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The art of making a living
Success stories give fine-arts graduates perspective on putting creativity to work
BY ATTICUS FISHER

Parlaying artistic skills and talents into a viable career is a challenge for any fine-arts graduate. Options might appear limited to staying true to your art but starving; teaching other artists (and also starving); or ending up in a cubicle — and on a career track — that makes the creative buzz of those photography workshops you took seem worlds away. But surprisingly, some say the artist’s biggest enemy isn’t limited career options but the loss of the nurturing artistic community that a fine-arts-degree program provides. According to Mary Ellen Schroeder, director of career services at Massachusetts College of Art (www.massart.edu), artists "often feel isolated" after graduation — a feeling that isn’t helped, she adds, by the general public’s impression of artists as loners. Maintaining creative energy while surrounded by other artists is easy. When that support is taken away, however, summoning the motivation just to practice your chosen art becomes difficult, and finding a viable arts career seems impossible.

But don’t trade in your color palette and beret for a briefcase and business-casual clothes just yet. If you’re a recent or soon-to-be fine-arts graduate, and are wondering what to do next, read on. While the career tracks that follow weren’t always easy or clear, the artists persevered. Their stories might just provide the hope and guidance you need to kick-start your own artistic endeavor.

MIXING YOUR MEDIA

Artists who manage to make a living solely by selling their work are few. Debra Samdperil, director of the Artist’s Resource Center at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (www.smfa.edu), in Boston, says only two or three percent of SMFA graduates support themselves just by selling their art. "Most combine teaching with art making," she says.

Stephen Sheffield, 38, a mixed-media artist in Boston, paired teaching and creating to build a vibrant career after receiving an MFA in photography from California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts; www.cca.edu). After studying with his "photographic heroes," Sheffield tried to find teaching jobs in the San Francisco area. Unfortunately, the early ’90s were a bad time for arts funding, and he returned to Boston frustrated and lacking the artistic network he’d had in school. Although he took a teaching job at Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill, Sheffield credits something as simple as finding studio space in the Fort Point area with "changing my art world drastically."

Having a studio gave Sheffield stability, but more importantly it exposed him to other area artists, which re-energized his creativity. He began shopping his portfolio around Boston and eventually landed a large assignment from New Age Journal, in Watertown. The Journal recommended Sheffield for other assignments, and by 1994 he had enough steady freelance work to make a living. "Then I knew I didn’t have to get a nine-to-five job," he says. His work has since appeared in local and national publications ranging from MIT’s Technology Review to the Washington Post, and he regularly exhibits in local spaces such as Mobius and the Judi Rotenberg Gallery.

For the fine-arts graduate who wants to make a living outside the corporate world, Sheffield recommends persistence, a willingness to wear many hats, and "figuring out how to drive yourself." After returning from California, Sheffield set a goal of exhibiting his artwork at least three times a year — a goal he’s been meeting since 1994. "You can’t make art in your own little bubble," he says. "People have to see your art in order to appreciate it." He estimates most of his work has come from referrals, exhibits, or word of mouth, and adds that he rarely finds assignments via mass mailings. For Sheffield, having a good work ethic is the key to success. "Motivation is hard when no one is telling you what to do," he says, which is why he goes to his studio every day, whether or not he has a deadline, "just to do something art-related, to keep motivated."

TAKING TEACHING TO THE NTH DEGREE

While feverishly working to finish her thesis amid bouncing checks and the death of her cat, soon-to-be creative-writing MFA Julie Faulstich also was trying to formulate a post-graduation career plan that involved teaching, which was what had attracted her to Emerson College’s creative-writing program (www.emerson.edu). In this case, success came in the form of a newspaper help-wanted ad. It advertised a part-time dorm-parenting position at Walnut Hill, a private arts school in Natick. Faulstich, now 37, admits that at the time she had "no idea what that [dorm parenting] entailed" and only a "vague idea" about how to fulfill her teaching goal. But she was savvy enough to see not only a dorm-parenting job but also an opportunity to work with high-school students.

Because of its focus on arts, Faulstich says, Walnut Hill valued her advanced fine-arts degree, which, coupled with her teaching experience at Emerson, was enough to get her hired. Dorm parenting turned into substitute teaching, and when she was offered a full-time teaching position, Faulstich achieved her career goal. She taught full-time for six years, eventually becoming head of the English department. Of course, teaching at a private school is not an uncommon track for writing MFAs, but Faulstich took the teaching track a step further three years ago when she was appointed academic dean. She’s now responsible for managing Walnut Hill’s curriculum and pedagogy, and as part of the school’s senior management team is an "advocate for the academic program."

Faulstich says her career as an academic administrator informs her writing, and vice versa: "Being a writer, an observer of human nature, helps with managing others." She adds that being a dean provides "immediate feedback from solving problems, which frees up energy to pursue fiction writing as a purely intellectual exercise." She’s currently at work on a smart chick-lit novel. Advice? "Take opportunities in the moment," Faulstich offers, "because opportunities spring from that."

THE MOMMY TRACK

Writer Hilary Illick, 40, of Belmont, says she was the subject of "lots of jokes" while enrolled at the creative-writing MFA program at San Francisco State University (www.sfsu.edu) in the late ’90s. And for good reason: she gave birth to no fewer than four children while she was at SFSU, including twins during her last year in the program. "I was nursing or pregnant the whole time," Illick says. She thrived at SFSU and won several short-fiction awards, but motherhood ultimately dictated the direction of her post-graduation writing career. Like the other artists, Illick was able to adapt to her new environment, and her writing career took a surprising, successful turn that didn’t involve short fiction.

After graduation, Illick and her husband moved to Boston, where they would be closer to family. But she missed the network of writers she had left at SFSU. Illick found writing in a community "thrilling" and enjoyed the structure of workshops and the feedback they provided. Once the structure and community of her program were gone, the isolation of "writing within a void" became difficult.

Illick credits a book — Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (Putnam, 1995) — and meeting friend and writing partner Jennifer Krier with reviving her writing career. Krier had left a tenure-track anthropology position at Cornell University, while Illick had finished her writing program and was looking for creative energy. "We worked so well together because we were both dislocated writers," explains Illick. The two began writing a play about the travails of motherhood, and in the spring of 2002 they performed a stage reading. As luck would have it, a dance teacher at the preschool of one of Krier’s daughters was also a director. Billie Jo Joy helped them bring their play to the local stage for seven shows, and with the help of a good friend of Illick’s from high school and "15 to 20" revisions, Eve-olution made its Off Broadway premiere last month. Illick and Krier even made a Today appearance the morning after the premiere, during which Al Roker wanted to know "how two moms made this happen," Illick says.

Despite her success, Illick admits that writing in relative isolation, away from a program, remains hard, and she’s "still looking for advice to fend off the loss of structure." Not surprisingly, she recommends that writers who’ve graduated from fine-arts programs seek out other writers, form groups, even "get an office space in a community of writers."

Starvation, isolation, lack of direction, biding your time in the temp pool while hoping someone will notice you’re actually the next Sofia Coppola — these aren’t the only post-fine-arts-degree career options. A mixture of luck, hard work, skill, patience, networking, and seized opportunities can convert a degree into a rewarding arts career that utilizes your skills and talents while providing the resources (read: money and opportunity) to further develop your abilities. The golden ring is within reach — you just have to get out of bed and grab it.

Atticus Fisher can be reached at atticusf@rcn.com.


Issue Date: November 5 - 11, 2004
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