Bringing Back the Arts Blog Topics
Once you are done writing your blog: If you have a challenge that you are struggling to work out at your internship, email or text the program director immediately so you can receive help as soon as possible.
Blog Question #1- What did you learn from your first week at your internship? Did anything surprise you or make you excited? Were there any challenges? Did you make any connections with co-workers? Did you engage in any code switching?
From the couple of times I’ve visited the shared studio space called The Lot in which Easy Media is located I had never really explored the building much but on my first day, I got to finally walk in during business hours with the lights all lit up. It was amazing.
This is a picture I took outside of the Lot building my first day seeing it. Although this picture I took looks nice-and-warm because of all the editing I did to it, it truly doesn’t compare to the feel of the decor of the inside. Inside it has a feel of an art studio, recording studio and a home all mixed together to a near perfect mixture. I could tell it was a truly creative environment.
Upon arrival the building was empty(well the level I was on for that matter), and my supervisors Fal’al and Carlos weren’t at the studio because most of their job is doing things like video shoots outside their office space and so the told me to just “hang-out” and wait for a few minutes till they arrived.
Carlos was the first to arrive at the studio and although I was told he was going to have a job for me to do I was just surprised how fast-moving he was with introductions and instructions. He walked in did the whole hello, name exchange, and quick question introduction fairly quickly almost within a minute if not less, and while unpacking his things out on to his desk he gave me the rundown of my first job. I was going to build a shelf.
Luckily he didn’t mean I was going to have to build a shelf right then and there, all he was requesting of me was to do research on how to build a shelf, what materials we’ll need, and most importantly he wanted me to find cheap materials that we can either buy and immediately use or material we could repurpose. He then proceeded to list different online resources I could use to find cheap materials; two main ones were Craig’s List and the Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver webpage.
Carlos was spewing out this information and instructions rapidly and at first, I was just overwhelmed and shocked, not sure what to do first, grab my computer and start, take notes, or just give up. My heart started to pound at an increasing rate to the point I could feel it and fearing that I wasn’t going to make a good impression, that I would forget something important and look dumb or invaluable. But then in the seconds of doubt my body just started moving, I felt my arm put down my laptop and start to reach for my planer. I guess my mind was already made up I was going to take down notes on what he had already said and was going to say. I quickly started writing everything down in the notes section of my planer; then I started to ask him clarifying questions like where is the shelf going to be, how long do you want it to be, do you want mainly wood or metal, etc.
On my first week of working as an intern at Eazy Media, I learned a few surprising things. The first was how to self-advocate. And, the second was to identify communicative codeswitching. Although there was an initial shock/panic when starting off my first day with Carlos I was able to get a grip on things and not let my fear of embarrassment or possible failure discourage me from speaking up. After Carlos had instructed me on what I had to do I conveyed to him my struggle to comprehend all of what he was saying and the fact that I had never used nor even looked up Craigslist or the Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver webpage. Carlos was pretty considerate about this and answered whatever questions I had and quickly helped me navigate through the pages.
This week has really opened my eyes as to how being a stand-alone intern works; the past internships I’ve done were all hands on art internships where the interns were working together as groups and main focus was on the interns doing well as artist and getting done for the studio what it needs to get done-art wise, like creating and painting murals. This internship is more traditional and real, it’s really a learning experience through supporting the creatives we are assigned to and their business.
The last big thing that shocked me this week was the super laded back, raw, and playful tone and “code” that was displayed by everyone working at The Lot displayed towards each other and me. They use slang, dress how they want, aren’t scars with curse words, and are very calm and laid back. Everyone there treated me as just another coworker/friend; I was asked for my opinion on designs, told to chill and introduced themselves to me as if I was just important to know as the rest of the professionals in the room. Although cool, I don’t think I will be codeswitching to match their codes because I honestly want to be friendly but keep it professional, I feel like I let myself-go look sort of like them I would lose sense of why I’m there I sometimes get overwhelmed in playing a certain role and I feel like if I try to act the way they do I might not take my internish as seriously, although they are playful they are adults with obligations and at the end of the day “they’ve gotta get that money,” to provide for themselves and families. I am just an intern that doesn’t have many responsibilities holding me at such high standards and so it’s up to me to keep myself in line, and I feel I can do so by conditioning my code to a professional standard.
