CAA Conversations

A traveling exhibition is an excellent way to get more out of your promotional efforts. Based on her experience as an artist and curator, Reni Gower offers a six-point checklist for taking your show on the road.

Reni Gower is a painter, curator, and professor in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where she teaches painting, drawing, and professional practices. Her current curatorial project is called Papercuts.

Many working artists today define a creative path by not just limiting it to what gets made in a studio. Dahlia Elsayed discusses enlarging the scope of your practice and how your day job makes you a more expansive artist.

Dahlia Elsayed is a visual artist and assistant professor of humanities at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. Her work is exhibited widely and was the subject of recent solo shows at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, in Newark, New Jersey, and at the 12th International Cairo Biennale in Egypt (both 2010–11).

Michael Aurbach provides practical tips and reminders to visual artists seeking jobs in higher education. This podcast can be followed by a second clip, “Researching the Job,” below.

Michael Aurbach is a sculptor, professor of art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and former president of the CAA Board of Directors. The Wichita Art Museum in Kansas hosted a recent exhibition, The Secrecy Series: Selected Works by Michael Aurbach, in 2010.

In a second podcast on the academic job search, Michael Aurbach offers helpful information on how to investigate institutions and learn more about their context.

Michael Aurbach is a sculptor, professor of art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and former president of the CAA Board of Directors. The Wichita Art Museum in Kansas hosted a recent exhibition, The Secrecy Series: Selected Works by Michael Aurbach, in 2010.

Your artist statement represents a vital line of communication between you and the rest of the world. Jackie Battenfield offers tips to help you write a concise and insightful statement about your work.

Jackie Battenfield is a painter, printmaker, and the author of The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2009). She teaches professional practices in the School of the Arts at Columbia University in New York and for the Creative Capital Foundation.

Melissa Potter discusses the art of researching and writing successful grants to fund your art practice.

Melissa Potter is a multimedia artist and assistant professor in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College Chicago in Illinois. Her most recent solo exhibition was held at Zvono Gallery in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2010.

Amber Hawk Swanson outlines the necessary steps for artists to successfully market themselves and their work in a competitive environment. She includes excerpts from four interviews with artists who market themselves successfully: Sean Fader, Dorothy (Dotty) Fitzgerald, Leslie Parke, and Jules Rosskam.

Amber Hawk Swanson is a Brooklyn-based video and performance artist and a consultant for professional development and grant writing. Formerly a program officer at the New York Foundation for the Arts, she now works one-on-one with individual artists through Hawk Supporting Artists. Hawk Swanson’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.

Kelly Murdoch-Kitt is an assistant professor at University of Michigan's Stamps School of Art and Design.

Denielle Emans is an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's campus in Qatar

Eileen MacAvery Kane is a full-time instructor in the Art Dept. at Rockland Community College in Suffern, NY as well as the author of "Ethics: A Graphic Designer's Field Guide" and blog ethicsingraphicdesign.org

Herman Botes serves as Head of the Department of Visual Communication at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in Pretoria, South Africa. He has a forthcoming co-authored book “Educating Citizen Designers in South Africa,” due out in 2018.

Paul Soulellis is an assistant professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he teaches experimental publishing, typography, and graphic design. He is the founder of Library of the Printed Web, which was recently acquired by MoMA Library. http://printedweb.org/

Joe Potts is a graphic designer, educator, artist, and writer working with found and synthesized images, sound, typography, and language. He teaches typography and graphic design at Otis College of Art and Design and the University of Southern California, and is the founding director of the Southland Institute (for critical, durational, and typographic post-studio practices). http://southland.institute/