SF State pilot program trains students to handle art — and they’re already landing jobs

Author: Matt Itelson
August 1, 2024
A student is standing in a room, facing away from the camera, organizing or examining items on a counter beneath large wall-mounted cabinets. The cabinets are open, displaying empty shelves. Atop the counter are various books and small boxed items.
Photo Credit: Adrienne Cruse

Funded by a California State University grant, the 12-unit pilot program is designed to diversify the field of art handling 

For the past year, Art students at San Francisco State University set aside their easels and learned the trade-skills aspects of the art world. A pilot program in Art Handling teaches students the proper ways to handle art and prepare them for careers in museums, galleries, auction houses and beyond. The 12-unit program is among the first of its kind at a public university, training students in a field where no academic degree program exists, anywhere. 

Students have found themselves driving a forklift, riding a scissor shift, drilling wooden cleats into walls of the Fine Arts Gallery on campus and more. The experience they’ve gained since beginning the program last fall has already landed them work at venues such as the de Young Museum, Contemporary Jewish Museum and California Institute of Integral Studies. Many of the 15 students in the pilot program had never even heard of art handling. 

“This program has been transformational,” said Adrian Morelock-Revon, a sculptor who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Art History this year. “I was goal-less coming back to university. Now I have more direction.” 

Art handling is a mid-level position secured through on-the-job training, word of mouth and unpaid internships, which is not economically feasible for most San Francisco State students, as stated in the grant proposal that was funded by the California State University Creating Responsive, Equitable, Active Teaching and Engagement (CREATE) Awards Program. It was the only arts-based program to win a CREATE award for 2023 – 2024. The program also aims to diversify the field of art handling. The overall workforce is more than three-fourths white and male, according to data compiled by the Broad Museum. 

Read the full story at SF State News.