113: Debunking the Myth of the Starving Artist

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Hello, beautiful people. This is Ethan Sawyer College Essay Guy here. If this is your first time here in the podcast, you should know that my goal is to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process, and on this podcast, it's my goal to interview brilliant minds from both sides of the desk, analyze their genius and break it down for you into a series of practical, actionable steps that you can take, whether you're applying to college or helping someone else apply. Now my guest today is Laura young, and she's a friend of mine and happens to be the Director of Enrollment Management at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. She was, and I think still is, an art kid. And she'll talk about what that means in a few minutes, and in our conversation, we talk about why that's cool and how that served her in her current job, and basically how someone can still make a living, even if, dear listener, you are yourself an art kid, or if you know someone who is an art kid who's applying to college, we also talk about data that proves art degrees are important, the freedom that working a side job gives to self employed artists, the truth about the myth of the starving artist, and that's all in the first 10 minutes. Then we talk about how to know if art school is right for you, what your ability to take feedback says about you, the difference between visual and performing arts schools, conservatories and trade schools, what cliches to avoid when you're doing your art school application, and how parents can best support their students wanting to go to art school. All this and much more on this episode with Laura young, please enjoy. My guest today is Laura young. She has a BA in fine art from UCLA, a Master of Education in post secondary administration and student affairs from USC. And yes, folks, it is possible to attend both schools and not like actually burst into flames or so I'm told,


Laura Young  2:03  
I've been told you, I'm I'm, clearly, I'm good.


Ethan Sawyer  2:07  
I was gonna say something about Laura being on fire, but then I was like, couldn't figure out how to anyway. Laura has been presenting on Visual Performing Arts in college for a while, since 2006 and she received the Rising Star Award from NAC AC, the National Association of College admissions counseling. For the past six years, she served as Director of Enrollment Management at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. Laura, welcome to the podcast.


Laura Young  2:34  
Hello. You're welcome to be here. Your


Ethan Sawyer  2:37  
voice sounds amazing right now. Well, so does yours.


Laura Young  2:43  
You should do this professionally.


Ethan Sawyer  2:45  
Let's do, let's, let's do this right now professionally. Let's all right, Laura, Director of Enrollment Management, sounds pretty fancy. What exactly? Tell us, what exactly do you do?


Laura Young  2:59  
So what I what I do, and I figured that I came into my position completely by accident. I feel like that's that's really important to say, because most of us in college admission, well, I would say all of us kind of found our found our gig by accident and and what I do at UCLA is I deal with the entire administrative process of admitting students to one of UCLA is professional schools for the visual and performing arts, the School of Arts and Architecture. So from the moment a student asks, gosh, I'd really like to learn more about the art programs at UCLA, all the way up through I'm coming. Here's my deposit. I've got my hands somewhere in that process. So outreach, recruitment, Managing the Online supplemental application system when students are submitting their portfolio or their audition materials, acting as tech support, making sure that the faculty have everything that they need in order to make their decisions, preparing statistics for the mothership and undergraduate admission, running phone banks, scheduling yield activities I do. I do everything except say yes or no in the admission process.


Ethan Sawyer  4:13  
And you said you mentioned that you didn't exactly like desire to be this when you grew up. Like, how'd you get into this?


Laura Young  4:19  
No, I, you know, the last time I remember thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was six years old, and I wanted to be a paleontologist. So this is a fairly, a pretty significant departure. So, I mean, I was, I was in the art major at UCLA, and I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I had some ideas of what I didn't want to do, and one of those was to become a studio artist. I didn't want to do the whole like gallery and museum gig, so I was very open to influence, and I was friends with my academic counselor, and she flagged me down one day. She was this really exciting. Truck Polish lady, so if I went for a counseling appointment, I knew that for 25 minutes I'd be listening to stories, and then for five minutes I'd actually get help with what I needed. So she knew me. She knew me really well, and she flagged me in the hallway, and she said, Oh, Laura, you know we need student volunteers for our upcoming open house, because, you know, incoming students, they don't want to talk to administrators or old people. They want to talk to students who are actually in the program. You're not afraid of anybody, so I'm going to sign you up. And I said, okay, and because you don't, you didn't argue with her. So I just showed it up at the time and the place that she told me to show up, and I met my former boss, and I asked about what their office did in terms of all the outreach and the and the recruitment and the travel. And I thought, Oh, so you can have a job where you travel and you talk to high school students about going to art school. I'm gonna file that under cool job, that sounds like a cool job. And then after I graduated, they were looking to hire for cool job. So I called them and basically said, hire me. And here I am.


