I am an Art Historian

I am an Art Historian. This means that I work in a pub. I am one of the thousands of young, highly educated, white, middle-class female Art History graduates whose unwritten hospitality CVs unfortunately far outweigh any exemplary professional credentials. Read between our lines and you’ll have enough silver service waitresses to last a lifetime of office Christmas parties. I will be the first to admit though that for the lack of flow in my career I am by and large to blame. One, for doing a non-lucrative, non-essential degree to begin with (how sickeningly privileged of me). Two, for a self-entitled refusal to apply to any institution that does not house at least five Durer engravings. Three, because I am essentially quite shit at interviews, yet ever-expectant I will get my perfect job. And four, for my inability to hold down any position for over a year without losing confidence in all of my abilities and quitting at the next hurdle.

I realised recently that this lack of confidence in my capability is a pretty common trait in my field. Us YAHs (Young Art Historians, not to be confused but closely linked to RAHs) are often paid little or nothing for our work, it being insinuated by whatever institution that it is a privilege to be there in the first place. It is likely that in our low paid high privilege job we will at some point be peer pressured into getting more of an education, generally by the early-forties group who slipped right into their museum careers without even the whisper of a PhD. How things have changed. As much as I would love to, the concept of spending yet more money on my education with no realistic job at the end of it is an idealism too far. Even for me.

My stash of very niche knowledge currently lacks any institution to impart my two-a-penny self to. This would have made me, were I living in sixteenth-century Venice, the perfect courtesan. Unfortunately, there is not much call for this in contemporary society, and us eligibly knowledgeable young ladies have to make do with our front-of-house auction careers, casually flirting with wealthy old men and mustering up a fascination with railway memorabilia.
It is invigilating that kills me the most. Never, I think, have I been in a room of such talented young art historical minds so steeped in boredom as I have in my wealth of invigilating jobs. Here we are, in silence, the flickering light of our intellectual passions growing ever weaker as we are for the hundredth time that day asked where the bathroom is. And all we ever wanted to do was point out to you all how exquisitely painted that foot is, and have you noticed in this one how over the years the blue has darkened and thrown the lead white off balance thus destroying the subtle composition that the artist is known for. And so we say it’s downstairs first door on the left, and we flex our toes in our cheap black shoes.

Yet we won’t stop trying. As the accessibility of the museum grows the job prospects diminish (such hordes of visitors welcomed by a skeleton staff- thank you Tory government for your continued support…) But I guess, realistically, for me it isn’t just about the job. I mean, I have literally no idea what job I want any more (my MA title had the word ‘curatorship’ in it, I mean, really, I was so naive back then) I just have this abstract concept of ‘working in the arts’. But I don’t want to just work in them, I want to surround myself.

Paintings catch me off guard. I have stood in front of artworks in museums filled up with something bigger than myself. This abstract bubble of adrenaline or emotion I don’t quite know what. It happened most recently in Paris, with Picasso’s Still Life with Pitcher and Apples. Sometimes I simply have to leave a gallery, so terrified am I of bursting the feeling I walk out, averting my eyes from any other wall. And it’s this fucking glorious abstracted largesse inside me that’s the reason I keep trying, and failing, and trying again. I feel I am on the cusp of discovery. If only I could get closer.

Anyhow, for now, I’m signing off. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old Art Historian and like so many of the rest, I’m a dab hand at pouring pints.