Tag: Teaching

  • Philip Mullen

    Philip Mullen

    “It’s a very fortunate blessing to find something in life that you like enough that you do it before you’re paid for it.” 

    Philip Mullen is a painter and professor emeritus. Philip Mullen reflects on decades of artmaking and mentoring and why South Carolina and a bathtub shaped his creative life. 

    Interview

    Transcript

    Nora Smith 00:00 

    Okay, there we go. Alright, to start. What do you do for work, and where are you currently working from?  

    Philip Mullen 00:07 

    Well, I’m a painter of large acrylic paintings, and I have a studio in Columbia. Great. It’s, my studio is designed for large paintings. It’s 1300 square feet made as a studio for that. Actually, when I first built the studio in 1989 and when, right after I built it, a national magazine was running this. It was called The Artist Magazine, and I think it may have had the biggest circulation of any art magazine at the time, because it was, it was aimed at a really clever group, and that was amateur artists who think they’re pros, very large audience, but it’s, you know, it’s a great audience. It’s a wonderful thing for people to go into. But they used mine as an example for how to set up for big paintings.  And the two, the two items that kind of got them interested was, I needed a big sink. Big sinks are really expensive, but mobile home Bathtubs are really pretty cheap, and you can mount them up high, like a sink. Of course, the guys who installed it kept saying, what are you going to have a ladder to get into this thing? No, no, guys, it’s a sink. It’s a sink. And then during the time I did, it was, was I was represented for 35 years by David Finley galleries in New York.  And those shows, you know, I had, like I said, 14 solo shows with them over the 35 years. And those shows often would have 40 to 45 pieces, half of which have six foot dimension, or half of which just had a four foot dimension, and maybe a few larger one, ones included. And because, the way I do my edges, I can’t set them down, but I’d have a lot of paintings collected up at any one given time. And I designed a very simple rack that I could hang 46 foot paintings on without without the edges touching anything crazy more answer than you probably needed. Oh no, that’s perfect. I warn you, I was once interviewed on the radio, and after 10 minutes, the interviewer said, Mr. Mullin, I was kind of hoping to ask a second question. 

    Nora Smith  02:45 

    Okay, well, this one kind of wraps in with the first one. How long have you been working there, and what is your official job title?  

    Philip Mullen  02:53 

    Well, my only official job title now is artist. And I guess I have a sort of official job title as distinguished professor emeritus from USC. I had a very good arrangement with USC. I taught there from 69 to 2000 and, but I took nine. I did not teach in summers, and I took nine years of leave during that time. So, I taught 22 because those New York shows took an enormous amount of time to put together. You really put it this way, my art gallery friends were very suspicious of my teaching, because they said, If you teach, you can’t paint enough. And my teaching friends were very suspicious of my art gallery’s success because they said, You can’t sell without selling out. And each of those things probably has some basis in possibility, but there’s certainly things you have to watch out for.  

    Nora Smith 04:06 

    Yeah, well, you just do, you do it all. 

    Philip Mullen 04:10 

    Well, I was a bit of an obsessive worker for decades and decades. It didn’t make me socially very interested, but I had a lot of artwork done. And the teaching, you know, the teaching like that, was wonderful, because I didn’t end up doing it quite it wasn’t like I was doing it all the time. You know that one period where I literally was taking half, where I had 12 years and only taught during fall semesters, yeah, and worSo, SSo,it made my teaching much more exciting for me, and it was like a chance to talk to bright young people about the only thing I knew anything about. And it it, you know, while I’m sure there were other. Teachers that were more talented as teachers than I was. The one thing I could bring to it was especially like the graduate students might see me working on a particular painting and then end up seeing that painting reproduced in arts magazine, for example. Yeah, really. And so it brought the, the sense, I think, to students, that it could be something bigger. That was especially to actually, before I built the studio in 89 because the I had a studio at the university furnished and, you know, graduate students and undergraduates were in and out of that while I was down there. 

    Nora Smith 05:40 

    That’s so cool.  

    Philip Mullen 05:42 

    Well, I tell you, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a very fortunate blessing to find something in life that you like enough that you do it before you’re paid for it. You do it if you’re paid for you do it if you’re not paid for it, you you know people, I said, Oh, man, you’re so disciplined. Yeah, you’re always in the studio. I wasn’t disciplined. I was self-indulgent. I was doing what I know, that’s what I wanted to be doing.  

    Nora Smith 06:11 

    Yeah? Super cool Okay, so this is more of a question specific to your area, okay, in the creative field in South Carolina. What is one thing you love about working in the creative field in South Carolina? 

    Philip Mullen 06:29 

    Well, one thing that was that I found really great at first, when I was young and needed to get get grants for something was that while there may not be as many grants here as there are in a bigger city, when you stop to think about how many artists are per grants available, it’s pretty rich here. When I got with my gallery in New York, I had had, I’d had the good fortune of being included in a show called the Whitney Biennial. It’s a show at the Whitney Museum in New York, and in 719, 75 and and I knew I wanted to have a gallery in New York, so I wanted to take advantage of that. I took a year off of teaching, moved to New York, and did that that I did have sabbatical money. That time, most of my leaves were unpaid, but I went on sabbatical money.  Spent all of my own money, but got what was at the time, a quite large grant from the Arts Commission to go there, rented three fifths of Andy Warhol’s old factory, and lived and worked in that course, lived illegally, the commitment, lot of commitment there. Yeah, I learned a couple of very important skills there because of living illegally, you know, because if you’re in a place that is selling commercial in New York, they only have to give you heat six days a week. Oh, yes. And so first we crank the heat up, you know, very high on Saturday night and hope to survive till Monday later.  I learned two of the skills I developed was how to hot wire a locked elevator and how to start up a furnace in a big building. Wow. And none of the other tenants complained, and the building manager didn’t like the building owner. So I’m sure he figured it out when he came in every Monday and the furnace was on.  

    Nora Smith 08:29 

    That’s so funny.  

    Philip Mullen 08:32 

    The art world, the painting world, has changed a good bit since then. Now I loved, absolutely loved the notion of earning money, selling paintings in New York and spending money in South Carolina. You can see where that might work. Of course, one of the things I did learn is, if you’re going to do that, you’re not just making paintings and somebody else is doing stuff for you. You are pretty constantly working on business things as well. For sure, for sure. Yeah. How would you describe your local professional community around you? It’s a lot like most places. There’s a few people who are, who are, You know, real top notch pros to deal with. There’s a lot of people who it’s a hobby for, and it’s a wonderful hobby to take up, you know, I mean, I was reading one time about in different professions, what age you pick at boy, you don’t want to be a female gymnast, you know, you, you peak very early in life, but being an artist was actually the thing that you the people peaked at the latest in life. Yeah, you know, it’s sort of something that you can do for a long time. So I would describe most of the community. Unity as a sort of normal hobbyist community. But one of the funny things, you know, in certain in certain areas, there’s, there’s sort of funny things that occur in terms of how people develop, like, if you want to learn yoga, real well, pretty quickly you end up going into yoga teacher training. I mean, even if you don’t want to teach, you go through yoga teacher training, and all of a sudden, then you’re trained yoga teacher.  

    Nora Smith 10:33 

    Yeah.  

