Fine Arts Career Services

The beginning of November always seems to be the calm before the storm. Or, the weeks of no immediate assignments with the anxiety and procrastination that accompanies looming deadlines. As the end of the semester approaches I am starting to feel the difficulty of balancing a full-time student schedule with and internship. Dividing time between the two, as well as finding time for work and fun, is proving to be more complicated that I anticipated. I understand now why my friends who previously held internships during the school year were so stressed! Even though this “balancing act” is not ideal, it is challenging me to meet all of these demands and is forcing me to manage my time productively. While I sometimes find myself wishfully thinking back to the beginning of them semester and its blissful ease, I know that the next few weeks, however challenging, are going to make me grow both as an intern and as a student.

This marks my last week formally working on the translation of the Avraham Goldberg set of prints. I have been translating the introductory text of the prints from Hebrew to English. Monday, I consulted my father on the unclear parts and filled in the phrases that were still a bit confusing. By mid-week I was confident about the finished product, and I was ready to show my supervisor the finished work. He said I did a great job, which validated all the work I had done. He also gave me some great suggestions. The problem with translating (since I am not a professional) is that literal translations of the text might not make sense in English, in the case of colloquial or old-fashioned expressions. Therefore, I have to change the wording in some sections in order for the correct meaning to get across. My supervisor suggested that I change the wording in the body of the text, and then set a footnote on the bottom of the page listing the literal translation and the reason for the change. These changes that I added made the English text flow much smoother. I also added some footnotes describing some Jewish concepts that would otherwise be unclear. Hopefully, any one that looks at the work I have done will fully understand the meaning of the text with the supporting footnotes and modifications.

The next step, which we might have to put off for awhile, is to figure out the provenance of the prints. We need to find out from which collection the prints came and who donated them. This might be tricky because names that are translated from one language to another are often spelled differently in English by different people. So in this case, the artist’s first name transliterated from Hebrew can be spelled Abraham, Avram, or Avraham (and this name is the easiest of the group to transliterate!) This makes research a bit more difficult, but I am hoping that this all comes together!

Next week, I will be returning to the database/loan project that I worked on about a month ago. I think that should take me to the end of the semester, with whatever other small projects arise along the way.

This week has been quite busy in the marketing department. As we get closer to the opening night of 101 Dalmatians, there are more and more deadlines to meet and events to attend as promotional efforts. The other intern and I worked at a table at the Austin Children’s Museum on Monday, and we will have a table at another “Yappy Hour” event on Thursday night. These Yappy Hours are directed toward parents in various parts of Austin, and usually gain a great deal of success in terms of interest and the collection of contact information at our table.

As of now, I am also in charge of putting together 150 goody bags to be given to children at another one of the events we’ll be promoting at on Saturday. The real challenge here, though, is that only $150 has been allotted for this project, so I have to fill each bag with under one dollar each. This is rather difficult seeing as how I only have a few days and cannot order things in bulk. But overall, everything is coming together for the show and our marketing efforts seem to really be making an impact. Many people already know about the show and have tickets.

This past week at C3 Presents has been spent doing research on two different projects. The first was a spreadsheet derived by our festival marketing department in order to identify various cities of interest in regards to advertising measures in order to fully optimize the future sales of festival tickets. In other words, I have been doing research on marketing outlets in many of the major cities in the U.S., ones that have demonstrated positive spending trends in previous years of our festivals. With this information we’ll able to better market to these specific regions, and more importantly, know where our advertising budget would be best spent. The spreadsheet is a rather time consuming one, due to the needed information and the multiple outlets online in which I must investigate in order to obtain such information.

The second major project I have been working on this past week was developing artist biographies for our promotions department. In order to spread the word of future shows, C3 Presents releases a Press Release, if you will, for each show, well in advance in order to create a buzz about the future performance. That being said, part of this press release is the biography section which is essentially a one to two paragraph look at what that specific artist has accomplished, is known for, etc. This has been quite entertaining actually. It’s funny to see exactly how much I actually knew about these various acts before writing about them, and now, obviously, I have quite a better grasp on the careers and endeavors of these performers.

Other than these two assignments, I’ve continued to help out at reception extensively. In fact, yesterday the receptionist had to leave in the middle of the day, and I ended up running the front desk for the remainder of the day. This was by far the longest I’ve worked reception in one day since my arrival to the company early in the year. However, such as anything, once establishing a rhythm, its easy to to make the work go as fluid as possible.

The project with the HR department has been pushed back a few days, but is still promised to be in my immediate future. So with that, I will bid you adieu until next week, and as always, more to come!

-DGray

This weekend and next weekend we are participating in one of Austin Texas largest community art festivals. East Austin Studio Tour is relatively new to Austin but has quickly proven in the past eight years its potential to unite the artistic community of Austin. This year the tour also features 154 galleries, 20 exhibition spaces, 49 “Happenings,” and 30 programs taking place throughout the nine days.

Last week Harold and I began preparing as early as possible for the opening weekend. After prepping the walls on Wednesday of last week I was pleasantly surprised when two new interns volunteered to help hang the show. On Friday I gave them a crash course in the basic approach to hanging a gallery show and we proceeded to hang over half the show in little under four hours. It is amazing how proficient production can be with more than one set of hands. I returned on Friday night to the gallery to help with the logistics of organizing a tent outside the gallery where the gallery’s permanent collection and a few other artists set up.

Opening day was beautiful. The weather was nice and we were as prepared as possible for the days to come. The tent held the art display very nicely and on one side we arranged to serve beer, soda and snacks to guest. DiverseArts New East Arts Gallery received between 200- 300 people on Saturday alone. I would conservatively estimate at least one thousand to two thousand people were on the streets of east Austin for the opening weekend of E.A.S.T. (November 14^th and 15^th, 2009). The galleries, happenings and studios are easily accessible thanks to Big Media’s visually packed E.A.S.T. publications featuring maps, images and information. The gallery sold two paintings from the featured show of Amy Lindsay-Joynt and other prints, photographs and small sculptures from previous exhibitions. With the first weekend behind us we look forward to the hanging of David Zvanut’s exhibition and one more weekend of adventure.

People often misunderstand the role of Special Events at The Blanton by thinking that our job is limited to producing large-scale events, like B Scene and Membership Parties. On the contrary, the Special Events staff is responsible for coordinating all of the space usage in the entire museum– from the smallest conference room to the largest gallery.  With so many different rooms and The Blanton’s diverse programs, this can be a challenging job. Every Monday morning the Assistant Special Events Manager, Katy, complies a very detailed list outlining space usage for The Michener Gallery Building and for The Smith Building.  Room, time, catering and department for each event in the next several weeks is complied into a multi-page document.  Doing these comprehensive reports allows us to plan ahead of time, keep everything organized and prevent double booking a space. Once Katy sends out the Event Report, I read through it and update our large shared calendar so that the current and approaching month’s events schedule is clearly visualized. While not all of the events here at The Blanton are large scale, they are still ‘special’ and need attention!! Click here http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/events/index.cfm?calset=bma to check out upcoming events at The Blanton!

This week was exciting because I finally got to print out my business cards at O.Max.  S and I went to a paper store to buy some papers for our business cards before we headed to O.Max..  S told me that it was important for us to pick recycled papers to show that we care about our environment.  I was surprised to see how less selectivity that we had for recycled papers at a paper store.  There were more colors with different textured papers available for regular papers.  I found it sad because it made me to wonder that people still do not care much about our environment.

We were able to pick light gray and light olive colored papers at a paper store.  We printed out one of each sheet to test, and we liked a light olive colored paper better.  It was eye catchy; light gray and brown color looked good on the paper.  Printing out my business card was a long process at O.Max. because the staff there wanted to make sure that the ink on the paper came out right.  He printed out many times to make sure we like it.  I was glad that the staff at O.Max. was very helpful.  Finally, I have more than 100s of my own business cards!

My EPK is finaly done! It took about two weeks to film and edit and now it is done for all to see. I am so pumped and so humbled by all the people that help make this happen. It was truly an honor to work with them and I appreciate them so much! I will be showing it in class next tuesday and I am so excited to see what the response it on it. It was challenging but definitely a rewarding experience. So many learning curves throughout the project that can only be taught hands on. Last friday we started the recording process of this internship. It was so fun, playing with all the different mics, fine tuning the song, laying down the tracks, both guitar and vocal. (Just that day we laid down guitar and vocal, drums and bass soon to follow!) It was really interesting how studio sound can make such a difference in the tone and quality of the voice. I have done studio work in the past and have been able to use some of those techniques that I have learned and now apply it to this project. It still amazes me how much you learn about yourself when you are in the studio because you are really hearing YOUR sound. Those mics are super sensitive and they catch everything. Every shimmer, every flaw, everything! Very humbling as well. I am excited for whats to come and can’t wait to see/hear the final project!

This past week I continued working on the artist Avraham Goldberg’s Suite of Prints. Translating the introduction from Hebrew to English has proved more difficult that I originally thought, which ultimately makes it all the more worthwhile. This translation has taken me about two weeks now, and I am close to finishing. I just need to clarify a few difficult sections of the text with my father, the Hebrew expert. Initially, I found it difficult to find information on this artist on the Internet. I just thought that information on him was limited, but I was mistaken. Apparently, I was just searching the Internet in the wrong language! I found a Wikipedia article that linked me to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem that provided the basic information I needed, like artist birthplace and date of birth etc.

Last week, we also finished tagging the “homeless” paintings. Each tag is color coded, determining which paintings go into which room for permanent storage. I was relieved that we tagged every painting! There were no stragglers ( a relief since I made the labels)!

I think that this marks the end of the Big Move, at least as far as I am concerned during this semester. After I complete the translation, I wonder what project is coming up next!

S printed out my business card on a sheet of paper again this week.  I like to see it on a sheet of paper to make sure that I like it because I know the image will look different in a computer screen or on a sheet of paper.  I really hoped that I will like it this time, however, I disliked it again.  I used Japanese text of the company name in my business card to make it look different and creative.  It looked odd and did not made sense to me to use Japanese text of the company name on there.  I told myself that maybe I should just not use any Japanese text at all because I felt like I was struggling from it.  I played with the size of logo for couple hours to see if I can come up with different designs.  Again, I did not like any of the design that I came up with.  Well, maybe I should add Japanese text of my title and name too, so it will make more sense for me to use Japanese text.  I tried to play with different Japanese font and size for some hours.  Finally, I came up with one design.  It looked better and made more sense to me.  I was happy to come up with a design of my business card that I can even use in Japan too.