The Summer Apprenticeship

A young woman’s heart is beating very fast as she holds the envelope that contains a letter of acceptance or rejection about a summer apprenticeship. The young woman is about to complete her junior year in college. She is an Art major and applied for an apprenticeship with a well-known artist. She knows the program administrators receive a large number of applications each year and can only accept a few students.

The young woman’s hands are shaking as she opens the envelope. She reads the first line of letter that says, “We are pleased to offer you an apprenticeship for this summer’s program with Artists in the Making." She breathes a sigh of relief as she continues to read the letter and the additional information enclosed.

As part of the apprenticeship, the woman will stay at a local college. On her first day, she learns that the artist is away on a last-minute business trip, but should return by the end of the week. She spends the week assisting another staff member who teaches a variety of art classes by purchasing art supplies. She also helps get the room set-up, providing assistance to the students as they work on their projects, and cleaning the art supplies.

The following Monday when she arrives to the studio, she is asked to wait in the lobby. They are waiting for the artist to arrive. After their staff meeting, they will introduce her to the artist. As she waits in the lobby, she looks through a number of books on display. A staff member enters the lobby and says, “He is ready to meet with you.”

The young woman follows the staff member as they walk down the hallway to the artist’s office. The artist stands up from his desk to shake her hand and says, “Please have a seat.” After she sits down in the chair, he continues, “I’m afraid you came at an unfortunate time. The studio just received an invitation to participate in an exhibit. It is a great opportunity for us to showcase our recent work, but we are somewhat unprepared. We have a lot to do to get ready for it. The studio does not want to cancel the apprenticeship, but the experience will be less than ideal.”

At that moment, the artist’s phone rings. He looks at the phone and says, “I need to answer this.” He answers the phone and says, “Yes.” He listens for a minute before answering, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The artist hangs up the phone and says, “I need to run into a meeting. Please go into Studio A, and tell one of the staff members that you are in there to help them out.”

The young woman goes into Studio A and finds the staff member she worked with the previous week. The young woman is once again sent out to purchase a variety of art supplies and helps with cleaning the studio, the paints, and brushes.

A few days later, the young woman is asked to fill in one of the paintings. A number of paintings in various stages of finalization are located on easels throughout the studio. She is asked to finish painting a barn. As she is working on the painting, the artist comes up to her and says, “What are you doing?”

The young woman says, “I was asked to finish painting the barn.”

The artist says, “Who asked you to do that? I don’t like people to touch my paintings before they are finished.”

The young woman leaves the room and is afraid that she is going to be asked to leave the apprenticeship. She is shaking with fear as she goes to find the other staff members.

She finds one of the other staff members and explains the situation. The staff member says, “Don’t worry. Everyone is under a lot of stress with the upcoming exhibit. It’s already after 4 pm. Come back tomorrow and we’ll assign you some new tasks.”

The young woman arrives the following morning and meets with one of the staff members who says, “How are you at making travel arrangements? Our administrative assistant is unable to make it in today, and he needs to go to New York. We need someone to make flight and hotel reservations.”

The staff member pulls up their company’s travel website on the computer and briefly explains the system.The staff member instructs her to book a direct flight on a few suggested airlines. The staff member then clicks open a folder on the website they created labeled “New York hotels” and says, “Try to reserve a hotel room at one of these hotels. Once you have made the reservations, send the links via e-mail.”

The young woman reserves a flight, but there are not any rooms available at the suggested hotels. She conducts a search on the website to identify other potential hotels. She sends an e-mail communication to the artist with the flight information and explains none of the preferred hotels are available. She provides the name of three other hotels that have availability. The artist responds to the message by providing the name of another hotel. The young woman goes to the hotel website and reserves a room.

The following week, the artist needs to go on location to finish a painting for a private collection. Visitors to the studio often request to have a picture painted. The artist is known for painting scenic views in the area, and depending on his availability, he helps support these types of requests. The young woman is asked to assist him. They drive a van that holds a wide range of materials out to the location. Once they arrive, the artist instructs her to bring out one of the easels and a canvas. She is asked to make a painting of the view while he works on his painting.