Ethan Sawyer  6:11  
Wow. Were you? Did you grow up? Were you? I mean, were you, did you consider yourself like an art kid or arts kid or,


Laura Young  6:18  
yeah, I was totally an art kid. Yeah, I was, I was an art kid from, from as long as I could remember, I was, I was that person. I was always drawing. My my family are artists. My mother's a musician. So she's a she's a classical musician. And my dad is, you know, he's into literature. He has a master's degree in Russian literature. So that's what I really grew up around. Was going to see performances, concerts, operas, museums, and so my parents were really supportive of my arts activities. And I came from a really privileged background in that respect, because I had so much exposure having a really supportive family, and then also growing up in Los Angeles, where you have a lot of opportunity to see the arts. So that turned into a lot of visual arts classes during weekends and summers. And then in high school, I ran the comedy improv team. I was also playing the piano, so I was performing and competing regionally, and I also went to a high school that had a strong arts program. And even with all of that, I still heard a lot of and absorbed a lot of negative messaging about the arts practice, and I had to be convinced by people smarter than myself. So that's really where a lot of the motivation for me comes from in talking to art kids about art school, because I came from a place of I had every reason to believe that you could be a working artist, and then art is valuable, it's important, it's essential. And still, I kind of got it in the back of my head, like this is supposed to be something that you do on the side. It's supposed to be a hobby, that there's something more sensible that you could be doing with your time. And so what I what I hope to do, and kind of every day, is helping young artists to feel more confident about who they are and what they're already good at, because they're good at a lot of stuff. Yeah. See, this is


Ethan Sawyer  8:26  
really interesting, and this is what I want to talk to you about, and this is really what I want to spend this time together talking about, there's this myth out there, and this is something that you brought to my attention, that this myth of the starving artist, right? And it's, it's deep, and it runs like, all through things and all over the place. Tell me about that. What? Well, first of all, what is the myth? And why is it even a myth?


Laura Young  8:48  
Okay, so, I mean, we've, we've all heard this like, if you Google, sort of like, best college degrees or worst college worst college degrees, you're gonna find the arts somewhere on that list, always, every single year, so you get all of this backup from from media. And then if people, most people, who are not educated in what an art career actually looks like, will just lean on that, or just this sort of cultural understanding, misunderstanding that the arts is. It's stupid, and it should be pushed to the side. And this is, it's a pipe dream, and nobody makes it. And I mean, the the real truth is that, I mean it, what is being discussed that way could not be farther from the truth. And I actually have data to back this. Give us some give us some data, right? So, for instance, in 2013 so the US Department of Labor counted 25 million people working in arts jobs in America. And estimates that the number is actually going to increase to about 28 million in 2020 the arts that the entire arts industry. Is 4% of our of our GDP. Wow, which is, which is probably like, it's about like 650 $700 billion


Ethan Sawyer  10:12  
so and this need, this notion of arts jobs. What does that mean? What does that look


Laura Young  10:17  
like? So, working artists, where you do have, so for a working artist, for instance, you could have somebody who is, you know, who's a film editor. You can have photographers. You can have, you know, actors, whether on stage or off stage, voice therapists. I mean, the I have a list of about 500 different arts jobs, and I don't think we have time to rattle them off right now.


Ethan Sawyer  10:45  
Let's please do that. We'll do a slow reading of it. We'll just ask. That's another


Laura Young  10:49  
that's totally another podcast. But my point is, is that it is statistically impossible for 25 million people to all be stuck in their parents basements. There are not enough basements, so some of those people are actually they're out in the world making a living, so they're working in the arts, and they have families, and they have children, and they have, you know, mortgages, and they're normal people. You know, when you think of when you watch a movie, everyone's really fixated on the lead actor, like the famous person. But I mean, stay to watch the credits. Those are some long credits. And all of those people are most of those people, the majority of them are regular people, and they're working artists. You know, the extras, the people doing stunts, the voiceovers, the dialect coaches, the special effects teams, oh my gosh, the special effects teams, which take up like a third of the entire credit reel, the musicians who perform the score, or the musicians that perform the songs that ended up on the soundtrack, they're all working, you know, like with the working artists, there's always This perception of them, kind of running around and always working overtime and working these menial jobs, or working the the nine to five and then going home and doing their art, and that's always presented as a negative, right? When really it's not, because there's a sort of all encompassing aspect to what it is that they do and they actually like to work that way. That's the way they sort of naturally work. Say more about that? Yeah, so, I mean, the the idea that artists are always working, they're working their butts off 24/7, and that's supposed to be a bad thing. That's actually the way that they really like to work and the way that they naturally work. So there's a there's a big data set out there called the Strategic National Arts alumni project. It is the only data set of its kind that tracks graduates of arts programs, from high school, from undergrad, from grad, and it looks at what their working lives are like. And one of the things that they found out that over 90% of artists, working artists have been self employed in their craft at some point in their in their work lives, and close to 60% of working artists have at least two concurrent jobs. And anecdotally, from from the art, from the working artists that I know, and I do know many, that's the way that they enjoy working. So the fact that they're not working a nine to five is totally cool with them. They like having more control over their time. You know they like the fact that maybe they get to work a more regular, paying job that allows them to be more creative and give them that space to pursue their creative vision 100% when they go do their work. So really what? Who artists are? Are entrepreneurs? Yeah, because, and there's no terrible stigma attached to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are They're smart, they're savvy, they work really hard, they're the kind of they're they're those people who are going to work 80 hours to avoid working 40. They're with it. There's they got their finger on the pulse of of what's going on and what's cool and what's hip, their hardest.


