Why I Left RISD as an Adjunct Professor

i've just got some personal news i am leaving my position at risd and i'm moving to utah this summer i know i never thought either of those two things would ever happen when i moved here to boston i think i moved here in 2004. when i moved here 16 years ago i thought i was going to live here for the rest of my life pretty much and i thought i was going to be at risd for the rest of my life but i have learned a lot over the past years we started art prof in 2014 is when i had the idea i brought on the tas at 2015 and we launched the site in 2017 and you know what i realized you guys art prof needs me more than risd because the rusty students they're on the risky campus they have so many faculty to help them to support them they have resources they have facilities the racing students are going to be fine okay they really will they are well supported in my opinion you guys need me more you really do because who else is going to be your linear prospective police who is gonna bother you when you guys don't draw backgrounds or when you tell me with a guilty face that you didn't do any thumbnail sketches and you didn't brainstorm you didn't think about in advance you need me here to bother you guys about that type of stuff i just think that there's a huge population of people out there in the world who need me more than the rissi students now let me explain this a little bit this was not an easy decision for me to make the moving to utah that actually was not difficult because we have family there that is actually one of the compelling reasons actually it's probably the compelling reason why we are moving to utah but it was hard for me to leave academia because academia is where i've been my whole life i've been teaching at risd since 2007. so i've been at risd for 13 years and for a few years before that i was also in academia i was teaching at school the museum of fine arts i was at leslie university i also spent four years at wellesley college i've been in academia forever and ever and ever it really was all i knew before i started at art prof and i'm leaving academia now here's the thing guys i have a voice in my head that i have not been able to get rid of it's still there i i most of the time i can snuff it out 99 of the time i can do it but one percent of the time that little voice in my head says clara you're leaving academia because you couldn't make it you could not succeed in academia because you were not good enough and if you were better you would have a full-time tenured professor position right now i only think this about one percent of the time okay most of the time i'm totally fine and i'm really happy to be doing what i'm doing but that was my dream when i got out of graduate school i had all these goals in mind and you guys know i love teaching that is a no-brainer that is not difficult for me and my dream was to be hired as a full-time professor get tenure and love my life in academia okay i wanted to do that more than anything now i don't know if you guys probably know the difference here because i know it's really confusing but when you're full time in academia it's a very different life than when you're part-time the way i am okay so i i am part-time faculty adjunct basically is what i was at risd for 13 years and when you're part-time it's a different life guys there's no stability i never knew semester semester if i was going to be renewed and it's really stressful especially because i have a family it's not like i'm single and i'm totally by myself and you know something guys my situation in academia this might not be obvious it has only gotten worse and it's only gotten more unstable which does not make a lot of sense because you'd think okay the more experience you have the more you're desirable because you're better at what you do i'm a much better teacher than i was in 2007 oh my god there are so many dumb things i did when i was a beginning professor i'm a much better teacher now i think i am that was a long time ago and yet my position in academia has gotten worse it's gotten less stable and i found in the last few years i really was begging for work i was begging and when i got stuff it was scraps and it was very very challenging it was really hard and it was not good for me in terms of my confidence because you start to think for a while you know if i was better i would have been hired by now and i'll tell you guys for the last 15 years every single year i would peruse the college art association job board because that's where they post all of the openings for the academic positions every single year and i applied to every single one that i was qualified for some years i got no interview nothing i didn't even get past round one the very few times that i got past round one and actually had an interview and it was skype or it was in person or something like that i didn't get past that round and let me tell you when you apply for a position in academia it's multiple rounds it's like it's probably like four rounds there's like a campus visit there it's very very involved it's not a small thing but i realized after a while i was like i'm not gonna get this my ships are sailing and every single year i was like those ships are moving farther and farther away and i know it's different for everybody okay there's case-by-case situation i definitely know a lot of people who did get full-time positions later in life and that's fine but you know what i started realizing you guys the people who were getting those interviews because they make it public because they have presentations and stuff that people can attend on campus the people that were getting those positions they were much younger than me they had way less experience both in terms of exhibitions and in terms of teaching experience and i thought you know what i'm not 35 anymore and i'm not fresh out of grad school i'm older and i've been around and in academia that really makes your value go down it's really really hard and so i realized okay my ship has sailed and this is not getting any better and i had somewhat of a midlife crisis when this started to happen because i realized that oh my god none of my goals have been achieved i'm not a tenured professor i didn't even have a full-time job much less be tenured because to be tenured which means you cannot be fired you for you have to get the full-time job first and then you have to be there for like seven years and then you have to go through like 10-year review and then they give you tenure so it takes a really really long time okay and i was like oh my god i can't even get the full-time job much less tenure this is not