As an employer, the Consortium provides its artists with something resembling a traditional career path, including a small amount of supervision and a lot of opportunities for advancement.
Mastery Path
The most prestigious titles in the Consortium belong to the Mastery Path. Our employees on the Mastery Path are full-time artists working to improve their craft, advance their field, and produce great works.
Apprentice
Virtually all Consortium artists start at the Apprentice level. This gives us an opportunity to evaluate the artist’s initial skill level and discipline as well as an opportunity to introduce the artist to the Consortium environment and make sure it’s a good fit.
Every apprentice has a Journeyman-level mentor and a Master-level sponsor. Apprentices dedicate 40% of their hired time to Consortium projects. The rest of their time, of course, is self-directed.
Each apprentice receives a preliminary evaluation six weeks after joining the Consortium so that we can rapidly promote advanced artists to a more appropriate level. After that, all Apprentices receive regular evaluations every six months.
Journeyman
To ensure every Apprentice has access to the resources and experience needed to advance, we maintain a least one Journeyman for every five Apprentices in any given school. Journeymen are artists who demonstrate clear ability within at least one of the Consortium schools, and who support the Consortium in pursuit of its mission.
Apart from their role as mentors, Journeymen dedicate 20% of their hired time to Consortium projects. Every Journeyman works closely with at least one Master-level artist, and receives performance reviews semi-annually.
Master
Master artists within a school work together to direct the school’s collaborative projects, directly advise and support the school’s Journeymen, and oversee the pursuits and development of the school’s apprentices. Otherwise, the Masters are entirely self-directed.
We maintain at least one Master for every five Journeymen in any given school, and rarely see more than five Masters in a single school. Nonetheless, our Masters are artists of considerable talent and training, and they regularly produce high quality works even as they help guide the Consortium through their dedication and creative vision.
Non-Mastery Paths
While the Consortium exists to train up Master artists with the resources to produce world-class public art, there’s some room within the organization for those unable to whole-heartedly purse that mastery — whether because of their limitations or ours. Some of these roles include:
Patrons
Consortium Patrons are men and women who believe in the Consortium’s mission even though they are not artists themselves. More than just donors, our Patrons not only provide valuable resources, they also participate in Consortium functions and collaborate on major Consortium projects.
Our Patrons are partners with the Consortium, donating their time, expertise, business resources, as well as their wealth. The Consortium is happy to give back, recognizing the role our Patrons play in our success.
Artisans
While we’d love to hire every creative person in the world to work for the Consortium, we don’t have the resources or the infrastructure to handle it. To fulfill our mission, the Consortium must maintain high standards for our artists, and inevitably some talented, qualified people are left out.
Like our Patrons, though, there are some artists too who are anxious to assist in the Consortium’s mission and participate in its unique creative environment, even if they can’t pursue a mastery path. These artists work for the Consortium as Artisans — full-time employees committed to working full-time on Consortium projects.
Our Artisans love what they do, and they allow us to offer the full range of creative services the community has come to expect from the Consortium without compromising our artists’ pursuit of pure mastery.
Hopefuls
Like any major employer, the Consortium has need for unpaid interns from time to time…but ours are some of the happiest in the world. Consortium Hopefuls are volunteers who get to participate in the Consortium community, work with and learn from our amazing artists, and establish personal relationships within the Consortium.