Category: Career

The Family that Hired Me Takes Note of My Love Life

On By KathleenIn Career, Dating1 Comment

My Boss and I have an unusual relationship: we mutually respect and like each other. A lot.

Sure, whenever an exhibition nears opening time, I broadcast a less-than-praising  text message to whatever set of eyes I think will listen. But generally speaking, I really dig the woman that hired me and signs my paychecks. However, there is a catch to the somewhat familial relationship with my superior: in the time I’ve been her protege, she’s taken a keen interest in my personal life.

Signing me up for young professional focus groups.

Sending me to regional business development meetings on her behalf.

Introducing me to the “social media coordinator” for the nearest BMW dealer.

Whenever an opportunity to throw me in front of eligible, single, high-income, young (and local) bachelors arises, my boss is quick to act and sign me up.

She’s no dummy. Get me settled and happy with a boy who can keep me clad in Diane von Frustenberg and I’m more likely to stay happy right where I am as her Gallery Director. If I had to bet, I’d say she figures getting me off the single-girl streets is a win-win for everyone.

When I strolled into the office the Monday morning after my college 5-year reunion, I was notably still groggy from a weekend of catching-up with old schoolmates. The massive multi-tonal blue temporary tattoo of my college’s mascot on my right bicep was a sure indicator that it had been a good time.

Her first question the day after my college reunion: Did you meet any men?

“How was the reunion?”

“Fun!”

“Did you meet anyone?”

“Yea! I caught up with some friends I haven’t seen since graduation. Met some of their friends… it was a great time and good networking.”

“No. I mean did you meet any MEN? MEN!?!”

I quickly moved my hand to my neck and brushed my hair around to the front. There was an ambiguous bruise that needed hiding — one that could as easily have been a result of last week’s fencing practice as evidence that yes, boss, I did meet a man at the reunion.

“Ummmm…. yes. I met one.”

“Only one?”

A few weeks later, she caught me in the office with a shopping bag, indicating that I had made more than good use of my lunch hour.

“You went shopping without me! What did you get?” (my boss likes my taste in clothing/jewelry and frequently suggests we go on shopping excursions together, despite our obvious salary differences…)

“Nothing interesting.”

Luckily, my boss is no Meryl Streep a la The Devil Wears Prada… at least not when it comes to me. Unluckily, she’s keen to play matchmaker.

“Common! What did you buy?!?!”

“Underwear.”

“Oh! Is there a new boy?”

“Not a new one….”

She raised her eyes and gave a fist pump.

“Boss, this has nothing to do with him. I needed new underwear,” I replied, but I doubt she heard me.

“Is he interesting?”

Pause.

“Very.”

My eyes and single-word response must have been telling:

“Well then! Good. But don’t do anything brash without talking to me. I mean don’t run off and elope or anything.”

“I’m more likely to run out and buy another pair of underwear.”

“Good. Of that I approve. Get something slinky. Now, where’s that sponsorship proposal you were working on?”

A Real Life Gallery Girl Speaks

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career, fashion1 Comment
These are the girls that make up Gallery Girls.

Okay, so I confess that I have yet to tune into Bravo’s latest reality TV confection and second foray into the contemporary art world known as “Gallery Girls.”

“Why do I need to watch a reality show about the New York art world? I lived it! I still live it every day! I eat girls like that for breakfast!”

Unpaid internships. Trying to woo notable collectors in the hopes they’d make my name. Throwing about the word “post-modern” like I actually know what it means. Dipping my feet into the “to-be-seen” crowd at openings. Contemplating ripping a page from a book a fellow grad student needed for their thesis. Crying the night before an opening.

When it comes to the “ugly” of a girl trying to make her way in a cutthroat job market, where the supply of the over-privileged with an “in” and bitchy, inadequate backstabbers outweighs the demand for jobs, I’ve done it all.

Luckily, I survived that stage of unpaid internships, underpaid assistant gigs, and digging for threadbare connections unscathed and with my dignity intact.

I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Gagosian

“I want to still be me one fine morning when I wake up and have breakfast at Gagosian.”

Okay, so that’s not exactly the way Holly Golightly said it, but you get my drift.
I decided I wanted a career in the art world when I was a sophomore in college.
By the time I finished my masters, I had already been an unpaid museum intern, an unpaid gallery intern, a curatorial assistant at a marquee institution, and a paid gallery researcher.

