Some personal news: I'm leaving my position at RISD and moving to Utah. I always dreamed about being hired as a full-time, tenured professor but I have been watching my chances evaporate for a while. For the past 16 years, I applied every year to several positions.
On the rare occasion (twice) that I got a first interview, I never made it past the first round. After a while it became clear that my ships were sailing; the people getting the positions much younger, with less experience and an exhibition history that was 1/10 of what I had.
There are initiatives at schools for diversifying faculty, brochures that are passed around campus. I've heard all the arguments that there are simply fewer applicants who are POC, and that it's hard for people on search committees to know who is a POC based on reviewing resumes.
Say what you want, but I can tell you that it is definitely not for lack of candidates. I'm the perfect example and proof that those initiatives are hollow publicity campaigns intended to let schools point to a concrete example that they are trying to fix the problem.
I started Artprof.org in 2014 as a response to my presence at RISD becoming more unstable every year. Things only got worse after that; I taught in a department at RISD for 9 years, and then was not renewed. No explanation. Emails I sent were not replied to. Crickets.
I changed to different departments, and I had to start from scratch and had to be renewed semester by semester, living in constant fear that every semester would be my last. My position was just as unstable (if not worse) than when I first started teaching and had never taught.
Art Prof has been the most difficult, challenging project of my life, but it's also been the best project of my life. When I started in 2014 I had never edited a video, knew nothing about running a video shoot.
Now I edit all of our videos by myself, run video shoots in the studio and on site, and everything else from picking people up at the airport to spending 3 hours renaming files.
I get daily messages from people telling me that they picked up a pencil to draw for the first time in 15 years. I got a voice message on Instagram from someone with Parkinson's disease who said that she is drawing and looking at the world differently because of Art Prof.
That's why it has been painful that I have had to actively hide Art Prof from my colleagues in academia. People in academia are quick to share their professional news with their departments.
I didn't share Art Prof because I had a feeling that people would down on a project because it didn't fit the expectations of an artist in academia: show in NYC, win artist grants, be in collections. Being on YouTube and was for lower life forms.
My instinct was right. I was told at one point that I had to be clear about separating my work at Art Prof and my position at RISD. There's a dislaimer on every single Art Prof YouTube video: "Art Prof is not endorsed, sponsored, or supported by RISD."
Because people at RISD wanted to make sure that Art Prof, and one of their long time faculty members had nothing to do with them. The people who follow me at Art Prof need me much more than RISD does.
RISD students, I love you all dearly, but you have an amazing support system with faculty and facilities on campus who are going to help you achieve your goals.Many people at Art Prof will never go to art school. They don't have the financial resources, among other reasons.
My world has grown exponentially since starting Art Prof. I've connected with people as far away as Pakistan, Sweden, Australia, Morocco, Mexico, and more. People have shared their stories with me that have made me tear up. I am not a sentimental person at all.
There is still a voice in my hear that tells me: "Clara, you're leaving academic because you couldn't make it. You're not good enough, because if you were, you would have gotten a full-time position by now."
I've made peace with my struggles in academia. I had to, it was a survival mechanism because I needed the work to support my family. 99% of the time I can ignore that voice in my head. But it's still there, and it haunts me from time to time.
I'm tired and I've had it with keeping this to myself. Now I'm free and I can start the conversation we need to have over at Art Prof. Here is a video where I explain all of this:
