Notice Board

ASTeRIX presents: Working Hard or Hardly Working? How to Start and Sustain a Career in the Arts

“How do I start a career in the arts, and how do I sustain it?” These often-asked questions by many Fine Arts students have no simple answer. For many students, the goal of pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is to “become an artist,” however, simply being an artist does not come with a paycheque. 

Becoming an artist often involves a trade-off between dedicating time and energy to sustaining your artistic practice and working a “day job” in order to pay the bills. Whether new media, drama, music, or visual arts, some clear employment paths in the arts exist, such as graphic designer, actor, singer, or painter, as well as many less obvious including lighting technician, properties master, luthier, and preparator.

Featuring former BFA students explaining their own “long and winding road” working in the arts, this Intersections event examines the importance, value, and methods of pursuing “day jobs” directly relevant to your artistic practice. Attendees of this panel-style discussion will hear about some atypical job opportunities in the arts and discuss how, why, and where the panelists found these jobs including both good and bad experiences. 

While this panel will not tell you “how to get a job,” we will look at important topics such as: 

• Complementing your artistic practice with an artistic “day job” 

• Transferability or “leveraging” artistic skills to other employment sectors 

• Importance of volunteerism to increase paid opportunities 

• The role of networking and relationships in getting gigs 

Panelist bios: 

Jesse Northey’s background as a musician and recording engineer led him toward other jobs as his interest in the music industry grew. With past work for Alberta Music, Six Shooter Records, and CKUA, he has since started his own music management company and record label, Victory Pool.   

Geneviève Paré is an award-winning theatre artist, filmmaker, and co-founder of Mudfoot Theatre. She is also a wilderness guide and Associate Director of the Canadian Wilderness Artist Residency. She is drawn to the rustic, the absurd and the abstract, and believes storytelling is multi-dimensional and essential as the construction, renewal, and celebration of collective identity. 

Christopher Schultz is an international award-winning Canadian new media artist that specializes in video production, motion graphics, & digital marketing campaigns, known for his work with professional sports teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, & MLS. He currently resides in Minneapolis, MN, acting as the Marketing Director for video production agency, Triglass Productions.   

Kasia Sosnowski graduated with honours from the University of Lethbridge with a combined BFA in both Art History & Museum Studies, and in Art Studio in 2014. With previous work experience at The Banff Centre and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, she now works at the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge as the AAC Works Manager. She recently finished a two-month artist residency at Medalta in the Historic Clay District in Medicine Hat, making work for her show "SNEEK-E-PEEP'N" which just closed in the Project Space at the Esker Foundation in Calgary. Her work has also been shown in Lethbridge, Edmonton, and Auckland, NZ, with other upcoming exhibitions planned for 2021. 

When & Where: Tuesday, March 16 2021 7:00 pm online through Zoom
Register Here: 

https://uleth.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErceiupj8oHNNiKbAOztXjM93pSJcHW_CT 

About ASTeRIXASTeRIX (Art, Sound, Technology, Research Intersections) Centre for Research-Creation brings together educators, researchers, students, artists, and the community at large to work across disciplines, fostering training/mentorship and collaborative research opportunities. ASTeRIX is interested in critically and creatively exploring, through a transdisciplinary research-creation lens, the ramifications of emergent technologies. Questions? Please contact us at asterix@uleth.ca. We look forward to seeing you soon!ASTeRIX