While I was getting that degree, the bottom fell out of the economy. The bustling, booming art market screeched to halt. And the academic world lost interest in the unsung stories of women artists.

I took at unpaid internship at MoMA — an amazing opportunity that I never would have gotten without a graduate degree. Go figure.

What I learned en route to becoming a Gallery Director was that, just like any industry, getting a foot in the proverbial door is as much about chance as it is about skill set, bravado, and connections.

The job I wanted opened at MoMA four months after my internship ended. I sent in my resume to HR but followed up with an email to the curator I had worked for. I would learn months later that the email went into her SPAM folder.

“If I had known you were applying, I would have stepped in with HR,” she told me when we crossed paths at the museum.

Sometimes your resume goes missing.

Sometimes, you piss-off the wrong professor and get black-balled from admissions to the grad-school program of your dreams (what happened to me).

Sometimes the collector that family friends puts you in touch with gets you an interview at a great gallery (not what happened to me).

Sometimes that collector wants you to hand out napkins at their dinner party — but at least they’ll pay you $15/hour (what happened to me.)

Sometimes you land a paid internship that turns into a full-time job (not what happened to me).

Sometimes you land a paid internship — a $10/day lunch stipend in a neighborhood where the average lunch price is $15 and there is no public transport node near the gallery because it’s practically on the West Side Highway (what happened to me).

Sometimes you read an article about a person in a magazine and think, hey I want to work for her. And then you become an unpaid intern in her company, but never meet her until 3 years later when she’s interviewing you for a job. She lets you in. (what happened to me.)

The door’s open.  All that’s left is you and your experience, your eye, and your bravado to make something of yourself .

Once you’re through the door, it’s up to you, your experience, your eye and your bravado to make something of yourself.

Some Call it Art. Some Call it Just Another Day at the Office. I call it Training for the Amazing Race.

On By KathleenIn Adventure, Bio Pics, Career, Uncategorized2 Comments

Without fail, every season on the Amazing Race, there’s a challenge in which teams have to carry heavy, awkward things over long distances. I’ve always wanted to be on the Amazing Race and so I watch each episode with half a mind focused on how to prepare for when it’s my turn. But carrying heavy awkward thing over long distances is not the kind of thing you can easily train for.

Living as an art handler is like training to be an elite athlete.

Unless of course you’re an art handler.

Standing in the storage area of my gallery Tuesday morning were two 6-foot canvases. They were awaiting transport to an off-site location where my team was installing an affiliated exhibition. Given that I have a compact SUV with moving blankets in the back, I was the designated transport.

“Are you going to bring your car around?” my assistant asked.

My car was parked half a mile away. Down a hill.

“No. I’ll just carry them to the car.”

I ignored her doubtful/cautionary expression as she handed me the white gloves.

Curating and art handling develop good forearms. Thanks in large part to a power drill.

I had only walked five feet from the gallery when a gust of wind and a traffic light made me realize that this might have been one of those lapse of judgement moments. The canvas under each arm had transformed me into an urban sailboat, with only forearms for rudders. My floaty skirt that was keen to pull a Marilyn Monroe over the subway at any moment had to be ignored.

The old man who sits with his walker on the street corner and calls me “Cupcake” was, thankfully, enjoying the early bird special at the Legion.

With each block the canvases grew heavier. The wind, wilder. And all I could think is: Why, oh why did I insist on the extra set of bicep curls!?! The half mile to my car was the longest half mile of my life.

waiting for my life line.

People paused to gawk. Others dove out of my way. A few got bashed with the frames of the canvases’ stretcher. A beautiful man in a Mercedes convertible pulled over to ask if I needed a ride. He was wearing a Rolex… and a wedding band. I artfully (haha!) declined.

When I finally arrived at my car, I folded the seats down. Laid out the moving blankets. And proceed to attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Neither canvas fit.

I sat down on the parking lot asphalt. My arms were shaking — there was no way I was carrying these back to the gallery.

Eventually, thanks to a “phone a friend” lifeline, I found a solution. The paintings did not have to be abandoned in the parking lot — a threat I had thrown at them as they leaned against the side of my car, mocking me.

