Academic Spine

Professional Practice Experience

Junior Professional Practice Experience

Background

The Professional Practice Experience (PROFPRAC 3900 or DEPARTMENT 3900) provides third-year students with a wide variety of professional practice activities so that they will be prepared for life after SAIC in a wide variety of professional contexts. The course emphasizes a hands-on, real-world curriculum. Students will engage in a semester-long, faculty-defined creative project (such as applying for an on-campus exhibition, submitting a proposal for an off-campus exhibition, hosting a community event, etc.), as well as an online project (such as an online portfolio, an artist website, or a class website organized around a particular event or theme). Additional course activities may include preparing a CV, networking with alumni and other key figures in their fields of interest, or giving an artist talk or scholarly presentation.

The Professional Practice Experience is usually a three-credit course, and as determined by each department, the course will function as either a seminar or a studio. Depending on course organization, each section will meet for either six hours weekly or for three hours weekly. The sections that meet for three hours weekly include the expectation that students are completing six hours of work outside class, which might include portfolio development, project development, proposal writing, and networking in fields of artistic or scholarly interest. Some Professional Practice courses integrate studio projects while others focus exclusively on the stated professional practice learning goals. Courses listed as PROFPRAC 3900 are intended to be interdisciplinary and open to all third-year students who have completed Sophomore Seminar or Research Studio for Transfer Students. Discipline-specific courses with departmental prerequisites are listed with the departmental heading DEPARTMENT 3900.

The Professional Practice Experience is the second course in the three-course sequence of Academic Spine courses (Sophomore Seminar, Professional Practice, and Capstone), which is required for all freshmen who began their undergraduate degrees at SAIC in fall 2015 and after (transfer students must take Research Studio for Transfer Students, Professional Practice, and Capstone). Professional Practice Experience courses are offered in both the fall and spring semesters, to give students flexibility in incorporating this required course into their schedule. PROFPRAC 3900 should always be taken when students have between 60-90 credits completed (roughly third or junior year for a full-time student). This course is a prerequisite for all Senior Capstone courses, to ensure the Spine courses are completed in sequential order.

Course Description

In the Professional Practice Experience (PROFPRAC 3900 or DEPARTMENT 3900) you will engage in a wide variety of professional practice activities to help prepare you for life after SAIC. Course activities may include applying for an on-campus exhibition, submitting a proposal for an off-campus exhibition, hosting a community event, creating a website, preparing a CV, networking events with alumni, or writing a project statement. The course emphasizes hands-on, real-world professional activities and opportunities for emerging artists, designers, and scholars. You should plan to take Professional Practice Experience during your third year at SAIC.

Each section of Professional Practice is intended to be interdisciplinary in that students with various material interests could take any of the sections and be engaged by the class conversation and critique. Of course, at SAIC, instructors always teach to their strengths and interests, thus readings and writing assignments in a particular section may reflect a faculty member’s discipline or departmental affiliation. Many faculty title their Professional Practice Experience courses descriptively and creatively and provide a detailed course description to signal the particular course focus to potential students.

Students wishing to locate a faculty mentor within their particular area of study are advised to examine faculty bios and course descriptions in order to select a Professional Practice Experience course that meets their identified goals and aspirations. Academic advisors can also be helpful resources for helping connect students’ interests and goals with relevant faculty, in this area of the curriculum and all others as well.

Course Learning Goals

At the conclusion of the Professional Practice Experience course, students will be able to:

  1. Implement a well-planned creative project, applying professional skills relevant to their artistic, creative, and/or scholarly practice. (Examples of evidence: project proposal, including a budget; CV; grant application; exhibition proposal)
  2. Present a professional body of work in an online context, demonstrating a critical awareness of audience and selection of work. (Examples of evidence: website, online portfolio, blog, etc.)
  3. Create connections and linkages with relevant practitioners, organizations, and institutions in students’ field(s) of interest, with an attention to identifying key figures as well as situating their own work within these fields. (Examples of evidence: alumni/artist interview; short summary of experience attending networking events such as a gallery opening, a panel/symposium, visiting an alum at a job site, etc.)
  4. Demonstrate the ability to think, speak, and write clearly and effectively with regard to the creative and/or scholarly practice. (Examples of evidence: artist talk, blog, project statement, scholarly presentation, PechaKucha, etc.)
Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

In this course, students will analyze and report on art world and cultural ecologies and explore professional work opportunities while reflecting on their current creative and scholarly interests. The course will lead to an expanded understanding of professional opportunities and the tools to pursue them while starting to identify each of our strengths and interests in identifying possible pathways for our lives that include (work life - studio life - love - finances - passion - family - etc...). Toward the end of the semester, as a way to bring into practice what was covered in the course, each student will participate in a class exhibition/presentation of current work and a portfolio of professional presentation materials to support one of the following (grant or job application and an exhibition/project proposal).

Readings will address issues in the class and will include, 'GETTING YOUR SHIT TOGETHER: THE ULTIMATE BUSINESS MANUAL FOR EVERY PRACTICING ARTIST', ART/WORK (Revised + Updated) by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber, and selections from the follwing books; 'Living and sustaining a Creative Life by Sharon Louden, 'The Creative Habit: a Practical Guide' by Twyla Tharp, among others.

The deliverables in this class will include the following: 1) An illustrated verbal presentation of your current creative portfolio. 2) Research on one of the visitors to the class. 3) Class Exhibition including the entire class in an On Campus Space. 4) Printed and Digital Professional Portfolio.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1571

Credits

3

Department

Arts Administration and Policy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Art/Design and Politics, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies

Location

280 Building Rm 120

Description

This seminar introduces and develops professional practices for students pursuing a freelance career in comics, illustration, animation, or the like. By creating promotional material, portfolios, contracts, and invoices, students learn how to market themselves as freelance artists. In tandem with learning the ins and outs of industry standards, they have access to insight and advice from a variety of guest speakers whose careers and professional paths have paved the way for future creators.

Readings will vary but typically include 'The Freelancer's Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Have the Career of Your Dreams- On Your Terms' by Sara Horowitz, 'The Graphic Artist Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines Handbook,' and 'Burn Your Portfolio' by Michael Janda.

Students will create, revise, workshop, and submit a variety of professional documents that culminate in a compendium over the course of the semester. These are all documents that will prove to be necessary for a freelancing career. There will be weekly responses to readings, and rotating guest speakers to provide in-sight on their professional journeys.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1569

Credits

3

Department

Arts Administration and Policy

Area of Study

Comics and Graphic Novels, Books and Publishing

Location

MacLean 816

Description

We all have something that we do to offset stress and practice care for the self, be it jogging, knitting, reading, or meeting with friends. Care is a radical action. This course will look at care for the individual and care for the community as a strategy for art-making in the studio. Students will discuss self-care strategies that work for them and bring those strategies into the studio. The culminating project will be presenting a plan of action for continued self-care at SAIC and beyond with concrete examples of these strategies at play in the student's studio work. Students will work on a series of small sample projects throughout the semester in preparation for a final presentation of a finished piece. We will look to alternative models of evaluation and build our own unique dynamic approach to critiquing these pieces.

Students will practice self-care by participating in the class reading group to discuss texts including All About Love by Bell Hooks, Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Marie Brown, Conversation with Mike Kelley, Keith Harring's Journals, Eva Hesse's notes and more. Texts will be selected to best reflect the student's interests and studio practices. We will look at artists and practitioners who bring care into their work across disciplines including Shana Moulton (film and performance), Aram Han Sifuentes (craft and participation), H. Melt (poetry and writing), Adrian Piper (research) and more. Students will be asked to contribute significantly to an extended bibliography of care for the class to share beyond the Spring semester.

This course includes weekly text discussions, small group critiques on sample pieces and culminates in a full class critique of a self directed final project. Ideas for this project will be supported through individual meetings with the instructor and visiting guest self care experts.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1568

Credits

3

Department

Arts Administration and Policy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Art/Design and Politics

Location

Lakeview - 1427

Description

This course will prepare students for developing project proposals in various contexts ranging from informal collaborations with artist run spaces to formal grant applications. We will focus not only the process of conceptualizing a project idea and persuasively organizing the necessary content around it, but also explore the pragmatic aspects of carrying it out and interfacing collaboratively with an art space, an institution, or other artists. In addition to workshopping the various elements needed for a hypothetical project, students will be required to conceptualize, propose and execute a proposal of some scale at the end of the semester to put into practice the skills and ideas explored in the course. In doing so, we will use the project proposal as a means to understand the broader ecosystem of the artworld and the different roles people play within them: artist, curator, programmer, institution, non-profit infrastructure, commercial and corporate factors, and more. Chicago?s landscape of artists, institutions and DIY spaces will provide ample case studies and first hand know-how for us to tap into as we build an understanding of the interrelationships between an artistic practice and the space within which it is presented or contextualized.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1570