    Philip Mullen 10:34 

    So, you’re out teaching yoga. If people go and take a painting, go into it. I mean, very quickly, way too quickly. Generally, they feel like they need to get out and start selling their stuff. And I’m a little suspect that that was, that was certainly not me. Now, when I did it, I got, I was obviously really serious about it, because, you know, I’ll tell you that year in New York, while it was professionally very important, it was very lonely, I’m going around to galleries, trying to get into galleries. They’re being approached every day by artists. Many of them are not very polite to you. You know, it pretty gruesome thing. You know, to be an artist, you’ve got to have it in one seat. You’ve got to have a big ego. I mean, the idea that, the idea that you can make something and somebody else should actually take time looking at it, is pretty amazing. Yeah, that they should actually pay you for it is incredible. But myself, like most artists I know, have very fragile egos. You know, it’s so getting out there and trying to do that part about promoting it is something now, I did, you know, I lived in New York.  I did not want to raise a family in New York, like South Carolina that way. I, you know, in 69 when I was looking for university teaching position, I very specifically looked at the south it’s one of those, you know, I didn’t know where I was raised. I went to nine schools before I was out of high school. You know, when I went to college, I thought I’d settle down, and most of us in states in the north, but for three years, it was in we’re in Texas, and that was the only place that the weather made any sense to me. So I focused on South Carolina, and the position I got here worked out so so well for me. Fortunately, I never really had any reason to not want to just stay. 

    Nora Smith 12:55 

    That’s great. That’s great. How would you define success personally? 

    Philip Mullen 13:06 

    Well, I think one of the wonderful things about being a serious artist in an art is that we define other artists’ success in terms of the work they do. We don’t define it in terms of how well they do business. Mm, hmm. We all know people who have who are just out of the out of this world, sensational painters, lot of depth to their work, and all who never get any recognition. We also know people who are just hacks who make tons of money because they’re great businesspeople.  

    Nora Smith 13:45 

    Yeah, 

    Philip Mullen 13:47 

    In a way to me, success has to do with putting together a life in which I could do spend a lot of time making paintings. Now, there were parts to that that were, you end up doing some other things in order to make that happen. You know, in my case, one of the things I did was I did an academic PhD, which was, boy, not my forte. I was, I mean, that was three years of struggling, but it gave me a wonderful way to get into a really good academic position, which gave me a basis of support and encouraged me to do a lot of painting early on. In those early years, I used to send a lot of shows around the state, including one to Coastal Carolina, probably back in the early 70s. 

    Nora Smith 14:50 

    How lovely….

    Philip Mullen 14:51 

    It might have been later than that, because actually, one of my students ended up as a theater professor at Coastal. 

    Nora Smith 14:58 

    Are they still here? 

    Philip Mullen 15:00 

    I would Imagine not, and they must be retired by now. I cannot remember her name. 

    Nora Smith 15:09 

    That’s alright. 

    Philip Mullen 15:10 

    She did have it. Have you ever seen the movie sleeping with the enemy? 

    Nora Smith 15:13 

    No, but I’ve heard of it.  

    Philip Mullen 15:16 

    Yeah. Well, it’s almost just a two-person thing, but she’s a bit part of that.  

    Nora Smith 15:21 

    Oh, okay, that’s super cool.  

    Philip Mullen 15:23 

    If you ever watch it, she’s a nurse and she’s a professor at Coastal.  

    Nora Smith 15:27 

    Oh, that’s super cool. Okay, great to know. I find out so much doing these interviews with people, yeah, so kind of going back to the beginning of starting your career. What was your biggest fear when you decided that you wanted to do something in the arts? 

    Philip Mullen 15:41 

    My biggest fear, well, I certainly had no encouragement. I’m not going to say the words online that my dad said to me when he realized I was actually going into being an artist. It’s not something you want to publish. So that was, that was a big challenge. Yeah, I’m sure, I’m sure, fortunately, I ran across people who gave me enough encouragement. One thing that helped me a lot was that I graduated in the lower half of my high school class.  I did not want to go to college. I didn’t know what else to do. I got to, you know, I went to the University of Minnesota. I had been such a poor student, I realized I’d never get through college, so I figured, and I was not an art major, so I figured I’d go hang out with my buddy Mike, who was an art major. And I got over there, and I realized that the beginning art classes were not much fun, and the art majors had to take them, but I didn’t,  I sort of had to talk this professor into letting me start in that upper level, middle level, I should say mid level painting. Course, he did not want to do it, and I was kind of persistent. And he finally said, okay, okay, I’ll let you in. And under his breath, he said, In the other guy’s section. And turned out the other guy was Ed Corbett, who back when abstract expressionism was getting going, and the Museum of Modern Art did a show of 16 of the young abstract expressionists. Ed Corbett was in it. That’s so cool. So my first teacher was an absolute top run guy, and I thought, and I had had really very little success in life. So failure was like, was getting pretty, if not comfortable with it, at least used to it. I just this is wonderful. These guys get to spend tons of time just making paintings, making paintings. What could be better? You know? Yeah, I still feel that way. That didn’t go away. And that’s amazing. That’s amazing to have it last that long. You know, I mean, and I was, what was 18 years old, then I’m 82 years old. Now, it’s great to have something stick with you that long.  

    Nora Smith 17:55 

    Yeah, that’s amazing.  

    Philip Mullen 17:57 

    It is, it’s, it’s, I don’t feel like taking credit for that so much is just being very thankful that I stumbled upon the stuff that made me want to do that, you know, right?  

    Nora Smith 18:10 

    So, what would you say is the best and worst advice you’ve ever received about going into the field or being in the field, just some things you’ve heard? 

    Philip Mullen 18:22 

    Think of anything, anything that I really think was best or worst advice. I think a person needs to be realistic about what they’re willing to put into it and what they want out of it.  

    Nora Smith 18:35 

    Yeah, 

    Philip Mullen 18:36 

    I had some wonderful art students over the years, some that I’ve you know remained long term friends with. I don’t know you might, you might even see above my head one of my ex-students works if, if, 

    Nora Smith 18:46 

    Oh, no, I can’t. 

