Final Presentation
The iteration of my career model
The logic diagram of My Journey: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lnOw1NQ=/?invite_link_id=848950447699
My model iterated many times, from triangle to heptagon. And the definition of each ability is getting richer and richer. I think this model and the process of exploring this model is the biggest thing that I learned from this MA course.
Most notably, I explored this career model with the methodology I had learned (planning-acting-observing-reflecting-planning) and through the reflection of myself. Besides, I tried to use this model to solve the problems that I met in this project, which is also a way to test it. I am happy I choose this project since it makes this MA journey more like knowing myself. I keep reminiscing and reflecting on my past, and I try to find out the shortcomings that I didn’t realize before. Now, I know which ability I need to strengthen and what I should do for my future career after leaving CSM. In addition, I will keep reflecting on myself and iteration of this model. As I said before, this model is not perfect nor the end, and it should be iterated constantly. And when it exposes to the world, it might bring some thoughts to the new art graduates and more people; it has the potential change.
Potential Changes – Call Back
Unfortunately, I failed to change the student’s minds as planned for the last intervention, but when this model exposes to them, it has the potential changes. And in the last tutorial with Minka, she suggested calling back to the participants to see some potential changes.
I sent messages to the workshop group to ask participants whether they have some thoughts after the last workshop, no matter the career model that I showed them or their own career model.
Yuchen (art practitioner) said that she is thinking about the balance between the critical path and the commercial path, which I mentioned in the multiple identities ability. Apart from that, she also thinking about her own communication ability. Since she always works with interdisciplinary workers, she thinks she needs to strengthen her communication ability with them, and think about how to translate interdisciplinary jargon into visual language.
I think she start to think about her own career model based on her personal experience. That is the thing I want to see, and I believe there are more potencial change.
Yuchen’s reply Yuchen’s reply Yuchen’s reply
Here is the answers from Muzi and Sirui:
Muzi (art practitioner) said that she is thinking about the sence of value. She also mentioned some abilities in my career model becomes to must-have ability. life will push you to grow up and develop it. But she is greatful that I conducted this workshop, since she is too busy to think and talk like this for a long time.
But her reply reminds me again that my career model is not the only and perfect answer. What I want to change is not let all the fine art student follow my career moodel. My model is just a reference, and I am trying to give the light in the dark, since this model was missing from my previous education. The real change is let them thinking about their own model, rather than only focus on studio skills. As what Muzi said, the ability in my model is the must-have ability for her, so how about her own model? Is there are other special abilities for her?I think that’s the potential change, and it needs time.
While Sirui (student) still have no thoughts. She only care about the recent exam. I think the difference is really depends on the status. Students do not know the cruelty of the society. But I still believe it has potencial change after she graduate and experiences some setbacks in the future.
Muzi’s reply Sirui’s reply
Primary research – talk with two stakeholders
Conclusion: this primary research made me realize that I need to specify my audience from fine art graduates to fine art graduates who want to be a freelancer or wear more than one hat. This process also helped me to enrich the definition of my model, for example, I put ‘the ability to be humble’ to the ‘self-control ability’. This also verifies the feasibility and credibility of the test I designed to a certain extent.
online talk with Yigao (fine art background, currently working in a film company ) offline talk with Chery (fine art backgroud, currently studying fine art PhD)
I talked with two stakeholders about my project and my career model as my primary research to acquire more opinions and fine art background students’ suggestions.
1. Talking with Yigao (fine art background, currently working in a film company)
Before talking to Yigao, I ask her to test the organisation’s ability, the sequencing question of intervention 6. Surprisingly, her answer was the closest to the correct answer. (Her answer is 5-2-4-1-3, and the correct answer is 2-5-4-1-3.) Then we talked about whether she is an organised person. Both she and I think she is a well-organised person, whether in life or study or work. So I guess, to some extent, this result shows the feasibility of this organization ability test.
After that, I introduced my career model, and we discussed her changes in these abilities before and after graduation. The conclusion is that, except for cooperating ability, the rest improved a lot after entering the workforce. Because when she works in a company, she has to undertake her tasks and responsibilities that she should complete. Every link has a corresponding person in charge, so there is no need to coordinate the process of cooperation. The whole collaboration is conducted under specific procedures.
I think it depends a lot on what she does and how the company works. For those fine art students who want to be freelancers, cooperation ability is vital since they need to actively seek cooperation to get more job opportunities. Then I realized that I needed to specify the audience of this career model. This model is more suitable for those who want to be freelancers/start their own business,/wish to do multiple jobs.
2. Talking with Chery (fine art background currently studying fine art PhD)
I was talking to Chery about his experience of selling paintings. He said that when he is doing his bachelors degree, he doesn’t like selling his work since he thinks art is the art that cannot be valued by money. In addition, his parents believe that it is tough for this subject to find a job(compared with design subjects and science and technology, finance etc.). So his father worried about it and tried to sell his paintings at that time. ‘I hated it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to sell my work, and I certainly didn’t want it to be bought by people who couldn’t read it. But I don’t think so anymore. You know, most of the fine art students are a bit self-glorification. Ummm, it’s a good thing to sell paintings, you know, I found that It’s even harder for me to sell paintings by myself without my father’s help, and I have to face reality, I want to earn money.’
