Area: Arts Education

  • Simone Liberty

    Simone Liberty

    “I really love to extend art and creativity for everyone. Art for all. Art for everybody.” 

    Simone Liberty is a full-time Teaching Artist based in Charleston. As a Teaching Artist, or traveling arts educator, Liberty teaches Arts Integration in schools throughout Charleston, Dorchester, and Berkeley counties. Arts Integration uses visual and performing art forms including dance, art, and theatre, connecting them to core curriculum subjects such as math, science, and ELA. 

    Interview

    Transcript

    Simone Liberty   

    I’m Simone liberty. I’m from Connecticut originally, but I’ve been down here in Charleston since 2015, in the fall.  

    Emma Plutnicki   

    So, can you please tell us what you do for work and what your official job title is? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, sure. So, I am a teaching artist would be my official job title. And so what that means is, essentially, I’m a traveling arts educator. Um, I go into, um, lots of different schools at this point, although a teaching artists doesn’t have to be just confined to schools; they are community art educators, so they could go and do workshops for adults or other communities as well. Right now, my work has me going into schools kind of all over the Charleston, Dorchester,and Berkeley counties. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Very cool. How long have you been doing that? 

    Simone Liberty   

    I’ve been full-time as a teaching artist for about two years now. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    So, how did you end up doing this? How did you know that it was a profession that you could actually pursue? How did you know that you wanted to do this? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so. It was kind of funky. So, I have to go back to tell you about my undergraduate degree at the College of Charleston. I was an arts management major, and that’s I graduated in 2019 with my bachelor’s degree. And while I knew that I wanted to roll right into a master’s program, I also had a desire to start connecting with some of the organizations around Charleston in the arts.  

    Simone Liberty   

    So, the best thing about my arts management experience undergrad was that we had some great adjunct faculty members, and one of my professors was Catherine Brack, who at the time was the Director of Development at the Gaillard Center. So, I went in, and I was just kind of trying to pick her brain about what she does for work. And while I was there, she invited me to go and see their youth theater program in the summertime. So, it was a summer camp. And she said, You know, it’s gonna be super cute. They do these every summer. So, would you, you know, just come and check it out? And totally adorable. I fell in love with just watching the kids on stage. And, um, it reminded me of some work that I had done in the summers during my undergraduate experience.  

    Simone Liberty   

    So, I met Sterling DeVries, who is the Director of Education at the Gaillard center, and still is, um, and just told her how interested I was in, um, arts education. So we talked for a while about that. And I ended up actually writing a letter, um, in email form, to both Catherine and Sterling; I’m basically creating myself a position at the Gaillard. I ended up getting that position, but the catch was what I really wanted to do was work about part-time in the Education Department and part-time in the Fundraising and Development Department. And instead, what they could offer me because of, um,  budgetary needs, was a full-time or it was still a part-time position in development while I was in graduate school. And so I ended up raising funds for specifically the education program at the Gaillard while I was there for about two and a half years and absolutely loved the work that I was doing because I got to raise the funds that were supporting the arts education. But, I wasn’t doing it myself. I really wanted to be with the kids specifically. So, I started to talk to Sterling more about that. And she eventually ended up asking me to be one of their teaching artists for the summer camp that I went and saw originally. So, that was kind of my bridge into teaching artistry. 

    Simone Liberty   

     It started out as just teaching summer camps. And more and more as I got my name out there and started to network myself a little bit harder and got connected with some other community partners, I’m now able to say that I’m full-time as a teaching artist. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Amazing. That’s a great story. So, nowadays, how would you say the split is between working in schools and working behind a desk? What, does your typical day kind of look like?  

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so it really depends. I used to love routine. Unfortunately, this job has no routine. So, if I’m in a school, it’s either in school after school, or maybe summer camps. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So let’s take today, for example, today, I am going to be in a school, but my school time doesn’t start until 12:45. And from 12:45, until the end of their school day, basically, I’ll be teaching different classes, and then I do an after school program. So, that meant that I had a couple of hours this morning to be on my laptop. And that’s what I have been doing and will continue to do after we get off of this Zoom call. This, I would say, looks like a pretty typical day. If there were such thing as a typical day, where you know, it’s a balance between computer work and then being face to face with students for me, but like I said, a teaching artist can also be face to face with adults in the community or anything like that, too.  