Speaking of people (and this will be the last point I make for today), I met a lot of people and I tried to remember everyone’s name, but since I suck at remembering names I began to write them down so that I wouldn’t forget. I treated everyone with respect and tried my best to respect their spaces and conversations by not intruding and I did fairly well at doing so and in that, I can say confidently that everyone liked me.
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Blog 2: Networking
Begin by interviewing 2-3 of your coworkers with the following 3 questions (about 10 minutes of their time). Time allowing: feel free to ask them more questions to get to know them better. Following the interviews answer the questions below for Blog 2.
Interview questions:
- Did you study art after high school? Art or traditional college? Internship or apprenticeship?
- How did you get your first job in the creative industries?
- If you were an intern in this field, where would you focus your learning during your internship? What is the most important learning one can do when beginning a career in this profession?
- (Time allowing) Is there anything interesting about you that is non-work related that you would like to tell me about? Hobbies or interests?
Blog Question # 2: What co-workers did you interview? Did your co-workers study art after high school either through higher education or internships/apprenticeships? What recommendations did they have for what you should try to learn as an intern in this field? Did they have any advice on how to begin your creative career? Did you learn anything interesting about your co-workers that was non-work related?
(Disclaimer for both of my interviews I recorded the sessions and will be quoting the people I intervened directly.)
The first person I interviewed at my internship was Fa’al Yamin Ali-my supervisor.
When asked: Did you study art after high school? Art or traditional college? Internship or apprenticeship?
Fa’al answered: I never studied art, I was always into art just as a kid. I told my mom I wanted to be an artist. After I graduated high school I went and studied graphic design for a little bit but that’s because I was a graffiti writer and I really loved typography and I really loved letters. And then, I think that’s where my art sparked-at my freshmen year of college. But I never really studied it formally; I was just always kinda into it and I would always pay attention to it… And also in college I audited at University of Michigan so my job was to connect the audio visual stuff so the professors could go in their and tech their lectures in front of these huge classes…one of the halls that I worked in was where they did all the art history and art lectures, so I’d be in the back working the projector but I also be in there peeping game, you know what I mean, learning some stuff…I was sucking it up like a sponge.
When asked: How did you get your first job in the creative industries?
Fa’al answered: My first job in the creative industry was a logo design, I did some branding for a company in Michigan. My girlfriend at the time her best friend was a like the marketing director and she was like, ‘oh my boyfriend is a graphic designer and he’s got Photoshop’ and I designed a logo and they still use that branding today, and that was my first professional job[mm…it was like a freelance type thing], yeah it was a freelance thing, yup.
When asked: If you were an intern in this field, where would you focus your learning during your internship? What is the most important learning one can do when beginning a career in this profession?
Fa’al answered: If I was an intern I would focus on understanding that technology and visual-art has a symbiosis and I would focus on learning the techniques and the technology because it changes so fast.And to break that down even one step further learning how to learn; learning that all these programs and all these things are two similar sh*t, you know what I mean. Their all pretty much the same way like if you use Photoshop and you want to mask something out, there’s seven different ways to do that, there’s no wrong way, somebody might use the brush, somebody might use the pen tool, there’s so many different ways so learning how to be adapt(able) and learning how to learn (would) be where I would focus at. Because once you learn how to lean anything you can learn anything! Find out what makes you tick, I would try to figure out what my passion was- I didn’t know I was into video…I had no idea until I was like 33…I didn’t know I was good at it until I started doing it…so don’t be afraid to try new things. Say yes to things because once you say yes then you’ll know if you like it or not then you can say next time no, instead of just being afraid…say yes and figure it out.
When asked: Is there anything interesting about you that is non-work related that you would like to tell me about? Hobbies or interests?
Fa’al answered: I’m the black dude who doesn’t do stuff the black dudes do. I’m snowboarding I’m scuba-diving, I’m wilderness hiking, I’m jumping out of airplanes you know what I mean I’m doing all the stuff that in the hood where I grew up that people be like “man you be doing that white boy stuff man, you skateboarding and stuff dog?” That’s me and I think that the kinda twists on me is that when you think to look at me you wouldn’t know that you know what I mean but that’s the stuff I’m in to. Like I don’t care about kicking it or you know being cool and another sh*t… but yeah that’s about it.
The second worker at my internship that I interviewed was my other supervisor Carlos
When asked: Did you study art after high school? Art or traditional college? Internship or apprenticeship?
Carlos answered: I did, I did sure. I did all of it.
When asked: How did you get your first job in the creative industries?
