Life After Art School: An Update

One year later, how are those art school grads I interviewed doing? Well, bottom line: art isn’t easy. Since graduation, each of our five artists have surfed some steep ups and downs – the ups including one new baby, one nearly completed teaching certification, one sidestreet into musicmaking, a string of creative jobs, some exhibited or about to be exhibited work, and one domestic situation that has the artist so content, she wishes she had some strife to paint about. As for the downs , those include bouts of the blues bordering on depression, creative dry spells, dictatorial corporate bosses, lack of studio space, financial hardship, a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with social media, but what’re ya gonna do, it’s here to stay, and finally, precious little time for serious art making. Speaking of time, the five artists’ day jobs had them so busy, I couldn’t corral all of them into one conversation. I had to do them in three batches! We’ll hear first from that future teacher, Caroline Hehir, the happiest of the lot. Then from Lori Fogg together with Ethan Newman, who turned out to have a lot of complaints in common. And finally, Trae Brooks with Julian Allen, who offered some perspective and encouraging words. You can find photos of the five artists and their recent work at the openstudioradio,org blog, along with a link to last year’s interview. If you’re like me, you’ll appreciate how determined they young artists are to stay true to themselves. Below is a sampling of work the artists provided: