School of Art Visiting Speaker - Frank Lisciandro

Your Unfolding Arts Career

(stories, ideas, hacks & tips about how to survive rejection & invite success)

If you’re in college and considering a career in the arts, you might have had lots of encouragement from family and friends along with sincere compliments for the works you created. You might have half-convinced
yourself that once your have that degree, you’ll land a decent-paying, entry-level position with a reputable firm that will let you unleash your talents on interesting projects. OR... with degree in hand, you might consider being independent and making works that galleries will readily show. OR... you might be unsure of your skills and thinking of staying in college another year to avoid daring the leap into the job market.

No matter how you’re envisioning your future, now might be a good time for a hard look at what awaits you, the creative artist, when you make the change from student to full-time worker. I was there once, with all the units and courses I needed to graduate, and for awhile I did not know where to go or what to do to find employment.
I struggled, made mistakes, missed opportunities, but continued learning my craft. I managed to survive and I’m still working on cool and original projects with enthusiasm. And for most of the last 50 plus years, I’ve been able to earn a living doing what I enjoy.

My talk is a review of where I’ve been and what I learned along the way. By sharing antidotes about my arts adventures, I hope to leave you with information that could make the odyssey of your career
less erratic, more sustainable and profitable and greater fun.

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Frank Lisciandro is an American film maker, writer photographer and book publisher born in Brooklyn, New York. He studied photojournalism at Michigan State University and motion picture production and screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), earning a BA and MFA. While at UCLA he studied photography with the renowned American photographer Robert Heinecken.

 

His photography has appeared in books, magazines, documentary films, newspapers and record albums. His photographs have been shown in solo exhibitions and group shows in the USA, Italy and France. He has directed, produced and written more than 20 documentary films including The Sugar Film, The Target Zone, Under the Influence and Siamo Fuori. 

 

While a student at UCLA, Lisciandro developed a friendship with Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek– the singer and the keyboardist of The Doors. In 1968 he edited The Doors documentary film Feast of Friends; in 1969 he was one of the filmmakers of HWY, a nonnarrative film written by Morrison. Lisciandro has been played a part in several posthumous Jim Morrison projects. In 1979, he co-produced Jim Morrison's album of poetry An American Prayer which was nominated for a Grammy Award and won the Dutch Edison Award. 

 

His music photographs have appeared in Rolling Stone, the French magazine, Rock & Folk, the British publications, New Musical Express (NME), Uncut and Mojo, as well as the Italian publications La Republica and L’Unita. 

 

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Talk will be in Room 368 ARTlab (180 Dafoe Road)