How I’m Glimpsing into the Future: The Story of an Artist-Intern
By Lindsay Knights, I AM Art Auction House Intern
July 21, 2020
It’s the middle of July and my mind is wandering more so now than ever. Our world is in the middle of a pandemic and I feel as though I’m between many things – between school years, between careers, between phases of life. It’s almost my last year of college and I’m wondering when things are going to be “normal.” This isn’t what I asked for for my fourth year. I have to make decisions without knowing what the future will hold. It feels like everything is up in the air – and that includes my career.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved having a paintbrush in my hand. I have always been fascinated with color and the ways I can apply it to paper, as I used to sort the crayons in my crayon box into a rainbow before beginning my next coloring book project. Although I still enjoy sorting my art supplies by color, I’ve found a connection to the world of art that grows deeper than studying crayon colors and staying inside the lines. One of my favorite memories is learning art techniques from my grandmother, who taught me the basics of painting. Throughout my public school years, I jumped on the opportunity to apply the techniques that I developed to art classes. My later high school years brought the opportunity to create a portfolio that has been a constant development and a tangible representation of my growth as an artist.
I know that art has been a large part of my life for a reason. I want to run with the idea that art was introduced to this world to appreciate the gifts that we are given. For the longest time, I had hoped that being an artist would be my main career path, yet those dreams came to a halt when I heard that a painting career would be “unstable” and “boring.” I began to wonder if there was another path out there for me. I had taken a college-level engineering course in high school and enjoyed it (although not quite as much as art), so I considered studying engineering more seriously in college. I soon realized that there was a way to combine my passion for art and my interest in engineering – I would study architecture. I was afraid to let my long-lost desire for a design-related career die, and I’m thankful I was.
Being an architecture school student has taught me more than I think any other school would. I’ve learned that all-nighters are sometimes necessary for procrastinators to be satisfied with their work, I’ve “trialed-and-errored” my way through time management on a design project, and most importantly, I’ve been exposed to how the art world overlaps the architecture world. In the middle of this design venn-diagram, I realized, is where I would like to reside.
More recently, I decided to pursue a concentration in Design Thinking, a branch off the architecture-major tree trunk. I discovered that one of the ways to keep my passion for the visual arts alive while in building design school was to explore a broader range of design using architectural principles. I have been introduced to graphic design, map design, book design, and 3D design in my studios. While exploring a wide range of possible careers is exciting, I have found difficulty in choosing what I would like to do after I graduate in the spring.
This past semester, I applied to around twenty design-related internships, hoping that gaining experience in one field would help me narrow down my career options. When the pandemic hit the U.S. in March, those hopes for a normal summer with a full-summer internship disappeared in thin air. I decided to take some time to revive my love of painting and drawing by taking commissions and adding to my own art collection, and I’m glad I did. I was able to create pieces that I don’t have time to create during the school year, and I’ve had more time to prepare for an art exhibit scheduled for this coming semester.
In the midst of commissions and exhibit preparations, I came across an internship opportunity at I AM Art Auction House, a non-profit organization with a global network that seeks the artistically talented and elevates their work at their monthly auctions, raising funds for youth development. I’ve never had an internship position quite like this; I’ll be a part of the marketing team while being able to sell my artwork. I have the opportunity to give my passion for art to the platform that the organization has to offer. Their work provides students like me the opportunity to discover their passions and expand their artistic horizons.
I’m looking forward to being a part of the auction events, the first of which is on July 25th. I’ve never been to an art auction before, and I’m excited to see firsthand the impact the event can have on the art community. I hope that this summer opportunity will lead to a deeper involvement with I AM Art Auction House this coming school year. I plan to continue to apply my artistic skills to my work here and explore further a possible career with a non-profit organization like the Auction House. I look forward to developing new marketing skills and using social media that I currently use to promote my own art to promote others’ too.
While I’m still not sure of the direction I want to take for my career, I know that I’m looking for a way to combine my passions for art and architecture and seeking a place where I can apply design thinking principles to my work. I hope that even if I don’t find a job where I’m still painting on a canvas, I won’t have to give up what I love. No longer will I wait for others to validate my choice of career. I want to enjoy what I do for a living, and I believe that I AM Art Auction House is a great place to start.