After a couple of hours of painting, the artist comes up to her and says, “Your painting is good, but you need to mix and use more colors. If you look closely at a flower pedal, you will see it’s not one color. There are several shades of pink, but there is also white and even yellow. You will also see there are lines and they have a texture. Some flowers look softer than others.”

The artist asks her to re-paint one of the flowers. The activity is hard for her as she is not used to painting using so much detail, but she leaves the day knowing that she is developing an important skill.

The studio is asked to go to the museum where the upcoming exhibit will be on display. When they arrive, they meet with one of the staff members from the museum. The staff member takes them to the room where the exhibit will be located. They walk into the room and the staff member shows them the large floor-to-ceiling space that they have set aside for their collection.

The artist shakes his head and says, “This isn’t going to work. This space is for large pieces of art. We have a collection of smaller pieces. Our paintings are too small.”

The staff member tries to reassure them that they have used the space to display a wide variety of collections, and suggests returning the following day with a few paintings to see how they look.

The studio returns the following day and work with a few staff members to place the paintings on the wall. After they finish, the artist still feels they are too small for the space.

They spend some time in the room discussing the situation. The artist says, “This space is more suited for large pieces of art or light demonstrations.”

One of the staff members says, “I think it could work for some of our larger paintings.”

Another staff member says, “We could try to project the paintings from a laptop computer. If we take pictures of them, we could create presentation slides that automatically rotates them.”

The studio agrees to look into taking pictures of the paintings and creating a presentation. The young woman and a few other staff members spend a day setting up the studio and taking pictures of the paintings. They create a presentation and show it to the artist.

The artist doesn’t feel the pictures look professional enough and suggests hiring a professional photographer. They hire a professional photographer who visits the studio. The photographer and staff members spend several hours cleaning the studio. The photographer carefully adjusts the lighting and modifies the background screens before taking pictures of each painting.

The photographer takes a few pictures and downloads them so they can be viewed on a computer. The photographer then says, “I think the paintings would look better if we created real slides. My camera that can be used to make slides is in my car. I will go get it.”

The photographer returns to the studio with a different camera and spends the rest of the day taking pictures of all the paintings. The following week, they spend the day looking at the slides of all the paintings projected from a slide projector. The artist and the staff members decide which paintings to include and which paintings need to be re-taken.

Once they decide which paintings to include, the young woman and a few other staff members are asked to work on the descriptions. The exhibit is starting to come together.

When time allows, the young woman continues to work on her artwork. On Fridays, if the artist is available, she meets with him during their one-on-one sessions they set-up for mentoring. He encourages her to continue to challenge herself as she has a tendency to overlook some of the details.

The studio continues to work with the museum to get the exhibit ready. Although the setting is not ideal, creating slides with pictures of the paintings and projecting them from a slide projector turns out to be the best solution. It also makes the collection look modern.

The apprenticeship ends and while it was not what the young woman expected, she gained valuable experience. She had the opportunity to assist getting a collection ready for an exhibit, and she also learned techniques to improve her artwork.

Several years later, the woman’s artwork is featured in a small local museum. During the reception, she reconnects with her former mentor. The artist approaches and says, “Do you still remember me?”

The young woman smiles and says, “Of course. I am glad you could make it.”

The artist says, “I just got back from a trip. I’ve been traveling to paint different bridges for an upcoming project. I received your invitation and we arranged the schedule so I could make it. Your collection is good, but don’t forget to paint the details. In your Still Life, the eggs are painted white with a little shading of gray. The next time you buy a carton of eggs, take some time to look at them. They have a texture.”

A few weeks later, the woman is out grocery shopping. She returns home with a carton of eggs. She laughs when she opens the carton and sees one of the eggs is speckled.