Free and Low-Cost Conference Activities
Student Guide to the Boston Conference
The CAA Student and Emerging Professionals Committee (SEPC) hopes to make it easier for all student members to attend the 2006 Annual Conference in Boston. Thus, we have compiled the Student Guide to the Boston Conference, which provides useful information about the city as well as suggestions to minimize your expenses.
MFA and BFA Exhibitions
Regional MFA ExhibitionOpening Reception: Thursday, February 23, 5:30–7:30 pm
Massachusetts College of Art
621 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Directions: Green Line T to Museum stop
Regional BFA Exhibition
Reception: Thursday, February 23, 5:30–7:30 pm
Sponsored by Boston University School of Visual Arts
808 Gallery
808 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Directions: Green Line T to BU West stop
Student Lounge
Wednesday–Friday 9:00 am–10:00 pmSaturday 9:00 am–5:00 pm
Located in the Hampton Room on the 3rd floor of the Sheraton Boston Hotel
Need a place to relax for a few minutes or to meet and network with colleagues? Come visit the CAA Student Lounge. Sponsored by CAA’s Student and Emerging Professionals Committee (SEPC), the Student Lounge is a multipurpose facility with events scheduled throughout the conference. Come meet representatives of the committee and hear established art professionals discuss their career paths at casual lunchtime gatherings on Thursday and Friday, 12:30–2:00 PM. Or use the Student Lounge during quiet times to unwind from the hubbub of the Career Fair or collect your thoughts before the next session or interview. The Student Lounge will also have bulletin boards available for personal notes to friends and information about restaurants and wireless Internet service in the area. The Student Lounge is open to all conference attendees. A place to relax, pick up and review materials and applications, eat a brown-bag lunch, and chat with colleagues and members of the SEPC. Sign up for the Student Lounge door prizes—including conference survival bags and two CAA student memberships!
Student and Emerging Professionals Committee (SEPC)
The Student and Emerging Professionals Committee (SEPC) represents this important constituency within the larger CAA and academic framework. The committee is comprised of student and recent graduate members of CAA.
The purpose of the SEPC is to serve better the varied needs and concerns of student and emerging professional members of CAA, and to encourage students and colleagues to join CAA. The committee will disseminate information and solicit participation from students and recent graduates from universities with BA, BFA, MA, MFA, and PhD programs in art and art history throughout the United States.
SEPC Session
What Can CAA Do for You?Thursday, February 23, 5:30 pm–7:00 pm
Hynes Convention Center, Third Level, Room 312
Chair: Beverly Joyce, Mississippi University for Women
Admission: Free
This SEPC session is dedicated to helping student members discover the benefits of their CAA membership. Chill out with the SEPC following this session in the Student Lounge, 7:00–8:00 PM. Free snacks and refreshments are available to all!
Single-Time-Slot Admission
Single tickets will be sold for those wishing to attend sessions during a single time slot. "Single-time-slot" refers to morning or afternoon program sessions, held 9:30 am–12 noon and 2:30–5:00 pm A single-time-slot ticket entitles you to enter any and all sessions within that particular time period. Tickets are available during registration hours. Fee per ticket: $30, cash or credit card, for students with current I.D. For all session information, please visit click here.
In-Between Sessions
All conference events taking place 7:30 AM–9:00 AM, 12:30–2:00 PM, and 5:30–7:00 PM (such as special sessions, the artists' portfolio and career-development mentoring sessions, and school and department receptions) are free to the public. For more information regarding these events, please click here.
ARTspace
Begun in 2001 at the Annual Conference in Chicago, ARTspace was launched by the Services to Artists Committee as a "conference within a conference." ARTspace houses a series of programs of special interest to artists, though conference attendees of all disciplines are welcome. ARTspace offers a dynamic setting with morning coffee hours and other social events. Sessions and presentations have included artists' residencies, health and safety, conservators speaking on artists' materials, as well as other practical sessions. Panels have been diverse and timely, covering issues of arts funding, politics, censorship, criticism, etc. A regular event at ARTspace is interviews with noted artists, usually with long-standing connections to the host city.
Career Fair
CAA's Career Fair is known for offering many vital services, from employment opportunities to professional-development mentoring sessions to one-on-one mentoring sessions to networking and socializing with friends and colleagues. Our philosophy is to create a lifetime context for thinking about a career, because a satisfying working life is multifaceted and complex and involves more than one strategy to accomplish one's goals. We at CAA are committed to offering these services to help our members be successful, in the short and long term, in their career paths.
All Career Fair activities will begin Tuesday evening with Orientation. The Interviewer Center and Candidate Center open Wednesday at 8:00 and 8:30 am respectively. Both Centers provide electronic access to the Online Career Center. The popular Artists' Portfolio and Career Development Mentoring Sessions and the Professional Development Roundtables begin Thursday morning.
Access to the Career Fair is free with a CAA membership. For more information on the Career Fair, please click here.
