Life is too short to remain unnoticed.

— Salvador Dali

Artist’s Portfolios, Websites & Careers

Welcome!

This class will be a lot of work. I assume that if you’re taking this class you want an art career. I will do everything I can to help you prepare for that career. I expect to see you do everything you can to build your career.

If you’re taking 6 classes and working 20+ hours you should not take this class. You won’t have time to build a great portfolio.

Stress

Planning your life and career can be stressful. Don’t be over-stressed! Let’s hop on Zoom anytime and talk. Stressful stuff talked through is almost always less stressful.

Course Details

Long Beach State University, College of the Arts, School of Art
Art 490: Capstone Workshop: Artist’s Portfolios, Websites & Careers

• Instructor: Glenn Zucman
• email: glenn.zucman@csulb.edu
• Office Hours: anytime! Let’s talk by email or hop on Zoom if you have questions about the class, art, career, life, or anything else. We have 3 “official” 1-to-1 zoom meetups, but you don’t have to wait for those. If you have questions, let’s talk!
• Semester: Fall 2023
• Section 1: Class #6133
• Prerequisite: None
• Units: 1
• Work Estimate: 3 hours/week
• Textbook: Artists’ Portfolios, Websites & Careers, $0.
• Web Hosting & Domain Name: $48-96
• Course: 17 August – 22 December, 2023
• Final: Friday 15 December 2023, 12:30-2:30 pm PT on Zoom.

Course Format

• Online
• Synchronous + Asynchronous
• Mondays on Zoom, Noon-12:45 pm
• Plus 1-to-1 Zoom meetups with Glenn
• Zoom Room: csulb.zoom.us/my/glennz
• Password: soa
  

Zoom Etiquette

Mondays

• Mondays are informal
• Camera on if at all possible

1-to-1 Meetups with Glenn

• A more official, in-depth conversation about your career and portfolio
• Camera On
• Decent Light
• Microphone On
• Not too noisy environment
• Best Internet connection possible
• If the camera on your laptop doesn’t work, please use your phone or an LBSU computer lab like the Horn Center or Spidel Center. It is difficult to have an in-depth conversation about your career while talking to a black rectangle.

Appropriate Online Behavior

Please be courteous, thoughtful, and respectful in interacting with your classmates. Respectful does not mean always praising. When you interact with classmates endless generic praise is not helpful. Try to be encouraging but also critical. What’s working? What could be stronger? Polite, well-intentioned, thoughtful critique is a gift you can give each other.

Schedule

• Week 2 – Elevator Pitch
• Week 3 – Make New Work
• Week 4 – Key People
• Week 5 – Make New Work
• Week 6 – Write about Yourself & Your Work
• Week 7 – Make New Work
• Week 8 – Photograph Yourself & Your Work
• Week 9 – Make New Work
• Week 10 – Choose a Web Platform & Custom Domain Name
• Week 11 – Make New Work
• Week 12 – 1st Draft of Portfolio Website Due
• Week 13 – Make New Work
• Fall Break – 20-26 November
• Week 14 – Test & Critique Your Portfolio Website
• Week 15 – Final Draft of Portfolio Website Due
• Final – Critique of Websites with special guests (Zoom)

1-to-1 Meetups with Glenn

1. Meetup #1 – Weeks 4 & 5
2. Meetup #2 – Weeks 9 & 10
3. Meetup #3 – Weeks 14 & 15

• Visit the Meetup Schedule Page to pick the Day & Time you’d like to meetup on Zoom.
• I’m available for all the meetups you’d like by email or zoom. These are just our 3 “official” meetups.

About Art 490

• Online. Synchronous & Asynchronous.

Prerequisites

• None

Objectives

This class has 3 key objectives to help you transition from the School of Art to your Professional Art Career:

1. Pick one clear career goal. Pick 3 sub-categories within your goal to show work in
2. Make new work to fill in your 3 portfolio categories
3. Assemble your work into a compelling portfolio & website

Learning Outcomes

On completing the class you will be able to:

1. Give a Confident, Clear, Concise & Compelling 2 sentence “Elevator Pitch” describing your Art Career
2. Make the portfolio pieces you need to advance your career without having an instructor assign them
3. Build a persuasive Portfolio Website
4. Use Portfolio software like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and others
5. Easily & Quickly Update the content of your Portfolio
6. Change the aesthetics of your Portfolio
7. Prepare Images & Videos for your Portfolio
8. Create an online CV or Resume
9. Create an online Artist’s Statement
10. Exchange links with other artists

Materials

Textbook

• Artists’ Portfolios, Websites & Careers, by Glenn Zucman – $0.

Required Materials

Your own Domain Name (URL) like: glenn.zucman.com, Not glennzucman.wix.com

You can buy your Domain Name and Hosting from a Web Hosting Company. Here are a few choices:

• Squarespace – 50% 1st Year Student Discount – $96/year
• Wix – 50% Student Discount – $96/year
• WordPress.com – $48/year
• More choices: Platforms

Other Tools

1. Computer – laptop or desktop. Or computers in the Horn Center or Spidel Center
2. Camera – Phone, Mirrorless, DSLR, or Film
3. Cloud Storage – Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, etc (free version)

Total Course Cost

• $48-96

Technology

Technical Competence Required

• use phone & laptop
• view websites & navigate to different locations
• download & install software

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Any smartphone and laptop made in the last few years. Or computers in the Spidell Center or the Horn Center.

