Case studies: Development assistant at Camden Arts Centre: Linda

Linda advises graduates on how to get into the art world...

After graduating with a BA in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University, I went travelling for four months around Europe before returning to Sheffield. I then worked at The Showroom independent art house cinema and continued to make art and had three exhibitions during the year.

After a year of making my own artwork after university, I decided I wanted to enjoy the fulfilment of a full-time job in the arts and, after applying for several jobs, was offered a project manager job at Inspiral Ltd. I helped artists, musicians and creatives to gain public funded money to aid their freelance occupation or new business.

I loved doing this but really wanted to move into working in a gallery environment and was keen to move to a new city. As my job at Inspiral Ltd involved working with funding I decided to apply for jobs in galleries within fundraising departments.

A year and a half ago I started working at Camden Arts Centre in London as a development assistant in the Development Department. 

I would have been able to get my current job with other degrees but for my career progression within the gallery environment my fine art degree is very important. My fine art degree gives me an understanding of the exhibitions we program at Camden Arts Centre and allows me to write our exhibition funding proposals with a clear artistic understanding.

On a typical day, I check my emails, write funding proposals for education projects and exhibitions and update the development plan worksheet. I constantly add to this and keep track of progress. I record applications that need to be done, when they are completed, events that need to be organised, friends and patrons of the art centre that need to renew their membership, etc. I also write renewal letters to people who have joined our Friends Scheme as well as organise the copy for a Patrons programme of events and liaise with designer and printer.

I recently organised a very large fundraising event that took up all my time and made every day incredibly varied. It involved liaising with 30 artists and in-house members of staff and sourcing a wide range of materials and sponsorship from galleries and individual donors.

I particularly enjoy organising fundraising events at Camden Arts Centre. Event organisation is the area of work I want to expand and move into as a career progression. I find large fundraising applications challenging because they involve writing in a very statistical and more succinct writing style.

I would advise other students and graduates who would like to get into this career to start looking early for a job if they want to start their career immediately. For me, travelling and continuing as an artist for a year was important in helping me find my focus and decide where I wanted to go.

I would also say that sometimes you have to compromise your career goal slightly to open an initial doorway to working in the arts because it's a very over-populated career choice.

AGCAS

Sourced by AGCAS editors

Date: 

July 2010

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