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, so do you think it’s been I mean, you said that you kind of paved your way to find this position, but has it been challenging to work within this field? What kind of challenges do you see on a day-to-day basis? And how do you kind of overcome those? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so it has been difficult to call this a full-time career path. As I mentioned before, you really have to be intentional with networking and getting yourself out in the community, so that people know who you are and what you do. And what I have found is that I’ll speak specifically to the Charleston area. Lots of people have questions or are generally confused about what a teaching artist does for their work, and I think that has to do with the broad nature of the role, you know, what, what age range do you like to work with? Or what’s the style of your workshops? Sometimes, when I’m working with different community members when I am going into schools, specifically, I’m doing arts integration. And so that’s making sure that it’s not just a dance or theater, workshop, I’m teaching dance and theater things, but it’s also teaching a core curriculum subject like math, or science or ELA. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So, all of those moving pieces they make a teaching artist change how they describe themselves. And so it’s just this really vast thing that hasn’t really been nailed down, nor do you want it to, because we’re creative individuals. So you want that breadth. So, all of that being said, it’s tricky to keep having the conversation of who are you and what do you do? And you know, what are your credentials? Because there’s not really credentials in geometry, there’s no certificate, there’s no degree in teaching artistry. But you know, that’s, that’s kind of the tricky part of it. And with that comes, where do you find your peers? You know, it can be a little bit isolating of a position if you don’t have community partners that you’re really in contact with. So, it’s just it requires lots of self initiation. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, and so as far as networking goes, how have you been able to network with people? Are there any events that you’ve gone to? Or is there anything within South Carolina programs or communities that you’ve found to kind of build those connections? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yes. So, first and foremost, I will need to tell you about Engaging Creative Minds, which is one of my community partners, and one of the organizations that I do lots of work for. They’re kind of like a booking agent for teaching artists, and they have a whole roster of artists. All of these artists go into schools as well and do very similar things to what I’m doing, but just maybe in a different discipline, or the same. So, I focus on dance and musical theater. And so lots of those teaching artists I’ve been able to connect with through engaging creative minds, even if it’s just on an email basis, some of them I’ve been able to meet in person, even, you know, get coffee with and pick their brain about how they run their workshops. But that’s been a great help. 

    Simone Liberty   

     I should also call out professional connections that aren’t teaching artists have been very helpful in just understanding the field more broadly. And so I like to stay well connected with the South Carolina Arts Commission and also the South Carolina Arts Alliance, two separate things, but, the Arts Alliance is a nonprofit that is the statewide Arts Advocacy Organization. So, that, those two organizations or the agency and that organization have been great to be connected with so that I understand more about the South Carolina Arts field at large. 

    Simone Liberty   

     And then I find a lot of my personal connections to be from a part of my graduate program. So not only did I do the masters in public administration, but the College of Charleston also offers a certificate in Arts and Cultural management. So, a lot of the individuals from my cohort and I are still quite close. So, I would say that those are the couple of events and organizations that I stay connected with. 

    Simone Liberty   

    Perfect, and so throughout your journey so far, has there been any particular project or, I don’t know, a program that you’ve worked on that has had a significant impact on you, or that you hold, like, close to your heart, anything that stands out as being like a highlight of your career so far? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yes. And actually, it’s it’s kind of a new one. But I’ve been really happy about this past couple of months now. So, I, for the past couple of years, have struggled with the question of what is my why. And I think that’s a really important question, especially for young professionals to be asking themselves when they’re going through, trying to find what they love to do for work, what you know, makes their workday feel like it’s fun, rather than work. And so what I’ve been working on is, I really love to extend art and creativity to everyone, art for all, art for everybody. And one thing that had been kind of gnawing at me for a while is that I love tap dancing. I’m not a ballerina, but I do love tap dancing, and I can’t teach that in most of the schools that I go into because there’s a prohibitive cost to tap dancing. Those tap shoes they start at $65 dollars. So, that’s just not possible for a lot of the students that I teach. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So, what I created last fall, I’m calling them Tip Taps. It is a low-cost tap accessory, I’ll call it. It’s not a replacement to a tap shoe. But it’s simply just a piece of metal that you can strap to any shoe. And I can now go in and teach tap dance workshops. Now it’s just one tap, it’s not the heels, but I can teach tap dance workshops to kids who might not have ever had a tap shoe on their foot before. So, this has been definitely a highlight. And it’s really brought me back to that, what’s your why? Because, like I said, my why is art for all and making sure that there are accessible ways to bring art into our community, even if it’s not in a traditional way. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    As far as, skills that you possess, what do you think has helped you in this role? Clearly, you have ingenuity and creativity with projects like that. But are there any other skills that you’ve had that you think really advance your role? 

    Simone Liberty   

    That’s a good question. Yes, I want to say flexibility and not in the dancer way. But being flexible in your schedule, in your idea of what your day is going to look like in your goals, even. You know, sometimes you end up either under or overshooting in a goal that you have at, say, the beginning of the year or the beginning of a school year or semester, whatever it might be. Whether that’s a financial goal, a mindset goal, or a life, a work-life balance goal, whatever it is, there’s definitely an element of, like, entrepreneurship in craft. And it takes some flexibility. 