    Philip Mullen 18:49 

    I pride myself in the fact that my student’s work does not look like mine. It, it. You know, there’s something important to all that these two guys are guys that are like me. They’re driven to make this stuff. They can’t help themselves. They’re they’re quite different in terms of how they handle their business around it. Now, that’s one way you can go into it. Now, there’s a lot of other art students who really got a lot out of it, but I’d see him afterwards, and it’s, I always hated this one as subjective. Well, I hate to tell you, I’m really not painting anymore. I’ve gone into I’m doing something else. Well, that the point wasn’t that everybody become a painter.  It’s, you know, you took a sociology class, you took a history class, you took a math class. You can become a mathematician. You know, it’s, it’s a lot of that’s about rounding it all out for yourself. Actually, in a way, when I get done with it, i. A class that I invented that I taught, not for the art department, but for the Honors College, is probably the class that I am most proud of having come up with when I was teaching at the university. Was it was called the artist experience, and it was only 15 people could be in it, but you’ll see why. As I tell you, it was, it’s basically an art history class, I don’t know, an art appreciation class.  However, you never saw a slide in it. If we learned about ceramics, we went to a ceramic studio. Graduate students there taught each person how to how to make, how to throw a pot. Two weeks later, we go back and do a Raku firing. Say, learn it from the inside out. We visited artists studios and went to art shows. Now, what the purpose of this course was, is not to develop artists, but the purpose was to develop people’s appreciation for the Arts. I think art department should be doing way, way, way more of that. It’s it’s not so great for the egos of the professors who want to teach graduate students and the people who are really going into it, you know, sure, and I value, you know, these, these, these guys work, obviously, who were former students, and I value the kind of careers they put together, but I think as a general service.  And then what we would do is we would end the course with a three-day trip to New York. And that was when I had, when I had a lot of good New York connections. My former Los Angeles dealer had moved to New York, and she would lead the trip. Some she would lead a day of the trip. Sometimes my own gallery would always do a wonderful thing. Oh, we go to, we go with to, went up to Peter Finley gallery and his son, Josh, who worked there. And he was young, and the students kind of related to him, you know. And he, I remember, one year he’s passing a sculpture around. It’s about two and a half feet high, heavy pieces going around, gets a halfway around the circle, and he announces that it’s a dega with a kid holding it. I mean, he’s probably still clenched in this position, you know? And Josh says, no, no, no, no, don’t we. We’re not a museum. We’re trying to sell this piece. People touch it. I mean that opportunity to, like, hold something like that, and then you I remember going to the Museum of Modern Art, and one of the girls in the class who probably hadn’t gotten too far out of South Carolina Previously, she calls me over to Van Gogh’s Starry Night was up, which calls me, and she says, Dr, Mama, is this? Is this? Is this the real Starry Night? Yes, this is a real Starry Night, You know. And my gallery would always take them in the back room and pull out all paintings for them and stuff. So it was, that’s why I called it the artist experience? It, it. We didn’t. Didn’t do it by teaching about art. We did it by experiencing, yeah, I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to worry about grading. I mean, this is honors college class. They’re all a students all the time anyhow. And so what I did, I did the grades were simply based on attendance and a certain amount of projects they did, we would do, they would have to do, do certain, I mean, I’d have them do, have them do, I don’t know your visual artist at all.  

    Nora Smith 23:53 

    No, okay, well, 

    Philip Mullen 23:55 

    I had them do an exercise called negative shape drawing. It’s, it’s,  

    Nora Smith 23:58 

    I think I know what you’re talking about. 

    Philip Mullen 24:00 

    Okay, it’s sort of a, it’s it’s a beginning, it’s a beginning drawing thing. But they would not, and we, you know, we’d spend not the time that an art major would spend on it but would spend a period on that. But they would never grade it on the quality of the work because that’s not the point. The point was to get to the head of it. And, I mean, that is where I would really like to see training in, not just in visual arts, but in the arts in general. Yes, go because being an artist who does what we imagine, you just make this art and people buy it. That’s like, it’s like being an athlete who plays for it’s a pretty small percentage of folks that that works out for, yes, yes. And the commitment is just, it’s more than most people really want to make to it and more than we. It makes sense for most people to make, 

    Nora Smith 25:03 

    Yeah, 

    Philip Mullen 25:03 

    And interestingly enough, of any classes I ever took taught, I still, I mean, here I am, 25 years away from having retired to university, and within the last year, I’ve still gotten some correspondence from some of the people who took that course. I mean, it was, you know, it was something that, it’s something that offers a kind of art, art can enrich, enrich everybody’s life. 

    Nora Smith 25:34 

    I agree. I would take that class. I would take that class. 

    Philip Mullen 25:38 

    Oh, whenever they opened it up. It started with seniors, you know, I mean it, it was filled the first day it was opened up.  

    Nora Smith 25:47 

    That sounds awesome, yeah, um, yeah.  

    Philip Mullen 25:51 

    And it was a very simple idea of art appreciation. But whoever got interested in art by looking at slides, I don’t know, you know, whoever got interested in music by memorizing composers? 

    Nora Smith 26:06 

    It’s, it’s, that’s such a great idea for a class. And I can imagine how amazing that was, teaching that, and the students experiencing that, such a great take on it, because now it seems so distant when you’re looking at slides of how to do things, instead of experiencing it like it completely distances it, yeah, from you. And it’s, it feels impossible, almost in a way. Yes, yeah, that’s so cool. I love that.  

    Philip Mullen 26:34 

    What is the area that you’re studying in?  

    Nora Smith 26:37 

    I’m in English, in English, yes. So, everything you’re saying, I’m like, it’s going to be my writing, because I would like to be a writer, and so I totally understand the artist. The whole it’s Yeah, 

    Philip Mullen 26:52 

    Every Wednesday, including today, almost every Wednesday, I have lunch with a writing friend of mine. Oh, really. And one of the things that I like about talking with him is it’s so nice to talk across disciplines, because you tend to talk about the bigger picture, as opposed if you talk to people in your own discipline, it can kind of get into, you know, how do you compose this sentence? Yes, how do you make this color transition and things like that? And we find that there are so many things about how we work. crossover. 

    Nora Smith 27:44 

    Yes, exactly. That’s so cool. Yeah, everything you were saying, I’m like, yeah, yeah, makes complete sense, even to me. So, yeah, yeah. So, I’ll keep you updated. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If you have any questions, just send me an email, send me a text, but I will keep you updated.  

    Philip Mullen 28:06 

    Good. Well, it’s nice to talk to you. Nora, me too.  

  • Desiree Williams

    Desiree Williams

    “Don’t try to do what other people are doing. Do what works for you and your business will flourish.”

    Desiree Williams is a licensed esthetician and educator Desiree Williams is turning creative passion into community impact, one lash, lesson, and life at a time. 

    Interview

    Transcript

    Emma Plutnicki  00:03 

    Okay, so to start, what do you do for work and where are you currently working from? 

    Desiree Williams  00:08 

    Well, my name is Desiree Williams. I am a licensed esthetician and a licensed esthetics instructor. I do have a suite that I work from, and I perform master extension applications as well as teaching it. 

    Emma Plutnicki  00:22 

    Amazing. And how long have you been doing that? 

    Desiree Williams  00:25 

    It’s been going on for six years. 

    Emma Plutnicki  00:30 

    Okay, a good amount of time. So, what is a typical day? Look like for you? 

    Desiree Williams  00:36 

    A typical day for me kind of starts like today. Wake up, do all my good, do all the things I need to do, and then run and go see clients. So, I like to get my clients out of the way at the beginning of the day, so in the evening I can do all of my marketing, all of my mentee calls. I teach a lot on Tiktok. So, I do free lash artist classes on Tiktok every day at 9pm so that’s basically what my day looks like. I start immediately getting into it after I do my gratitude and drink my tea and do everything that I need to do. 

    Emma Plutnicki  01:14 

    Yeah, amazing. And so how did you gain the skills to be successful in your career? I would 

    Desiree Williams  01:20 

    Say networking as well as reading. One thing that I learned is that if you want information out there it is always in a book, it’s somewhere in a book. I don’t even like Google anymore. I love to find a good book that talks about whatever topic I want to learn. So, I also watch a lot of like Alex hermosi, Grant Cardone, those guys to help me scale and do things like that. So, I feel like just networking and being a student forever has assisted me in getting where I am today. 

    Emma Plutnicki  01:50 

    Yeah, for sure. And did you have any fears when you were going into this career? 

    Desiree Williams  01:54 

    Oh, yes, plenty. I’m the first business owner in my family. So, it was a learning curve. I don’t even know where to start with my fears. I always was like, oh, well, how am I going to do this to get the inventory or the main thing was capital. So, a lot of times when you don’t have previous experience in business, it’s hard to get capital, especially if you’re not educated on things like the SBA and stuff like that. So, getting started finding a space to work was, you know, kind of hard as well. I started from my home and grew my business and was able to leave my home. So, there were a lot of fears, but thankfully, with faith, I overcame all of that. 

