ART6101

I created this miniature fungi logo based on one of my crochet pieces to be placed in my presentation and I hope to use in the future when I decide to set up my own business. The MC initial makes sure no one steals my drawing.

While I’m working in my job during first year, I want to continue making art such as drawing, textiles and knitting within my spare time so to not stray away from my hobbies and interests after graduation. Knitting and crochet is my favourite traditional craft for few years and I’ve enjoyed designing toys for my friends and family as well as sell them for small price, which I want to pursue further by improving my current skills to create unique and perfect toys. These are some of my previous works:

LV5 Group project: Kinoko Mushroom Company

Designing kawaii (cute) adorable mushrooms with different facial expressions and personalities. The most popular mushroom was the rastarfarian.

A-Level Art and Design

Textile doll inspired by Gillian Lee Smith

LV4 Final project

Knitting everyday objects such as these cacti, laptop, sushi and a pencil

Mario Mushroom

This was made for fun but the design is iconic to many Super Mario fans

The artist CV is similar to my main CV but I expanded the art project experience into more detail and section them in individual categories with society, volunteering and course project roles to show the variety of key skills and experiences I gained in each. My interests has also changed to briefly reflect and focus more on artistic hobbies to show my commitment and continuous appeal for art. To organize my art CV I received advice from Jaime Cox who gave a session on writing a professional CV and supporting us with one-to-one meetings.

Before the second year I plan to move out of Cheltenham and live in a city near a wide art community and museums and galleries for me to gain an invigilator/curator job or other art related role as I’ve studied Art & Design for several years and having some skills and experience. My first choice on location would be Birmingham because I felt the city has become my second home for the past 3 years and I’ve made lots of friends in and outside university. I know Birmingham supports many local and international artists by housing their work within museums and galleries spread around the city:

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

RBSA

Whitewall Gallery

Ikon Gallery

St Pauls

Reuben Colley

Castle Fine Art

Custard Factory

Barber Institute

Eastside projects

Stryx Gallery

Centrala

BOM

Grand Union/Minerva Works

There is a wide variety of galleries to visit and a higher chance they’re constantly looking out for volunteers to take up certain positions such as my ideal role of invigilator/Curator. Or as a second option I would live in London as it is the largest city in the UK bustling with artists and possibly stay with my auntie as she has a flat there and contribute to rent.

As I tried applying for volunteering roles for LV5 professional practice, some galleries retained my email address to send me upcoming work opportunities as I registered to their volunteering interests list. One example is the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery who occasionally send an email stating available jobs and if interested I should take it. This is a good reminder for when I’m desperately searching an artist role as they pop up in my inbox but I need to check regularly incase I miss them.

Eastside Projects is another email I can look out for especially I had previous volunteering experience. I worked relatively close to Emily Hawes at the gallery with installing new work, assisting artists and being an invigilator that I’ve become part of their volunteering email system much like BM&AG. All I need is to frequently check my emails of updates from Emily and I’ll be able to help.

There’s also an artist I worked along with in LV5 live project named Mark Essen who specialises in ceramics and has his own studio in Grand Union called Modern Clay. Essen was my tutor as well as Jennifer Wright that helped in supporting my ceramic projects and recently my LV 6 dissertation about 3D printers and traditional ceramic processes. I still have contact with Essen through email and Facebook apart from visiting his exhibition space that if he requires someone to support his artist residence I would like to learn and experience more of ceramics.

Once I raised enough money to move out of my family home, I want to apply for an invigilator/curator role within the art community as I had volunteering experience in an art gallery and became interested of the job. However I need to identify my current skills and experiences as an Art & Design student to see if I qualify and meet the standards of the position:

Art & Design Student

Studied Art & Design through A-level, College and University

Learnt a vast range of art mediums such as ceramics, textiles, 3D design, printing, documenting, photography, drawing, painting, knitting etc

Team/group work, presentations, course projects

Preparation to leave university/becoming independent

Volunteering at an art gallery

Anime and Manga Society - President

Leadership role

Promote the society at Fresher’s Fair

Organize trips and events for the society

Educate members on Japanese culture

Arrange quiz and movie nights, competitions, meetings, outdoor gatherings, visit conventions

Eastside Projects

Invigilator/Front desk

Curatorial assistant

Artist assistant

Guiding visitors around the gallery

Discuss exhibits, artists, building to new visitors

Observe visitors in the gallery and entry

Inform visitors of gallery rules and upcoming events

To be an invigilator/Curator is similar to being a security guard but having more important responsibilities:

Patrol the rooms/gallery

Welcoming/direct visitors around and answer questions

Discuss art installations/exhibits/building/contents with visitors

Ensure visitors follow the rules (no photography, no touching exhibits)

Tidying the space (e.g. replace leaflets)

Keeping an eye/tracking number of visitors

Helping out events

Display/set up/label art pieces

Research artists/Write artist description

Prepare gallery space/install new exhibits

Maintain art pieces in inventory

Negotiate meetings, funding, events, artists

The day started by meeting up with the manager at the church near Bull Ring and I was given a brief detail about what I needed to do; I had to hold a sign just outside the bollards around the shopping centre and provide information to the public about the event and where it was being held. I stood around from 11am - 4:30pm holding the sign and a couple of people came up to me asking questions; mostly about directions but I made sure to give them as much helpful information as possible. My feet hurt after a while but the job was only for one day so it wasn't too bad in the end. This job has helped me feel confident talking to people as well as become responsible for directing he public to the correct location, almost resembling the invigilator position at Eastside Projects. I would like to do something like this again but probably not standing outside when the weather changes constantly.