Carlos answered: The story goes like this. I was working and selling food at a food distributor place, at the same time I was promoting parties. So I was promoting parties at clubs and sh*t and what we did was we were promoting and we(‘ed) do all our branding and stuff like that. And so we I guess we were our selves our own first you know clients when we got hired. I had a clothing company… because I couldn’t afford a designer I learned Photoshop and that how I started doing that I started doing it for my own company. And then we started doing promoting, so I started doing my own promotions (for my company). And then after that, I started getting some clients, “do me this, do me a menu, do me a business card,” my hip pop friends we would do some pretty fresh designs for them so I started out in graphic design, and then general marketing and then promotions. And then after that, I was doing it on part-time… and it was just for a little while before I can say I got highered by a real client, and that was a fitness studio…the way I got that client which was when I got officially highered by someone else was in a car accident. So, my future client, I met her [when] there was an accident right in front of my place and [she] ended up becoming my client, and the accident was actually her hitting me. Yah, she hit me, we got out exchanged information I gave her my card and she noticed that I’m a designer and then she’s like I need a designer,”would you like to be my designer,” I was like yah if I’m not at fault.
When asked: If you were an intern in this field, where would you focus your learning during your internship? What is the most important learning one can do when beginning a career in this profession?
Carlos answered: We do a lot of discipline. We do graphic design, photography, video, social media, web development. I would say, during this internship, is to look at what you like out of those things and try to expose yourself to that. And then expose yourself to as much as you can as well so that you can see that maybe your choice of your interest may have not been as strong as another aspect. So I would try it all, pinpoint what you want and push harder…and just get your hands dirty if you don’t know anything it’s hard to say what you like if you don’t know what to like.
When asked: Is there anything interesting about you that is non-work related that you would like to tell me about? Hobbies or interests?
Carlos answered: Uh yes, I’m working on a documentary for the homeless and I’m traveling all over the country to do that. (Where?). LA, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, and possibly Florida, Miami.
I’ve learned a lot from these interviews about my supervisors and who they are as people, creatives, and learners. I really valued these interviews, because I am mostly just going to be working with Carlos and Fa’al and so this really allowed us to break the ice and get to be more of humans to each other instead of just boss and worker. I’m kinda really surprised how they both had very different learning experiences in getting started in their craft, but yet very similar with their answers for question number 3.
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Blog Question #3 How do your actions affect your workplace? Are you able to be mindful and bring a good attitude when you come to your internship? Do you contribute positively?
Do you feel like you have a good work ethic so far? How do your co-workers’ actions affect your internship? Are you beginning to develop any workplace friendships?
So far I know I have been a positive effect on my workplace and just the atmosphere of conversations and interactions. Every day when I first arrive I put my stuff down in the cafe and go to the bathroom wash my hands and face and breath. I guess it’s been my way of calming down and, not to be corny but, washing away everything that happened in my day and just focusing on the job. Altho scared I might mess up something I don’t ever let that show threw and I keep my attitude positive and calm. If Ace is given a job to do and I just arrived or I’m done with what I was tould to I would ask him if he any help and help him out if he needs it. I think I have been able to keep up a great work ethic so far, for example, once we got all we need to do and so Fa’al wanted me and Ace to sit down with him and watch him edit videos so that he can show us his process and how Premier-Pro works. We sat there for a while learning a lot and although at times it would get slow I made my best effort not to yawn out lough or miss anything he might say and so I put on my phone’s recorder just in case I did ever miss anything, and I made sure he was ok with that at the beginning of our internship. Whenever he would say something or ask something I would make sure to respond or react in an appropriate manner so that he kowtows I’m paying attention and that I value what he is teaching. I glad that I have a great coworker like Ace we kind of pick up for each other like if I need help I know he’ll see that and help me and it goes the same the other way around. I and Ace are nice acquaintances and also I really feel like me and Fa’al are getting along great we have a lot in comen from music to create interest and I think I did great at maintaining good relationships with everyone at my sight.
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Blog Question #4: Freestyle blog week. Write your own blog prompt about your internship, then answer it in 200-250 words.
What is my final project going to be, and how will it connect to my workplace.
