Today was our third day at SFPC. We were with Lauren Gardner for all of our class time today. She talked to us about creative projects and how to manage them.
To begin the class, Lauren shared her personal history, from being a curious, autodidactic kid from a small town in Texas, to working in film production in Austin, Texas, to working on video games, to moving to NYC and being a project manager for Thomson Reuters and working in the web side of broadcast journalism.
Lauren is an SFPC alum, and in class today spoke of a time as an SFPC student when she realized that this is how her job made her feel:
So she quit that job while attending SFPC, and, today, she is a keystone in the NYC arts and tech scene. In addition to being on the steering board at SFPC, Lauren also works at Eyebeam. At SFPC, she functions as an administrative mensch, making sure the trains run on time, the bills get paid, the students get informed.
Lauren showed us some immense projects she’s been a part of, including one particularly large 1-day installation at Manhattan Museum of Art and Design.
After that, Lauren hipped us to SFPC best practices as far as: how to plan and execute project, how to source equipment and materials for our projects, what to expect from our time here, group critiques, and “the art of sharing work-in-progress”.
She also showed us student projects from previous classes, and gave us insight into those projects, and how they were accomplished. She talked about the group show that the class does in the final two weeks at SFPC.
I’m probably missing something. It was an information avalanche in the best way - lots of resources and threads to pursue and “rabbit holes”(a term Lauren is fond of using to describe the SFPC experience).
And then she took us across the street to a really neat spot in the park along the Hudson river.
Here’s a link to my audio recording of most of Lauren’s talk:
Afterwards, most of the class went out for barbecue. Yum. We talked about possible parties and weekend plans. Quality time wit’ da group.
Afterwards…? Lots of chatting and quiet working. Lauren hung out with us for a bit, as did Robby, who was working on some updates to SFPC’s website. One of the best parts of my day was Robby accepting a suggestion I’d made about improving the website. I have yet to make an actual pull request on github yet, and Robby encouraged me to do that as well, if I thought of anything else.
Today was a fantastic day. Lots of ideas bubbling from all of the students, myself included. Lauren was awesome and is very supportive of us. She also encouraged us to ask for one-on-one time with any of the teachers here.
For lunch: Barbecue(beef brisket) from The Mighty Quinn(thanks Adnan).
For dinner: Barbecue(beef brisket) from The Mighty Quinn(thanks Dannie for helping me actually get the microwave oven to heat my food).
Looking forward to tomorrow, which is a “bootcamp” with Ingrid Burrington.
Goodnight!