Careers in the Arts Fair with the Joan Mitchell Foundation

This past weekend, the Parsons Scholars Program, combined with the Joan Mitchell Foundation as The New School hosted the Careers in the Arts Fair. There were about 200 students in attendance visiting work-shops held by a variety of artists ranging from architects to apparel designers to aerosol artists. The event kicked off with the students attending a talk by Jeff Ng and Quilian Riano. They were able to hear about their careers and how they became successful. Jeff gave the students really important advice about how to pursue their dreams and how to be happy doing so. His talk about how he became a successful designer working on art for his apparel line and CD covers for famous rappers really inspired the students.  Afterwards, they were went off to their workshops. The students were able to attend any workshop that peeked their interests. The workshops were both insightful and interactive. The workshop I attended with Fernando Luiz Lorenzo, who is an aerosol artist was really fun. He spoke to us about how he grew up and became interested in the art form to him putting his work in galleries. He then engaged us with an activity where we drew letters or created symbols that represented where we came from which was also really fun. It enabled us to learn more about each other. There was also an event being held called “Straight Talk” where the students were able to speak to college students and young professionals about their experiences and they were able to get to know about what they do. The event was very successful and our scholars were able to speak to successful artists and designers face-to-face, ask questions, build contacts with them and get inspired about their own future careers.