Applications: Shantell Martin

This week’s speaker was the amazing artist Shantell Martin!

She walked us through the artists’ journey of finding what makes your style you and what that style is. Starting with the question “Who are you,” and that when you take the first letter of each word, you spell the word “Way”. Thinking of how to find your way as who you are. She reiterated to trust your intuition and that you will navigate through an ocean of No’s as far as things you may want to do, that the more No’s you push through, the clearer the Yes is when it happens. She also mentioned the equally important part of understanding the business side of things as an artist, to read through contracts, to understand how to navigate the financial side. She also talked about how she felt there really wasn’t so much of a difference between the commercial word and institutional museums, that all of it is centered around capitalist gains. As long as you are doing projects that check all of the boxes that you care about that’s what matters (ex: a commercial fashion project that donates to underserved school’s arts education).

She also reiterated that what you do outside of school during your time in the program is just as if not as important as your coursework. That often its those that are active in the communities on the outside that find themselves successful after as well. That it’s about how you apply your ideas out in the real world.

She also talked about how important it is to find yourself in place where you can incubate as an artist without the expectation of shining, as part of the early process of your journey. Like her experience when she moved to Japan soon after graduating Central Saint Martin’s.

In Applications this week, both groups presented projects that sparked class discussion of the ethics & universality of Memes. Some really interesting conversation around censorship as well.