My final project is going to be a video portfolio of my time at my internship and all that I accomplished and worked on with them. It’s pretty obvious how it connects to my workplace because it has to do with my workplace but the reason I chose to do this is because I plan on going to ArtCenter College of Design, man, their name is so official its scary, and in order to get accepted into the school along with all the other requirements students are required to turn in their portfolios and along with them a visual or audio representation or summer of their portfolio. I see this as a perfect opportunity to get in great practice for this future requirement. The fact that I working with designers who are also photographers and videographers, and great ones at that, I know they can help me and provide me with their expertise and equipment. I’ve already spoken to my supervisor Fa’al about my idea and he thinks it’s a great one and asked if I would need any help. I tould hem how I was struggling to find a cheap camera or GoPro that would be decent and quick to obtain and he offered me one of his many GoPros, which by the way was in a case on the shelf I have rearranged twice now-I just found that funny.
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Blog Question #5 How do you feel like your internship is going so far? What are the highlights? What are the challenges? Do you feel like you are making connections with your co-workers? Are you using your internship inspired project as a creative connection between you and your supervisor? What can you do to improve your experience?
I feel like my internship is going fairly great so far. A few highlights being I get to work in an incredible space with amazing people. Although, there are a few challenges like the hour-long bus/train rides and the struggle of constant and clear communication between me and my employers. But I don’t really see these challenges as down-sides. I’ve learned to put together work that I can my hour-long bus/train rides to my work site, and even though there is a lack of communication I accept that as part of my experience. The truth is I am an intern, not their student, I’m here to help not make more work for them, and so its fine that sometimes they forget to tell me they will be out for the day or week-cuz they don’t need to be worried about me. The good thing is the Lot in which I work is almost always open and so I can show up every day if they’re there or not and work on things. If no one is around and I actually have nothing I have to do for them or my BSA class I do school work because they have wi-fi and at home, I don’t. I do feel like I am making good connections with my coworkers. On days when they are in they don’t hesitate to talk to me and just asked me things, our conversations feel free and casual. My inspired project is actually perfect for where I work, it hasn’t come up much yet, although we have talked about it, but, since I’m doing a video my supervisor is excited for me because he is a photographer and videographer, so he knows lots about cameras and video editing. One thing I can do to improve my experience is loosening up a bit and work even harder at completing projects.
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Blog Question #6 End of the quarter check-in. OK to do 150 words this week. Please do an inventory of your hours completed up until now and make sure your electronic time card is updated coming into the end of the quarter. How are you doing so far on completing your hours? Do you have the number of hours complete that you should have at this point in the internship? If you are behind on your hours, what is your plan to make up the hours you are missing? How are you doing with the challenge of maintaining your intern work schedule? Are you using your google calendar to keep track of your intern schedule and homework assignments? Is there any other challenge you feel the Internship Program Director should be aware of at the end of the first half of your internship?
As of April 17th: I have in total 40.5 acquired hours-13 of which are accommodated on paper and 27.5 via google sheets, 10 more hours to fulfill my goal of 50 hours, and five more determined Opportunites to earn 3 hours each which would be 15 hours in all. I feel that I am in a good spot hours-wise I just can’t afford to miss any more days. The reason I was allowed to have a decrease in total hours needed was because I get out of school at 3 and I have to take an hour long bus/train ride to my work site and so I arrive at 4 and inorder for me to do 3 hours a day I would have to stay till 7:00 but employes of Easy Media, my internship site, don’t stay in the ofice for a consistent amount of time and they rairly stay as late as 6:30 on site and so it would be inposibe for me to do 3 hours a day meaning it would also be imposible to compleat 3 hours a day, 2 days a week-6 hours a week and eventualy 100 hours. But now that I am allowed to lock up The Lot offices building I can stay later than everyone els working on whatever they assign me. If I cant stay latter then I will try and find a day which I dont have school or get out of school early to make up more hours. In order to keep organized, I use my planner and whiteboard calendar in my room at home to track my days and projects. I don’t have any challenges at the moment, just have to keep on track.
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Blog Question #7: What is your favorite part of working on personal art projects? What challenges do you face on personal art projects? What have you learned about working in a creative business? What is your favorite part of working in a creative business? What is the difference between working on personal art and working in a creative business? *(Please read below now in preparation for Blog 8)
No Blog Next Week- you will need to use the week to work on your Internship Inspired Project in preparation for blog 8. You cannot write blog 8 if you have not talked to your supervisor about your internship project. Make talking to your supervisor about the project #1 priority if that hasn’t happened.