Although it’s a single case, it can illustrate some phenomena. Self-glorification, too confident, could be the label of most fine art students. Going back to what I did in unit 2- help fine art student to sell their artworks through synaesthesia. After finding a relatively effective way to combine sound and paintings, I realized that it is hard to sell this idea to fine art students because of their personalities, their typical temperament. This point is also one of the main reasons for art students’ problematic employment. So I added the ability to be hambling in my model.
Intervention 7 – A workshop – feedback, reflection and model iteration
Conclusion: In this intervention, I found and verified the difference/gap between art practitioners and students. People have better interpersonal skills, cooperation skills, and independent thinking skills after work. In addition, because of the specificity of students’ identities (innocence, ego mentality, not having experienced the cruelty of society), it isn’t easy to make them realize the importance of other abilities in the development model. It’s hard to change them (this is also where this intervention failed.) But this failure made me think about this model’s place, before graduation, after graduation or after work. I failed in changing the student participants, but this model gave two other (art practitioners) more thought about their ability development, which I did not expect. In addition, the sample size of this workshop is relatively small, which cannot fully explain the problem. This needs to be further studied by enlarging the sample size. At the same time, I found a new ability that I could consider adding to my model: endurance/tolerance.
Introduction: I designed a series of multiple task based on my career model. Each question has one correct choice which represents one ability. I plan to ask participants these questions and ask them to answer them and explain why. Also observe how they answer the questions to find out the differences between them. And try to make student participants aware of the differences between themselves and art practitioners and think about those differences.
Audience: I invited two art practitioners who has fine art background and one fine art background student who study in Italy right now.
My goal: 1) to verify the difference between art practitioners and students. 2) to change student’s thought about develop other abilities in a all around way. 3) to discover other abilities that I didn’t notice before and develop my career model.
Muzi Yuchen Sirui Host-Sidi
Record:
Participant’s answers:
1. Organization ability
Please give your answer after carefully considering the logic and possible consequences.Imagine you are painting at home and the following things happen at the same time. In what order would you tackle them?
1)The doorbell rings.
2)Two cats next to you suddenly fight, and it is hard to separate.
3)The phone rings.
4)The bathtub is about to overflow.
5)You’ve spilled your paint and it’s about to spill on the floor.
correct answer: 2-5-4-1-3
Sirui: 5-1-4-3-2, I am not a organized people.
Yuchen: : 5-3-1-2-4, I think I am more organized at work than in life.
Muzi: 5-4-1-2-5, I’m an impulsive person.
2. Interpersonal skills/communication ability
Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..
A. Feel happy and keep working on it.
B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.
C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.
correct answer: C
Sirui: A
Yuchen: C
Muzi: C
3. Cooperative ability
Suppose you need to select a project. One is to complete a painting project independently, the other is to work as a team. These two projects require the same amount of time and energy for you. Which one would you prefer?
A. Independent project, reason…
B. Team project, reason…
Correct answer:B
Sirui: A, I don’t like to socialize. I just want to do my thing.
Yuchen: A, I don’t want to spend time and energy communicating with others, and I want to minimize unnecessary misunderstandings.
Muzi: A/B, I can’t decide. On the one hand, I don’t like to communicate with others. On the other hand, I think team work can expand my network and help me in my future work.
4. Independent thinking
You are drawing a painting to be marked at the end of the term. Your teacher, whom you like and admire very much, gives you some suggestions, but you are not sure whether the teacher’s suggestions are right. What will you do?
A. Continue to work on your original idea
B.Try to revise it as the teacher suggested
C.Seek other people’s suggestions and revise them after comprehensive consideration
Correct answer: C
Sirui: B, If I have no idea, I will certainly listen to the teacher, after all, I don’t want to fail.
Yuchen: B, If the revision is not too complicated, I will follow the teacher’s advice.
Muzi: C, When I was a student, I chose A, but now I choose C.
5. A Commitment to Curiosity
Imagine that your friend has created a new piece of work to share with you, this is the style that you don’t like. How would you respond?
A.Give a false compliment.
B. Directly express that you don’t like the work.
C. Although I don’t like this style, I still try to see the advantages of others and give affirmation.
Correct answer: C
Sirui: A, As long as it is my good friend, no matter how he draws, I will praise him.
Yuchen: C, I think there must be something I can learn, like composition, color, whatever.
Muzi: A, I’m going to go for A.
Q：What do you think has changed the most between your student years and now?
Muzi: I think my tolerance has gotten better. I used to be more intuitive and impulsive. But now I’m more patient.