happening i wanted to be a person that was in museum collections i wanted to show with a gallery representation not just show in a gallery and i wanted to show in a new york city gallery and i wanted to win artist grants okay and i realized a few years ago i was like none of these goals have happened and this is so depressing to be in the field for that long over a decade and not a single thing on that checklist had happened and it was so depressing i can't even tell you guys how depressing it was thank you guys for all of your comments and your support because you know what this is a risk for me this is not something that is guaranteed to work out it's a financial risk because art prof is not quite there yet in terms of having a stable foundation and also i'm leaving academia which is all i've known pretty much my entire life and my relationship with art cross and academia it's been fairly complicated i don't know that this is well probably has not been obvious to any of you because i only started talking about this today is that i've gotten a little crap about art craft from academia and people have really looked down on me for it and actually with my colleagues in academia i've had to hide art prof i've had to not talk about it ever never bring it up if something happened with rprof i did not send it to academic affairs to send out in the faculty accomplishments newsletter and i think a lot of it is people feeling that okay number one is on youtube because oh my god that's horrible being on video and that i was like stooping down to this lower level and so art prof is not something i've been able to share with my colleagues in academia there's a few this is like two that are like my close friends and i will talk to them about it but the thing is in academia a lot of the times people like to share their accomplishments people like to tell each other on the faculty lounge oh i have the show blah blah that that is very common but i i actively hid art prof from my colleagues because i knew i was going to get crap about it or it'd be like crickets it would be like one thing i mean the crickets are almost worse you sort of would rather people tell you to your face that they think it's dumb but the crickets i think are much much worse i mean of course i think what's interesting now is because of the global pandemic everybody's teaching online and so i've actually been in demand lately because people are saying wow you have this figured out how do we do this and so i'm hoping i can help more people in that way but that part has been hard for me having these two worlds the art prof world the academia world and it has not been easy to live those two lives at the same time because they are at odds with each other and i i was sort of getting not so cool vibes about it from my colleagues let's see louis saying cheers to your next chapter you've helped me grow as an artist so much ariana says academic elitism is a yawn keep doing your thing gem girl says elitism of academia i'm making you guys cry don't do that because i'm not gonna cry on camera i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna i already cried in front of my students in the spring when i had to leave because i had to tell them because we had to leave campus in the middle of march i knew i was never going to see them again so i did tell them and yeah that was that was really really hard um anyway here's the thing guys my feeling is this is a big risk for me but when i look at rprof and i look at all of you and what you're making like literally what you're making because we have the art prof share shout outs and you guys show me on instagram you show me in the discord i have like real physical evidence that you guys are learning and this is like the greatest thing ever it's like your soul just surges when you see people saying you know what i picked up piece of charcoal for the first time in 15 years never drew the past 15 years but now i'm doing it it's really really cool and you know what i love about art prof my world is so much bigger you guys it is so big the number of people i've connected to the people who have reached out to me it's a really big world for me now academia was not like that academia was a bubble it's a little tiny place for a very small percentage of people and a very privileged area and i will tell you that when you teach at a school like that it's not very diverse and you don't meet a lot of people from different stages and walks of life and yeah so that i was frustrated with and you know something when i started our prof i didn't know that was going to happen i did not predict any of this i didn't predict anything about the community or the connection that i have you guys and all the silly things we talk about in discord like cake and eminem's and stuff like that so i did not know this and you know what you guys in addition to the work you're making because you should all keep doing that for sure i get so many messages from you guys emails and instagram messages and stuff like that that oh god it just gets i mean i share them with the staff every single week we have a channel in our slack group called testimonials and i always post the most poignant comments that we get every single week and i get comments from all of you that i never got when i was teaching in academia and it's just a really different type of thing the way you got to share your stories with me i mean i've gotten emails that are like i'm not joking four paragraphs long people telling me everything they've gone through i thought wow if you're willing to share that with me that really says something and the stories i get from people are incredible they're not predictable and people tell me all the curveballs that life has thrown them and how they come back to art and how they leave and yeah it's been really really inspiring for me to see that and i just think that you guys need me more than risky students rising students will be fine they they are well taken care of and i'm so grateful for being part of that community i love the students and all the relationships i've fostered there and i will miss the brick and mortar classroom okay because i do love that having that in-person interaction with the students and really being down and dirty with them and hands-on in the figure drawing class but it's time for me to dedicate myself 100 to art prof and leave that part of my life behind it really i think is time for that let's see fearful symmetry so so happy for you i was wondering if a follow-up your perspective video is possible people cite scott robertson's book but it's so boring who is scott robertson i've never heard of him before and