Creative Confessionals | aftrART - Amanda Mollindo: Recent Episodes
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Client: Harvard-Westlake School Visual ArtsIn Fall 2020, I was asked to develop a website for #YourTurn, a collaborative project that features student work from public and private high schools in California and Arizona. In addition to featuring original artwork from participants, educators wanted a section of the website where they could engage with students in their classroom and distribute resources across the collaboration away from public view.
The website was built using Squarespace and I created a Gmail account for their project to house help documentation, a newsletter subscription list, a YouTube channel with video tutorials, and more. We created several password-protected pages to make student/educator-only pages, as well as an extensive help page so that collaborating educators could manage the website once my initial project scope was fulfilled.
Homepage
Public Galleries
With few opportunities to exhibit work, collaborating educators wanted a space to feature their students’ final projects publicly.
Classroom Portal
Each participating class has its own class page that features student content and assignments that are specific to the class. The Classroom Portal gives students access to their class page using a password.
Class Page
A class page template was created for participating educators to duplicate and upload content to. Students also use this page to submit assignments and view their peers’ in-progress art through an internal blog.
Help Page
This page was created so collaborating educators had easy access to video tutorials and other resources to add new content to the website without my support.
Last summer, Mina and I had the great pleasure of speaking with Yvonne Montoya, a Tucson-based dancer scholar, director, and consultant. This episode — which is long-overdue — was one of the most personally meaningful episodes for me. Because of that, I felt an overwhelming pressure to make sure it was perfect… and that eventually evolved into inexcusable delay and procrastination.
Charissa Lucille uses creativity to infuse meaning into every aspect of her life — and by extension — her community. Tune in to this episode of Creative Confessionals to find out how this self-taught photographer, zinester and entrepreneur works tirelessly to uplift the voices of others!
Eunique Yazzie’s journey toward recognizing her value as an artist and designer hasn’t been easy. From an upbringing of scarcity on the reservation, to pivotal layoffs throughout her career, learn how Eunique’s passion and dedication has helped her rise above systematic oppression to build a meaningful life and uplift her community.
Melissa Kreider — photographer and founding editor of Don’t Smile — knows first-hand that life doesn’t stop for an MFA program. Listen to this episode to find out how she’s overcome loss, addiction, abuse, and more in order to pursue an art career.
Being an artist and working in arts admin require very different skill sets, which is why it takes a unique person who can do both. Estrella Esquilin, interdisciplinary artist and Communication and Community Engagement Manager at the City of Phoenix’s Office of Arts and Culture is on those rare few. Check out this podcast episode to find out how she does it!
Who are we? Why are we launching a podcast? What is creative Confessionals? Should you even care? Get to know your hosts and find out why we're interviewing artists, designers and creative entrepreneurs with diverse perspectives!
One of the best ways to get your name out there and your art on the walls is to start applying to calls for work. But there’s so much out there that it can be hard to keep track! Watch this video to hear my tips and download the Art Opportunities Template!
Entering the job market is no easy task, especially when you have an unorthodox background of creative experiences. In this video, you’ll learn how to translate your experience into a resume that captures attention.
Nearly a year ago, I had an opportunity to do just that during an interview with Clare Benson! Find out what she’s achieved in a relatively short career!
What does it take to turn your passion for DIY publications and community-building into a business? I sat down with Charissa Lucille and Marna Kay, Co-Owners of Wasted Ink Zine Distro in Phoenix, Arizona to find out.
During the winter of 2016, I led the redesign of the WireBuzz website. The goal was to update the appearance, speed up load times, improve user experience, and increase conversions.
By streamlining the layout of key pages, updating the copy to better reflect how our agency approaches video, and increasing the number of CTAs and opt-ins, we achieved what we set out do do.
Following the project completion in February, there was a significantly improved traffic and newsletter subscriptions.
A screenshot from our HubSpot traffic analytics
From quality checking blog posts that dated back to 2014, to rewriting one of our top-preforming pages , I played a hands-on role in updating WireBuzz.com to match the quality of work the team produces.
WireBuzz.com was build using WordPress and a theme. My role included:
- Asset selection and design
- Copywriting
- Project management
Advanced coding changes issues were handled by a professional web developer.
In an ideal world, we’d all have fancy DSLR cameras, powerful lighting equipment, and the skills to document our own artwork. But that stuff is expensive and you probably have all the tools you need in your own home.
We often perceive an art administration career as a practical, steady alternative to becoming a full-time artist. But the skills required to pursue such a path can greatly differ from a studio art discipline. If you’re interested in making that shift, you’ll want to hear what Caroline has to say!
If you’ve ever thought about becoming an artist, then you might find yourself worrying about what your future could potentially look like. You obviously don’t want to become the cliche starving artist. Well, your concerns aren’t unusual, but are they entirely necessary?
Whether you plan to go all-in on social, or you just want to use it for the occasional promotion, you need to know exactly what you’re up against. Keep reading to see 8 common mistakes artists make on social media, and how you can make sure you don’t do the same!
A solo exhibition is a huge milestone, but it can be tricky to achieve. To give you the very best chances of landing your own solo or small group exhibition, I’ve broken the whole process down in 5 steps, from start to finish.
To make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I did when I was first getting started, I created this video to give you the rundown on website building for artists. And the good news is, you really don’t need any coding or web design experience to get your site up and running!
I don’t have any plans to run an ad campaign anytime soon, but I know more than enough about social media advertising to identify a bad ad when I see one. And unfortunately, I’ve been seeing lots of bad ads come from artists, arts organizations, and creative businesses.
If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to open up your own creative business outside of an art hub, whether it’s music-based or not, you’ll definitely find value in what Zakk has to say!