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Best Ways to Find an Art Gig Post Graduation
As well as artistic talent, getting the perfect art gig requires the ability to promote your work. Following simple tips like building a portfolio or joining a professional organization can help you land the perfect job.
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Simple Steps to Scoring a Great Art Gig
You know you have talent, so why does it seem like potential employers are oblivious to your skills? In addition to creativity, uniqueness, and artistic ability, making it as a successful artist requires marketing skills and the ability to persuade others that your work is the bomb. Even if you didn’t get the salesperson gene, by promoting your work and making contacts, you can score the perfect art gig. Here are a few suggestions to help you land a great job:
• Create a portfolio. A portfolio that demonstrates creativity, versatility, and competency for the type of jobs you want is a must. If you are applying for a specific job, you can customize your portfolio by adding pieces that are similar to the work the gig requires.
• Use the Web. Lots of artists have been “found” through their impressive Web sites. Creating an awesome Web site is especially important for graphic and Web designers. And don’t neglect the many sites that post available art jobs online.Â
• Use contacts from previous projects and professional organizations. You don’t usually find artists in polo shirts and popped collars networking at traditional mixer-type functions. Networking probably seems pretty repulsive to most artists. But the truth is that many good jobs are found through personal connections. So stay in touch with people you’ve worked with and think about joining a professional organization or social network. It probably won’t be that bad.
Another option is getting a degree or professional certification. Art school will help build your portfolio and will introduce you to other artists and teachers with professional connections. Plus the degree will add another attraction to your resume.Â
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Artist Resource
Artist Profile: Chris Bolden
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As I do with most artists profiled here, I ask the simple question. Did this artist attend art school to help refine his instrinsic talent? The question so far is unanimously, yes!
Chris Bolden has been painting since 1990. Graduating from Pasadena Art Center College of Design in 1997 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration, he immediately began working and is currently an artist on the long-running animated television series The Simpsons. He first worked on the show as a background illustrator and designer, and more currently as a color-key artist. Sources of artistic inspiration for Chris come from painters such as: N.C.Wyeth, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
With the right training and portfolio, your opportunities in the art and design world are limitless.
Photo featured: Throwin’ Poses done in ink and watercolor on paper towel. For more great pieces by Chris, visit his site Surf Forever.com. Here’s a quick link to his Watercolor series.
Keep up the great work Chris, let’s surf soon.
For a complete list of Art Schools, visit our homepage.
Disclosure: Chris is a long time friend of mine. We spent our years in high school surfing and listening to punk rock.
Become a Snowboard Designer
Many artists dream of designing snowboards. Snowboard design is a competitive, but entering design contests or joining a snowboard design team are great ways to start.
Design for the Slopes: How to Become a Snowboard Designer
Imaging seeing your design on a snowboard that’s pulling crazy flips in the half pipe or rocking the moguls in the terrain park. Designing snowboards is one of the most specific, competitive fields of art, but it’s also one of the coolest. So how can you “clip in” to the world of snowboard designers? Here are a few ideas:
Snowboard Design Contests
Some snowboard companies have design contests– these contests are a good way to get practice designing boards, and to get free gear and lift tickets if you win. Companies offering contests include:
Prior Snowboards
Salomon Snowboards
Monson Snowboards, and many more.Â
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop has a new snowboard design program that allows you to create graphics on a snowboard-size template. You can even see where the bindings will cover the design.
School
Some art schools and other colleges have snowboard design teams or clubs. For example, at the University of Toronto the snowboard design team does everything from designing and fabricating the boards to marketing and selling them. Cool.
Sources:
Adobe Photoshop
Monson Snowboards
Prior Snowboards
Salomon Snowboards
University of Toronto- Snowboard Design Team
15 Top Art Museums in Los Angeles
• J. Paul Getty Museum
With two locations in California–the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Getty Center in Los Angeles–the J. Paul Getty Museum provides public access to European sculpture, painting, drawings, and manuscripts, as well as American and European photography and over 44,000 artifacts of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan culture. The center also sponsors research, publications, and educational programs. Â
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Founded in 1910, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art features a collection of over 100,000 pieces gathered from the ancient world as well as contemporary art studios. You can explore art from Europe, the United States, Latin America, and the largest collection of Korean art outside of the Korean peninsula. There’s also an extensive research library and Japanese garden open to the public.