Credits

3

Department

Arts Administration and Policy

Location

MacLean 112

Description

This interdisciplinary seminar introduces, deepens and extends writing skills and helps to develop concepts that can sustain, guide and propel artistic practice after graduation. Central to the class is the professional completion of two grant applications, followed by a mock jury event that simulates actual jurying procedure. In conjunction with the applications, students write artist statements and develop project proposals. We also discuss how the arts and the public intersect, whether in popular opinion, historic context or professional settings. This includes an assessment of the relations of artists and audiences, artists and administrators and curators, and artists and critics.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1567

Credits

3

Department

Arts Administration and Policy

Area of Study

Public Space, Site, Landscape

Location

MacLean 707

Description

Runway Meets Runway is an excursion into the intersection of fashion and object design via the accessories and technologies that we wear, carry on and carry with. Working equally in the Fashion Department and AIADO, the students use investigation, iteration and innovation to design and fabricate a collection of accessory designs using analog and digital tools from worlds of both fashion and of product design. This Junior Seminar course includes visits to studios of professional designers to supplement individual developments of objects, lines and looks. Students will develop a web presence appropriate to their emerging practice.
Sample Class Activities: Built around the idea that culture is something we carry, carry on, carry with, and carry out, the students will conceive a 'galactic proposal', design and produce the objects, then integrate them into a social media campaign that introduces them as young independent designers to the outside world. Emphasis is placed on developing a professional mindset and mission to all aspects of their work. Students are introduced to this though guest professionals in design, fashion, materials experts, and social media gurus. The class is built around making a signature collection through studio work. The class will also explore- Strategies for developing a collection, Basics of a signature brand Understanding market categories, Positioning and differentiation through presentation, Material/ technique demonstrations (both analog and digital), Vendor field trips, Roles of Intellectual Property, Transforming a personal social media identity into a professional presence, Branding objects, How to meet impossible deadlines, Studio photography on a shoestring budget -through demos, field trips, invited guests, intense studio nights, and the knowledge and expertise of faculty with deep experience developing individual design practices.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1575

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

In this class you will engage in a wide variety of professional practice activities to help prepare you for life after SAIC. In this course, each student will focus on advancing the design (layout, graphics, narratives, flow) of their portfolio so that it best conveys their individual design skills, experience and interests. Students will produce materials appropriate for delivery of their work across multiple formats (print, digital, web, etc), will learn how to edit/ arrange their materials to suit the specific context of application, and will create consistent design elements that can be shared across the full range of professional materials from portfolio, website, business cards, and other promotional materials. The course emphasizes hands-on, real- world professional activities and opportunities for emerging designers.

More information about Professional Practice and the Academic Spine curriculum can be found on the SAIC website: http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/academicspine/

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1584

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

In this class you will engage in a wide variety of professional practice activities to help prepare you for life after SAIC. In this course, each student will focus on advancing the design (layout, graphics, narratives, flow) of their portfolio so that it best conveys their individual design skills, experience and interests. Students will produce materials appropriate for delivery of their work across multiple formats (print, digital, web, etc), will learn how to edit/ arrange their materials to suit the specific context of application, and will create consistent design elements that can be shared across the full range of professional materials from portfolio, website, business cards, and other promotional materials. The course emphasizes hands-on, real- world professional activities and opportunities for emerging designers.

More information about Professional Practice and the Academic Spine curriculum can be found on the SAIC website: http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/academicspine/

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1584

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

This professional practice course that focuses on preparing for all things life after school. As scaffolding throughout the course we will explore the text, How to be an artist at night by Raqs media collective to explore a range of questions and themes in art practice at the intersection of contemporary life. What constitutes an education for the real world? How do we grow a community that supports and is in conversation with our work? What are the professional skills we need to sustain our practice outside the studio? How do we write about, talk about and present our work? What are the practices of self care we can cultivate to fuel our creativity?

