Tag: Teaching

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

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. 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, a 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 of how to set up 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, 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 dimensions, or half of which just had a four-foot dimension, and maybe a few larger 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 the edges touching anything.

More of an answer than you probably needed. 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 got 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 so 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, 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. And so, it brought the sense, I think, to students, that it could be something bigger. That was especially true before I built the studio in 89 because 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, its 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 know people, they said, “Oh, man, you’re so disciplined, you’re always in the studio.” I wasn’t disciplined. I was self-indulgent. I was doing what I, you 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 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’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 1975, 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, I did have sabbatical money that time. Most of my leaves were unpaid, but I went on sabbatical money. I 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, lived and worked in that. Of course, lived illegally.

Nora Smith 07:42

The commitment, a lot of commitment there.

Philip Mullen 07:45

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 hotwire a locked elevator and how to start up a furnace in a big building. 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 function. 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.

Nora Smith 09:06

For sure, for sure. Yeah. How would you describe your local professional community around you?

Philip Mullen 9:16

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 peak at. Or you don’t want to be a female gymnast, you know, 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 as a sort of normal hobbyist community. But one of the funny things, you know, in certain areas, 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 a 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 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.

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. You know, in 69 when I was looking for a 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 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 make. 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 business people.

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

Really! 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 big part in 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 was 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.

Nora Smith 15:58

Yeah, I’m sure, I’m sure.

Philip Mullen 16:00

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. So, 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 it 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. 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 think this is wonderful. These guys get to spend tons of time just 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, 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.

Nora Smith 18:10

Right. 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

I can’t 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…

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, 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 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, the point wasn’t that everybody becomes 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 a lot of that’s about rounding it all out for yourself. Actually, in a way, when I get done with it, 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. It was called the artist experience, and 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 departments should be doing way, way, way more of that. 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 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, 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. 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.

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. Mullen, 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 the paintings for them and stuff. So it was, that’s why I called it the artist experience? We didn’t do it by teaching about art. We did it by experiencing. 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, they would have to do. I mean, I’d have them do. I don’t know, are you a visual artist at all?

Nora Smith 23:53

No.

Philip Mullen 23:55

Okay, well, I had them do an exercise called negative shape drawing.

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 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. Because being an artist 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. 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.

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

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 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. 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. 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? How do you make this color transition and things like that? And we find that there are so many things about how we work that crossover.

Nora Smith 27:44

Yes, exactly. That’s so cool. Yeah, everything you were saying, I’m like, yeah, makes complete sense, even to me. So, 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.

May 27, 2025
Desiree Williams

“I define success by being able to wake up and actually see my work impacting the lives of others.”

Desiree Williams is a licensed esthetician and educator. Desiree 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.

May 27, 2025
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 finished my graduate work at Clemson, but I got my first job as a professor at North Greenville University and taught there for 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.

March 28, 2025
Simone Liberty

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

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

Interview

Transcript

Simone Liberty 0:00

I’m Simone Liberty. I’m from Connecticut originally- but I’ve been down here in Charleston since fall 2015.

Emma Plutnicki 0:06

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

Simone Liberty 0:10

Yeah, sure. I am a Teaching Artist, and this would be my official job title. I’m a traveling arts educator. I go to lots of different schools at this point. Although a teaching artist 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 all over Charleston, Dorchester, and Berkeley counties.

Emma Plutnicki 0:41

Very cool. How long have you been doing that?

Simone Liberty 0:43

I’ve been a full-time Teaching Artist for about two years now.

Emma Plutnicki 0:48

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 0:53

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 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.

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. It was a summer camp. And she said, “You know, it’s going to be super cute.” They do 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 it reminded me of some work that I had done in the summers during my undergraduate experience.

So, I met Sterling DeVries, who is the Director of Education at the Gaillard Center, and still is, and just told her how interested I was in arts education. We talked for a while about that. And I ended up actually writing a letter in email form- to both Catherine and Sterling. I’m basically creating myself a position at Gaillard. I ended up getting that position, but the catch was that what I really wanted to do was work part-time in the Education Department and part-time in the Fundraising and Development Department. And instead, what they could offer me because of budgetary needs, was a full-time or it was still a part-time position in development while I was in graduate school. And 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 to and saw originally. So, that was kind of my bridge into teaching artistry.

It started out as just teaching summer camps. And increasingly 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 3:46

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 look like?

Simone Liberty 3:58

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

Let’s take today, I am going to be in a school, but my school time doesn’t starts until 12:45 And from 12:45 until the end of their school day, basically, I’ll be teaching different classes, and then I will 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 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.

Emma Plutnicki 4:53

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 5:07

Yeah, so it has been difficult to call this a full-time career path. As I mentioned before, you really must 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 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.