Ethan Sawyer  14:24  
Totally, this is all resonating really deeply with me. By the way, as you, as you probably know, give us some examples of Who are some of these folks that you're talking about.


Laura Young  14:32  
So my friend Kate comes to mind. She's a dancer, and so she she has, she has an MFA in dance, so she's able to teach dance at the collegiate level. She is a choreographer. She is a performer, so she choreographs and performs for TV and film. She also owns her own dance company, so she's associated with an independent Dance Company, and she's also director. Of corporate communications at an aerospace engineering firm. That's awesome. And if you talk to her, she's like, I like my communications gig because that's what allows me to go to my dance company and do 100% of what I want. I don't have to chase after. I don't have to write grants. I don't know. I don't know a single person who likes writing grants. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  15:24  
this is, I mean, the reason this is resonating really deeply, it's kind of obvious, you know, to you, but I'll just say to the listener that, and because folks may not know this, that I do voiceover, and have done voiceover for years, and, you know, but what's interesting, it's so funny that oftentimes, you know, and I've got a lot of friends like this, there will be the kind of the side job that's like teaching or, you know, doing essay, you know, SAT prep or something like that. And what, what actually happened for me is that I had this, you know, dream of being an actor, and then this side gig, and then actually, my side gig became much more fulfilling, and College Essay Guy is much more interesting to me than doing voiceover work. So, you know, just a heads up, y'all be careful, because if you're not careful, you're you could fall in love with the thing. It's kind of like falling in love with the best friend, you know. And I'm kind of like that person in the romantic comedy that falls in love with, rather than, like the the dreamy hunk there's like, I'm actually like, no, it's like the thing that was there all along the teaching, the writing, you know.


Laura Young  16:19  
So, but, I mean all of but if you know, if you if you continue that analogy, all of those relationships are valid, and you kind of don't know where it's going to go, but it's all in service to your the like, you know, you have a sense of of what you're good at and how you want to offer those, you know, like, offer those gifts to the world. And like, how do you, how do you kind of, how do you address that? How do you think about, okay, I have, I have this idea, I have this taste, I have this esthetic about what needs to kind of be out there in in the world that maybe doesn't exist. How do I fill that hole? Right? Do I have something that can can then that can go out into that space, and then how do I get people to how can I get people to see it and to understand it and to engage with it? It's, it's,


Ethan Sawyer  17:19  
it's, I'm so glad you're saying this, because it's sometimes hard to describe to folks how like, when they're like, wait, you majored in performance studies. Like, how does that help? And it's, there are so many ways that, oh my gosh, studies major has served. So will you share with folks? Like, what are some ways that you feel you know, what are what are artists great at? Or what do they get? What do they have? What are these like, I like to call it superpowers. What are artists superpowers that they develop in making art and in, you know, art school or college?


Laura Young  17:46  
Well, kind of bringing up performance, there's this perception of theater like, Oh my gosh. Theater like, you're gonna go, and I don't know, become like, pretend to be other people for four years. But I mean, really, what the arts does is it develops empathy. It it develops your emotional intelligence. Like, I have a, I know somebody who's an attorney, he's a he's a litigator, and his undergraduate degree is in theater. I mean, he was a theater nerd for years and years, and he, when you talk to him, he's like, my I would not be as successful as a lawyer had I not had this intense training on how to how to respond to an audience and how to engage an audience, because that's literally what I have to Do when I walk into a courtroom and in theater, you never know who your audience is going to be. I mean, definitely you have you have a con, you have a context, and you have an agenda. You want them to be able to experience something. But there's always that little kind of you're trying to build a relationship with them in that moment, with a bunch of strangers and a bunch of you know 12 to 14 total strangers from different walks of life, how do you in that moment know how to adjust your body language, to adjust the tone of your voice, to to think about the entire narrative arc when, especially when you're Dealing with opposing counsel, he said, I would never know how to do that, and I would never feel comfortable doing that with this idea of spontaneity and uncertainty, had I not been a theater major. So you know the singer songwriter who is a speech therapist, there are so many ways that you can bring your creative practice into areas that might not seem creative, but creativity is something that you can apply anywhere, right?


Ethan Sawyer  19:51  
So let's, I want to, I want to segue to the practical. In terms of you mentioned the practical, but I want to talk about, you know, to students out there who are trying to figure out you. If they're going to even like art school, what do you what should they be thinking about?


