This summer I was a studio assistant at Latiano Studio, the studio of Jonathan Latiano, a sculptor in Baltimore Maryland. I had worked with Jonathan last summer as his teaching assistant at MICA precollege. We were still in contact, so last semester when I asked if he knew any artists that needed studio assistants this summer, he told me that he himself did, and I got the job.
As a studio assistant, I mostly helped fabricate one of the projects that Jonathan is working on entitled “The Only Thing That’s the End of the World is The End of the World.” It’s a collection of hundreds of irregular spheres covered in thousands of mirrored shards. I did detail work with the mirrors, but also helped build some of the interior structures of the spheres, which have to bear a good amount of weight. Jonathan included me in planning his studio visits with curators for other projects he’s working on, as well as the grant writing and exhibition proposals he’s working on. I helped to prepare the model of a sculpture he’s proposing for a show at the Sculpture Center in New York, and got to visit the Peale Museum with him to plan an installation, as well as meet with the curator Lynn Park.
At the end of the summer, Jonathan took me and his other intern, Andrea, on a trip to New York City to visit his friend who works at DYAD, a design studio in Brooklyn. We learned a lot from her and her co-workers, and got to see some impressive galleries in Chelsea. This internship was so informative to me about what it’s like to operate your own studio. I feel like I have a lot of in-depth knowledge that will inform me in my own practice in the future.