Artists' Portfolio Mentoring Sessions
The Artist's Portfolio Mentoring Sessions offer artist members the opportunity to have slides, VHS videos, digital images, or DVDs of their work reviewed by curators and critics in private twenty-minute consultations at the 2006 Annual Conference. You may bring battery-powered laptops. Sessions are by appointment only and will take place Thursday, February 23, and Friday, February 24.
All applicants must be current CAA members. To apply, download, complete, and mail the Mentoring Sessions Registration 2006 form (in PDF format) at www.collegeart.org/mentoring. Participants will be chosen by a lottery of applications received by the deadlines; all applications will be notified by mail or e-mail in January. While CAA makes every effort to accommodate all applicants, participation is limited. Please send the completed application to: Beth Herbruck, Artists' Portfolio Mentoring Sessions, CAA, 275 Seventh Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Deadline extended: December 15, 2005.
Career Development Mentoring Sessions
Artists, art historians, and museum professionals at all stages of their careers may apply for a one-on-one consultation with veterans in their fields at the 2006 Annual Conference. The Career Development Mentoring Sessions offer a unique opportunity for participants to receive candid advice on how to conduct a thorough job search, present work, and prepare for interviews. Mentoring sessions are by appointment only and will take place Thursday, February 23, and Friday, February 24.
All applicants must be current CAA members. To apply, download, complete, and mail the Mentoring Session Registration 2006 form (PDF format). Participants will be chosen by a lottery of applications received by the deadlines; all applications will be notified by mail or e-mail in January. While CAA makes every effort to accommodate all applicants, participation is limited. Please send the completed application to: Beth Herbruck, Career Development Mentoring Sessions, CAA, 275 Seventh Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Deadline extended: December 15, 2005.
Art Paths: Alternative Careers in the Visual Arts
For several years, ArtTable, a nonprofit organization for women in leadership positions in the visual arts, has sponsored a CAA conference session. Entitled "Art Paths: Alternative Careers in the Visual Arts," the panel brings together a diverse panel of women who started their careers as artists, curators, and academics and have taken those skills in many different directions. For the Boston conference, ArtTable's session will be held Thursday, February 23, 12:30–2:00 PM; it is chaired by Katie Hollander, director of ArtTable.
This year's participants include: Amy Schlegel, director of the galleries and collections, Aidekman Arts Center, Tufts University; Diana Gaston, associate curator, Fidelity Investments; Rachel Lafo, director of curatorial affairs, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park; Barbara O'Brien, editor-in-chief, Art New England; and Judith Fox, visiting curator, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Panelists will discuss their career choices, offering recommendations for students and young professionals; the audience will also have the opportunity to ask questions.
Workshop on Writing a Better Artist's Statement
An artist's statement is a standard element of any artist's portfolio and résumé package. Although we would like to think that our digital images or slides speak for themselves, a poorly written artist's statement may weaken an otherwise strong presentation. Exhibition curators, academic hiring committees, and gallery owners who receive artists' portfolios are skilled critical readers as well as judges of visual art. What information should an artist's statement include? Is it okay to use the same statement for academic job applications and when submitting portfolio to a gallery? How creative, stylized, or impressionistic should the writing be? Workshop participants will explore various modes of statement and may bring their own draft text for review and critique. In addition to content and style, the workshop will review basics of grammar, syntax, and punctuation.
Led by Eve Sinaiko, CAA director of publications, this workshop will be given twice, 3:00–4:00 pm and 4:00–5:00 pm, on Tuesday, February 21, 2006. Each workshop is limited to fifteen participants. Preregistration ($35) is required; use the preregistration form.
MFA and PhD Fellowships
The CAA Professional Development Fellowship Program is a unique opportunity for emerging artists and scholars to receive funding toward the completion of their degree and receive one-on-one professional-development support. Established in 1993 to aid MFA and PhD students in bridging the gap between graduate school and professional life, the program nurtures outstanding artists and scholars with the necessary financial support, employment advice, and mentoring that can empower them at the beginning of their careers.
CAA has awarded fellowships to seventy-eight artists and scholars. Former artist fellows have exhibited in prestigious group shows, including the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale, and at institutions such as the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian Institution's International Gallery, among others. Former fellows have published in such journals and magazines as Artforum, Art Asia Pacific, Visual Resources, and History of Photography, as well as in CAA's three scholarly publications. Both artist and art-historian fellows have earned teaching positions in public and private colleges and universities nationwide, while other recipients work as curators in important museums and galleries in the United States and Canada.
Each CAA fellow receives and unrestricted $5,000 grant during his or her final year of study. Previous fellows have applied the grant toward tuition, travel supplies, and day-to-day living expenses. CAA continues to offer support to each fellow for an additional year after graduation by advocating for accessible employment opportunities. Upon securing a position, CAA provides a $10,000 subsidy to the employer as part of the fellow's salary.
CAA encourages applicants from socially and economically diverse backgrounds. Four fellowships, each with generous matching grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, are open to MFA and PhD candidates who will complete their degrees in 2007. Two honorable-mention recipients will be selected to receive a $1,000 award.
Applications are now available here. For more information, please write to fellowships@collegeart.org. Deadline: January 15, 2005.
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