Laura Young  20:05  
I've got a, I got a I have a couple of questions that I like to that I like to ask if someone's kind of thinking about they like art, but they don't really know whether they want to major in it. I like to know if, do you do art on your own time? Do you draw? Do you photograph? Do you paint? Do you play? Do you, do you make music? Do you like to read plays? Do you, you know, do you watch a whole bunch of movies? Do you, do you write your own monologs, like, if nobody told you to do the art? Would you do it anyway? You know, does it does it feel? Does it feel important to you? And I like to ask this, because making art unprompted can be an indicator that you just need to make stuff in order to learn to be able to connect like making art might just be a way for you to connect to the world, even if you don't end up being a working artist, you you know, to learn how to learn in a way that makes sense to you. Because some people will learn through, you know, they want to be an engineering major, because they like knowing how things work. Like you take apart that, you know, you take apart the the refrigerator, and then you put it back together. Yeah. Some people, they love political science, because they feel like that's that sort of reflection of human history and how we interact with one another within within governance, you know, arts, the same way some people just they need to, maybe you need to learn about human history by becoming and pretending to be that other person in an acting class. Maybe, maybe you learn about history by take, by taking a class in the Italian Renaissance and and learning about like religion and and political science and history through that, right? Maybe you, maybe you need to paint in order to understand what's going on in microbiology, right? So? And then the second thing that I like to ask, just to get people thinking, is, how do you deal with criticism? You know, do you do you seek feedback? Like, do you want to be better? Do you ask people? And then do you also think about, who do I want to ask? Are you just sort of flinging it out there and asking anybody? Or do you think, you know, I'd really like to get some feedback on this from, like, a teacher, or, you know, somebody who might know something about art and and then, even if you're out, you know, if you're out there with your friends and someone tells you that you suck, oh yeah, no, all the time. Thank you internet with your unbridled opinions, right? So if they say something as ineloquent and enact just sort of unhelpful as you suck. Then do you? Do you go and cry and smash your guitar and then never want to play it again? Or like, are you upset for a short amount of time, but then you're like, Okay, can I? Can I? Is there a way for me to make what I'm doing better? Did that person who told me that? Do I need to go back and say, Hey, if you think it sucks, then could you tell me why? And is, is that information going to be useful? I mean, that's a really self assured thing for high school students to do. Yeah, so, and it's totally it's fine to be bummed out, but, but then what like Do you wonder how to make your art better? Do you want to try again? Do you see, you know? Do you think, Well, you know, maybe, maybe I didn't do it as maybe I didn't do it kind of right for me this time, maybe I failed. But how do I fail better


Ethan Sawyer  23:59  
the next time I love that. It's like, Samuel Beckett, right? It is Beckett, yeah, talk to me about the difference between applying art school and applying to college, because there's, I think there are probably assumptions out there, but can you break this? Break break it down for us.


Laura Young  24:15  
So there, there. I mean, there are a bunch of different types of schools that offer arts education, and the application process can be different, because there's often a little bit less emphasis on the academics, not totally. So don't think you can get D's and F's, but admission is going to be more talent based, if there's an audition or portfolio involved, like, that's what's going to lead the application process. So the schools that you're so there's liberal arts colleges and universities, and the kind of


Ethan Sawyer  24:49  
rattle off some of those is you not because you are promoting them, blah, blah, blah, blah, but just so you know what we're talking about.


Laura Young  24:56  
Well, UCLA is one of them. I. So and then USC NYU Tisch University of Michigan, Fordham, Whittier College, like Loyola, Marymount University. So these are all schools where you have it's a liberal arts institution. So most of the majors are in the liberal arts. So humanities, sciences, and then you might have the arts majors set within the school somewhere, or they might be set aside in a professional school for the arts, but they do have arts majors on campus. And the benefit of that kind of a setup is that if you want a liberal arts education, then you can still get that liberal arts education while pursuing your arts practice and learning about other stuff. Having a wide range of knowledge about how humans kind of move throughout the world is going to make you a more well rounded and better practitioner of the arts at the end of the day. If you want to double major, you want to do design and neuroscience, you want music and astrophysics, fine art and military science. You can do that at these schools. Got it if, if you want to switch entirely, you like, say you come in as an arts major, and then you take a geography class, and you and you think, oh, man, I really love that geography class. I want to be a geography major. You can do that at these schools another time. Yeah, another type of school is visual and performing arts schools. So these are schools where all of the majors on on the campus are in visual and or performing arts. So this is, you know, Otis College of Art and Design. This is Art Center, you know, art center the California, California College of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, School of Visual Arts, which is in New York, Ringling, most University of the Arts in in Philadelphia. So these are schools where, and they're usually a little bit smaller, so you might get somebody who wants a little bit more of an intimate college experience. Maybe the largest these schools are going to get is a couple of 1000 students, and the smallest it's going to get is maybe a couple 100 students. So really, really tiny. And this is good for a student who maybe will look at a liberal arts school and be like, they're really nice people, but I really kind of don't want to noodle around with, you know, the Greek system and having classes with pre med majors. I just want to walk across campus, and I want to be surrounded by my people. I want to be surrounded by by other artists. And you can have that kind of environment there. The liberal arts are still required for graduation, if you're getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts or Bachelor fine bachelor music, but that the academic classes are going to be slightly adjusted, because the instructors are know that they're teaching a classroom full of artists. So if you're like a math Phob, or have never been taught math in a way that makes sense to you creative person, which was totally me in high school, then taking a math class in art school is going to be might, might be much more fun and much more relevant, and the classes are going to be smaller, too. So they might teach geometry by teaching you how to build canvases or kind of attaching math practice to literature, to the humanities. So they're going to really play up that, that kind of human element, which I think they should do anyway, in math, in all math classes. But you know, then I should teach it. And then there are conservatories for performing artists. So conservatories, unlike most art programs, which are really looking for potential from their prospective applicants, conservatories are really looking for Polish. So they're they're bringing in students in dance theater music who are already at a very high level of performance, and really preparing them for for careers in that area of like classically trained performers. So those, those are the types of schools where you know somebody, they knew that they were going to do they were going to go to Juilliard when they were 10 years old. Because they're studying with a private instructor, right? Like everyone, like most people, have met somebody like that where it's like, they know, that's their thing.


