What Am I?

What do you want to do when you leave uni? That question that gets utters more and more as third year comes and (in not to long) goes. I'm a student doing a joint honours degree in Fine Art and Art History, so this immediatly raises questions as to what I am, and what I want to do. While it is not easy for any student who graduates and then has to decide upon their future, it seems increasingly difficult for arts students who don't appear to have any set career path in front of them.

This problem has many dimensions and many different angles and I don't pretend to be aware of them all and I certainly don't pretend to understand them all, but what I can say is that becoming increasingly obvious that any arts student has to be versatile. There has to be an openness about the arts almost as a given due to the nature of many arts based organisations, i.e. an open mindedness to dance, music, poetry amongst many others on top of the traditional fine arts. After this though I find that many graduates are trying several different roles in order to develop themselves, this includes writing, curating, selling as well as physical craft based skills. Many roles in the arts include several skills but also there comes the problem of lack of experience in a certain field, this is where the versatility comes into play. A Broad range of skill sets will allow for doorways to open without perhaps overly specific experience

All of this is well and good, but it doesn't answer the perhaps maybe initially simple small talk question of "what do you want to do when you finish uni?". Given my above thoughts I would say that any answer will probably just list off all my previous work experience as a specific field hasn't yet emerged, so perhaps in order to answer the question, the best answer might just be "Art stuff probably"...

Uni Summer Holidays = Art crisis

The summer holidays are a a time of mixed emotions for Art LAD, why? well because of several things. First; no studio, the university closes the studios and doesn't allow you to use them until about one week into term. Second; Where has all the decent art gone? Art LAD feels as though this summer has been relativly     poor on the art front. There have been several good shows, Hirst, Invisible, Deptford X; however, most of London hasn't quite cut it for me! I wanted more. This I suppose is a question of taste and thus I shall say no more.

Back to the studio problem though, where can one have a space to do work without having to pay asecond rent effectively? For students who are already paying £3500 to have the use of studios it seems a little ridiculous to have to pay over the summer, but yet still be expected to carry on working and thinking about work. This is another area where the Unis let down the students. Virtually all artists like to have a separate area to do their work, they like to have some  type of separation.

While this studio down time has been an inconvenience to me and my work (having to complete work for two shows in my bedroom was, excuse my French, a ball ache), there is the added benefit of being able to do an internship with ALISN at their gallery Lubomirov-Easton and write for Artfinder (check out my profile). In all I felt a slight art crisis this summer, by way of lack of quality art in London and from myself!