    Simone Liberty   

     There, there was another thing that I was thinking of well, ah, curiosity would be another one. That’s definitely been a skill that I’ve had to flex quite a lot, you know, ask lots of questions and kind of dive into who might be potential partners for you to go in and offer your teaching artistry to. So I would say, Yeah, curiosity and flexibility. Those would be the two skills. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, great. And so, just as we wrap up, do you have any advice for young professionals and college students who are trying to make a path in the creative world and looking for a job similar to yours? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Stay connected to what brought you to the arts in the first place. This has been something that I’ve been trying to get back to the last year, I would say, you know, we probably all landed in arts management or arts administration or wanting to be in the creative field because we are creatives, and we are artists, or at least we say like, oh, I used to be. It’s not gone, and it doesn’t need to be. So, my advice to young professionals is to find that adult dance class, find the you know, down here in Charleston, we’ve got like Redux that offers adult art workshops. Find those opportunities to stick with your craft and make sure that that stays in your practice. So, I think the reason that I’m saying this is because it really does help you to fill in that work-life balance, and at the same time might let you draw some connections towards your why, why you’re doing this. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Great. That’s such good advice. Okay. So, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything else you’d like to add about your profession, your career or anything else? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Oh, my gosh, we need more teaching artists. Please. You know, there’s there is no lack of demand. And also, I think that the field of teaching artistry is growing at just an exponential rate in South Carolina at large. I do know that there’s planning to be a Teaching Artists Forum in the fall by the South Carolina Arts Commission. And I think they’ve, they always have community partners on things like that. So yes, you know, look out for things like that if the idea of teaching artistry is interesting to you. I also would say to get connected with Tag, which is the Teaching Artists Guild. There’s other national and even international resources for teaching artists to kind of connect with so that you can explore the field more and of course, if you have anyone up your way that would like to connect with me about teaching artistry with more questions, feel free to send them my way. 

  • Thurayya UmBayemake

    Thurayya UmBayemake

    Thurayya UmBayemake is the Spark Lead Actor-Teacher in support of the Arts Grow SC program at SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. She delivers literacy-based drama programming to public schools to encourage “creative thinking, divergent thinking, and overall motivation to read.” UmBayemake earned a degree in drama studies at South Carolina State University (SC State).

    “Your path in life won’t look like anyone else’s.”

    Interview

    Transcript

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    My name is Thurayya UmBayemake. I moved to South Carolina a couple of years ago from Ohio. But I claim Ohio, Kentucky, and South Carolina because I went to college here, and I felt like I grew up here, so.

    Emma Plutnicki 

     Perfect. So, what do you do for work? And where are you currently working from?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    My official title is Curriculum Coordinator, actor, teacher/coach for the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. So what that entails, is that I’m the lead actor teacher for a program called Spark, which is through their department of outreach and community engagement. And, the Spark program is a literacy-based drama program. So we go into elementary schools. And, not only do we show students how to take stories from picture books and how to add drama enactments in there, to show characters, to show settings, to show plot. To reinforce the literacy-based learning. But also creative thinking, divergent thinking, and just overall motivation to read. So we do that. That’s our main goal. But we also have a goal of showing teachers that hey, even though you don’t have an arts background, you could do this too. So it’s a two fold job.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Amazing. So you’re working out of South Carolina?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

     Yes.

    Emma Plutnicki 

     Okay. Perfect. And how long have you been working there?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    So, I’ve been here for a little over two years. And that’s when the program, the residency program started. Ah, so, this program has been going on for a minute. But, um, the program before I came along was a summer based only pilot. And when the SR [Sub-recipient], ARP [American Rescue Plan] grant money came in, that’s the federal, you know, grant money that was given for the pandemic, it turned this program into a year-long residency program. So, that’s when I was hired in. And I had a team of, underneath me,  other actor teachers, and we’re spread out throughout the state. So, we work somewhat remotely and we traveled to different schools across the state. So, just you know, to spread the, to spread the wealth, to the spread the joy of the, of the job.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, amazing. So two years, how did you end up in this field? How did you hear about it? How did you know that this is something that you could do?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    So, my background, I’ve always been into theater. Well, I shouldn’t say I’ve always. I’m a storyteller. So I’ll try not to be so long winded, I will promise you, I will try hard.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

     So, it all started. When in high school, I was actually an athlete, I did cross country and track and field. I got injured my senior year. And at the same time, I got injured, the African community theater opened up in my hometown. And I tell this story, because it’s very important. That’s how I got into theater. Like I was involved in a theater that embraced me for who I was, and told stories that I could truly relate to. And so, that gave me that, the theater bug because, actually, I wasn’t even initially an actor; I was an assistant director, slash stage manager, then acting, and I knew from that I wanted to stay in theater. So I went to college ended up at South Carolina State University because they had a drama education program. And that’s how I ended up from Ohio down here. I have no ties to South Carolina other than that, but that program really developed me. Um, one as a family unit, you know, I felt comfortable and vulnerable enough, which is, which is very important. When it comes to drama and theater, you gotta be vulnerable onstage, in the script, everywhere, for the story to be told authentically.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    So, that was one thing. But then also, when I realized how long the drama education program was going to take to complete, I switched to drama studies, which was good for me because it helped me learn other aspects, more in depth in theater, like I learned Tech, I learned administration, like all these different aspects, versus just little surface levels and education. So, that is my educational background.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

     Once I graduated, I did some traveling. I called myself a little bit of a nomad, I went back to Ohio for a bit. I did children’s theater up there, and I opened up my own theater, basically for social justice. It was called Sue Company. And I opened it with two of my friends, and we focused on telling the African American stories, you know, up here. I don’t know why I said up here, I put American in there. African American stories.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