Ethan Sawyer  29:49  
It's their only thing. In most cases, right? It's like, you know, I had a date with a girl who was, you know, basically would play and play and play for hours and hours a day. That was your


Laura Young  29:59  
thing. You. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what conservatory that's when conservatory students do, right? So and they so they might get a bachelor's degree. But also, conservatories will sometimes offer something called an artist diploma, which is typically about two or three years of training, super intense training, in their in their performance area. So some of those programs are open to students right out of high school, and some of them almost behave as master's degrees, but it's but an artist diploma is a very specific, a very specific degree Gotcha. And another type of school is vocational and or trade technical schools. So these types of schools are, they're really good for students who want to be employed right away in a particular area. So if, coming out of high school, you are super sure that you don't want a bachelor's program and you don't want to take English, history, foreign language, etc, and you just want to learn, say, character rigging, which is it's you're basically developing a digital skeleton that supports a 3d mesh in in visual effects. Then there are schools that can teach you exactly how to do that, so that when you graduate, you go through a program in character rigging, and then when you graduate, you get out and get a job in character rigging. So the cautionary is, there are that most students, straight out of high school can really benefit from taking English, history, foreign language like you need that to kind of be a functioning person in the world. And the more awareness and knowledge that you have about that human condition from a variety of standpoints, that's what's again, that's what makes you a better artist.


Ethan Sawyer  31:40  
And part of this, the difference, and folks may or may not be aware of this, is that these, oftentimes, these vocational schools or trade tech schools, are for profit, right? Whereas, you know, the university, some of the other places you mentioned are nonprofits, at least in name. And so let's talk about that is that is there, I don't know. Is there anything to that? Is there? Are there are there certain for profits that are like, good for profits and others that are like, you know, stay away from them.


Laura Young  32:05  
Well, there, there are good for profits. But I think what's, what's important to you know, what important to remember when you're looking at for profit Institute, at these kinds of programs where they're specifically employment targeted. If they're employment targeted, then you really want to do your due diligence and reach research the heck out of that program. There's not that they're going to guarantee you a job, but the way that their education is set up is supposed to prepare you to be employed, right? So what are their employment statistics? Where graduates getting employed, these are not, these aren't, I mean, this is a place where you can really behave as a customer, which I wouldn't recommend at all for, you know, a traditional college experience, but for something like this, you know, if you if you're going to get an artist certificate in a graphic design area or, you know, in music production or something like that. What, you know, what are you have expectations? And is this school going to prepare you for this? So in the best sense of the you know, buyer beware, really, really be diligent about researching those programs. And you know, are there bad for profit schools? Yeah, they're being investigated by the federal government for misuse of student loan funds. Then, yeah, they're probably not a great school for you, right?


Ethan Sawyer  33:33  
Just google them. Just start there. Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about geography does, because some of the students I've worked with are, like, really intent on, like that. I want to go to New York, because that's where, you know, I want to make art, and that's where I want to I want to be on that other students just really don't care. Do you think


Laura Young  33:49  
it matters? Um, you know, it can. There are pros and cons to both. I mean, I if you're in a large art market like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, then you get the benefit of having a range of arts culture. So you have that exposure to all of this talent coming in from all around the world. You've got all these opportunities to become involved. So yeah, it's awesome to be in a large art market. Something to be said about smaller art markets, though, is that there's a different quality of opportunity that you can find. So maybe it didn't get cast in the play, but they need someone to stage manage, to help with costume design, with social media and marketing. There's less people to do the work, so you can diversify your experience that way, and you don't have as much competition. And then also something that you can you can find really strong programs that are geographically a field, but they'll have connections to larger art markets. One of the so Columbus, Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio, comes to mind, because nobody. Thinks about Columbus as being an art city, but every year in Columbus


Ethan Sawyer  35:05  
mine for me, yeah,


Laura Young  35:09  
the poor Midwest, they really get the short end of the stick well, because in Columbus, every year they have the cartoon Crossroads Conference, which is basically like the South by Southwest of comic books, graphic novels, narrative art, cool. So if you're in Columbus, then you get this international hub and you're super into comic books and graphic novels, and you get everybody coming in who's super interested in the same things as you are in Ohio.


