Please give a brief background on yourself and your career.
I grew up in Los Angeles, California and graduated from Wellesley in 2007. I reached out to a Wellesley alum in the Los Angeles/Orange County area to speak about her career in art, and I ended up taking her position at a small art advisory company. From there, I moved to NYC and continued to work in the art world. I’ve worked for a Chinese contemporary gallery (where I ran into another Wellesley alum working there during my interview), a non-profit to help out temporarily with an art auction event, an artist, an art dealer, a larger gallery with three locations, and finally an art auction house. I’ve mainly focused on the financial and accounting side of the art business in the last few years, although now I can clearly see that area was the common thread in all of my positions. I currently work at Christie’s in New York in Client Accounting.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
I applied to colleges with an intention to major in International Relations. I had previously taken an introductory art history course at a local city college during high school, and I enrolled in an Italian Renaissance class with Professor Lilian Armstrong just to fulfill my art requirement. I fell in love with the subject matter — probably because I went to a Catholic school and felt familiar with it already! I also adored Professor Armstrong, and I declared my major for art history soon afterwards.
As others with art majors can attest, the lingering question of “What will I do with my art major?” was constantly over my head as a student. I took advantage of recruiting meetings and career panels, but nothing ever jumped out at me. I can honestly say I did not know what to consider while I was a student, and I graduated with a one-way ticket home to Los Angeles and no clue.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
I like to believe that Wellesley and my varied interests helped me in being versatile. As a gallery assistant or associate, you have to wear many hats — in my first few jobs, I’ve had to navigate my way around an industry-specific database management software, proofread and edit exhibition catalogues and art book, update websites and artists’ bios with light coding, assist with an internal company audit, create press releases with appropriate graphics to send out via email blast, and plan out every logistical detail to pull off an art fair booth. The skills I acquired at Wellesley were developed from my involvement in planning for school events with SBOG, my student jobs with the art department, a media arts class with Dave Olsen, the intro computer science course where a friend and I teamed up to create a webpage, etc. I think this kind of versatility, being equally proficient in Photoshop and Quickbooks, got my foot in the door and also gave me a chance to figure out what I liked and didn’t like.
Wellesley also provided a lot of opportunities in the form of internships, stipends, and studying abroad, once I worked up the courage to take advantage of them. Additionally, I find so much moral support through college friends as well as other alums in similar fields.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
I work now in Client Accounting at an art auction house. The Settlements department ensures that all the contracts and sales terms are set up correctly within the system we use, and we start the process to eventually pay out the consignors, or the clients that have brought in artwork to sell. I normally juggle a few sales at a time, and it involves communicating heavily with the sales departments and other various stakeholders in the company.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
The art world can be a tough industry to crack, but luckily there are many Wellesley alums that are willing to speak about their experiences and career paths. Networking can sometimes be a scary idea, but I’ve had the best conversations with current students and recent alums when they were completely honest about what they were looking for and what their hesitations were. I would also suggest being as communicative as possible–I love hearing updates from everyone I’ve spoken to, regardless of what they are doing!
I think it helps to really be multi-talented and have a wide variety of interests. Working in art doesn’t always have a definable career path, but there are many different types of jobs within the market. It sometimes seems like the possible career choices are limited to curatorial, development or sales, but it would be beneficial to take the time to explore what other options are out there. Within the NY community, non-profits are doing amazing collaborations with artists for site-specific installations. There are entire companies devoted to PR work for art galleries and museums. You can do registrarial work or plan events, or you can be a logistical problem-solver by planning for art fairs and juggling all the shipping woes that come along with transporting irregularly-shaped freight. I never would have imagined that one day, I would be flexing my accounting muscles while also working in art.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
I always had a suspicion that everything would work out eventually, but there were practical matters that I wish I had learned about while I was still a student. I had no idea what it costs to live a very basic life, or what I should expect as a starting salary in this very specialized field. I also realize now how important it is to ask for the things you want, whether it is to negotiate terms or to request that someone pass along your resume.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
I have so many classes I wish I would have taken! I would have loved to take more philosophy courses because of the awesome professors, a contemporary art course as that is where the market is at right now, an East Asian political science course to understand the how and why of current events, or even more of the fun P.E. courses. One of the many facts I get to impress people with was that I took snowboarding, archery, and cardio kickboxing to fulfill my requirements at Wellesley.