     From there, I went to New York and, actually when I moved to New York, I took a break from theater, even though I was living in New York. I know that’s backwards, but I just was living life and, and me… me being a natural storyteller, you have to experience life to tell stories. So, that’s what I did in New York. I just was experiencing life. I did go to play readings, you know, and volunteered as an actor, but that’s the extent of my, my theater experience in New York. Once I came back to Ohio, I realized I wanted to get back into theater. But I also knew I wanted to come back down south to South Carolina, because this, to me, is where my home theater is now. Like, where my friends from schools kind of stayed in the area. So, I was looking for jobs. And then one of my colleagues or old classmates sent me this job. He was like, Hey, I think you’d be interested. So that’s how I learned about this job. And I was like, I am interested.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    So, I was nervous. I actually applied for both that just the actor, teacher job and the actor, teacher coach job, because I didn’t know if I, ah, you know, fully qualified or not. And it’s funny, because I think you’ve you’ve probably seen that article where like, there was a study on men and women. How women feel they have to heal. That’s me. I was like, I don’t know. So, obviously, I interview well, and I got the position. And it’s just been smooth, not smooth sailing, but it’s been smooth sailing since. It’s, it’s definitely been challenging, but it’s a good challenge. And I’m really happy that, one, that they picked me, and they trust me with this position, and that I could do justice for it.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, amazing. So what kind of challenges have you experienced? And how have you overcome those?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    Well, one is I’ve somewhat managed before. My managing experience has always been like short-term, right? Like my last job, I worked for the Board of Elections up in Cuyahoga County, and I was a recruiter official. So, what that means is that I basically was responsible for filling in the poll workers. So I was, I hired them. And then sometimes I had to fire them, you know, or, or, or relocate them, and like, different things like that. But it was a very short-term commitment. This job is a very long-term commitment. You know, because once someone’s on the team, we want them to stay on the team. So I had to grow as a manager to overcome difficulties, whether it’s individual or personal, or just overall team dynamics.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, that makes sense. So now, on a daily basis, what kind of things are you working on? And what are your responsibilities on just a day-to-day basis? Are you working more on long projects? Or are there kind of short assignments that kind of come up? Or what does it look like?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    It’s a mixture, of both. And it’s, I feel like since I’ve been brought on, it has always been a mixture of both. Mostly because it was such a brand new idea of a program, where we had an idea where it was gonna go, but we didn’t necessarily have the pathway. So we had to be always flexible, which sometimes it’s harder than what it sounds, you know. So my daily projects, like the shorter terms is what I know, right? Like summer programming, I know what comes up every year. So I have to plan for it right? During the school year residency, so I have to plan for that. That’s the short term, you know, constantly, but the long term part is choosing the districts, how we’re going to get to those districts, who’s going to be involved like that’s more of the long term, and also getting the word out about our program because, there’s a lot of challenges that comes with our program, because it’s new, you got to explain it. But you gotta explain it in a way that you don’t lose interest. For instance, not being too long winded. But you don’t also don’t want to be too short, because they’ll come up with their own idea what the program is. And so yeah,

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    I feel like the whole program has just had a signifigant impact on me.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, makes sense. So, throughout your time doing this, has there been one project or something that you worked on that stood out the most as like resonating with you or something that had a significant impact on you?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    That’s amazing.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    It is. You know what, one thing I’ve always wanted to do is be like a presenter, right? Like when I go to conferences or things, there’s always a presenter up there explaining. And I always thought that job looked cool. I didn’t know that this job would turn into part of that. So I get, this past year, particularly, I got to go to different conferences and present the program. So, I was really happy about that accomplishment.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, that’s so fun. And so you said that you came, you didn’t really have too many ties to South Carolina. So when you came, were there any, um, like organizations or events that you went to, or interacted with to kind of build a network, or just overall help you in your field?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    Yes. So, this is when I bring in my mama. But, ah, so growing up, we moved around a lot. Um, and my mama has always instilled in me like, you get to know the community. Like, first and second day moving, we always went and got a library card. We met at the police station to meet the officer, like we you gotta know who you’re living with, you know, your neighbors and everything. So, when I came down here, not only did I reach out to like, my former classmates at, from SCSU [South Carolina State] who are still in the area. I did the same exact things. I went to get a library card, I went to local community festivals or events, you know. And I reached out to different communities to let’s say, hey, you know, introduce myself things of that nature, you know. And that’s how I built, build my network here. I also went to many of the different theater events around. I live in Colombia. I don’t know if I mentioned that but, my remote position is Midlands. So I went to the theater network here to just introduce myself because I’m also doing something in drama and wanted to know the familiar bases.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Amazing. And within, when you were trying to get this job, were there any skills that you found helped you land, the position, or any skills that you think someone trying to get into your field should have in order to find success?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    Definitely. So, I think two major skills is what got me the job. One was my natural storytelling ability. Two was just my background and job experiences. I have worked so many different types of jobs. And I know some people feel once they get out of college, they should only work in their field, right? You’re missing out, right? Like you are missing out on meeting different people, learning about different situations, how to overcome it, you know, taking that L, you know, learn from your mistakes. So, I think me having all those different types of jobs, one led me to be a recruiter official, because I could deal with people well, and that recruiter official helped me get this job because they’re like, Oh, you have management experience, see how it all just comes into place?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, perfect.And just as we’re wrapping up, do you have any advice for someone who would want to get into a position like yours, and how they can manage that? And just any overall advice for them?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    Yes. One, don’t narrow your network, right? Like, make friends with any and everybody, just to learn about their life experiences and what they went through. It will help you learn that your path is not going to look like anybody else’s. Like, you could talk to 100 people, I promise you, your path is going to be different from all 100 people. Right? And with that being said, you can’t take everyone’s advice. Everyone’s advice is used with a grain of salt because, again, your path is going to be different no matter what.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, for sure. That’s, that’s good advice. And is there anything else you’d like to add about your experiences or your profession?