Blog Question #8 :
How is your internship project going? Describe the progress of your project. How did the conversation about your project go with your sponsor? (If you haven’t discussed the project with your sponsor yet, how do you plan to do so?) Did they have good insights into how to improve or expand the project? How does your project bridge what you do at your internship and what you like to create for yourself? Has your relationship with your sponsor evolved as you have engaged in a creative dialogue about your project? Are there any challenges you are experiencing planning or doing your project?
My internship project is going very well. Currently, I am working on finishing edits for my final project which is a short video advertisement. I did change the idea for my final project from a very-short documentary of my internship experience to a short video advertisement for a client of my internship site. I chose to change my project due to some advice my supervisor gave, seeing that I was already going to be working on putting together an advertisement for a client and the fact that I hadn’t been documenting most of my internship already and it would be a big hassle to find a camera and record every day He suggests that this advertisement video is my final project. This new project still carries most of the values of the old one I’m learning editing skills I’m learning Premiere Pro and how to handle client work. Although I do have some experience with Premiere Pro and video editing I’ve only really edited one full video on Premiere Pro before and I still have a lot to learn but luckily I have an awesome sponsor who is highly experienced in the video editing field. I personally am a graphic design student and would like to go into graphic design / digital design fields in the future, but videography is also an amazing skill to have under my umbrella as a rapper designer and also it goes sort of hand-in-hand with digital design. I’ve always had an interest in videography and video editing and this is a perfect chance for me to learn more about it and see if it’s an actual career I could go into. In regards to challenges there isn’t so much of difficulty in understanding the software yes I’m learning a lot but that’s just because I am not so familiar with Premiere Pro but I’m getting things down pretty quickly.
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Blog Question #9 What have you seen or experienced, in your internship, that has inspired you the most on your own artistic journey? Has this experience changed your artistic ambitions? How? Have you used this experience to diversify your skill set? What skills have you added?
I guess I would have to say that it threw communicating with and observing Carlos and Fa’al that have inspired me on my personal artistic journey. The very fact that these two guys are able to pursue these careers that they, be chill and have so much fun while doing it amazes me. They really give me hope for my future as a creative. Other than their wonderful and uplifting advice in their interviews, one experience I think that really made me feel like hay I can be a designer is when Carlos asked my opinion on a logo he was doing for a company. I was able to right away give him my opinion explain it and provide him with a worth-while analysis of his designs and ideas after talking with him he was able to have a better logo design. Right now I am being trusted to make a video for a client threw editing versus clips and I have a had a bit of experience with editing video but I am not all that educated in the field or with the platforms I am going to be using. But Fa’al stated that I don’t have to worry too much he just wants to test me and see where my skill level is at in editing, although he expects it to be good he’s not expecting perfection. I love this opportunity to do something like this because I don’t usually get to work with video editing this a great opportunity to widen my skill set and strengthen my title as a versatile and artistic graphic designer.
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Blog Question # 10: Has this experience been a rewarding one for you? Why or Why not (keep it positive, if you had negative experiences, focus on what you learned- make yourself look good!)? How has the reality of your internship matched or contrasted with your expectations? What is the most important learning you did during your internship?
This intern-experience with all its ups and downs has been exceedingly rewarding. Not only did I get to explore the creative business side and area of Denver, create meaningful relations with creative professionals, and got some credible experience in the workforce but I also was given an amazing opportunity to grow witch I took open-mindedly. Going into this program I had three main goals I set out for myself which were to network and make connections with designers in the creative industry, better my overall design knowledge and skills, and finally finding stability on my own through the challenges presented to me by participating in this program. I can happily say I meat all of my goals and I am so grateful for that. From my sponsors Carlos and Fa’al to all the other creative minds I got to interact with around the shared studio space it was always a positive and welcoming vibe people had their minds set on work and work that they loved and so no one really had time for negative interactions. People didn’t mind me hanging around their offices studying their workflow from afar and lots of them took interest in me and who I was, sharing their experiences, opinions, and advice to/with me as if I was just another one of them – this expressly goes for Carlos and Fa’al. Learning specific design aspects, my second goal, was met with long-lasting aspects. I learned how to handle and clean camera equipment, research and create a supply list for a shelving system for the studio, and how to have an open-minded view of exploring pathways in the creative industries, “…expose yourself to as much as you can as well so that you can see that maybe your choice of your interest may have not been as strong as another aspect. So I would try it all, pinpoint what you want and push harder…and just get your hands dirty if you don’t know anything it’s hard to say what you like if you don’t know what to like,” quoted from my sponsor Carlos-from my interview with him.
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