    Emma Plutnicki  02:35 

    Yeah, and did you have anybody along the way giving you any advice, any mentors or family members? Do you remember any of the best or worst pieces of advice that you were given? 

    Desiree Williams  02:44 

    I’m not gonna lie, like a couple weeks ago, my husband gave me the best pep talk ever, because I was like, I’m just gonna go get me a job. I’m not gonna have to worry about anything. I don’t have to follow up behind people. Just go get a job. So, I would definitely say my husband, he very, very much inspires me, even though, you know, it’s like, oh, it’s your husband. He should do that. No, some days he’s not going with my shenanigans, and other days he is. So, he was a big integral part of growing the business and doing things or learning how to do things the right way. So, some of the best advice I’ve gotten from him was, just do it. Stop overthinking it, just do it. And some of the worst advice I’ve ever gotten was not from him, but just from in general, like listening to social media. Like on social media, people tell you do ABC, you do it, and you don’t get the results that they promised. So, I learned not to use social media as a guy. But as far as the inspiration goes. 

    Emma Plutnicki  03:42 

    Yeah, that’s a good point. And have you been able to maintain a healthy work life balance with your work? Is it hard to kind of separate your personal life from your professional life 

    Desiree Williams  03:54 

    In the past? Yes, I was at the point where my business was my personality. So, like every time someone sings seeing me, they’ll be like, oh, its flash girl dance, you know? So, over the years, I was actually diagnosed with lupus at the height of my career. So that goes to show that when you first start in your business, create systems that are going to help your business continue to do what it needs to do, even if you’re not behind the chair or you can’t work. So now, after that diagnosis, I have a healthy work life balance. But before I didn’t, I woke up immediately checking emails, immediately doing this, but putting implement in business hours has been a great help to me, and now I feel like once I follow my business hours, the balance is it’s not even balanced. It’s harmony for me, yeah, 

    Emma Plutnicki  04:40 

    Perfect. And with a career like this, I’m sure it can be hard to kind of define what success looks like. So, what does success look like for you? Is it a positive review? Is it financial based? How do you define success in your professional career? 

    Desiree Williams  04:58 

    Oh, that’s a good one. I. I define success by being able to wake up and actually see my work impacting the lives of others. A lot of times, like in the career that I’m doing as an esthetician, a lot of people go to school, and they get done with school, and they never take their boards, or they learn lash extensions, and they never actually start the business or take clients. So, with me being able to teach over 1500 students, I’ve learned that my success is in helping people change their lives in a real, true way, where you know they’re not worried about what’s happening next, they actually have a plan, a strategy, to get things done. So, I define my success by how many lives I can positively impact, which is, which has been a lot. It’s kind of overwhelming once you think about it, but just being myself and letting them know, like, hey, if I can do it, you can do it too. My success comes from that. Yeah, 

    Emma Plutnicki  05:53 

    I love that. And has there been one specific moment that you can remember throughout your career that kind of stands out as having a significant impact on you, whether that’s your greatest success or just something that was kind of the pinnacle of your creativity. 

    Desiree Williams  06:08 

    I would say, honestly, my loop is diagnosis. Then the reason I say that is because I had to quickly pivot into not being behind the chair as much to oh my goodness, my hands are numb today. I can’t work today. What? What else can I do to help impact others? That moment where it’s like, I don’t I realize that I don’t physically have to be touching people to impact them. That was very pivotal for me, because social media is huge. You can. You could be in China right now. We’ll be talking like you get what I’m saying. So, um, just understanding that, boom, this is, I don’t know, it’s a lot, it’s a lot, it’s it’s a lot. And I would say, just, excuse me, I’m so sorry. No, you’re so good. Questions over here, like, I can think of multiple moments that’s great talking. I was thinking of another moment like, I was just like, whoa. You don’t realize how much you’re pouring into something till you step back and look at the bigger picture. So just the bigger picture, that’s really it? 

    Emma Plutnicki  07:17 

    Yeah, no, for sure, and working in South Carolina has that had any specific impact on you the state as a whole? Have you worked in other places, and does South Carolina specifically have any impact on your work? 

    Desiree Williams  07:30 

    Oh, very much. So I’m completing a course with Columbia’s business office. It’s called The Next Level micro entrepreneur, and I’ve never seen something like that in any other state, like just researching like, oh, I want to leave South Carolina. Where am I going to move to? What type of business support would I have? One thing that I will say about South Carolina in whole, is that our bit the business realm of it, those who are in those higher seats, they do want to see smaller micro businesses succeed. And today is, well, tomorrow will be week nine of the course. And I always tell anybody, if you want to run a business, definitely take this course, because it tells you, step by step on how to run your business and what to do, how to find loans with the SBA.  This all the resources you think we didn’t have here in South Carolina that we do have, the class is only like $50 so I was just like, whoa, this information. It needs to be more. So South Carolina has definitely impacted my business like that, because it shows me that I have the resources here to do better than do the things that I want to do to impact the community. I don’t really I only work in Columbia, but I do have a lot of people that travel from Charleston. I had a young lady travel from North South Carolina, and I have no idea. I was like, I have no idea where that’s at. But just being born and raised here, it was, it’s great to have run a business here and see how things are changing. And it’s a really great straight state, especially if you want to run a business. So, yeah, I love my city. 

    Emma Plutnicki  09:02 

    Yeah, no, amazing. And how is the local working professional community? Is there a lot of support? Is, are there any, like, weekly meetings you go to? Or what kind of support do you receive within South Carolina, 

    Desiree Williams  09:16 

    It’s so many to name. They have different things, like, I’ll go on like Facebook and see what they have for meetups, like networking mixers and things like that. I don’t do anything weekly as far as networking. The last 10 weeks, I have been doing that class with the Columbia Business Office, and then just the esthetics community here is very loving, very huge. You know, everyone wants to see each other win, so I love that aspect of running my business here as well. 

    Emma Plutnicki  09:48 

    Yeah, amazing. And just as we wrap up, is there anything else that you’d like to add about your job, your career, any advice or anything like that? I’ll 

    Desiree Williams  09:59 

    Give some advice. If you are creative, because I’m definitely a creative I love with last extension, application, and just being an esthetician, doing application and things like that, you have to have that type of creativity so each person can have like, their signature look. So if you are creative, I just recommend to stick to it. Don’t try to see, do what other people are doing, do what works for you and your business will flourish. 

    Emma Plutnicki  10:25 

    Yeah, I love that. Well. Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I know everything that you said will definitely help anybody looking to pursue a similar career. So really appreciate it. 

    Desiree Williams  10:35 

    Yes, ma’am.  

  • Sarah Blackman

    Sarah Blackman

    “In any artist’s life, the impulse to make is one that you have your whole life. That impulse cannot be taken away from you, but the impulse to share what you make can be squished out of you.”  

    Sarah Blackman is the creative writing instructor and the department chair for creative writing at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, South Carolina.  

    Interview

    Transcript

    Sarah Blackman

    My name is Sarah Blackman. I’m originally from the D.C. area. I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. But right now, I’m in Greenville, South Carolina, where I’ve been for the past 16 years. And I teach creative writing at an arts magnet high school in Greenville, South Carolina called the Fine Arts Center.

    Haley Hansen

    How long have you been working there?

    Sarah Blackman

    I think this is the end of my 16th year. I’ve been here since 2008.

    Haley Hansen

    Cool-

    Sarah Blackman

    Yeah, it’s crazy.

    Haley Hansen

    And what’s your official job title?