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

    Yeah I, I would like to add one more thing.

    Thurayya UmBayemake 

     I feel like this job was a dream come true. And I say that because when you major in one of those fields that doesn’t, quote-unquote, guarantee you a job. You have to learn patience, right? And, like, when I was again when I came out of college, I think my first job was housekeeping. Like, who wants to admit that nobody, right? I eventually got into like children’s theater and other stuff, but none of those paid the bills, right? Like it was just something I enjoyed doing. But, this job is the first one, you know, that meets both. That satisfied my living situation. And I really love and enjoy doing it. And, it took a while. But, I feel like it was the perfect timing. So it’s about faith. It’s about persistence. And, like, I just had to, like I said, refocus and learn different jobs and different skills and enjoy the journey of life. But I really do love this job. My, team is great. Working at the, um, SC gov school is great. And, I couldn’t ask for anything better.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Amazing. I’m so happy you found your dream job. So good to hear.

  • Marius Valdes

    Marius Valdes

    “Everyone’s got their own journey, and you have to find your way. I would never discourage anyone from a journey in the applied arts or the creative arts if they have the drive and the will to do it. Because that’s the biggest part of it: just being disciplined.”

    Marius Valdes is an artist, illustrator, and professor of Studio Art teaching graphic design and illustration at the University of South Carolina. Valdes received his BFA in graphic design from the University of Georgia (UGA) and his MFA in visual communication from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Valdes is originally from Charleston and lives in Columbia.

    Interview

    Transcript

    Marius Valdes 

    My name is Marius Valdes. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. I currently live in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m a professor at the University of South Carolina. I teach graphic design and illustration. I’m also a practicing artist and illustrator.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Amazing. So can you just tell us what your official job title is? And how long you’ve been working as a professor there?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yep, it’s Professor of Studio Art. And I’ve been here since 2007, so something like 17 years.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah.

    Marius Valdes 

    So long!

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, that is a long time. So how did you end up as a professor, and I believe before you were a practicing professional in the field, so how did you kind of make that transition from practicing in the field to then to academia?

    Marius Valdes 

    So I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1998. And I worked as a designer for about five years, four or five years. And I had got to a point where I was really exploring illustration, I was kind of enjoying that almost more than the design work I was doing. But one of the things I felt like was limiting me as a designer was, I didn’t feel like I was very good at talking about my work. So I thought going to graduate school would be kind of a good way to go and kind of expand my education, and kind of take what I’ve been doing for four or five years and kind of refocus and kind of just make myself more marketable. And while I was there, I had no intention of being a professor or teacher, I just, I mean, that, to me, just seems today still seems kind of crazy. They let me do that. But when I was there, part of my scholarship was to teach a class. And I just loved it. And it was really fun. And what I found was kind of like, even though some of the students I taught were, were, maybe in some ways, more talented than I was, as a designer, I just knew more than them, because I had been doing it as a professional. And so that, and I just kind of really enjoyed it.

    Marius Valdes 

    When I originally started college, I wanted to be, I was going to be a psychology major, because I thought maybe I would be a counselor, or a shrink or something. I like talking to people. But then I realized there was science involved. So I feel like teaching has kind of given me, sort of that ability to do that sort of stuff, in addition to, you know, teaching. So.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, makes sense. So what background kind of led you to being a professor? So do you think like, specifically with you do studio design, how has your background within studio design helped you to teach it now?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, so I think what helped me was, and I always tell students who are thinking about going to grad school to work for a couple of years, because when you get out of college, and you start working, and this is this is also why internships are really important, it gives you a chance to kind of figure out what you like, and also what you don’t like. So for example, I was working in Charleston, and I was doing really well, I was working for companies were doing a lot of real estate, like brochure design and advertising for real estate companies. And it just got so boring. I mean, it was just sort of like, it paid okay, and it was a nice job. But it just wasn’t very interesting. And I started kind of painting on the side for fun. And I was literally finger painting on cardboard. And that started winning me awards. And I was, just, was like “what?” you know.