When I arrived at the satellite site, I expected to find a world map welcome mat and Phil Keoghan waiting for me. Instead, it was just a series of white walls and another Road Block — a very large picture puzzle.

I expected to find Phil and the map waiting for me at the off-site location. Instead, it was just another Road Block.

Sculpting Opportunities

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career1 Comment
Installing an exhibition of sculpture is hard physical work. It's good thing I work out.

I stood in the gallery, bent over backwards staring up blankly into my 50-foot ceiling, trying to assess the durability of my lighting tracks.

“How the hell am I going to suspend an 8-foot winged sculpture from up there?! Fairy dust?”

If that had been my only concern with this exhibition, my nerves would have been easily quelled with one stiff drink and a reassuring “no problem, boss” from my assistant. But no, the weighty sculpture flying 30 feet over the heads of visitors from uncertain supports was, believe it or not, the least of my worries.

I looked down at my floor plan. Up at my ceiling. Back at my floor plan. I spun around the gallery, mentally measuring the walls and open space, counting the number of works I had selected. I had 5 installation days ahead of me and at this point, all I could do is hope that it would all come neatly and elegantly together.

It’s a rare moment when life hands you the opportunity you’ve always wanted. Rarer when you’re young and relatively new to the big leagues. It’s your moment to turn into your greatest success or to fall, face first, into the pile of shit you’ve dug-up along the way.

When I was handed the curatorial reins of our gallery’s biggest exhibition of the season, I realized this was that opportunity for me.  And it was giving me heart palpitations.

Our PR department had confirmed an interview with and a feature in the New York Times. No. Pressure.

My team mounts the wall vinyl -- it's officially an exhibition.

Being 26 and standing at the helm of what was already being heralded as a landmark exhibition is daunting. Youth grants me energy. Passion mandates confidence. But youth, energy, passion and confidence doesn’t guarantee success — just sleepless nights and aching muscles.

“I don’t understand why I’m talking to you,” the writer from the Time said to me as I sat down with her the hour before the opening. “I was expecting to speak with the curators.”

“I am the curator.”

“Oh!”

My youth belied my position of authority. An hour later, my boss popped in to see how things were going on our walk through of the show.

I imagine I felt the way a bride does on her wedding day.Painting: "After the Reception" by Douglas Volk.

“This is a fabulous exhibition! I’m having a great time!”

Could it be that I had just won over the New York Times?

At 6PM, only minutes after the final wall label had gone up on the wall, the doors swung open, a crowd poured in and the champagne bottles were popped. I can’t exactly tell you what happened over the next two hours — it was a whirlwind of hellos, of press interviews, of congratulations.

I imagine the way I felt is very much how a bride feels on her wedding day: exhausted from all the planning and preparations, unsure of the durability of her lipstick and full-body-ness of her hair, but excited because she knows she’s just launched herself happily head-long into a brand new life.

Lessons I probably should have Learned in College but Didn’t Because I was Too Busy Doing Calculus Homework

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career, insights/observationsLeave a comment
Microwaves have been around for decades, and yet I've never been able to make one work.

Microwaves don’t work

In an attempt to be both healthful and economical, sometimes I bring leftover homemade soup to work. Like most offices, we have a kitchenette with a fridge, a dishwasher, and a microwave. The microwave has a variety of settings, none of which anyone in the office knows how to make work. I put my soup in the microwave and set the clock. 3 minutes later, I take my soup out and burn my hands. The bowl is untouchable, but the soup? Still refrigerated.  Expediency fail.

Fun tack doesn’t come off walls.

I’m not sure what it says about my youth, but I never hung a poster on my wall with that blue, sticky putty stuff called “fun tack.”Even my teenage pin-ups of JTT went in frames and were placed on my walls using picture hooks. The long term benefit of this? When it comes to installing an exhibition, I’m probably the fastest hammer in the tri-State. But for my last exhibition, I ran out of Velcro for my wall labels and had to resort to that blue, sticky putty. The blue, sticky putty is still stuck on my gallery walls. There’s nothing fun about Fun Tack.

I just don't have the stamina for all-nighter after all-nighter any more.

Sleep isn’t overrated and life begins before 10:15AM.