Yuchen: I work in a game company, and I think I’ve also improved my tolerance, as well as my ability to cooperate and communicate
Q：I have just interpreted my model, and you can also see the difference between you and the other two participants in the process of the workshop. Would you consider developing more of your other abilities now?
Sirui: I’m not going to develop anything else right now. I think I’m still focus on myself.
Q: For example, you and the other two participants gave different answers to the second question about the gallery helping you sell your paintings. Will you still choose A without contacting the buyers?
Sirui: Yes, I was afraid of offending the gallery, and there was no point contacting the buyer. The gallery is in charge of selling, they are more professional,I think it’s enough that I just paint.
Intervention 7-A workshop-Plan
This series of questions is designed around my current career model (As shown above). I want to discuss the test below in the workshop to find out 1)if the participants have the capabilities that lie beneath the problem. 2)what’s the difference between the student group and the art practitioners group. 3) Change students’ minds.
1. Organization ability
Please give your answer after carefully considering the logic and possible consequences.Imagine you are painting at home and the following things happen at the same time. In what order would you tackle them?
1)The doorbell rings.
2)Two cats next to you suddenly fight, and it is hard to separate.
3)The phone rings.
4)The bathtub is about to overflow.
5)You’ve spilled your paint and it’s about to spill on the floor.
correct answer: 2-5-4-1-3
2. Interpersonal skills/communication ability
Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..
A. Feel happy and keep working on it.
B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.
C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.
correct answer: C
3. Cooperative ability
Suppose you need to select a project. One is to complete a painting project independently, the other is to work as a team. These two projects require the same amount of time and energy for you. Which one would you prefer?
A. Independent project, reason…
B. Team project, reason…
Correct answer:B
4. Independent thinking
You are drawing a painting to be marked at the end of the term. Your teacher, whom you like and admire very much, gives you some suggestions, but you are not sure whether the teacher’s suggestions are right. What will you do?
A. Continue to work on your original idea
B.Try to revise it as the teacher suggested
C.Seek other people’s suggestions and revise them after comprehensive consideration
Correct answer: C
5. A Commitment to Curiosity
Imagine that your friend has created a new piece of work to share with you, this is the style that you don’t like. How would you respond?
A.Give a false compliment.
B. Directly express that you don’t like the work.
C. Although I don’t like this style, I still try to see the advantages of others and give affirmation.
Correct answer: C
Try to contact the Blogger – Sophia
I found a Blogger who interviewed 100 artists and share her story and insights on social media. Then I tried to contact her and ask some advice. Alought she refused my request for an interview online, I still found some information valuable in her blog.
One point she mentioned make sense:
A lot of artists are shy and not good at talking about money, thinking that focus on creation is more pure. But every artist has the right to know where his work has gone and who has collected it. You should not be afraid to communicate with collectors, and ask galleries and partner institutions for the list of collections. It’s not necessary but it shouldn’t be avoided. Both galleries and artists are mobile and two-way. Both parties should cooperate professionally and protect yourselves.
Sophia said
What she said inspired me to design the test about communication ability. I design the quiz like this:
Q: Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..
A. Feel happy and keep working on it.
B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.
C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.
correct answer: C
So, if they chose C, which means they have good communication abilities, and vice versa.
Reflective Journal – Talk with Dragons
Last Tuesday, I talked about my project with dragons in 2 mins. I think it’s an excellent opportunity to test whether I understand my project and express it clearly. However, I remember I am too nervous about speaking at a suitable speed. When I reflect on the process, I think I need to strengthen my communication ability, especially with experts and predecessors.
They approved the gap that I identified and gave me some good suggestions. For example, Clare mentioned business ability and advertising ability, and Marie suggested that I consider physical ability, such as the ability to decompress. Artists and designers, especially freelancers, will face more pressure because of the instability of the job and so on.
In addition, in the bookable tutorial with Cai, she suggested I think about this model’s position. For example, before/during/ after the University education.
Career model iteration – a commitment to curiosity
Now, my model iterate to this:
After talking to Cai in her bookable tutorial, she suggested I change this word to committed curiosity since appreciate ability is not that correct in English.
I checked the meaning of it and try to redefine this ability with more aspects.
Career Model iteration – Version 4 – Accountability
After I did intervention 6, I admitted that there are some problems in my intervention, and I will redesign it and conduct my next intervention. But this intervention is not totally useless. The feedbacks showed art students lack organizational ability. The problem is it’s not powerful enough to persuade them. In addition, I also think the organizational ability is related to the ability to have multiple identities, so I put it under the ability to have multiple identities as a sub-ability.
And I add one more ability which is accountability. I found it from the reflection of myself. This ability contains 1) the ability to think independently 2) self-motivation. I noticed that I like to acquire the permission of my tutor before I make an action. And I also like to believe what the tutor said because I believe they have more experience and knowledge that is much beyond myself. This is a challenge for me. But now I realized it through my reflection. I believe there are some people like me who need to develop accountability as well, so I add it.