    Sarah Blackman

    My full job title, I was hired as the Director of Creative writing, for the Fine Arts Center. Just kind of fake job title, because for most of the time, I’ve worked there I’ve just directed myself, but I do now have a colleague. So, I think I’m just the instructor of creative writing. And I’m the chair of the department.

    Haley Hansen

    Can you walk me through a typical workday? Like I was saying, like, what did you do yesterday, but now it’s almost graduation. So, I’m guessing that’s not actually a very typical.

    Sarah Blackman

    Yeah, it’s not. My work days change a lot from day to day. But in general, I’m at work by 8:30 after I drop off my kids. And then I have some time to kind of prepare for my day to catch up on any grading or to read over the curriculum that I’m going to teach for that day. My students arrive at 9:15. And then for, from 9:15 to 11:05, I teach a class of first year students. So that’s creative writing three, actually, and that’s their first year. And it’s an honors level class. Alot of time—depending on what day of the week it is. And what we’re doing in that particular unit, that class period could look like introducing new concepts, talking about the reading, having a discussion about form or about the content of something.

    Sarah Blackman

    If the students are writing that could look like kind of a generative writing day for all of us where they’re working on their writing, and I’m working on my writing in that same space. If we’re a little later in a project, and they’re workshopping, that could look like discussing work that we’ve read in advance the students have generated and then some days, we have guest artists or other projects that we’re working on, or we have the opportunity to work with other programs in the school and to do some collaborative stuff, which is always fun. And then from 11:05 to 1:25, I have a break. And in that break, I eat my lunch. But I’m also supposed to be making my own artwork. So, one of the nice things about my job is that it is very intentionally a space for people who are working artists to continue to be working artists while they teach their art form. So, that is a held space for me to make my own work, which sometimes I even do during that time. And then from about 1:25 to 3:15, I have my second class of the day. And that is for my second, third and fourth year students. And they all are kind of mixed in together. The morning class tends to be a lot of ninth graders, and the afternoon class tends to be sophomores, through seniors. And then we do kind of the same things that I would have done in my morning class, but with different topics different like modes of engagement, different focal points, and then I’m done. Then I go home.

    Haley Hansen

    How did you end up in that field?

    Sarah Blackman

    Totally by accident. Yeah, it was. It’s kind of a weird story. But, I always knew I wanted to write. So, when I graduated from undergrad, I had a degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. I knew I wanted to go to grad school to get my degree so, I got into the University of Alabama. And one of the really great things about their program is that they had a full tuition remission in return for teaching. So, not only did I not pay to go there, they paid me a small stipend to teach. It started with Rhetoric and Comp classes, which are kind of your intro composition courses. I’m sure you took some of them or your colleagues have their, your cohort has their. And then it moved into literature courses and creative writing courses after I’d been there for a few years.

    Sarah Blackman

    So when I graduated, I had teaching experience. And I had realized that even though I had never intended to teach, it did not like crossed my radar until it was something I had to do to get my tuition covered. I realized that I really liked it. But still at that stage, I was not thinking about high school teaching, I was I was going to do college teaching. I was teaching college at the University of Alabama as an instructor at that point in time. When I was on the job market for college jobs. And I’ve gotten, you know, campus interviews at quite a few of them. So, kind of seemed like just a matter of time. And then I, you know, ended up in Kentucky or Iowa or someplace or Utah or doing something and then you kind of skip into academic job searching, which is basically like you keep shuffling until you hit someplace that you really want to stay if you’re lucky, and you get that job.

    Sarah Blackman

    But at the same time, I was dating somebody pretty seriously. And he had moved to Mississippi to take a job as a professor. And we were like, maybe we want to live in the same state. That might be kind of nice, but there just wasn’t any work for me there. And this job at the Fine Arts Center came up and I thought, well, you know, I’ll just do it for a couple of years. So we moved, we both moved together, he got a job at Clemson and I started working at the Fine Arts Center. And I was like, “I’ll just do it until I get a book and then I’ll be a better candidate for academic jobs. And I’ll go back into that job market”. And then like a number of things happen. There was a big recession in 2008, which is when I started. So, jobs were few and far between. Hard to come by and we were both really lucky that we both had work and it was stable work. We had health insurance and all that boring stuff. And to me was I really really loved teaching high school like I loved it and I did not anticipate that at all if you told my like college-self that I was going to end up teaching high school in arts high school, I would have been like, furious and, like, really, really annoyed.

    Sarah Blackman

    But actually doing it day in and day out, I loved the energy, I loved the feeling like what you were doing or saying was making like a real time impact. I loved the variance day by day, I loved the fact that the students had auditioned to get in. So, it really meant something to them. I love getting to work with people like you, Haley, who have very different ideas about where you wanted your writing to go than I want my writing to go. And that was so energizing. I was like, I don’t want to spend my whole life just talking to people who agree with everything I’m saying, I want to talk to people who think, in other ways, and I want to explore the things. So I just stayed, I got a book, I got a second book. And every time I thought, maybe I’ll go back on the academic job market. I was like, “Why? Because I really liked my job”. So, that’s kind of the long winded story of by accident. I started teaching high school.

    Haley Hansen

    Do you have a defining moment in your creative journey that made you realize this is what you wanted to do?

    Sarah Blackman

    You know, the writing part I’ve always wanted to do. And I just feel like that was like telling stories and thinking about stories and looking at the world. And trying to think about how I see it through language has just been something I’ve done since before I could write. Since I was a little little kid. And I was really lucky that I had a lot of support. My parents were both scientists. So, you would think that that they would be like, “What are you talking about?”. ” That’s a weird thing to want to do.”. But, I think they both knew what it was like to really feel passionately about something and want to do it. So, they were always very supportive of that, which was awesome. Nobody ever said like, “That’s not a real job.” They just said, “Make it a real job.”

    Sarah Blackman

    The high school teaching, I mean, I feel like I have kind of yearly, I will have another moment that makes me feel like, Oh, I’m doing the right thing. And almost every year around this time of year, I’m real tired. And real burnout, it’s been a long year. And then, you know, graduation happens. And you get to see people kind of like launching into lives that they can’t imagine yet. And that’s really awesome. Or someone will say something to me that I just truly had never considered before. And that’s awesome. It kind of the older you get, the more you realize how rare it is for somebody to say something to you that just you never thought of. So, the fact that that happens to me about once a year is really valuable to me. So yeah, so those are the reasons why, I really like it.

    Haley Hansen

    What do you think was the biggest adjustment or challenge that you faced, when you started at the Fine Art Center?

    Sarah Blackman

    It was a big adjustment to go from teaching college to high school for a couple of reasons. One was seeing students with much more regularity, like in college, you know, you’re seeing them at most, three times a week. And that’s if you have kind of a tough schedule. So, you’re seeing them like one hour on Monday, one hour on Wednesday, and one hour on Friday. Most of the time, you’d see students twice a week, and they’re adults. So, in between the time that you see them, they go live their adult lives, and you really— you’re engaging really very purely on a level of work and which is not to say that you don’t develop kind of personal relationships with students who really care about them, you do.

    Sarah Blackman

    But it’s more like an adult relationship. With high school students, it was a hard moment to realize that when they leave, you’re not hard. But it was an adjustment to realize that when they leave your classroom, they’re going home to their parents and their their children, you know, grown, growing children, almost grown up children, but children. So, there’s a different responsibility that you have to have for people’s emotions, there’s a different responsibility you have to have for people’s like hopes and dreams, like, you’re a little bit responsible for not squishing people. And not to be like arrogant and be like, you know, “I hold their lives in my hands.” But, you really can’t squish somebody pretty easily when they’re, you know, 13,14, 15,16, that’s a little bit harder to do when they’re 21 or 22. So that was like, you know, taking that responsibility seriously. And not because I was being flippant, but just because I didn’t realize it, it took me a little bit of time.

    Sarah Blackman

    I think there’s always and I know I share this with my colleagues, almost everyone who’s gone through an MFA program, I think, was being kind of prepared to either just be like, a really famous artist or to work at like that’s your career goal, or to work in academia. And I do think there’s a little bit of a feeling sometimes that you are on a path that even though you like it, even though I like teaching high school, there’s maybe sometimes a feeling like but I should be teaching college and if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, I’d be teaching college. And every time I start thinking that way, for example, this year, we had a guest artist come on campus, who’s a poet whose work I really admire. She’s won major awards. She’s working at a top tier university. And she just kept saying, “You have the best job.” And I was like, “Man, yeah, I do. I do actually have a really, really good job.” So, there’s was a little bit of a shift between thinking about the title and then asked then then thinking about the everyday satisfaction of the job and which one was more important. So yeah, I think those with both challenges.

    Haley Hansen

    Do you recommend any specific skills that an aspiring applicant to your position should try to develop?

    Sarah Blackman

    Sure. So, my job is a little bit different than teaching in a regular public school. I do not have a degree in education, I don’t have a certificate in education. So, I work a little bit more like if it’s a Career Center and its experience in your field, is what qualifies you to teach it like vocation. And in fact, I think the Fine Arts Center is considered a vocational high school. It’s just a vocation is like writing or dance or ceramics instead of like cosmetology or mechanics, or, you know, whatever else, your culinary arts or whatever else you might be learning. So, it’s a little bit of a different path than if you were just going to, not just, but it’s a bit of a different path than if you were going to be working in a public high school where you would need that education degree and a certification.

    Sarah Blackman

    So, for me for an art specific High School, and they do exist in almost every state, they just sometimes look for them. But they’re there. The path really was more through the pursuit of my creative work, writing or sharing my own work, and others, actually, so being an editor and a publisher, and kind of being visible on those platforms. And I don’t know, making room for other writers to work has been very helpful in my job. The degree I needed to have to do this job was an MFA. So, it’s the masters of the Fine Arts, which is technically a terminal degree in any kind of arts practice field. Although, you can now get a PhD in creative writing in a lot of different places. So that is also a career path.

    Sarah Blackman

    But I think the thing that most helped me get the job was that I did have some high school level teaching before I applied. So, I’ve been teaching college. And then I did some summer programs with high school students. And I had also judged the Scholastic Art and Writing Contest as a grad student, I judged the regional levels, mainly because they gave me like 80 bucks and free bagels. At the time, I was like, “Free bagels, I’ll do anything.” But, I think that looked really kind of good on my resume, because that is a major contest that as you know, that we applied to every year. So I think that was a good thing. But that’s kind of another like maybe thematic example of the fact that when you’re doing the thing, you don’t necessarily know what’s going to be the thing that gets you a job later, it just seems like the thing you’re doing for free bagels, or whatever. So, like having a varied experience in the world, I think is pretty important.

    Haley Hansen

    What is something that you want your students specifically to learn about pursuing a successful and fulfilling career in a creative field?

    Sarah Blackman

    Yeah, I think the main important thing is that you’re gonna get told no, a lot. And you have to be able to hear that. And I mean that in two ways, like, one, you have to be able to hear no and not feel like every time you hear it, that you’re being rejected, like the most important level of your soul. And it’s hard not to hear it that way. Because you’re doing work that is meaningful to you, that contains part of your identity, that sometimes difficult. So when somebody rejects that, as will happen over and over again, it obviously feels like a rejection of you as a human. And that can be really hard. So you have to develop, like a tough skin about that. And you have to develop an ability to hear no and try to turn it into a yes. Which doesn’t necessarily mean like ignoring somebody’s boundaries, or like arguing with them about why they should publish you.

    Sarah Blackman

    But rather to say like, Okay, this magazine doesn’t want to publish this story, or this press doesn’t want to publish this book, or this agent doesn’t want to represent me. But I have faith in the work. And I’m going to keep looking until I find the right fit. And I think that’s really important. The other part of being told no, a lot and hearing it is that it’s also important to be able to hear no, because there’s something that is happening in the work that isn’t right yet, right. So, also sometimes to be able to go back into the work and look at it and say like, “Why isn’t this landing?” “Why isn’t this doing what I think it can do?” “Am I missing something?” “Is there something that’s not translating.” And that can be a really tricky balance. But I think in any artists life, the impulse to make is one that you have in your whole life, that impulse cannot be taken away from you, but the impulse to share what you make can be squished out of you. And you have to kind of be a little more resilient than that. So that’s the biggest thing I hope they would learn is just to keep keep working to keep making.

    Haley Hansen

    What would you say is the hardest part of advising students for college and career readiness?

    Sarah Blackman

    I mean practically, I think it’s making sure that I’m up to date with how things have changed, because I think the more politically charged the way we talk about and treat our college students journey is, whether that means equity on campus, whether that means diversity initiatives, like in our public sphere. Whether that means like freedom of speech issues in terms of campus protests, or even if that just means student loan, like how much debt is too much debt, I think that changes very, very quickly. And particularly as they become talking points for various political agendas. It’s really easy for like the reality of people’s lives to get drowned out by the noise.

    Sarah Blackman

    So, part of what I have to do is to just keep remembering that things are not the same from one year to the next or from one like five year chunk to the next. And make sure I know what I’m talking about when I advise someone to go to a college because it’s very open minded about whatever they’re concerned about. You might not be any more, or that the level of debt they’re going to get into as the result of getting this degree will be worth it in the end because they will be able to pay it off, they might not be able to. So the economics change, I have to be thinking about that. Part of it, too, is also just shutting up a little bit. And like backing off a little bit and letting people tell me what they want and what their decisions are. Because it’s easy when someone says, “Can you help me think about my career?” “Can you help me look at colleges.” To try to fix whatever is wrong, and it’s harder to remember that I’m not the one who has to live with those choices, right?

    Sarah Blackman

    So they need to be really right for the student and not just what I think is really right for the student. And sometimes, I’ve had students at this happen this year, who got into, really, you know, just shiny school. Schools that just have really great reputations, that if you have that on your resume that’s going to make you look like you’re really a hotshot something or other. But the choices that they’re making, are about their ability, their economic stability, their ability to stay close to family that they need to stay close to. And you know, there’s a part of you always like a dance mom, or creative writing mom part of you that wants to be like, “Go for the shiny College, like, go to Yale, go to Princeton.” But the right answer for that student might be like, go to USC [University of South Carolina], go to Coastal Carolina, go to College of Trust and go to the school, that’s going to get you a really good solid education, which all those schools are but, it’s also going to let you live your life on your own terms.

    Sarah Blackman

    And that student is going to be really successful. And the kid who goes to Yale when maybe they didn’t really want to, but they just felt like they had to because it was Yale is going to have a harder time. So like, student success looks different. And sometimes that is challenging to remember that.

    Haley Hansen

    What part is preparing for college and career stuff? Would you say that you are really successful?

