2010 Lecture at FIT on How I Got My First Illustration Job

On December 8, 2010 I joined artists Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen to speak at the Fashion Institute of Technology about "How I Got My First Job". Heidi Younger contacted me and it was all very exciting. My lovely friends Esther, Matt, Woo, Luis, Monica, and Lavon showed up and Woo was nice enough to record it for me. Check out the above video clip, and here is the original flyer...

I talked about my first job which was an illustration of golfer Michelle Wie for NY Press in the summer of 2006. Here is the image:

Michelle Wie Illustration by Silent James

And here is the clipping from the newspaper:

I remember I was so excited, I told all of my friends to pick up a copy.

My favorite part of the lecture was getting to meet Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen, they were such delightful people and we felt like a team. After performing in immersive theatre for 3 years and being a graphic recorder, I have definitely gotten better at public speaking since this video was shot, but I think I did a pretty good job. Years later I ran into SASHALYNILLO at a gallery show and she recognized me from the lecture and told me it was pretty entertaining. I would like to do more of these talks in the future!

There's more to the video where I discuss other projects, I'll share those in future posts.