Other readings will include teaching to transgress- Bell Hooks, The Artist's Guide: How to make a living doing what you love- Jackie Battenfield, The Social Production of Art- Janet Wolff. We will also watch and respond to short films. Course work will vary but will typically include writing an artist statement, bio and exhibition proposal.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1577

Credits

3

Department

Fiber and Material Studies

Area of Study

Public Space, Site, Landscape, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies, Social Media and the Web

Location

Lakeview - 205

Description

This Professional Practice course is designed for students with practical experience and understanding of the language and process of fiction, non-fiction, hybrid or experimental film production, and who would like to prepare themselves for professional survival and growth as emerging filmmakers outside of school. The topics covered at the class will include: producing project proposals for grants, fellowships and labs; learning about local, national and international film communities, networks and institutions; discussing festivals and other conventional or DIY distribution models; learning about programming and writing about film as career paths; and strategies for building film communities and production teams such as companies and collectives.
We will watch and discuss works by notable SAIC alumni such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and will have in-person and virtual visits and discussions with local and global filmmakers, programmers, distributors, centers and platforms. Selected successful recent film projects will be discussed as case studies; we will research the life of each project from ideation to fund-raising, production and distribution.
Students will practice professional development by working around one of their own past or in-progress film projects and producing a body of documents around it, including a proposal for a grant or a lab, an artist/director statement, visual treatment and mood-board, and a written festival and distribution plan.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

2391

Credits

3

Department

Film, Video, New Media, and Animation

Area of Study

Playwriting/Screenwriting, Animation

Location

MacLean 518

Description

How does a performance artist create a sustainable career and create a sustainable community in the world after college? This course will provide the nuts and bolts of how to build a career as a performance artist. We will delve into the politics of curating and representing diverse practices. Students will create their own public performance festivals in public or in site-specific spaces learning the mechanisms of getting funding and writing proposals.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1583

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

280 Building Rm 012A

Description

This six-hour seminar is a professional practice class for life after graduation, focusing on how each student can build a sustainable practice based on their own strengths and working style. Students create a website, CVs, write grant proposals, artist statements, and statements of purpose, learning the different content and uses of each. Readings on contemporary artists and 'best practices' for editing, exhibition, and installation of artwork will support class work. This course embraces the understanding that developing a sustainable practice outside of school includes building creative community, developing an independent research practice and other activities related to each individual¿s work. As such, the highlight of this course will be bi-weekly visits and workshops from a diverse range of working artists, curators, residency staff and others to speak about these opportunities, as well as how to build a fruitful creative life. For example, we will develop strategies for talking about your work that fit your own personal style with a Chicago curator, and present grant materials to a mock panel to get productive feedback. The Junior Seminar is one of four required classes intended to function as a 'spine,' providing guidance and structure for SAIC's open and interdisciplinary curriculum.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1572

Credits

3

Department

Photography

Area of Study

Digital Imaging

Location

280 Building Rm 207

Description

Students will develop professional practices including collaborative and independent work situations, via roles as commissioned artist, master printer, or artist-designer. Students will seek real-world clients to complete assignments, foster relationships with graphic designers, small presses, or their artist peers. Contemporary alternative print production and distribution models such as the integration of art, music and publishing prevalent in DIY scenes (1990s and 2000s), to emerging artist multiple/subscription programs and book/print fairs will be also be studied.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1573

Credits

3

Department

Printmedia

Area of Study

Collaboration, Comics and Graphic Novels, Books and Publishing, Community and Locality, Social Media and the Web

Location

280 Building Rm 203

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1580

Credits

3

Department

Painting and Drawing

Location

280 Building Rm 120

Description

This course investigates painting materials, application, color, form, and ideas through contemporary and traditional methodologies. Designed to accommodate many skill levels, students can explore various creative strategies through a skill-based curriculum as well as individual projects. This course serves as a requirement and preparation for topic-based Painting Studio Multi-Level B classes. This course also fulfills the 3900 Professional Practice course requirement. http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/academicspine/professionalpracticeexperience/

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1574

Credits

3

Department

Painting and Drawing

Location

280 Building Rm 321

Description

In this course, students will explore and create their own definitions of success, starting with their preconceived notions of what it means to be a successful artist. We will break down outdated expectations and myths and will rebuild unique, personal, and fulfilling plans for a creative life. Through writing, mentoring, and research students will explore career paths and what it means to live the flexible and nuanced life of an artist.

We will investigate a number of topics and tools that support a career in the arts, including: mind-mapping, goal-setting, creating professional materials (CV, statement, bio), applying to professional opportunities such as grants and residencies, studio visits, and working with galleries. Course material will include artists¿ personal accounts of leading a creative life and tools they use to make projects more rich.