    Sarah Blackman

    That’s a good question. Probably that’s a better question to ask students, right? So you might know, because I did some of that with you. You know pretty well what you wanted, and you were you were someone I just listened to a little bit and was like, “Well that sounds great, Haley.” I think I am not bad at finding ways for it to happen. And that doesn’t necessarily mean finding the scholarship, but just like finding the right person to ask the questions of so I do think sometimes my students end up with better financial aid packages, or just admissions into colleges that they maybe wouldn’t have thought of, because I am pretty good at looking for the Yes, instead of the No. So I think maybe creative solutions to problems that seem intractable is maybe a strength of mine.

    Haley Hansen

    I will also say that your class was probably the one that most prepared me for the actual atmosphere of a college class, like-

    Sarah Blackman

    Yeah, that makes me happy.

    Haley Hansen

    It really helped the transition.

    Sarah Blackman

    Oh, that makes me so happy. That’s not something I would have thought of. But it really is good to hear. Thank you for telling me that.

    Haley Hansen

    Are there any organizations or programs or events that you would recommend for folks who are interested in your field in South Carolina specifically?

    Sarah Blackman

    Yeah. Okay. So, Clemson puts up a Lit Festival every year, I can’t remember, I think maybe you were part of the young writers workshop there. Couple times. I can’t remember if we did it or not in your years. But regardless, they have one every year in the spring, I think that’s a really great opportunity. They bring a really diverse group of writers to campus. I bet you anything, Coastal Carolina has a good reading series. I just don’t know too much about it. But I know that they’ve invested a lot into the creative writing program over the years, because actually, a good friend of mine was the director of the program up until I think, last year. So, I’ve been talking to her a lot about what you guys are doing.

    Sarah Blackman

    Right over the border in North Carolina in Asheville was an organization called Punch Bucket, and they’re starting a literary festival. But they also do a lot of just like little symposiums and classes they bring authors in, there’s one coming up with an author named Steven Dunn he’s a fiction writer called, ‘The Art of Cussing in Literature’ where he’s going to talk a lot about like swearing in his books. I’m like, “That’s very interesting. I’d like to go to that.” And then also, I just think any community is going to have some kind of literary engagement, whether that’s in the public libraries, whether that’s through whatever the local colleges or the local community college. And if it isn’t there, you can start it because there’s always going to be somebody who wants to do it. So, I think if you can’t find the big thing, you can start the little thing and find your community that way.

    Haley Hansen

    Do you have any general advice for current students who are pursuing a career in the creative world?

    Sarah Blackman

    I mean, other than the stuff that we’ve talked about, which is learn how to hear No. I think, I mean, this is something that I talk about with my students a lot is about this idea of what success looks like. And particularly if you’re in a field that has the capacity to be or to at least appear to be extremely competitive success looks like like the very tip top of the pyramid. That you’re selling these kinds of books, you’re coming out on this kind of press, you’re being represented by this kind of agent. You are teaching in this kind of college and like a very narrow definition of it.

    Haley Hansen

    I would say, rethinking what that means and thinking about whether or not you have the capacity to do the kind of writing that you want to do. That makes you excited. That makes you want to read, right? If you picked up your own book in the library, would your book make you want to write? And if you can answer yes to that, then really, regardless of the other trappings that is a very successful art career, it but you have to defend your definition of success and you have to defend it maybe most of all for yourself. It’s very easy to start saying, but I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have this, and forget that what you do have is a working relationship with your own art. So I feel like, the armor that you have to have is almost like against yourself and against your own impulse to downgrade which your weird obsessions, right? Because really all art is is just like giving yourself permission to do your weird obsessions and and allowing them to be important. So, that’s what I think my best advice would be like, let whatever the weird thing is that you can’t stop thinking about like, like lean in, really make that the center of whatever it is you’re doing next.

    Haley Hansen

    Alright. Final question. Is there anything else that you think it’s important people here? Before we end the interview?

    Sarah Blackman

    I don’t know. I think I think my my general feeling about art is. In all kinds of art, music, drama, dance, doing good stuff on street corners, graffiti, everything. If you like it, make an opportunity for someone else to do it. I think that’s the most important thing you can do to be a citizen of the art world and in writing that can look like being an editor. For a magazine, it can look like creating publishing platforms, it can look like starting a reading series. It can look like being a first reader for somebody else who you know is working on a novel. Just building community in that way. But, if you like it and if it feeds the thing in you then make an opportunity for it to feed something in someone else and then that way it keeps existing, right? And I think that’s maybe the most the most important thing I’ve learned from from teaching and editing and reading and writing for the past, you know, 40-something-years. Is, is that

  • Jim Craft

    “The importance of learning the craft, learning the principles and elements of art and design and really understanding how to apply them, cannot be overstated. Design theory ends up being the currency of whether or not you can develop a particular visual way of expressing yourself, whether it’s sculpture, ceramics, architecture or another field.” 

    Jim Craft, who lives in Greenville, was a studio artist for ten years and then transitioned to academia. He was a professor of art at North Greenville University for 16 years and then moved to West Palm Beach, Fla., teaching at Palm Beach Atlantic University for 10 years. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from Bob Jones University and his MFA at Clemson University. 

    Interview

    Transcript

    Jim Craft

    I’m Jim Craft, and I was a studio artist for 10 years self-supporting. And then I had three kids and a wife. And you know, I think the statistic is less than half a percent of people who actually get degrees in visual art actually ended up being artists; I think it might even be less than that by now. It’s a pretty narrow field, actually. But, you end up doing a lot of other things, you know, you can go into Applied Arts, graphic design, and stage design, and you know.

    Haley Hansen

    What did your path look like? What did you go into?

    Jim Craft

    Well, I had my degrees in painting and ceramics, and… but I also had education, degrees in education. So, which was fortunate, I guess, because then I, I got a job as a professor. Well, as an instructor, and then worked my way. And then, when I retired just a few years ago, five years ago, I was a full professor and was granted Professor Emeritus, which just means I can come back and teach if ever I want to. So that’s, that’s what I’ve, what I’ve done. I’ve actually spent most of my life in academia. When you teach, it demands all your time, way too much of your time, and your energy and resources. And…

    Haley Hansen

    Where were you a professor at?

    Jim Craft

    Well, I started out, well, first, I started out in public schools and taught two years of Elementary, two years of middle school, and two years of high school, and then I got a job at a little Baptist College in Upstate South Carolina. I just turned…

    Haley Hansen

    Which kind of Baptist College, I’m guessing Bob Jones.

    Jim Craft

    Now, actually, I got my undergraduate degree from Bob Jones and a Master’s… an M.A. from Bob Jones. And then I got my graduate; I did finish my graduate work at Clemson, but I got my first job as a professor at North Greenville University and taught there for no longer than 16 years. And then, I took a position down in West Palm Beach, Florida, for 10 years a little longer, actually, at Palm Beach Atlantic University, and sort of headed up the visual art program down there, department down there. And it was kind of a blast, you know, being down in Florida in mind that at all, but it was really fun having a studio and being an artist, you know, getting up every day and making stuff and doing exhibitions, shows, and things like that.

    Haley Hansen

    Was there ever one specific moment that made you realize you wanted to be a professional studio artist?