The most recent job I've taken up was the Craft & Flea market event that visited Birmingham on April 21st. I came upon the advertisement on Facebook and few days before the opening they were looking for someone to promote the event so I quickly emailed the manager to get a place. This is the conversation between myself and Jordan had which got me the job.

I thought the part during the email exchange asking me to talk about myself and the reasons why I was interested to work for the company was a good practice of stating my intentions to when I apply for future jobs. It got me thinking about how the day job would help with my confidence to speak out and boost my experiences to gaining my ideal job in the art community after university; notifying key skills relating to the job description, what I personally get from the role and my interest for the art community got me the promotor position and has helped me prepare for upcoming interviews later on.

Here is my up-to-date CV I plan to send forward to ideal jobs I want.

These are some of the jobs I considered applying for based on what interests me and the skills I already possess, knowing my home town is generally small there’s a limited amount of museums and galleries to further develop my invigilator/curator experiences. (All jobs found on Indeed.com)

The roles that caught my eye were the library assistant, sales assistant at another charity store and waiter/waitress job at the The Wilson Gallery cafe. The library assistant is an exciting role for me as I enjoy reading books and they require someone with IT skills to manage their software and records which I already gained in school. For the BHF I have previous experience working in the Break Charity shop managing the store and the stock room so I believe the role isn’t any different apart from the hourly wage. I was bit disappointed the Wilson gallery isn’t hiring anyone to assist the main building, however the cafe inside is looking for someone and I’m hoping if I obtain the job I can stay close and learn about the gallery more.

Majority of the jobs I also found tend to focus on waiter/waitress, baristas and sales assistants in retail stores; the most popular being restaurants and cafes as they dominate the high street and constantly look out for recruits to settle in their new franchise. These jobs require hardworking, helpful, good communication and organized people to provide amazing service for customers and I believe to have these strengths from past volunteering experience as well as university. I’ve never worked within these fields before but as I learn on the job my skills will build up and I can improve myself to getting a better job in the future, especially communicating to customers and being knowledgeable about the business if I want to become an invigilator/curator as it is the key skill required for the role.

Waiter/Waitressing Roles

Sales Assistant Roles

For myself to have a chance of getting a job, I must require some skills and experience from past and present work or volunteering jobs to meet standards of the ideal role I want. Here is a brief overview of what I previously done:

Break Charity Store

Organise products on shop floor

Manage the counter

Organise stock

Cleaning the store

Eastside Projects

Invigilator/Front desk

Curatorial assistant

Artist assistant

Guidng visitors around the gallery

Craft & Flea

Promotor

Provide information about the event

To obtain these jobs the person needs to require keys skills such as:

Patience: Waiting for customers/visitors to enter and kindly greet them

Organized: Manage/clean the surrounding space and appear presentable

Knowledgeable: Learn how the business is run and prepare and provide valuable information to people if asked (pricing of products, artists description)

Communication: Speak formally and confidently to people and be a good listener

Hardworking: Motivation, focus and control of giving everything I got to the business

Keen learner: Interest of learning new skills and experiences to build my knowledge and be a better person/worker (invigilator/curator role, managing the store)

Helpful/Trustworthy: Assist customers, visitors and other employees to show they’re first priority in good service and teamwork is key.

In this module, I will be looking back on the 3 years studying in Art and Design to decide what I want to achieve in the next 24 months after graduation. This will generally focus on what interests me and the skills and experiences I learnt from the course that will lead to my desired career, transitioning from a student to professional life.

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Statement of Intent

I’ve been an art and design student for many years since A-level, college and now university that I’ve learnt a variety of art mediums and gained lots of skills and experiences such as ceramics, photography, woodwork, textiles, group work, documentation, blogging etc. Through this time I enjoyed every aspect these art courses has to offer, however I decided to take a break/gap year to return home, apply for jobs and earn enough money to move out and search for an artistic profession in the second year.

During my volunteering experience at Eastside Projects, I was an invigilator/curatorial assistant helping the gallery in guiding the public around exhibits, collaborating with artists and installing new spaces. The role is labour intensive and requires knowledge about setting up areas and understanding artist’s work yet I find it very interesting that I want to continue this as my professional career. Since my home town of Cheltenham is quite small, there are limited art galleries and museums around me to gain more experience but I plan to earn money in the first year in order to live somewhere near a wide art community.

As I’m working within the first year, I want to continue traditional crafts such as drawing, textiles and knitting in my spare time. I’ve done knitting, crochet and textiles for a few years which became a hobby and eventually a contemporary profession as my friends noticed my work and purchased them. Thinking about people appreciating my crafted pieces I might consider setting my own online store as an additional process to earn money, however I need to develop my own unique individual design to attract the public. Or as an alternative I could apply a part time volunteering job in my local gallery for further experience.

For the second year, depending how much money is saved up, I will begin applying for my ideal artistic profession and move to an area close to a museum/gallery. As I’ve stayed in Birmingham for nearly 3 years, I enjoyed the city lifestyle, became familiar with the environment and made plenty of friends I would like to return and rent a place near the city centre to be close to Birmingham’s large artist community as well as the many galleries spread out.

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Overall Review

First year: Gap Year - Return home, apply for a job to raise money for my ideal profession.

Second year: Apply for invigilator/curator job - possibly return to Birmingham or another place.

Side project: Continue knitting/crochet, textiles and drawing - possibly design and sell work for extra money