    Marius Valdes 

    So it was kind of taking those things that were fun with the practical stuff I had kind of learned as a designer, and putting those together and then going to graduate school for two years, and working with a whole, a whole new group of professors who treated me more like a colleague and less like a student, and just learning to talk about work and look at my own work and kind of evaluate it, and look at other people’s work and be able to learn how to talk about it. All those things make me able to teach now, you know. Some semesters are easier than others, you know, some groups of students are easier to work with than others. But usually it just means it takes me a little longer to kind of get through to people. But once I do, you know, I can share with them what I’ve been through. And I think that helps.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah, that’s great. So nowadays, can you walk us through like a typical workday, like what you have to do, what classes you teach, and just what’s expected from you on a daily basis?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, so I teach what they call two-two load, which means I teach two classes in the fall and two classes in the spring. I teach Mondays and Wednesdays, which is why I normally check my calendar first thing Monday morning. But the thing about teaching is my classes are two hours long. And I don’t always go the full time because a lot of times, the students, I give them something to do and they need get started and they’ve got to meet with me, and then once I’ve I met with them they need to go work. And that can be, they can stay in the classroom, they can go to a design lab, they can go to the library, they can go wherever they need to do their work. But for me on Mondays and Wednesdays, I’m teaching from eleven to four. Before the classes start, I’m usually checking email, getting caught up talking to students.

    Marius Valdes 

    On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do office hours, and that might be coming into my office and actually meeting with people, it might be doing a Zoom call, it might just be looking at work that’s been posted online and making comments on it. And then, and then I’m also doing emails with, you know, colleagues and trying to figure out how to keep the design program going. It might be service at the university where I have to go to, like, for example, I was a faculty senator for a bunch of years. And that was a thing where we, every once a month, for two or three hours, you go a really long meeting and talk about all the things going on at the university.

    Marius Valdes 

    So and then, Fridays are usually research days where it’s supposed to be a day where you have kind of an uninterrupted time to just work on your work. Although I will say this year, it’s been a lot of meetings on Fridays, because there’s so much going on all the time. At the university level, I’m at what they call research one university. So that mean the emphasis is 40% teaching, 40% research, and then 20% service, which is doing things like being a faculty senator, for example. Other schools, like I taught at USC Upstate for for two years. That’s what they call a teaching school where you’re teaching more classes and there’s less expectation of you doing research. So and research for me, is doing design work, doing illustration work making art putting the other shows and stuff like that. Going to conferences presenting my work.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Cool. Yeah, so, you just mentioned like putting together projects and things like that. Do you have one project that stands out in your career as being, like, exceptionally motivating toward you or something that just had a significant impact on your life?

    Marius Valdes 

    Oh, yeah. You know, the past couple of years, I’ve been working with the medical universities, Carolina’s Children’s Hospital in Charleston. And I got a couple of grants through the school to work with them and created several murals for them. I’ve created some kid’s activities, books for the therapists to use. I would say that’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, because it’s weird, I mean, I’m not kidding you, about an hour ago, a guy I work with here was like, “Hey, man, I’m at MUSC right now in the children’s hospital with my kid and my kid is like obsessed with your frog, you know, the mural, and it’s, you know, it’s been really nice, like, it’s really made a difference on this visit, you know,” and I get, I get emails like that occasionally from people. And it’s always kind of sad, because like, the only way to really see those things is if you have a sick kid, but I really enjoy that.

    Marius Valdes 

    And then I have other projects, I’ve done things that are more self initiated, where I’ve kind of created little casts of characters. Some of them are called The Secret Species, and they’re these little clay figures, and I kind of would make art about them and leave them places and stuff. And I got a lot of mileage out of those, like that was kind of part of my thesis for my grad school. And I just kept kind of working on it. I got some really good kind of attention for that work that was meaningful to me, for people to say like, “wow, this is a really creative idea,” you know. I kept hoping, like, a toy company would come and offer me a couple million dollars for it. But that never happened. So.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    No, that’s so cool. And just like, overall, has it been challenging in your career, both as a professor and as, just, like, a practicing creative?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, I mean, you know, I’ll be honest with you, I think like being a professional creative is not for the weak of heart. But what I will tell you is that when I was probably a little bit, like, your age, or even a year or two younger, I remember driving with my dad, and telling him like, “I think I’m gonna be an art major.” You know? I was just waiting for him to like, say, “What are you doing?” you know, and he just said to me, he’s like, “Well, if you do something like that, that you love, you’ll never really work.” And I kind of feel like that. I mean, now, I do feel like I work. But, I mean, I work on things I care about. And I think that to me, is sort of one of the main things is like, you know, on my worst day, I might be, I might be struggling with a painting, you know, or an illustration for a client. But what I’m sitting here doing is drawing, you know. And I’m married to, my wife is a paralegal. she has a very normal nine to five job. And, you know, her job is answering to five attorneys all, you know, screaming, like, “I need this now I need this now.” And I can’t really complain too much, right?