    Jim Craft

    Well, that was always, you know, the goal to be an artist, but it’s just not a realistic goal. I mean, even my friends who were wildly successful had to actually supplement their income with other things. And it’s good to have those kinds of things in your pocket. So, I wouldn’t ever discourage anybody from, you know, getting a degree in, you know, graphic design or advertising or any of the design areas, just because, well, you know, Andy Warhol was a graphic designer and musicians and composers actually did other things. But, it was always the goal to be just an artist. And that was kind of a blast. But it didn’t really take care of everything. Kids were getting bigger. And you know, everybody knows three kids and my wife. So, it was really four against, well, not against, but it was four votes against one vote. And so, I had to go get a job teaching. It’s not terrible. I didn’t mind teaching. It actually turned out, I was okay at it. All of my evaluations were good. It was always in the top percentile and got a number of awards and so on for teaching, because I didn’t mind teaching. I liked people. I like students, and interacting with them, and telling them the truth. And they didn’t always like me, but that’s okay. I guess my evaluations were…. had a big gap in the middle. There were those who really liked me and said I was the best professor they ever had. And there was a big gap in the middle. And then there were those that said, I was awful, and don’t ever take any courses from this man, because he’ll, he’ll make you work.

    Haley Hansen

    I had a couple of professors like that. Yeah.

    Jim Craft

    Yeah. Yeah, that’s actually a pretty good, you know, way too, like, let your evaluations fall. You don’t want a bunch in the middle, that just isn’t so great. That way, you kind of, like, you get students that maybe are a little more serious. Are you an art student?

    Haley Hansen

    I’m an English major.

    Jim Craft

    Well, and of course, I would always tell people, students, that you know, minor in education or English, because English is good. Because writing is always a valuable skill, it’s always a valuable skill no matter what you do, if you can write, and put together good, you know, sentences and presentations, and if you can read if you can know how to do research, if you actually understand what real research looks like, that will help you it really well, I taught a lot of art history. And a lot of our pre; I had to teach a lot of sections or at a pre all the time, but you know, I don’t miss grading all the, all the research papers, oh, my goodness. When they’d come in, I would have, I’d be gone for a week and a half. I just have to go through them all. And I can never give a student a bad grade, or even a good grade without telling them why, you know, I wanted them to know why they’re getting what they’re getting. Yeah, English is a good, a good minor. And I suppose there’s a number of other areas where you could minor and and that would be well advised. I think it’s probably healthy for students to know that being, being a learning the craft learning the, you know, the principles and elements of art and design. And really understanding how to apply them and not be understated design theory was always something that I think that it can’t really be undervalued. Because, that really ends up being the currency of, of whether or not you can develop a particular visual way of expressing yourself, whether it’s in, you know, sculpture, ceramics or architecture, whatever. They all, they all apply. All those principles and elements. They apply to every one of the arts. Whether, even if, you go into dance or theater, or any of that, it really doesn’t matter. They’re all very similar.

    Jim Craft

    In fact, I taught a number of courses on the integration of the principles and elements in… and it was teamed up with a dance and theater major, music professor and myself. And it’s all the same language. So all those, I think that’s really valuable because then I’ve had students that have ended up because they heard me, they ended up in, you know, retail and, and um, you know, selling in galleries or auction houses. Traveling internationally, even if you don’t necessarily have to end up in the studio to stay in the arts; I even had a student who ended up being a buyer internationally of fine rugs, and all over the Europe and North Africa, and the Middle East. And she was a painting person she was I mean, she learned the principles and now, so they all fit, it’s all still the same, whether you’re looking at a Persian rug, or if you’re looking at a really nice ceramic vessel, it’s all the same. And I never could quite figure that out. You know, people will say, Oh, this Van Gogh is, real art. But, this Song Dynasty bowl is just a craft? Well, if it’s if it’s well made, well designed, and has beautiful line and balance and unity, and you know, all that, to me, it’s just as breathtaking. And, of course, that’s… that would that always would make for a good discussion. It’s good to be able to tell why each is good. And, I’ve had students end up in stage design, and you know, theater design, and even going into product design. And it’s very much all kind of related.

    Haley Hansen

    Very, broadly applicable skill set.

    Jim Craft

    Sure. It really…

    Haley Hansen

    Sort of like English.

    Jim Craft

    Yeah, like English. And the the kind of core I would say in English is hopefully that you can read well, and understand what good research and a real you know what a good sentence is, and good paper is, and good presentations, all those kinds of things are incredibly widely applicable.

    Haley Hansen

    Are there any specific programs or organizations around the state that you would recommend for someone interested in pursuing a career in the arts?

    Jim Craft

    Well, there’s certainly, you know, you can become members of, you know, artists and crafts societies or artists.

    Haley Hansen

    I think I’ve seen a couple of galleries run by like artists and guilds and stuff like that.

    Jim Craft

    Yeah. And then members of both, like um, Co-ops and just commercial galleries, and there’s upsides to both, you know, they, it’s nice to be able to keep, you know, 75-80% of your sales prices. It’s also nice not to have to worry about advertising and promotion, not having to coordinate an exhibition, it’s all done for you. But then they, you know, they keep 50 or 60 or 70 present in a gallery, but that’s what they do. Of course, galleries are gone now. I mean, galleries are not completely gone, but just about it’s, it’s just a completely changed situation because you have online galleries and, you know digital media and promotion, all that kind of thing. And that’s a completely different kind of thing, now.

    Haley Hansen

    At least in Greenville, there’s still plenty of physical ones to wander into.

    Jim Craft

    Oh, yeah, it’s true. It’s it, you know, I just, I just, I’ve done I’ve done those. And I’ve done I’ve made production type runs and things like that, for commercial entities, design houses that make accessories and things like that, that would be called Object art, you know. And I’ve produced for them, and then I’ve also done sub wholesaling for houses that, you know, they like I have sold to the furniture market, in High Point North Planet, and selling to especially tabletop accessories, and lamp companies and things like that. It’s all very fashion-oriented, and you go, you know, you submit a bunch of pieces to put in a furniture market twice a year. And then you might get $20,000 of orders selling your stuff suppose sale, but with minimum quantity. And that was that I felt like, Whoa, I might be able to make it doing this. But everything is always changing; it was always very fashion-oriented. And then, as soon as you would start selling something successfully, they would, you know, find another supplier, usually out of Asia, and then all of a sudden they discontinue that item. And that’s that’s kind of brutal. But that’s, that was that. I didn’t mind being a teacher, though. It was okay. It’s not a; it’s not a… I mean, it’s an honorable profession.

    Haley Hansen

    You have a very big impact in a lot of people’s lives that way.

    Jim Craft

    Well, some would say, you know, some, some, some, some would say that. The best thing about teaching is it gets easier. I mean, I don’t know if anybody’s told you that. But it’s it’s when you teach it gets easier. Because you learn your stuff. You always have to keep up and stay abreast of important improvements and changes in contributions. But it does get easier. I mean, toward the end there, I wasn’t using my notes hardly at all; I would just go into lecture and just go for a couple of hours at a time and not… and it just gets easier, which is which was nice.

    Haley Hansen

    As we’re wrapping up. Do you have any final advice for students who are pursuing a creative career?

    Jim Craft

    I would say keep your alternatives lined up and be realistic about a career in the arts. Don’t fall in love with the idea that you must be just a studio person only. But you know, you can focus on that and keep that. It’s not like you lose that, but, you know, keep keep a number. A number of alternatives in your pocket just to be more widely marketable.

  • Simone Liberty

    Simone Liberty

    “Design can build community and shift culture.”

    Simone Liberty is a graphic designer and art director who merges creative design with social impact. A Coastal Carolina University alum, she uses visual storytelling to highlight underrepresented voices and build more inclusive communities. 

    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

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

    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). 

    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.