One Art Major Navigates Post-Grad Life Amidst Coronavirus
Meet Oscar Flores-Montero, artistic genius. (Photo provided by Oscar Flores-Montero)
Art is Oscar Flores-Monterp’s passion and purpose; he eats, sleeps and breathes art. In his sophomore year, he decided to leave behind a degree in business to pursue an art-related career, which led him to transfer to Elon University. He now majors in arts administration, with a double minor in visual art and business entrepreneurship. He is graduating in the spring as a first-generation college graduate.
His original post-graduation plans were in the field of curation, which he described as “the process of reaching out to other organizations and asking them for artworks that they hold, with the intention of creating your own exhibit.” He also said curation could refer to the positioning of pieces, like “which art pieces have a conversation with one another, or how they're related in order to maximize the viewer’s experience,” he said.
Flores-Montero had applied to several art and history curatorial fellowships and internships, and he even had a job offer as a curator with The Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. That is, until about two weeks ago when museums around the country started cancelling summer programs as doors were being closed to the public.
Many museums are government-funded and due to the coronavirus pandemic and the sheltering-in-place public health policies, museums can no longer provide work opportunities for students in the summer of 2020.
A full-time job at The Valentine Museum would have been a good way to start curation because art and history museums generally operate in similar ways, he said. It would have given him the comfort of a salary, the excitement of a new place and the relief of not having to apply for more internships.
“It's a bit of a scary situation for anyone that's graduating creative degrees,” he said, “or even anyone who isn't an engineer or in business. It’s not a promise that you'll get a job out of college to begin with, and then, given the circumstances, it's just that much harder.”
Flores-Montero said he will likely be spending the summer reapplying to programs he did last spring, finding new fellowships and internships to apply to, beginning a graduate school search (because the GRE is being waived at some graduate schools) and working a part-time job.
(Photo provided by Oscar Flores-Montero)
Flores-Montero said in the community of students he associates with, there is an authentic empathy in the atmosphere because each person is experiencing individual problems, especially as plans are thwarted at the last minute.
“We are all frustrated, obviously, but we don't really have a way of supporting one another because we don't really know how to handle it ourselves,” he said.
The circumstances make job hunting and future plans difficult and anxiety-inducing.
“It doesn't make sense for me to really worry about it now until I can actually, physically do something about it,” he said.
For now he is centered on keeping himself active, trying to do the things he enjoys and focusing on wellness until he can actually do something about the situation. Then, “I can actually work on my applications, and things that will hopefully bring me more security in the future. […] For now, while it does stress me out, I'm working on trying to make the best of a bad situation.”