This article first appeared on the OCAD University online news section.

Toronto, Ontario

“Keep one eye on your passion and the other on the real world.”

It’s a piece of wisdom sculptor David Salazar received from his grandfather in Ecuador years ago.

It’s also sage advice the artist had a chance to share frequently with OCADU students and recent grads last fall as the first alumnus participant in the new Creative Professionals-in-Residence program.

Launched last September, the professional residency program for OCADU alumni is coordinated by the Centre for Emerging Artists and Designers (CEAD). During the fall and winter terms, the program intends to connect current students and recent grads with two successful alumni who each make themselves available to students for about a day each week. The two Creative Professionals-in-Residence for the winter term have just been announced.  

“If you want to be an artist, how do you make it a reality?” asks Salazar. His studio practice focuses on hand modeling clay and fabricating sculpture. In 2017, he completed the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design degree at OCADU. His public commissions include 2012 Carnival, Rio de Janeiro; Spadina Museum, Nuit Blanche 2015 in Toronto, and, in the same year, two permanent public art sculptures in Georgetown, Ont., commissioned by First Capital Realty Inc.

“You can have a lot of fun with it, but you have to hustle,” says Salazar. The father of two pre-school children, he says art students also have to define for themselves what success looks like after finishing school.

In his mentoring role, he says he saw “a lot anxiety” when students start to envision what it may be like to be a practicing artist in the world beyond school. “It’s not just eight to nine hours a day,” he says, adding he spends many hours applying for grants, commissions, and running his business.

“Go crazy about your ideas, but keep focused on what it takes to keep your practice afloat,” he says. Salazar also works as an exterior and interior house painter to pay his household bills.

Last fall, Salazar shared the spotlight with Mahmood Popal, a 2007 OCADU grad with a focus on industrial design and fine art. In 2011, Popal launched MAAST, a design agency with an client list that includes Quantum Coffee, Danforth Music Hall and BrainStation.

Shellie Zhang, community animator at CEAD, says most university graduates, regardless of their area of study, experience anxieties about transitioning into the workforce. Nevertheless, she says how to best connect to the labour market “isn’t always as clean cut” for art and design students. Students can contact Zhang [link to email] to arrange a time to chat with one of the mentors who just started their winter term residency.

Student response to the new residency program was “pretty great” last fall, says Zhang. “It takes the intimidation out of networking.”

Ante Benedikt Kurilić, a fourth year sculpture student, class monitor, and president of the foundry club at OCADU, says talking to Salazar helped him envision his future as a practicing artist.

“Everything is hard work,” says Kurilić, 27, who came to Canada from Croatia in 2013. He plans to do figurative art and public sculptures. “It has been very beneficial for me to talk to somebody who has walked the path,” he says about his chats with Salazar. 

Meantime, when asked to define “mentoring” after teaching a sculpting workshop in the mould making studio in the Sharp Centre last November, after a brief pause, Salazar says, “I think it’s listening, right?” It’s a skill he took to heart as a boy spending time with his grandfather and generously applied as one of two newly-minted mentors at OCADU. “I love sculpture, I dream sculpture, I breathe sculpture,” he says. “Students and new grads who want to be an artist have to balance their passion with frequent reality checks to keep their art practice afloat.”

Toronto, 2018