• Armand Hammer Museum of Art at UCLA
Operated by the University of California Los Angeles, the Armand Hammer Museum–aka “the Hammer”–began from the personal collection of former OPEC Chairman Armand Hammer. Currently, the Hammer exhibits contemporary and historical art–from drawings, paintings, and sculpture to photographs and films. In an effort to promote the work of underrepresented contemporary and historical artists, the Hammer offers lectures, symposiums, film series, readings, and musical performances open to the public.Â
• Autry Museum of Western Heritage
Co-founded by film legend Gene Autry in 1988, The Autry National Center–formerly The Autry Museum of Western Heritage–now incorporates the efforts of three institutions: The Museum of the American West, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, and the Institute for the Study of the American West. Together, all three explore the art and history of the American west through a collection of art and artifacts, special exhibitions, and programs.
• California African-American Museum
Located in Los Angeles, California, the Corita Kent Art Center showcases the seriograph and silk screen artwork of Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986), a practicing Catholic nun and artist/activist. As part of the ecumenical Immaculate Heart Community, the Corita Art Center offers public exhibitions of Sister Corita’s art, educational outreach programs, and a calendar of weekly lectures and symposiums.
• Corita (Kent) Art Center
Begun in 1965 as The Egg and the Eye, an Arts- and Crafts-themed café, the Craft and Folk Art Museum exists today as a “living museum.” Although there’s no permanent collection, the CAFAM offers rotating exhibitions of folk art from around the world while inspiring contemporary craft artists of all ages through workshops, summer camps, and classes.
• Craft and Folk Art Museum
Begun in 1965 as The Egg and the Eye, an Arts- and Crafts-themed café, the Craft and Folk Art Museum exists today as a “living museum.” Although there’s no permanent collection, the CAFAM offers rotating exhibitions of folk art from around the world while inspiring contemporary craft artists of all ages through workshops, summer camps, and classes.
• Fisher Gallery at the University of Southern California
Founded in 1939, the Fisher Gallery is the accredited gallery of the university of Southern California. Dedicated exclusively to fine art, the Fisher Gallery presents exhibitions ranging from antiquities and old masters to contemporary local, national, and international artists–in addition to the permanent collection. Educational outreach programs–including lectures and symposiums–are free and open to the public.
• Korean American Museum
Established in 1994, in the West Hollywood home of Viennese architect Rudolph M. Schindler, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture offers a year-round events calendar of exhibitions, symposiums, lectures, and concerts, as well as a bi-annual residency program for eight artists and architects from outside the U.S.Â
• MAK Center for Art and Architecture
Established in 1994, in the West Hollywood home of Viennese architect Rudolph M. Schindler, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture offers a year-round events calendar of exhibitions, symposiums, lectures, and concerts, as well as a bi-annual residency program for eight artists and architects from outside the U.S.Â
• Museum of Contemporary Art
One of the largest facilities dedicated to present-day creativity, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art offers visitors a permanent collection of 2,345 pieces created since 1945. Although the permanent collection focuses on surrealism, minimalism, and conceptual photography, the MCA also offers rotating exhibitions, as well as lectures, classes, and workshops for art fans of all ages. Situated on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the MCA facility includes a 300-seat theater, terraced sculpture garden, gift shop, and restaurant.
• Museum of Neon Art
Founded in Los Angeles in 1981, the Museum of Neon Art is dedicated the promotion and preservation of fine art in the medium of electric light–specifically, the neon sign. MONA offers exhibitions of neon light and art, Neon Cruises (bus tours), and eight-week neon art workshops for prospective illumination artists. Â
• Skirball Cultural Center
Applauded as one of the world’s most dynamic cultural institutions, the Skirball Center of Los Angeles explores four thousand years of Jewish tradition through revolving exhibitions of rare artifacts, photographs, and interactive multimedia stations. The facility, designed by New York architect Moshe Safdie, includes a museum, revolving exhibitions of music, comedy, theatre, film, and literature, a Café, museum store, even an interactive model of Noah’s Ark! Â
• Southwest Museum
One of three institutions administered by the Autry National Center, the collection of the Southwest Museum is currently closed to the public while new facilities are constructed to house the museum’s over 250,000 artifacts. In the meantime, you can still visit the museum store on Saturdays and Sundays, enjoy weekend family activities–including arts and crafts and a hands-on archaeology program–or visit the Braun Reserch Library by appointment.
• UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History
Located at the University of California Los Angeles, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History consolidates the varied collections of non-western art and artifacts on the UCLA campus. The Fowler’s permanent collection includes 150,000 pieces of art and over 600,000 archaeological artifacts from the ancient, prehistoric, and present-day cultures of Africa, Latin America, and North America. In addition, the Fowler museum sponsors rotating exhibitions and interdisciplinary events, including lectures, hands-on workshops, and film-screenings. Â
10 Most Popular Artists of All Time
With a career spanning seventy years, two World Wars, and incorporating the traditions of neoclassicism, surrealism, and cubism (of which he was a founder), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) remains one of the most famous and versatile artists of the twentieth century. His massive body of work encompasses prints, paintings, drawings, and sculptures. His most famous works include Les Demoiselles d’avignon, his first cubist painting, an
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Pablo Picasso Biography and Artworks-The Art History Archive
As an artist, Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) accomplished more in ten years than most painters do in a lifetime. From early experiments in Dutch realism and French impressionism, Van Gogh developed his own unique style of expressive brushstrokes and vivid–almost explosive–colors, producing some 840 paintings and one thousand drawings between 1880 and 1890. Although productive, Van Gogh’s career was plagued by financial worry and declining mental health, culminating in his suicide at age thirty-seven.
Source:
Van Gogh Museum: Official Site
From humble beginnings as the illegitimate son of a notary, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) grew to become one of the most universally gifted human beings in history. In addition to his seventeen surviving paintings (each a supreme example of Renaissance art), da Vinci also applied his genius as a draftsman, sculptor, musician, philosopher, inventor, scientist, and military engineer–even designing rudimentary tanks and flying machines five hundred years before the Industrial Revolution.
Source:
Gelb, Michael J. How to think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Everyday.
Together with Manet and Renoir, Claude Monet (1840-1926) emerged in the late nineteenth century as one of the founding fathers of Impressionism–at the time, a completely new style of painting that emphasized visible brush strokes, the primacy of light and color over line, and composing in the open air. His first success as a painter came in 1874 when his Impression: Sunrise (from which the term impressionism derives) shocked
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Guggenheim Museum
The pioneering figure of Pop Art, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) entered
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Once heard to say “I am surrealism,” Salvador Dali (1904-1989) began his career as a student of the renaissance masters. By 1926, he had turned classical technique toward photorealistic depictions of intricate, often nightmarish dreamscapes–vast plains occupied by distorted figures, insects, and double images (his most famous work, The Persistance of Memory, features melting clocks). In addition to paintings, Dali produced sculpture, illustrations, writings, and films–even collaborating on projects with Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney.
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Although skilled as a draftsman, sculptor, and printmaker, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is remembered principally as a painter and the founder of fauvism. Although he studied the works of the old masters, he was inspired by contemporaries Van Gogh and Gaugin to create brightly-colored works that his critics mocked as bestial (fauvism comes from fauve, the French word for “wild beast”). Matisse’s most famous work, The Dance, showcases his strikingly use of color and shape.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Wassily Kandinsky) Originally trained as a lawyer, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) began to study painting at thirty. His early works incorporated pointillist and fauvist techniques, but by 1911, his artistic style shifted to abstract representations of internal feelings and music (rather than external visual objects). Abstract expressionism–as his style would later be called–shocked the art world of Kandinsky’s time, even contributing to his expulsion, first from his native Russia (under Soviet rule) and, later, Nazi Germany.
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Originally trained in imitative realism at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Student’s League of New York, Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986) developed a unique artistic language that pursued emotional expression through stylized representation. In 1916, her work attracted the attention of photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who offered O’Keefe support throughout her career and their subsequent marriage. In 1929, they moved to
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A monumental figure of Holland’s Golden Age, Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669) began his career as a court portraitist, quickly gaining a reputation for his ability to capture human mood and gesture. Although his portraits are among the most celebrated in Western culture, much of his work consists of biblical and mythological scenes composed with a striking approach to color, light, contour, and arrangement. His masterpiece, The Nightwatch, showcases Rembrandt’s his unique artistic language.
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