    Marius Valdes 

    The other thing is, I think that like, if you go into design or advertising, you are a little bit subject to your clients, and where you’re working and who your clients are, versus academia, which is much more steady, it’s a little bit more of a routine, you know, you kind of get into a groove. And I feel like whenever it gets too stressful, oh, spring break! Oh, Christmas time, here’s a month off! Here’s summertime, you can go paint for a month. And you kind of get all the stress of all the things you have to do, kind of out of your system, and then you reset. So I feel like I’ve done a little bit of everything in the creative world. And I think like, sometimes the grass is greener, you know, sometimes you’re doing, you know, I’m doing academia, and I’m here teaching a bunch of kids, or students, and I think like, “man, I’d really like to just be in like an office setting right now, working on a project all day, sitting in front of it not worrying about this person or this person or this person.” But then you go into have a critique, and your students bring in a bunch of amazing work. And you’re like, “oh, man, I am a good teacher!” you know. I mean, I joke around them all the time, and when they do something good. I always say, “Oh, I do know what I’m doing.” You know? So there’s, there’s little rewards everywhere.

    Marius Valdes 

    And I think there’s all levels of like, I look at some people who have careers, you know, in the arts, and they are just doing amazing things. And they’re making gobs of money. And they have tons of exposure and fame and fortune. And I looked at people who were totally content just to be in their studio painting all day and illustrating and never seeing anybody and that makes them happy too. So you kind of, it’s like anything in life, you kind of have to everyone’s got kind of their own little journey. And you kind of have to find your own way. But I would never discourage anyone  from a career in the applied arts or creative arts, if they have the drive and the will to do it. Because I really think that’s the biggest part of it is just being disciplined, you know?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    And along with being disciplined, are there any physical skills that you think are beneficial for people trying to break into a world of design? Like any specific skills that maybe you possess, that help you in your day to day life, or just if you saw, if you were like hiring for a design job, and you saw, “Oh, this applicant has this skill,” what kind of things like that are beneficial to have?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, I think anytime you can get better and faster at learning the software, that just like becomes like a tool in your tool belt that will help you get your ideas out faster. The one thing I preach to my students about a lot, and I always tell them this story that I graduated on Friday, and I started the following Monday freelancing at Cartoon Network, which at the time, back then that would have been my dream job, to work there and work, you know, with animation stuff. And what happened was, I was at this, I was at Turner network, which is in Atlanta, and they were using a brand new version of Adobe Illustrator that was different than what we had in my undergrad at Georgia. And I just could not teach myself how to figure out the new software, because I was used to like having a professor always come over my shoulder and say, “All right, push that button, push this button.” And back then there was no, there was no Skillshare there was no LinkedIn learning, it was called Adobe Classroom in a book, and it was a book like this thick, and you had to flip through and follow the steps, and it was really unintuitive. So I always kind of preach, I think one skill students can really do is teach themselves how to learn, and learn how to learn, and be open, you know, because technology is changing so quickly, that if you can’t keep up with it, it’s gonna really, it’s gonna really hinder your growth, I think.

    Marius Valdes 

    And the other thing is to be a design sponge or art sponge. And I mean that in the sense of like, don’t just look at Pinterest. And don’t just look at Google. It’s like, go to the library, look at design books, find stuff that’s been curated and edited, and it’s got the really good stuff in it, because the stuff you see on the internet, while some of it’s really cool, a lot of it is just a copy of a copy of a copy, you know. It’s good to go back and go to the original stuff. And I think also just being a decent person, a nice person, nice to people. That goes a really long way. You know. And not everybody is gonna be nice to you, but I think, you know, I think I’m in this job because I’m a good, I’m a decent person. And I think that like as I make connections and network and you start meeting people, I think people are like, “Oh, that’s someone I would want to work with,” you know?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah. That makes sense. So, for networking, are there any events or programs or organizations within South Carolina to meet people like that? Like design specific events or anything that you know of that someone who’s looking to get into that field could go to and kind of meet people that have similar minds?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, well, for design, AIGA [The Professional Association for Design] has always been kind of the big national organization, and they have chapters throughout. Some chapters are better than others. We used to have one in Columbia that was amazing, and it’s almost, I mean, it’s basically dead now. But you could go to Charlotte, or depending on where you live, you could go to Atlanta, or maybe another place that has a little bit more thriving AIGA chapter.

    Marius Valdes 

    The other thing we’re seeing is like, here at the university we’ve got a group of students who just kind of took it upon, amongst themselves to start a new chapter of a design club. And they’ve been doing, I mean, they’ve been doing amazing things they’ve been bringing guest speakers and doing workshops for students that are younger than them. And it’s just kind of been, it’s been really cool to see them kind of take a mentorship role. And some of the speakers they’ve got in, I’m just like, “how did you get that person for free?” I mean, you know, I think if there’s not something for you to use, then you can always start your own thing, and get like minded people together. And then there’s also, for advertising, there’s the Advertising Federation, there’s usually chapters of that. So for example, there’s Midlands Federation here, and they have things every year called The Addy Awards. So those are competitions you can put your student work in and try and get feedback on. But those are kind of probably the main ones I would think about, you know?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Okay, yeah, amazing. And then just as we wrap up, do you have any advice for either a college student who’s trying to, after graduating, get into design or academia, or just somebody who wants to get into a creative field? Any advice?