please tell me fearful symmetry what you mean by follow-up to my perspective video are you talking about linear perspective i think that's what you're talking about there's so much i want to do and you guys give me such great video suggestions and i want to keep doing it so we'll get to all of it it's just i can't clone myself that's the problem thank you so much to emily wilkins and john egenhofer very generous saying you support us so we support you marguerite says art mom yeah i used to get that a lot actually at risd the students and say you're my risdy mom i'm like okay i'm not gonna do your laundry though that's fine as long as i don't have to pour you a glass of milk it's okay gargie says i'm so moved so thankful for your presence instead of diving into depression like i tend to i wake up every morning thinking what i'm going to draw today for the art prof dare that's amazing see i just i love that and gina says we love you too clara i just recently saw you i'm glad youtube is making lives better me too i i'm really really happy that i can share this with you guys so i'm nervous and i'm a little scared and a little bit and i was like seriously getting butterflies in my stomach about to tell all of you because a couple of people in my life have known for a while obviously because they've had to the staff here at art prof they have known plenty about what's going on for a while but cat's out of the bag now there's no real i think taking this back at this point and it's like okay full steam ahead let's see what's going on here wroten boy says as much as it is hard leaving an important part of your life behind i hope you can find more fulfillment in this next part of your life you know what wroten boy i don't think that's possible for me to not find more fulfillment because art off is one of those projects here's the thing it's the hardest biggest project i have ever done in my life hands down like i cannot believe some of the silly desperate things that i have done like silly like get down in your hands and knees and scrub the floor type of thing that has to happen thank you for the super chat kristoff they are saying i discovered our profit oh just two weeks ago learn so much you keep me motivated to make art every day oh i'm really really happy to hear that so our prof is the hardest project i've ever done because well there's a couple reasons one reason is because i'm doing stuff i never did before ever i didn't know how to take apart tripod guys my husband was like horrified first time i took apart a tripod i totally messed it up i don't know how you can do that but you can apparently and so when i started a prof i didn't know how to edit video i didn't know anything about production or sound design or the internet in terms of video and community and stuff like that and so everything i have done on art prof i learned from scratch and trust me i had a lot of help there are a lot of people who supported me who did me favors and but i think the hardest part of it was really coordinating all the people i mean i think you guys probably saw when i was talking earlier about the grad stream that we did this past week i mean we featured over 50 students and over 20 faculty and artists i mean just do the numbers it's like 70 people you have to communicate with it was crazy and then at art prof we have obviously our team of teaching artists we have interns we have some staff and it's a lot of people to coordinate because before art prof i was just doing my studio practice by myself in the studio if i wanted to do something i just did it it was like not a big deal and in the classroom that's my classroom that that's not hard either because it's not like i was co-teaching or anything like that but the logistics of organizing people and figuring things out and when we started our prof we had no idea what like we had no idea we weren't even doing video you guys probably don't even know this when we started our problem we were doing everything with audio it was crazy and i think about it now and it's like hilarious for me to consider what we were doing because it was really stupid actually what we're doing but we worked through all those things to get to where we are now and it's funny when you guys tell me i just found you a month ago i'm like good if you found us three years ago you probably would not be following us anymore because our content was like not very well organized and let's see scott is saying it's impressive how much i pushed through my depression just from art directly from your videos went from a psych major to an illustration major in 2021 wow that is really really wonderful congratulations on that oh fearful symmetries following up yeah your linear perspective video is really helpful scott robertson's book is basically just lines the book is titled how to draw it's just pages and pages of line exercises yeah typically speaking that is how linear perspective is usually taught it's lines and cubes and squares and it's so boring you know when you add michael fassbender everything's interesting so there you go karen thank you for the super chat she's saying just came home from a commute thanks to all you do best of luck we love you thanks for all the help yeah thank you you guys i really appreciate all of you being here with me and i'm so grateful to have all of you here on this journey and i hope you will stick around and see what happens and so because we are going through we're going to be going through this transition i mean i have to move which is like oh my god head hurts sort of thinking about that i've lived here for a long time so we accumulated some stuff and so i have to move and i think you all know those of you who have moved there's a lot of stuff you have to do and so i'm going to be pretty busy doing that and also i think you guys know i really am the command station for all of our live streams i coordinate all the supplies i do the scheduling i put everything together basically i do that so that way the tas can really focus on the content and and really think about discussions and things and also it just consolidates things because when you try to tell six people to do everything it's too complicated so we found it easier for me to just be the command center the home base for all the live streams but when i move we're not gonna be able to do that and so probably what you'll see will probably transition to another platform in terms of our streaming software and not you i mean we'll still be on youtube to you guys it won't be a big difference but the look of it might be a little bit different because we have to transition to something a little bit more simple that's not