Meet A NAMAC Blogger: Arielle Sherman

Here at NAMAC, we are fortunate to have a strong team of bloggers that contribute to the growth and vitality of our online presence. As part of our effort to continue developing our Idea Exchange, we are starting up a regular series to help you get to know the people behind the computer screen.

We’ll kick off the series with a Q&A with Arielle Sherman, a graduate student in the Arts & Administration program at the University of Oregon. Originally hailing from the suburbs of Los Angeles, she majored in Art History at UC Davis before heading north for grad school.

What kind of work do you do, and how did you become involved with it?
I have not always loved art. I admit, I was one of those kids sitting and complaining on a bench in the middle of a museum at one point in time. I went through the marine biologist phase and the realtor phase like any other kid. I even entered college as a French major.

It wasn't until spring quarter my freshman year of college (when I was an Art Studio major) that I took my first survey art history course on Baroque to Modern art, but I immediately fell in love. I found it fascinating that I could appreciate a piece of art so much more just by understanding its historical and aesthetic context. During my junior year of college I interned at a small art gallery in Davis called the Pence Gallery. It had a great program that did not just involve busy work and day-to-day tasks, but also a weekly course on gallery management. The internship opened my eyes to the business side of the art world, which is something I never really thought about before.

I knew that aside from research and teaching (neither of which I wanted to do for a living), a BA in Art History was not going to take me many places, or at least the places I wanted to go. Everything seemed to fall in place over the next few months. I found UO's Arts & Administration program and knew that if I was going to go the grad school route, that's the road I would want to take. I gathered a few references, applied on a whim, got in, and here I am!

Right now I am working on quite a few things outside of school and research. I am working with the Lane Arts Council on resource development for an artist residency program in local elementary schools. I am also on staff as the Community Outreach Coordinator for a brand new film festival in Eugene called Cinema Pacific. This has been both challenging and thrilling, but I am so fortunate to be helping spearhead an event that we hope will help make Eugene become a tourist destination and cultural hub.

The Arts & Administration program at UO has embraced technology as a learning tool and has implemented the use of ePortfolios at the graduate level. I am working with the program as a project assistant on the ePortfolio endeavor by helping to analyze the students' needs and wants and figuring out how we can incorporate them into the technology component of the curriculum. Finally (I think), I am the newly appointed Secretary of the UO chapter of Americans for the Arts' Emerging Leaders Network.

How do you stay engaged with your work?
It seems like everyday I take on more and more responsibility and become involved with more and more arts organizations, but I have never had a problem staying engaged. Maybe this is because I literally do not have time to throw in the towel, but I also think that I am constantly reminded of why I do what I do. Maybe I walk into a jello art show and see kids who would otherwise never step into an art gallery get so much enjoyment out of art. Or maybe I listen to the director of one of Portland's most successful performing arts organization talk with so much passion about how one play can transform a community. But in general, I think the key to staying engaged is to surround yourself with people as passionate as you are and to remind yourself everyday why you entered the field you did.

If you could be doing anything right now, what would that be?
Other than maybe moving somewhere with less rain, I would not want to be doing anything else with my life at this point in time. I think this is a good time to be in school and learning about how the arts industry is changing and what we can do about it. Not to mention the job market is not so hot right now. Joking aside, though, I do not regret going to grad school so soon after undergrad or going into the field of arts administration. If all I cared about was the money, I would not be where I am right now. I fully believe in the power of the arts to generate dialogue.  Art has the ability to tell stories about people- to give advice- to cause political uproar- to make obscene gestures- to evoke emotion- to encourage personal reflection.  As an arts administrator, I strive to support arts organizations in fostering this relationship and in ultimately inspiring creativity and strength within a community.

What are you working on that inspires you?
Two things I am working on are inspiring me right now. As I said before, I am currently working on resource development for my local arts council and its EcoArts artist residencies. It is so great to see arts education in schools and arts participation increasing because of some of the work I am doing. For the next few months I will be working on an evaluation of one of the four-week residencies and really looking into how the students, parents, faculty, and artist responded to the project in order to make our role as administrators reach its full potential. Visiting the schools and seeing the students work with both an ecologist and an artist makes me so optimistic about the future of arts learning policy and even how art can help students more fully comprehend a variety of subjects outside of the arts.

The next big thing I am about to embark on is my terminal research project. Over the next year and a half, I will be looking into the role of social media in community-based arts endeavors and organizations. I am still in the planning phases and have not narrowed my focus completely yet, but I am currently interested in how online media can build arts communities through fundraising and cause marketing efforts. Only time will tell, and I'll be sure to blog about my progress.

What's been a pivotal moment in your work?
I have had quite a few pivotal moments in my life, but few pivotal moments in my work. I am unique in that I am 23 and have never had a real job. I guess I would say the most important thing to happen to me career-wise is making the decision to move to Oregon because it meant that I decided what I want to do with the rest of my life. That might sound cheesy, and it probably is, but I am looking forward to continuing on this path I am on and experiencing some truly pivotal moments that take my work to new levels.

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