So, all those moving pieces make a teaching artist change how they describe themselves. And it’s just this really vast thing that hasn’t really been nailed down, nor do you want it because we’re creative individuals. So, all, 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 real credentials in Geometry, there’s no certificate, and 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 isolated if you don’t have community partners that you’re really in contact with. It’s just that it requires lots of self-initiation.

Emma Plutnicki 6:51

Yeah, and so 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 7:05

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 work for. They’re kind of like a booking agent for Teaching Artists, and they have a whole roster of artists. All 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.

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

And then I found a lot of my personal connections to be a part of my graduate program. So not only did I do the master’s 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 a couple of events and organizations that I stay connected with.

Emma Plutnicki 8:48

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 9:05

Yes. And it’s kind of a new one. But I’ve been happy about this past couple of months now. So, I for the past couple of years, have struggled with the question of what my why is. And I think that’s a really important question, especially for young professionals to ask 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 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.

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 for tap shoes. 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 feet before. So, this has been 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 10:48

As far as the 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 11:02

That’s a good question. Yes, I want to say flexibility and not in the dance 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 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 an element of entrepreneurship in craft. And it takes some flexibility.

There was another thing that I was thinking of well, ah, curiosity would be another one. That’s 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. I would say, Yeah, curiosity and flexibility. Those would be the two skills.

Emma Plutnicki 12:03

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 12:15

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, down here in Charleston, we’ve got 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 13:09

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 13:18

Oh, my gosh, we need more teaching artists please. You know there is no lack of demand. 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 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.

March 6, 2025
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 00:00

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.

Emma Plutnicki 00:13

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 00:18

My official title is 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. The Spark program is a literacy-based drama program. So, we go to 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. That’s our main goal. But we also have a goal of showing teachers that even though you don’t have an arts background, you could do this too. So, it’s a twofold job.

Emma Plutnicki 01:18

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 01:21

Yes.

Emma Plutnicki 01:22

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 01:25

So, I’ve been here for a little over two years. And that’s when the residency program started. But 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 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 underneath me of 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. To spread the wealth, to spread the joy of the job.

Emma Plutnicki 02:11

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 02:19

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

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. 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 the theater bug because, actually, I wasn’t even initially an actor; I was an assistant director, slash stage manager, then came acting, and I knew from then I wanted to stay in theater. So, I went to college and ended up at South Carolina State University because they had a drama education program. And that’s how I ended up from Ohio to down here. I have no ties to South Carolina other than that, but that program really developed me. One as a family unit, you know, I felt comfortable and vulnerable enough, which is very important. When it comes to drama and theater, you have to be vulnerable onstage, in the script, everywhere, for the story to be told authentically.

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, I learned Tech, I learned administration, all these different aspects, versus just little surface levels and education. So, that is my educational background.

Once I graduated, I did some traveling. I called myself a little bit of a nomad, so I went back to Ohio for a bit. I did a children’s theater up there, and I opened up my own theater, basically for social justice. It was called the 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.

From there, I went to New York and, actually when I moved to New York, I took a break from the theater, even though I was living in New York. I know that’s backwards, but I just was living life and, and 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 do readings, and volunteered as an actor, but that’s the extent of 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. Where my friends from school 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.”

So, I was nervous. I actually applied for both the actor, teacher job and the actor, teacher coach job, because I didn’t know if I fully qualified or not. And it’s funny, because I think you’ve probably seen that article where 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 interviewed well, and I got the position. And it’s just been smooth, not smooth sailing, but it’s been smooth sailing since. 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 06:20

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 06:26

Well, one is I’ve somewhat managed before. My managing experience has always been short-term, right? Like my last job, I worked for the Board of Elections 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 hired them. And then sometimes I had to fire them, you know, or relocate them, and 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 07:10

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 07:26

It’s a mixture of both. And 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 going to go, but we didn’t necessarily have the pathway. So, we had to be always flexible, which sometimes is harder than it sounds, you know. So, my daily projects, like the shorter terms, are 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, 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, 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 have to explain it in a way that you don’t lose interest. For instance, not being too long winded. But you don’t also want to be too short, because they’ll come up with their own idea of what the program is. I feel like the whole program has had a significant impact on me.

Emma Plutnicki 08:31

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 08:45

You know what, one thing I’ve always wanted to do is be 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, this past year, particularly, I got to go to different conferences and present the program. So, I was really happy with that accomplishment.

Emma Plutnicki 09:12

Yeah, that’s so fun. You said that 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 09:30

Yes. So, this is when I bring in my mama. Growing up, we moved around a lot. My mama has always instilled in me that you get to know the community. Like, on the first and second day moving, we always went and got a library card. We met at the police station to meet the officer, like you have to 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 my former classmates 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 to things of that nature, you know. And that’s how I built my network here. I also went to many different theater events around. I live in Colombia. I don’t know if I mentioned that, but my remote position is in the 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 10:38

Amazing. 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 10:53

Definitely. So, I think two major skills are what got me the job. One was my natural storytelling ability. The second was my background and job experience. I have worked so many different types of jobs. And I know some people feel that 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 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 11:42

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 11:56

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 12:28

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

Thurayya UmBayemake 12:38

Yeah, I would like to add one more thing.

