Art Students
Maybe if I am a good enough businesswoman, I can return to being an artist
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Sophomore year at the University of Michigan’s art school, a tenured professor issued me a stern warning: “whatever you do, for the love of G-d, do not go into advertising.”
I laughed.
Moi? Advertising? Ludicrous. I was an Artist— je suis une Artiste— and clearly made for bigger, nobler things.
A panel of professors sat before me; I had just presented my portfolio as part of my Sophomore Review. The Sophomore Review was a notorious, cut-throat process in which all sophomore art students presented their portfolio to a panel of professors who would essentially thumbs-up or thumbs-down their continuation in the program, Gladiator style. My portfolio, thankfully, was met with appreciation from the panel, and I spent the latter half of the review fielding career advice from the professors. I left as self-assured as ever of my status as an artist, and didn’t give the advertising injunction a second thought.
Some five years later I accepted a role at one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world.
I hope to never leave NYC, but if I had to move somewhere else, I’d choose a college town. Campus energy, that whole-life-in-front-of-you feeling, is electric. Like any 18-year-old, I had no idea who I was in college. But as an art student, I knew the following:
I had charcoal smudged up to my elbows
I was hauling an oversized portfolio with handles instead of a backpack
I was late for Fibers class, or a Nordic Minimalism seminar, or my Programming for Poets final
I knew I was an artist. Walk through any art school today, and you’ll see that same assurance. When you’re an art student, there is no questioning what you are. It’s when you graduate, and rent starts calling, and you’re booted off of your parent’s health insurance, that this comes into question. I graduated with honors after presenting a final thesis work, a video piece, and moved to LA. That thesis work landed me a job at a prestigious video editing house; I bragged that they created Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE music video and frequently worked with Nadia Lee Cohen. I was sure I’d soon be working on such art. Instead, I served served lunch to the aforementioned Ms. Cohen, and then scrubbed her plates. I must have been good at it, because I was soon “promoted” to “the vault”, where I sat for 10+ hours per day in a windowless “room” (see: closet) organizing hard drives.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I quit and started working the front desk at a hotel on the beach. I plunged a lot of toilets. Carried a lot of suitcases upstairs.
Tacked on a job at peddling Boy Brow at Glossier. Took art jobs when I could, which was rare, because I was always working weekends and I could never commit to them in the way that I wanted to.
I cut back on my hours at the hotel, intending to make do with less money, so I could make more art and launch a freelance career. This plan was, shall we say, not sustainable. By the time the advertising agency slid into my inbox, I desperately needed dental insurance and a steady paycheck. Elated, I took the job.
“For the love of G-d, whatever you do, do not go into advertising.”
The professor’s warning emerged in my head for the first time in years. I met it with rage; how easy for him to say from his tenure throne, how reductive, how elitist! I took the job with gusto, out to prove that I was not my job. I could make ads by day and art by night. I was an artist.
I failed. The job took over, despite my hating every single second of it. I became a “creative”, not an artist, and learned that artistry as an outlet has very little to do with creativity as a trade. I didn’t write a song, or take my camera out just because, or sketch in the margins for years.
Then I started making TikToks about how I decorated my apartment, gained a client list, started writing on Substack, and now we’re here. I quit that advertising job just this summer, and I’m still shaking the stench of misalignment. Today, thinking about my goals on this new career path, I thought “maybe if I become a good enough businesswoman, eventually, I can earn my way back to being an artist.”
The halls of art schools are not burdened with such jaded thoughts.
Last week in Paris, I returned to École Des Beaux-Arts, Paris’ premiere art school. This time, I cold-DM’d a student, Romain Martin, whose work I saw my last trip, and asked if he’d give me a studio tour. Miraculously, he obliged.
The experience was extraordinary, and confirmed my suspicion that the ground floor is the floor for me. In other words, take your Art Basel, I’ll be in the studio with the nineteen-year-olds in Ann Arbor or Paris or NYC or Providence or wherever. People often ask me for my favorite art galleries in NYC, and I come up empty. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a gallery girl. I’ll say this: aside from a few exceptional outliers, my friends from art school who went on to become traditional working artists, the kinds that show in galleries, were mostly the ones who could afford to wait.
But within the hallowed walls of art school, no one is at war with their identity as an artist; it is fact. While it’s not exactly a level playing field (going to art school at all comes with a significant financial barrier to entry), it’s fertile soil, untouched by the pesticides of benefits packages and digital footprint anxiety. No one is reckoning with their role at an advertising agency; how could they? They have their Re-Contextualizing Found Objects final at 8am.
Xo,
Talia
This resonated so much, even though I'm not an art student (I studied literature), I feel like I had a very similar arc of art purist in college --> faced with the reality of the world --> corporate job --> back to being focused on art (somewhat). I haven't quit my job yet but I'm planning to and hearing your experience is incredibly helpful. I would love to hear more about what it has been like going back to art full time with this new perspective. Also love love love the art student pieces you shared I want to decorate my entire apartment with art student pieces!
Romain's already in his blue period as a student - could be a record speed run