The Art of Art Management

Written By Asia Howe

One of the many pieces created by UH Hilo Fine Art major, Rosella Vaughn. This image captures the way stress, such as stress from bureaucracy, can inspire art. Photo provided by Rosella Vaughn.

“You begin with the possibilities of the material.” — Robert Rauschenberg

If anyone has ever participated in an art show or competition, he or she knows that “challenge” may not be the best descriptor for the process. As a participant or contestant, the most one has to do is create a piece, maybe mat it, and maybe submit it (should an instructor not rob his or her students of the last two steps). When the exhibition starts up—poof!—there sits one’s submitted piece on the wall, magically mounted, magically lit, magically judged. When artists are generally equated with artwork, why would they dabble in gallery management?

“I wrote a grant proposal to the Diversity and Equity initiative,” Rosella Vaughn asserts matter-of -factly. She goes on to mention how her proposal scored her project $1,000. While this statement may not be surprising coming from a business major, it is, thanks to preconceived ideas about art and artists, dazzling coming from a Fine Art major. Indeed, a University of Hawaii at Hilo senior and Fine Art major, Vaughn completed a directed study she thought up and Dr. Michael Marshall supervised last fall—Art 399: Gallery Management.

Rosella poses with faculty and students in the Art Department. Vaughn is featured in the far right, Dr. Marshall (second, left), and Yuji Hiratsuka (center). Photo courtesy of Rosella Vaughn.

Not only did the senior write a grant proposal, but she announced a call for entries for her project, an exhibition, online, raised the capital she needed to bring the prolific artist Yuji Hiratsuka to the Art Department, invited and brought Hiratsuka to said instructional division of the university, and matted, framed, and installed about 50 art pieces. The Diversity and Equality award sponsored the prolific artist’s flight; he judged the exhibition, presented a lecture, and, assisted by both students and professors, fashioned an original piece while at the Art Department. Hiratsuka’s art has since been situated in the division’s Artist Portfolio. Copies of the piece are to be sold, with their profit going toward the Art Department’s visiting artist program.

As a Fine Art major and art devotee, Vaughn did not enter the directed study unprepared for what it had in store. Prior to the course, she had been the president of the Hilo Student Art Association for about two years and had organized the Association’s Annual Student Art Exhibit. The directed study still granted the senior a great learning experience. “No class incorporates matting, framing, and installation of exhibits or their organization,” Vaughn explains. “Hence all of the work within the frame of the directed study specialized me in something that [not all the] other art students can claim. It [was] a great opportunity to learn real life applicable art-related skills.” She is certain that the skills she learned from the study contribute to her success today.

UH Hilo Senior and Fine Art major, Rosella Vaughn. Photo courtesy of Rosella Vaughn.

Vaughn identifies efficient time management as one of the skills Art 399 taught her. She declares, “Bureaucracy moves slower than a passionate art student like myself, so planning ahead made [my] life easier.” Another ability the senior accredits the course with having allocated to her is grant writing. “Writing grants is simple if one has vision,” she affirms, “[but,] having others to review and edit helps [one] realize this vision.” Overall, the most important lesson Vaughn seems to have acquired is that cooperation can be quite advantageous. “Several pairs of eyes improve the odds. Several hands lighten the workload. Organizing exhibitions alone is a mad idea and truly one needs more employees to make great things. I got it [the show] done, but a team would have made my life a lot easier.”

Rosella works on one of her art pieces. Photo courtesy of Rosella Vaughn.

When asked how the directed study influenced her thoughts about her future, it is evident that the

senior absorbed all she could from the learning experience, and then contemplated what she took upon herself. Vaughn views her experience with the bureaucratic, business, and networking facet of art as the gust that will keep her on course, employed in an art-related field. Also, she feels her experience has given her qualifications not every art major possesses, qualifications that can help her open doors to those art-related fields. Such fields aside, the senior perceives doors opening to opportunities to meet gallery owners, gallery operators, and fellow artists as well as opportunities to exhibit her work.

“Who you know, who you work with, and the effort you put forth in exhibiting,” Vaughn ends,

is what gets people excited as much as talent in the artistic field. We work with our creativity on one side and push our work into the public eye on the other.”

For questions regarding the Art Department, Dr. Michael Marshall, the department chairman and art professor, may be contacted at mdmarsha@hawaii.edu.

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