Ethan Sawyer  35:41  
Give us some other what are some other hidden gems? Atlanta


Laura Young  35:45  
is in Georgia is emerging as a major film town. I literally have friends who live in Los Angeles and New York who fly to Atlanta for work, like they'll just, they'll live in a big city, and then they go to Atlanta for film and TV work. So and then also, you know, if you've grown up in a big city all your life, and you're just looking for a change of pace, right, then it might be kind of fun to go to a smaller city, somewhere, somewhere else. I mean, that's part of the college experience too. So it would you wouldn't necessarily compromise your professional connections in the arts to go into a smaller art market. Okay,


Ethan Sawyer  36:21  
quick case study. Give me a 17 year old Yo Yo Ma is with a 2.0 so that's like, you know, C's and D's is, let's just walk it down, liberal arts colleges and universities, visual and performing arts schools. Well, that's actually so it's visual and performing arts. Let's do, let's do Mark Rothko. Does Mark Rothko get into UCLA with a 2.0 even though he's showing a tremendous promise in his art,


Laura Young  36:44  
you know what? Probably not. I mean, in all fairness, UCLA, you know UCLA, and then I mean the UC system in general. I can also think I mean NYU, Southern Methodist University rice. There are all of these schools with very strong liberal arts programs and really strong arts programs, and they want to make sure


Ethan Sawyer  37:11  
you're not blowing it and all the other classes exactly


Laura Young  37:13  
well, if you're doing well in your academic classes, then that's, you know, overall indicator of success in the classroom. So, and you know, the UC system requires students to have a minimum 3.0 GPA, so if your boy, Mark had straight C's, then he wouldn't be eligible, no matter. Sorry, sorry, Mark. So what about


Ethan Sawyer  37:33  
Visual Performing Art schools? Is, I mean, are there you said more, you know, lenient. I mean, I don't know if you throw out a couple examples. And of course, the answer is, like, it depends, right? But like,


Laura Young  37:41  
it does. I mean, some schools, some schools will actually not publish a minimum GPA because they still want to be able to review the student but like, everyone's got to, they have a bottom line. They do, like, if you've got, like, a point seven standards, yeah, yeah, if you got a point seven GPA, then that calls into question just your general capability for discipline, right? So, and also, yeah, like, you better if you're going to have lower test scores, if the school requires test scores or if you have a lower GPA, then you better make sure that your audition or your portfolio is going to Yeah, yeah. It's got to blow the review panel out of the water. If you've got, if you've got two students, if you have student A and Student B, and if they're and Student A has like a 2.5 and Student B has a 3.5 if the audition or the portfolio is kind of feeling about the same to the admissions panel, they're going to go with Student B with a 3.5 like always, the higher academic average is the student who, who will be admitted and then, but if, say, the minimum GPA at that institution is a 2.0 so both students are eligible, and the admissions panel is kind of on the student with a 3.5 but they love the audition or the portfolio for the student with the 2.5 they're going to take 2.5 so really, the best show that you can give is like, whatever the school's Bottom line is above the above that minimum academics and like a tight audition or portfolio, that's everyone's happy place, right? And the higher your academics are, then scholarships also kick in too, right? Pro tip.


Ethan Sawyer  39:32  
Pro tip. Talk to me about you know, I know that. Well, you've read, I know you've read a ton of of essays, and as an unknown personal insight questions for the UCs, and you've read a bunch of artist statements. So talk to us about, what are some, what are some of the cliches that you've seen? And if you, if you want, you know, give us some tips so that what the, what not to do is, and then the if, the, if you've got any like, what to dos,


Laura Young  39:57  
oh, I got cliches. I got cliches all day. So there are some that I see a lot, and I'm and I'm not going to say, don't do this, because there's always, there's always going to be somebody who can employ cliches effectively, but most of the time they really, really drag down the writing. So for visual arts students, ever since I drew on the wall my first box of crayons, I knew that I wanted to be an artist, like, that's awesome, but that was a really long time ago, and you're probably a better artist now. And we really want to hear about now, like, if you're going to go back in history, going back to say, freshman year of high school is usually that that's relevant in terms of discussing your development as an artist, architecture, Legos. Legos. All day. So much Legos in the performing arts. In all areas of the performing arts, there's always this discussion of like waiting in the wings to go on stage and perform as a metaphor for going to college.


Ethan Sawyer  40:58  
Hashtag, life. Yeah, yes,


Laura Young  41:01  
yeah. So again, you know, proceed with caution. But if you're a good writer, and you and you have a sense, if you're confident with your writing, and you have a sense that this is absolutely relevant, and I can really, I can tie this in and make it airtight, then I'm not going to say don't do it. But if you can proceed with the artist statement, in talking about who you are right now as as a creative person, and what you're trying to accomplish through your artwork, and then how you know, how are you doing it? In terms of research materials, what have you, artist statements are also really short. They're usually about 250 to 300 words. So it's, it's really brief. And also you get the benefit of, you know that you have a pretty decent assurance that the person who is reading your artist statement is going to be an artistic person themselves. So it's really different from a college essay, where you might be an artist, but maybe the review, maybe the reviewer has an engineering degree, and maybe they're not going to get you in the same way that a practicing artist is going to get


Ethan Sawyer  42:17  
you right. That's great to know. That's a great point, because there's a difference. Right? You're right, if you're writing somebody who's in the know, there's a level of the language is different. It's like you're, yeah,


Laura Young  42:26  
you change your vocabulary. Hopefully, it helps you relax a little bit more, because you know that you're going to be, you're, you're creating a conversation with somebody who, who will understand you, right? Who gets what you do, yeah, who will really like, get you on a visceral level, right? Talk


