Subject to change/evolve
These are brief summaries of the professional practices-oriented assignments we’ll be doing this semester. Along with these assignments, we will also be completing various coding assignments. See the course schedule below for when these will be assigned/when they’re due. All specific assignment submission details will be posted to Canvas.
There will be 3 writing reflections this semester. These reflections are personal, and meant to help you articulate to yourselves things that might linger in your mind, but that you haven’t quite put into words. Consider these reflections to be like journal entries that you write to yourself. That being said, I will be reading your responses, so keep that in mind. My purpose in reading your reflections is to provide you with thoughtful feedback that I hope will enrich your development throughout the semester. While these reflections are in fact “assignments”, I hope you see them as opportunities to deepen your understanding of yourself.
As a personal reflection, write out at least 25 questions you have about, well, anything related to the idea of “Professional Practices”. What are you unsure of as an artist? As a student? As a human being trying to make it in the world? These questions can be small-scale or large-scale, logistical or existential, deadly serious or humorously casual. (e.g. How active do I need to be on social media to be successful? Do I need to be on social media? Do I want to be “successful”? What does “success” even mean to me? “How do I support myself?”). The important thing is that these questions are meaningful to you. We will spend some time in class discussing your questions.
Instead of explaining your work, reflect on your relationship to your work. Do you feel proud of your work? What makes you most excited to create? Or does it give you tremendous anxiety? Or both? How do you feel when you finish a work? When you don’t finish a work? Do you have any personal philosophies you follow in your creative practice?
How do you approach documenting your work? By this, I don’t just mean “how do you take photo or video documentation?” Rather, what purpose does your documentation serve? Do you intentionally show very little to tease your audience, or do you show as much as you can to make the work as clear as possible? Do you provide information about the the process of creating the work, or do you just show the finished product? Is documentation part of the work for you?
Write an artist statement, and biography. Discuss what these are, and why we need them (even if we don’t like writing them)
Writing a resume can be difficult, especially early in our careers when we might not have a ton of experience, but it’s just one of those things you need to have on hand
Create a web page for a work you’ve created. Include whatever documentation and writing you believe is useful for communicating about the project. You will present your work to the class using your web page. The goal of this page is to function as a standalone site for the public to see the work, as well as a supplement to a presentation you give.
Imagine a potential employer, curator, or fellow artist asks you: “Tell me about your work”. What’s your one-minute “elevator pitch” response? This isn’t necessarily a speech you need to memorize, but it can be helpful to have reliable bullet points to return to in moments where you’re on the spot. We will spend some time working on these elevator pitches together, and then give them to the class.
Pick an artist. Someone whose work is aligned with the type of work you do. Look into how they present themselves online, as well as how they commodify their work, and create a presentation showing the class what they do. Consider the following questions as starting points:
How do they display their work? Do they provide a lot of information, or just the documentation? Do you think that’s effective? What is their social media presence like? What platforms do they use and how do they use them? Do they have a newsletter? Do they sell prints of their work? NFTs? Do they accept commissions? How do they make that known? Do their images come up when you Google them?
Create your personal portfolio website. More important than how the website looks and functions is the presence of your work and clarity about who you are and what you do. Simple, clear, accessible and available is more important than clever and high-production value. This project will be the primary focus of the semester.