recalled scenes from my past. Collectively, these abstract painted scenes reflect my connection to and expression of my Haitian cultural heritage. 

I draw from my subconscious and dreams for the content of my paintings. Energetic scenes from my early childhood growing up in Haiti compose the core of my work. Moments like visits to the local market with my grandmother, festive parades and performances during Carnival, or folklore and stories shared by fireside serve as raw imagery for my work. These memories explode from the canvas in a swirl of references to my past and the collective experience of my fellow Haitians. My process reflects the sometimes deceptive and fluid nature of memory. 

My work is often constructed in layers, reacting to the imperfect and changing qualities of my recollection. I simultaneously build up and erase over time as I work. I sketch, paint, rub, expunge, and layer on the canvas until an image emerges from my subconscious mind’s eye. Never truly finished, these paintings are an evolving reflection on a moment in time, forever morphing in my mind.

Getting Started on Your 2033 Artist Statement

 

This guide has been compiled by our friends at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). You're free to consult other sources of information about artist statements, both online and in print. However, be careful. Remember our cautionary tale about the joke Michaelangelo artist statement. 

Last semester in FYE you wrote a version of an artist statement. This semester we're taking a closer look. Also, remember that your artist statement for this assignment is prospective: It looks forward to you as an art worker in the year 2033. You can't recycle language from your earlier document for this assignment. The information should be thematically and factually linked to the information in your Artist Bio. 

A polished draft of your freshly written (no recycled material please) artist statement is due an hour before your next class meeting. Cut-n-paste it into the Discussion board tab on our Populi page. 

This document is much more difficult to write than the Artist Profile or Bio that you wrote last week. You will need to dedicate at least a couple of hours to this. Pay close attention to the advice on the SAIC page. 

Here's another interesting article from a photography point of view.

I like David Kessler's no-nonsense approach, but he should emphasize more of the "why" questions rather than just the what and the how.

Questions:  csmith@dcad.edu

Looking Forward: The Artist Statement

Even though you have no formal homework to complete for next week's first class (Mon or Tue), you might want to start working on your Artist Statement. You will cut and paste your revised and edited text on the Discussion board for your class. It's exactly the same rhythm as our week with the Artist Profile. 

The year is still 2033. Your statement should go into detail with the motivations, meanings, and intentions of your artwork. It should be two long or three short paragraphs and have around 250 words. Try to address "why" questions. Yes, it might get a little bit philosophical. Remember that this is an exercise. Have fun. 

We will go deep into all of this next week.

Here are a couple of online resources:

500 Letters Artist Statement Generator. This generator, like the fake Michaelangelo statement, is meant to poke fun at the pretentious and BS language that some art writing can fall into. 

Three Hyperallergic Articles on Artist Statements.

Example of a Real-World Short Bio or Profile

A friend of mine, Lilla, is giving an academic talk (in this case, a lecture accompanied by digitally projected images) at the Library of Congress next week. Scholars are like artists: They need to support their work with what I'll call "service texts". Here are the abstract and biography for Lilla's talk. You'll notice that the biography text is very similar to the form you're using for this assignment. The abstract, however, isn't parallel to an artist's statement even though it goes into detail about particular research.

Abstract:

How Do Book Bindings Get to Sing? will discuss a group of Renaissance and Early Modern books that are bound in fragments of music manuscripts from the Middle Ages.  These “singing bindings” are hundreds of years older than the texts they cover.  Furthermore, the texts inside are on mathematics, physics, astronomy, and one even about the Devil itself, but absolutely none is on music.  Lilla Vekerdy will shed light on how and why these discrepancies happened.  The volumes examined are selected from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.

 

Biography

Lilla Vekerdy earned her two master’s degrees in Literature, Linguistics and Library Sciences in Budapest, Hungary in 1984, and completed her doctoral coursework in Medieval and Renaissance History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2005.  She has been the Head of Special Collections at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives since 2008, where she oversees all rare materials in 16 library research centers, and also serves as the Curator of Physical Sciences Rare Books.  Her research interest and publications are in the history of science and medicine as well as in rare book studies, and often cover the overlay of these fields. 

Misinformation: Then & Now

 

Misinformation and disinformation have been around forever. They aren't a new feature of our Internet lives. However, bad info can proliferate much faster these days. Sometimes it's intentional and sometimes it's just sloppiness. Let's look at this example from John Seed's humor piece on HuffPost. Seed is obviously making fun of the bloated and pretentious language that we sometimes encounter in the art field. 

But... some people are not in on the joke and think that this is actually an artist statement written by Michaelangelo. Check out this blogpost. Are they in on the joke? I think not. Scroll to the bottom of this link. Here's another bizarre one (scroll down). And another one, sigh. I saved the worst for last. Sorry.

Professional Documents Every Artist Needs

 

Words can never fully describe visual art. They just can't; that's why the work is visual and not verbal. However, it's a terrible mistake to think that your work will "speak for itself" or that words somehow debase or demean the purity of your visual art. This is true for oil painting, sculpture, photography, illustration, animation, graphic design, etc. 

Writing about your work is necessary; it's not something you can opt out of if you want to be successful. Most people want to make a living related to art: maybe it's exhibiting and selling your work directly through a gallery or through a website such as Etsy, and maybe it's getting a job in the art field that isn't directly related to selling your own art. Whatever the case, you will need to represent yourself through the written word. 

In this unit of the class, we're going to work on three of the most common professional documents that all artists will need to produce at some stage of their careers.

1. The Artist Biography (around 120 words, one paragraph)

2. The Artist Statement (around 250 words, two or three paragraphs)

3. The Artist CV or Resume (1-2 pages)

These three documents overlap (think of a Venn diagram), but they each carry out a discreet task. 

It's really tricky for a young artist just starting out because experiences are just beginning to come together. That's why for this assignment we're going to use a time machine. You will need to use your imagination. The year is 2033. You are approximately 30 years old and you've had a successful career. Think of this as an opportunity to envision your aspirations. Try to be both realistic and ambitious. 

This assignment will be delivered in four parts. After composing, revising, and editing each of the documents listed above, you will attach them to a professionally-written email message.

The first of the four documents you will write is your artist biography. This link from MICA is a solid introduction to the components commonly found in a well-written artist biography and artist statement. 

After composing, revising, and editing your biography, cut and paste it into the discussion board for our course. This is due no later than one hour before your class starts. The deadline for the  M/W class is February 1, and February 2 for the T/R sections.

Questions?   csmith@dcad.edu