Ethan Sawyer  42:42  
to parents for a second. Say there are parents listening to this. What advice do you give them as they're supporting kids or supporting their students through


Laura Young  42:51  
the process? You know, with parents, I mean parental units or counselors, any kind of adult in in a student's life, whether you have an arts background or not, you're really important, you know, because you're the one who is encouraging the arts practice, even if you have absolutely no idea how your student can do that thing. I mean, like my my dad, you know, I have an undergraduate art degree, and my dad can't draw a straight line and but he, you know, he drove me to classes. He wanted to he came to my he came to my exhibitions in high school, like the silly little things, he was supportive. So you can be encouraging and supportive of the process, helping research opportunities to make more art outside of the like how to make time, how to make time and space for for making things, and then, usually, when it comes time to actually apply to school, being an administrative support is super helpful. Sometimes, applying to arts programs means multiple deadlines for one school, like one for a regular application, and then you've got other due dates for portfolios on auditions, so adults can definitely be the sort of gentle nudge to keep the student on track so that they don't miss anything important,


Ethan Sawyer  44:16  
right? What about what about students like, if you had to flash back and give advice to your 18 year old self when you were going off to college. What would you say?


Laura Young  44:25  
Oh, her, Oh, that little scraggly pink haired thing. Um, I would, I would say there are two things that I've definitely thought about. What I would tell my little 18 year old self, number one is take an accounting class actually understanding the basics of how business works, like how businesses and corporations manage process and communicate their financial information is fundamental. Like if. If, if 90% of artists are going to be self employed, right? Then understanding how finance works, like, how, how does a budget work? Yeah, is super important. And I mean, even if you're a math fold, like, Dude, give it a shot. I could not algebra my way out of a paper bag. But I really like statistics, because I know what the numbers mean. I can see them. I believe. I'm like, oh, there are people here. This is what this means. I can color code graphs. Accounting is similarly tangible. So and artists are actually really good at systems thinking, like seeing how parts turn into a whole. So if I'm, if I'm going to say anything, like, don't be intimidated by accounting and finance, because you might actually be really good at it. Just believe that you're, believe that you're good at it, and that's that it's important to you, and that understanding that business aspect is what's going to that's what's going to keep you out of the basement,


Ethan Sawyer  46:00  
Yeah, boy. I mean, I'm going, I'm just like, nodding as you're saying this, and I'm thinking about how I never would have thought this, like while I was in college, because I was like, one to make theater, but like, I it should, I almost felt like, and then I did it in grad school, I did it again, and I was like, No way am I gonna study business? But I feel like it like, should be required to, if not, minoring in Business, like at least a couple business classes. It just feels so important, and especially for artists anyway, yeah,


Laura Young  46:26  
yes. I mean, as, as an artist, you, your your talent, your your offer, your offerings. That's a business, like it's, it's, you know, me Incorporated, so you have to be able to manage the business of, of being you. Yeah, this the second thing, you know, I never studied abroad, and I, you know, I can't say that. I fully regret it, because I really plugged into my art major in my junior year, which is typically when people go away, but I didn't look into it enough. I could have gotten, I could have gone away for a summer. It doesn't even have to be art related, you know, you can go away for like a month during the summer for a language intensive. You know, what is that thing that Mark Twain said about travel as being fatal to to bigotry, to prejudice? Yeah, I love that. For artists, being able to become comfortable with being uncomfortable and seeking perspective is is essential to your craft, so and and it's really hard to travel once you get out and start working and worrying about stuff like car payments and rent and garbage and it college is, college is a place like, find a study abroad program, find something weird, like through Germanic languages or something that has a scholarship, and apply for the scholarship, get somebody else to try to find somebody else to pay for it, because Just go anywhere. It doesn't matter, right? So that's, yeah, that's what I would that's what I would say those two take an accounting class and study abroad. Laura,


Ethan Sawyer  48:08  
yeah, gosh, I'm so glad I studied abroad. I'm thinking about, like, as you're talking about this, I'm flashing back on, like, all the memories of, like, London and Spain and Ireland. Yeah, I don't have those memories. I'm sorry, and you never will. No, I'm kidding, not. Now that you have a baby, it's just, it's, you're just not. Why travel, right?


Laura Young  48:26  
You know, I can still go for three weeks in a carry on, but little dude, yeah, can? I don't. I still haven't figured that out yet, right? Me neither. Again, applying, applying my artist mind to this. Like, how do I? How do I how do I do this? How do I travel with a small person?