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 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 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 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 perfect timing. So, it’s about faith. It’s about persistence. 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 SC gov school is great. And I couldn’t ask for anything better.

Emma Plutnicki 12:40

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

March 4, 2025
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  00:00

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  00:15

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

Marius Valdes  00:22

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

Emma Plutnicki  00:31

Yeah.

Marius Valdes  00:33

So long!

Emma Plutnicki  00:34

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  00:48

So, I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1998. And I worked as a designer for about 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, and to me today that 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, I just kind of really enjoyed it.

When I originally started college, 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 the ability to do that sort of stuff, in addition to teaching, you know.

Emma Plutnicki  02:25

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

Marius Valdes  02:39

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 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 that 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 paid okay, and it was a nice job. But it wasn’t very interesting. And I started painting on the side for fun. I was literally finger painting on cardboard. And that started winning me awards. And I was, just like “what?” You know?

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 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  04:11

Yeah, that’s great. So nowadays, can you walk us through 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  04:33

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.

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 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 once a month, for two or three hours, you go to a really long meeting and talk about all the things going on at the university.

So, 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 means 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 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. Research for me is doing design work, illustration work, making art, and putting on other shows and stuff like that. And going to conferences to present my work.

Emma Plutnicki  06:55

Cool. Yeah, so, you just mentioned 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  07:11

Oh yeah. You know, for the past couple of years, I’ve been working with the medical university, 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 kids’ activities and books for 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 been really nice, like, it’s really made a difference on this visit,” and I get emails like that occasionally from people. And its 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.

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 attention for that work that was meaningful to me, for people to say, “Wow, this is a really creative idea,” you know. I kept hoping a toy company would come and offer me a couple million dollars for it. But that never happened. So…

Emma Plutnicki  08:45

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

Marius Valdes  08:57

Yeah, I mean, you know, I’ll be honest with you, I think 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, “I think I’m going to 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, it is sort of one of the main things that is like, you know, on my worst day, I might be struggling with a painting or an illustration for a client, but what I’m sitting here doing is drawing, you know. And I’m married to my wife who is a paralegal. She has a very normal nine-to-five job. And, you know, her job is answering to five attorneys, you know, screaming, like, “I need this now, I need this now.” And I can’t really complain too much, right?

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 having a critique, and your students bring in a bunch of amazing work. And you’re like, “oh, man, I am a good teacher!” 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? There are little rewards everywhere.

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, 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  12:15

And along with being disciplined, are there any physical skills that you think are beneficial for people trying to break into the world of design? Any specific skills that maybe you possess, that help you in your day to day life, or just if you saw, if you were 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  12:39

Yeah, I think anytime you can get better and faster at learning software, that just becomes 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 with animation stuff. And what happened was, 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 having a professor always come over my shoulder and say, “All right, push that button, push this button.” And back then 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 going to really hinder your growth, I think.

And the other thing is to be a design sponge or art sponge. And I mean that in the sense of, 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. 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 going to be nice to you, but I think I’m in this job because I’m a good, decent person. I think that as I make connections and networks and you start meeting people, I think people are like, “Oh, that’s someone I would want to work with,” you know?

Emma Plutnicki  15:03

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  15:22

Yeah, 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 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.

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 amazing things, bringing guest speakers and doing workshops for students that are younger than them. And it’s just kind of been really cool to see them kind of take on 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. For advertising, there’s the Advertising Federation, there’s usually chapters of that. So, for example, there’s the 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  16:47

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  17:02

Yeah, I mean, so one of the things I’ll tell you is, you know, and again, 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; it 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.

I also feel like when you’re in college, and you’re graduating, if you’re young, 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. 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, if you’re sending out emails and cold calling people by 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 so polite and 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.

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 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 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.

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. They just happened to get your resume that day; you know that literally happened to me. So, 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 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 to an interview or do freelance work. Or maybe you just got your dream job right out of college that happens to you know?

Emma Plutnicki  21:16

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

Marius Valdes  21:21

I mean, I think college and work are the same thing. You get what you put into it. So, I think you just got to get started. Like, that’s really something someone told me. The Cartoon Network thing didn’t work out, so I moved to Charlotte. And the girl I was dating at the time got this amazing job making really good money and doing awesome client work. And I got offered this really boring job, making almost half of what she was making. I remember one of my teachers just saying, “Dude, just get started.” And it’s so true. Once you get into the field, that first job is kind of a fifth year of college. You learn more, and 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 at 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 a two-hour walk with my dog and then come home and read, and paint, and 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  22:49

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

March 4, 2025