    Marius Valdes 

    Yeah, I mean, so one of the things I’ll tell you is, you know, and again, it’s something I tell my students all the time is, you’re going to graduate with a portfolio that you made. And if you have a good teacher, it should be a good portfolio, right, should be a pretty solid portfolio. But the day you graduate, you could take that portfolio, you can throw in the garbage, and make one that you really like, you know? Or you can have several, you could have a portfolio that’s aimed at a very conservative company, you could have one that sort of, like, aimed at like your dream company, you could have one that is more about your illustration than your design, or one that’s all about your lettering. And the main thing is like you want to go after the kind of work you’re interested in doing, because if you put a bunch of calligraphy or hand, you know, handwritten stuff in your portfolio, and you hate doing it, that’s usually what you end up getting hired to do. And you’ll be like, “oh, man, why’d I do this?” So, I think part of it is kind of, again, figuring out what you’re interested in, but also what you’re not interested in. So you can be more targeted yourself.

    Marius Valdes 

    I also feel like when you’re in college, and you’re graduating, if you’re young, and you don’t have any, if you can try and come out of college without any credit card debt or student loans, and you have nothing, like, no baggage, go to a big city and work if you can, because it’s a bigger market, you’ll have more opportunity, it’s faster paced, it’ll make you better, because you’ll be competing against a lot of other people and you’ll be working a lot harder. So that if you are from a town like Charleston, or Columbia, when you come back, you’ll be heads and shoulders better than everybody else, because you’re used to working in those bigger markets. And I also tell students to like, if you’re sending out emails and cold calling people with email, sometimes it helps to have a really nice piece that you can mail, because people love getting cool things in the mail. If you’re looking at a very specific city, you can always email art directors and tell them you’re coming to visit that city for a week, and you would love to meet with them while you’re in town. And sometimes just stopping by place and letting people see you in person and see that you’re a normal, nice person. Or maybe you’re an abnormal person, they like that too, you know? I mean, sometimes just going and introducing yourself, the person sits behind that front desk, they have a lot of power, because they can reach back to the creative director and say, “hey, you know, this guy Marius came by here today. And he was, he was so polite and so nice. He would be a good fit here.” You know? Sometimes that can be the thing that makes a difference, versus just sending a PDF to someone saying, “Hey, here’s my stuff. I just graduated, let me know,” you know.

    Marius Valdes 

    And lastly, once you graduate, you have your student portfolio. You should be working immediately to try and replace student work with real work. So if you’re doing if you find an organization, or nonprofits that you’re really interested in, maybe it’s like maybe you’re someone who’s really into cats and dogs, well maybe go to your local SPCA and offer to do a poster for them. If they’ll print it, you’ll trade design services for them doing that, then you can replace one of your student projects with a real project. And I think the more you start building that up, the better it is.

    Marius Valdes 

    And then the last thing I’ll say, this is the advice I would tell myself, if I could go back in time: be patient, finding a job is, sometimes it’s the market, sometimes its timing, is just like, you know, you just never know what the elements of finding that right job are at the moment. It could be someone is going on maternity leave, and they need someone to fill in for six months. And you just happen to, they just happen to get your resume that day, you know that that literally happened to me. So it’s it’s about being patient and not looking at your classmates or your friends and seeing “Oh, man, so-and-so is going to work for Google and so-and-so’s going to work for this agency, and I’m, I just can’t find a job.” It’s going to take a little time for some people. And you just have to be persistent, and again, disciplined. Maybe you get a job waiting tables at night so you have your days open so you can go interview or do freelance work. Or maybe you just get your dream job right out of college that happens too you know?

    Emma Plutnicki 

    That’s great advice, thank you. And just overall, is there anything else you’d like to add?

    Marius Valdes 

    I mean, I think college and working is the same thing. It’s you get what you kind of put into it. So I think, I think you just got to get started. Like, that’s really something someone told me is just like, I remember, like, I got off for my first job out of college. The Cartoon Network thing didn’t work out, so I moved to Charlotte. And the girl I was dating at the time, she got this amazing job making really good money and doing awesome, like, client work. And I got offered this really boring job making like, you know, almost half what she was making. I remember one of my teachers just saying, “dude, just get started.” And it’s so true. Once you just kind of get into the field, that first job is kind of like a fifth year of college. You learn more, you kind of, you start to get better at things. And once you’re in a job, it’s easy to find another job, you know? And you will be amazed and students will be amazed what life is like when you don’t have homework. You have so much more time, like spare time, that you won’t know what to do with yourself. My first year out of college, I was like the healthiest I ever was in my life, because I would get home from work and be so bored. I would just go for like a two hour walk with my dog, you know, and then come home and like read, and like paint, and like, I mean, I had so much spare time outside of the nine to five thing and it was great, you know, it was really, really nice. So I guess that’d be my last little bit of advice.

    Emma Plutnicki 

    Yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.