This course involves numerous written assignments; students must be prepared to write and edit their work. Students will choose from a vast menu of short projects in order to tailor their experience in the class to their career goals. Final assignments will include 1) a clear personal vision of success; 2) steps for achieving short and long-term goals, and 3) refined professional materials suitable for application.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1562

Credits

3

Department

Undergraduate Studies

Location

MacLean 816

Description

This class will have as its focus the development of support materials and methods for professional practice relating to the work of writers and
artists who engage in interdisciplinary projects with writing as a central element. This section is open to both BFAW Program students as well as non-BFAW students who are interested in developing professional practices strategies from that perspective.

Across the semester, you will work to generate and fine-tune professional practice support materials such as artist statements and artist resumes, tap into SAIC?s CAPX and research other current online resources for funding, publication and exhibition opportunities, and align and present your body of work in order to further define and articulate central lines of concept and inquiry. Additionally, we?ll discuss assigned relevant readings and meet and speak with a local writer/artist concerning their own body of work and professional practice

Course work results in creating professional practice materials supporting a digital portfolio of your work and collaboratively participating in an exhibition and literary reading event.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1582

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Area of Study

Books and Publishing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

This professional practice seminar emphasizes sustainability (emotional, economic, and environmental) as key for living artists. Each student will develop a sustainable work flow for organizing opportunities, documenting expenses, and applying for exhibitions, grants and residencies. Emphasis will be placed on sustainable material sourcing, both for environmental concerns and our own economic needs. Discussions and readings will revolve around how to keep making art, even when life gets in the way. Students will learn practical skills that serve their work (tweaking artist statements for various opportunities, developing and maintaining a website, ongoing research ) along with stress-management techniques (organized work flow, time-management, knowing when to take a break and how to rest more effectively, peer-to-peer support, dealing with rejection). This course will address the myriad ways studio artists get paid outside the commercial gallery system via recorded interviews with living artists. Readings include 'Art and Fear' (David Bayles and Ted Orlando) and 'Artists Gotta Eat and Other Things We Forget to Remember' by Tempesst Hazel. Past Visiting Artists have included Selina Trepp, who uses and reuses the material in her studio, and Sadie Woods, who is an artist, curator and DJ. Similar Visiting Artists will be chosen in future semesters. Each student will create a personal opportunities database, create a submission for the opportunity of their choice, write an artist statement, bio and CV, build a portfolio website, give an artist talk and develop a sustainable plan for sourcing materials and managing stress.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1576

Credits

3

Department

Fiber and Material Studies

Area of Study

Public Space, Site, Landscape, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies, Social Media and the Web

Location

MacLean 301

Description

In this course, you will be provided with practical and analytic tools with which to engage in an art world that extends globally and is deeply enmeshed in digital platforms. Each artist's relationship to this field is produced through our personal desires, hopes, assumptions, and ideas of success: articulating this highly individual profile will serve as our starting place. From there, we will consider the ways paintings and other art objects become data that is circulated, analyzed, and commodified. Through an examination of the networks- cultural, social, and economic- that characterize the present-day fields of art, we will develop strategies for building professional relationships, self-promotion, and presenting your work in public settings. Approaches to websites, artwork documentation, writing (bios, CVs, artist statements, modes of art criticism), business cards, budgeting, packing and shipping artwork, and studio upkeep will be covered in the form of class lectures and discussions, supplemented with homework assignments. The outcomes of this course are manifold: artists will make informed, researched decisions about the ways they want to participate in the world, while also learning basic skillsets as best practices for a sustainable, long-term career.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1581

Credits

3

Department

Painting and Drawing

Location

280 Building Rm 308

Description

In this course, students will explore and create their own definitions of success, starting with their preconceived notions of what it means to be a successful artist. We will break down outdated expectations and myths and will rebuild unique, personal, and fulfilling plans for a creative life. Through writing, mentoring, and research students will explore career paths and what it means to live the flexible and nuanced life of an artist.

We will investigate a number of topics and tools that support a career in the arts, including: mind-mapping, goal-setting, creating professional materials (CV, statement, bio), applying to professional opportunities such as grants and residencies, studio visits, and working with galleries. Course material will include artists¿ personal accounts of leading a creative life and tools they use to make projects more rich.

This course involves numerous written assignments; students must be prepared to write and edit their work. Students will choose from a vast menu of short projects in order to tailor their experience in the class to their career goals. Final assignments will include 1) a clear personal vision of success; 2) steps for achieving short and long-term goals, and 3) refined professional materials suitable for application.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1563

Credits

3

Department

Undergraduate Studies

Location

Lakeview - 203

Contact Us

For all questions about the undergraduate Academic Spine curriculum, please email saic-academicspine@saic.edu.