Minimum Software Requirements

1. Any modern web browser
2. Support software like Adobe Creative Cloud

Safety

Close Focusing

Close focusing to read books, phones, and tablets can cause myopia, a condition where your close viewing is sharp but your distance viewing is not.

• Stop for 20 seconds of distance viewing every 20 minutes of close focusing.
• lemonde.fr/en/science/article/2022/07/03/the-influence-of-screens-on-children-a-growing-vector-of-the-myopia-pandemic_5988891_10.html

Sitting is The New Smoking

• A January 2023 study in The Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 5 minutes of walking for every 30 minutes of sitting as providing the healthiest outcome
• lemonde.fr/en/science/article/2023/01/30/walking-five-minutes-every-half-hour-is-the-best-remedy-against-the-effects-of-a-sedentary-lifestyle_6013614_10.html
• Or get a treadmill desk.

Points & Grades

New Work

“New Work” must be work that fits 1 of your 3 career categories. For example: if your career goal is Animation and your 3 categories are Storyboards, Backgrounds & Character Design, then you may not submit jewelry you made in your metals class. “New Work” must be work for Your Portfolio to make it possible to start your career.

Points

• Projects Weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 14 x 1 point = 6 points
• New Work Weeks 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 x 1 point = 6 points
• 3 F2F (Zoom) meetups with Glenn x 1 point = 3 points
• 1st draft of Portfolio Website w Custom URL submitted by 11:59 pm Sun 22 Oct ’23 = 2 points
• Final draft of revised Portfolio Website submitted by 11:59 pm Thu 14 Dec ’23 = 2 points
• Final Critique on Zoom, Friday 15 Dec 12:30 – 2:30 pm = 1 point
• Total Course Points Possible: 20

Grades

• 18 points = A
• 16 points = B
• 14 points = C
• 12 points = D
• 11 points & below = F

No Late Work

Be Professional – there is no late work.

• If you’re late for an interview, you won’t get hired.
• If you’re late delivering work you won’t get rehired (and may get sued)
• Take this course, and your career, seriously.
• Meet your deadlines.

Each week your work is due on Canvas:

• Due Date is Thursday @ 11:59 pm PT
• Deadline is Sunday @ 11:59 pm PT

If you plan to have your work completed and submitted by the weekly “Due Date” of Thursday, then you’re give yourself cushion for anything that might come up: technical issues, personal things, and so on.

Work submitted by the Sunday Deadline receives full credit. Work submitted after the deadline receives no credit.

Other Details

Incompletes

The School of Art grants “incompletes” rarely and only for the most extreme conditions.

Withdrawal Deadlines

• CSULB Enrollment Services: Key Dates & Deadlines
• CSULB Dropping & Withdrawing Policies

Accommodation

LBSU will make reasonable accommodations for any student who has different needs. It is the student’s responsibility to notify me in advance of the need for special accommodations.

Eliminating Anti-Blackness

Faculty at LBSU strive to create an environment that supports meaningful dialogue grounded in research, academic inquiry, and mutually respectful relations. We also strive to remain conscious of and attentive to the damage that anti-Blackness does to the lives of our students, faculty, staff, administrators, and their related communities.

Freedom of Expression 

The College of the Arts (COTA) at Long Beach State University (LBSU) embraces freedom of expression in the arts and encourages students’ creation of work that thoughtfully engages with all facets of the human experience. COTA recognizes that respect, openness, inclusiveness, and access are essential to creating a productive and constructive place for our students, faculty, and staff to teach, learn, study, create, and expand their fields. LBSU supports creative, thoughtful, and respectful discourses in which conflicting perspectives are vigorously debated and thoroughly discussed. LBSU is dedicated to affording all members of the LBSU community freedom of speech, expression, right to assemble, religion, and press, and protections for all identities under the U.S. and California constitutions, as well as under all applicable federal and state laws, in accordance with the University’s purpose and function except insofar as limitations on those freedoms are necessary to LBSU’s functioning. 

For more information about the First Amendment, freedom of expression, and hate speech, see:

• csulb.edu/student-affairs/free-speech/freedom-of-expression
• csulb.edu/student-affairs/free-speech/faq
• csulb.edu/academic-senate/policy-statement-00-07-faculty-professional-responsibility-policy  

For more on COTA’s support of inclusivity and diversity, see:

• csulb.edu/college-of-the-arts/mission-and-vision

Campus Confidential Advocates, Not Alone @ the Beach

Title IX prohibits gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. If you have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, dating/domestic violence, or stalking, the Campus Confidential Advocate is available to help.

Jaqueline Urtez and Rocio Telumbre, email: advocate@csulb.edu, phone: 562-985-2668, can provide free and confidential support, accommodations, and referrals for victims without having to report the assault to campus authorities. While students are welcome to discuss assaults with faculty or disclose such experiences in class discussions or assignments, both faculty and teaching assistants are responsible employees who are required to report all known incidents of sexual harassment/misconduct to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office for follow-up. Reporting this information will result in the student being contacted by the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office with information on accommodations and reporting options for possible investigation. Students do not need to respond to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office, but students who do wish to report the assault for possible investigation are encouraged to contact the Campus Confidential Advocate, who can help them through the reporting process, or they can report the assault directly to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office by completing an online reporting form at https://www.csulb.edu/equity-diversity/title-ix or contacting the Office of Equity & Diversity at OED@csulb.edu.

For more information about confidential advocacy services and violence prevention education at LBSU, please contact our campus project Not Alone @ the Beach https://cla.csulb.edu/natb