as involved we probably will not be able to do as many slide heavy streams because i won't be around to prepare everything and so probably i would say in july is probably when i'm going to be moving we're probably going to pivot to more discussion based videos and then when i'm back we'll get back to normal so i want everybody to understand this is not because we're getting lazy or it's just because when i'm moving and i'm going to be on the road and stuff like that i can't stick to a predictable youtube schedule and it's it's very very hard to do that and coordinate with all these other people so we're gonna do the best we can don't worry we're still gonna stream we're still gonna be doing all these different things we'll still i'll be on discord and i think what i'm probably gonna do is when i'm on the road and when i can stream i will whenever i can i mean it'll probably be more like q and a's or i'll have discussions or talk about art school portfolios but it'll be stuff that i don't have to do a lot of prep work for so sorry that we're going to be doing that but once i get to utah once we get settled we'll get back to normal so i just want you guys to know that that's why it's not because we don't want to do the best we can because we always want to do the best we can let's see emily says sympathies with moving i know moving is so so bad it's the worst and i have not moved in so long last time i moved i was like didn't have kids it was a lot easier to move back then cryptic says i'm a music producer recently starred interested in art have to say your videos are immensely helpful and fearful symmetry says it's about time someone dethroned proco as a de facto art source on youtube i know he is really popular i feel like he probably figured it out way before everybody else and now he's like at the top of every single search so that really helps and sterling says never knew simply clicking on your fix tip video would result in me being part of an art community growing tremendously as an artist yeah wouldn't we wish that all of our clicks did stuff like that monique is saying what is discord okay well discord let me bring up the slide discord is basically a chat form and we have all these different channels and the channels are all organized by topic and it's really fun in there and you can post your stuff to get a quick critique from other people you can have nerdy conversations about which charcoal pencil brand has the thickest lead or whatever you guys want to do it's a big group chat yeah you should definitely join we have a lot of fun in there and usually after the stream i'll go hang out and discord for a few minutes and i will do that today because i have time and i actually recovered from the graduation stream like people are actually already telling me right now they're like oh my god we loved the graduation stream so much you should do it every year i'm like yeah but i'm gonna do it with way more prep time next year because i put together this stream in two weeks and it was not a good idea to do that i think next time i do it i need like a minimum one month to actually get that going because yeah that even for me i'm a workaholic it was a little bit too much so anyway i'm gonna make sure i plan that stuff a little bit better and yeah discord is really fun this is good you guys peer pressure just peer pressure everybody into joining the discord lisa h is saying southern utah no i'm going to be in salt lake city actually but we're going to travel a lot and i really hope i can release this tutorial soon because i shot this utah tutorial in august last year and i'm like oh my god it's only been almost been a year this tutorial has been lying around and i just have not been able to have time to get to it as soon as i wanted to but i'm hoping we'll be able to do a lot of outdoor tutorials when i'm traveling and stuff like that so this tutorial actually was shot in southern utah because we went to all these places like bryce canyon and went to goblin valley and so i'm hoping to share this with you guys pretty soon although i don't know if it's going to happen before i move so we'll have to see what's going on with that but i'm really hoping to show that with you guys and karen is saying make sure you don't burn out i'm trying i really am i'm not always good at not pushing myself too hard because as you guys know that's what i do but thank you very much it's a good reminder to make sure that that happens and nathan wants to see plein air you know if you want to see plein air look up our taiwan tutorial and also our china tutorial because we do a lot of plein air in those two tutorials so that's going to be really really fun so anyway you guys thank you so much for being here with me for supporting me because like we said before our prof is nothing without you guys you you are what makes this what it is so what i'm gonna do now i'm to head over to discord for a little bit not too long because i have a ton of stuff to do oh my god but thank you to our top patreon supporters who make this possible and remember you can donate any time you don't have to wait for the raffle you can donate as much as you can because i think as you guys saw earlier we did not quite hit our goal for patreon this patreon goal 3000 a month that will let us break even we're not doing that yet though our current patreon is 1238. so any amount you guys can donate is really important to us because i'm hoping that will stabilize at some point financially so that i don't have to stress so much about it because that that really is to me the the hardest part about art prof is just oh my god is our budget going to be sustainable because it's really really hard so even if you can just give a dollar it adds up i mean we have over 2000 people on our email list and i would always think to myself wow if every person on that email list gave one dollar our budget problems would be solved so please think about it you guys everybody thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and i will see you next time

Channel: Art Prof: Create & Critique

Views: 18,451

Keywords: college teaching, risd, teaching art online, teaching art on youtube, academia, teaching college, teaching studio art, college art teaching, adjunct professor, adjunct professor poverty, adjunct professor salary, adjunct professor meaning, adjunct professor vs instructor, risd faculty', art schol, higher education, art school advice, art career advice, art prof teaching online, risd faculty, risd student, risd portfolio, art professor, higher education bubble

Id: TOLuEBiD3-Q

Length: 30min 8sec (1808 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020