Between the ages of 18 and 23, I was built for pulling all-nighters. If I accumulated 12 hours of sleep over 3 days, I figured I was ahead of the game. Plus, if I was clever enough, I didn’t have to be in class before 10AM. And if I moved across campus quickly enough, I could easily grab an hour nap before my afternoon lecture. But in the real world, there’s no nap time to catch up on your zzzz’s. And what about pulling those all nighters? Well, I just don’t have the stamina anymore. Give me 8 hours or I’m a totally unproductive, man-eating zombie.

When a boy asks you to “hang-out,” he doesn’t mean “let’s make grilled cheese sandwiches and sit on the couch platonically to watch the Yankees game.”

In college, this sort of thing was platonic. But apparently, not so much in the real world.

In college, all my friends were guys. We’d play poker or guitar hero, order in BBQ or head out to the Gin Mill for beer and pool, talk politics or sling mud at Jane Austen heroes. In short, when a guy in college asked me to “hang-out” I always assumed it was in the platonic sense, because 9 times out of 10, it was. But as soon as I was outside the bubble of study groups and communal living, I realized “hanging out” is just another vague term for everything from “date” to “hook-up.”

hangovers hurt. I missed that memo.

Hangovers hurt.

I didn’t really drink in college — blame it on equal parts fear of getting caught,  fear of freshman 15, and fear of anything that wasn’t top-shelf. I’m not exactly making up for it now, but I do have a cocktail more frequently than I did in my student years. Sometimes, I have a cocktail too many and wake up with a headache to prove it.

 

Push-Up Bras are false advertising

…and can, therefore, be a real letdown when they come off.

Women Can Have a Graduate Degree or Love, but Not Both?

On By KathleenIn Career, Dating, Love3 Comments

Back at the end of December, the New York Times ran an article on women and post-graduate education. The piece, written by Catherine Rampell and entitled “Instead of Work, Younger Women Head to School,” offered me no new news — effectively, all of my female friends have gone on to receive/pursue Masters, Doctorates, or their equivalents within the 5 years since we graduated college, while only two of my male friends has decided to return to school for an advanced degree outside of the medical variety.

My MA degree represents more than more schooling -- it represents cultivated interests.

The article presented some interesting statistics but some pretty traditional explanations for the reasons why, in this particular economic climate, women might be more inclined to return to school than men.

Moments after skimming the piece, I got an email from Columbia’s Art History Department announcing a post-doc program at Duke. The following line was bolded in red:

Particular focus is on fields in which women and minorities are under-represented.

In all the studies Ms. Rampell cited, she forgot to look at the number of scholarships/grants set aside specifically to serve women who choose to pursue education beyond the college level.

I’m not going to find the numbers for you. You’re a grown up. You can google. I have bigger fish to fry…

The day after the article ran, I got an email from a friend pointing me to a Gwaker response:

“Women be schooling! [Pause for laughter.]…Which, ironically, only isolates them further from the majority of men in the dating pool, leaving them to fight over the relatively scarce (and concomitantly self-entitled) educated men of their age.”

I wish Mr. Gwaker was wrong, but here’s thing:

A graduate degree represents more than a few more years of schooling. It represents cultivated interests and a self-awareness of what things, beyond shelter, food and an income, are really important to you.

Once upon a time, I may have been happy with a Hendrix-loving sporty type, but now, I need someone who enjoys spending afternoons here too.

Mr. Gwaker, like the woman who told me “you’ll never find a husband, half the men aren’t good enough for you, the other half will think you’re too good for them,” you’re tragically onto something.

When I graduated from college, I would have been content saying “I do” to a sporty Wall Street type with a dog and a predilection for striped shirts and Jimi Hendrix. An MA, PhD application, and several curating attempts later, I realize he also needs to enjoy museum-going and have the “intellectual bandwidth” to discuss the merits of Braque vs. Picasso over coffee shortly there after.

The dating pool is a lot smaller for me than it was a few years ago.

So yes, splashing around in the dating pool is harder for me now than it was 4  years ago. It’s a tall order to ask for a literary, sporty, artsy, humorous, dog-loving outdoorsman with good taste in music, a joy for cooking, a sophisticated sense of style and a stable career… who likes you back.

But I’m reasonably optimistic… mostly, because I know that if all else fails, I’ve at least got my glorious gaggle of fellow over-educated females who’ll join me at MoMA for the Diego Rivera murals.

Take that, Mr. Gawker.