Ethan Sawyer  48:45  
What this is? On every podcast episode, I like to do a little show and tell segment where we basically, and I don't even know if I prepped you for this, so if not, just roll with it. But like I do this, we do this show and tell thing where it's just like, here's a resource or something that is that you're finding useful in your life, and it could be something that ends up applying to the college admissions process or not. It could just be something that you're finding awesome and useful, and great. Humans who are listening to this might find it awesome and useful too. So what's something that What have you brought for show and tell today? Laura, even if I'm just springing this on you right now,


Laura Young  49:22  
I mean, like, like, any good 30 something, I did read the, oh, gosh, I can't even remember that. I can't remember the title of the book, the one Marie Kondo about organizing your house. So, yeah, oh yes, the whatever. Anyway, I have a book that I like better than that,


Ethan Sawyer  49:45  
actually. Oh, cool. So


Laura Young  49:47  
it's, it's called Flanagan's smart home, and as long as we're talking about artists and systems of management, one of my. Very dear friends, who is an actor and a film editor, gave me this book a number of years ago, and said, Laura, this book is so you. And it's written by a woman who Barbara Flanagan, and it's an organizational book. It's about essential, like the 99 essential items for your home. And so Barbara Flanagan was living on the East Coast, and she's an architect, and she had this gigantic house with this big family, and she started building this teeny, tiny little house for her mother. So it was a one person house, and then her then her mother passed away, and her husband left her, and then all of her kids grew up and moved out of the house. So she was living in this giant house with all of this furniture, because she loved to restore furniture, so she would acquire all of these things and never really finish the projects. And then she realized, I can't live in this big, empty in this gigantic, messy house. So she sells everything, and she goes to live in the house that she built originally for her mother, and has to downsize everything. So the entire book is this meditation on what objects are totally essential for your home. What? What do you need? What are the most Multi Purpose items that you can buy that are functional, that are beautiful and that are sustainable? So recommendations on like rugs, buying a mattress, a feather duster, which is seems really super old fashioned, but she's like, No, you can, like, clean it and reuse it. And it's classic, and it's much more functional than anything else out there. And I love this book.


Ethan Sawyer  51:54  
This is so good. As soon as we're done here, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna order it. It's like, done. You


Laura Young  51:59  
You can. I have, I have given away probably 15 copies of this book, and you can find it used for, like, a book, right? Okay, and, and, you know, it's not, of course, it's not written for somebody with with big with a family, but I don't care, because it's just the you can get. It's short enough so you can get the concept of where you need to kind of put your energies. Yeah, and I read so Flanagan's smart home.


Ethan Sawyer  52:28  
I'm inspired by your book, this book that, yes, it's for humans, but I can see how artists could totally dig it. So I've got two books for artists that have inspired me. The first one's The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. You know that book? No, it's super rad. It's about breaking through like creative blocks, and sort of wrestling with the inner artist, the the voice within the inner critic. The other one is the inner game of tennis, which I wouldn't say is specifically for artists, but in terms of taking criticism and dealing with that inner critic, this really was useful for me. It was required, actually, reading for my grad school Acting Program. And they're both both short, you know, they're both like, you know, less than 200 pages. So they're like, pick it up and read it in an hour. Type books. So I'll link to all these in the show notes, by the way. But yay reading. Yay books. Books. Books, yay. Remember books? Yeah,


Laura Young  53:23  
real books.


Ethan Sawyer  53:27  
Laura, why do you do? What you do?


Laura Young  53:32  
You know, artists are my people that that's, it's really, it's, it's really that simple for me. I I believe in in how important they are. You know, I I feel like it's important for artists to be able to learn how to advocate for themselves, and especially, kind of going back to what I said at the beginning, I had to get told, I had to get told what I was good at. Because I didn't, I didn't understand. I felt like, yeah, I can. I can render this water bottle and graphite really, really well, but I didn't understand what else I was learning. And it took older people, older artists, people who understood creative people, to tell me, no, like, yeah, you can, you can render the water bottle, but you're also really great at project management. You are you know how to pay attention and really observe something deeply. You know most people in museums, they'll look at a piece of artwork for 15 seconds, and they don't really sit in front of it or or really sit with a piece of music, or kind of let themselves sink into an experience that's unfamiliar to them. And and I had to get told that I was that I was good at that, and when someone told me that it was this aha moment, like, oh my gosh, I am good at I recognize. Myself in in those observations, and so I really hope in the work that I do, that I'm able to carry on that legacy, even if I'm only talking to somebody at a they might not, they might not apply to my school, and that's fine, you know, we're not the only school. There are other ones, but if I can, if I can leave somebody who is, you know, 1617, years old, who feels that they're doing something really important, that they that they have to do or make art, because they're going to kind of shrivel up if they don't, but are feeling a lot of external pressure to, like, do something sensible so they can get a job that this is and that they're really good at. There they have these skills already that are incredibly valuable, that are that are crazy robot proof, I may add. I mean, there are all of these reports coming out right now about what jobs are going to be automated in the future, and the two sectors that are the least susceptible to automation are the arts and education. Those are the two because they require a very high level of expertise and a very high level of unpredictability. So if you want to I mean, I artists should know that creative young people should know that that what they're good at is going to help them survive the future. That's the sensible pay.


Ethan Sawyer  56:29  
We'll leave it at that. Laura, thanks for coming on to the podcast. In


Laura Young  56:32  
my humble opinion, I appreciate you. I appreciate you. You


Ethan Sawyer  56:43  
that's it. Thanks for listening to the podcast. You can find the show notes, including links to everything we discussed, and an amazing, super informative PDF of a presentation that Laura put together at WWW dot college essay guide.com/podcast, stay curious. You.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai