Nicholas Strange, BFA '17

Nicholas, when did you graduate from KU:
“I graduated from the Visual Arts dept in 2017. While I was a student I worked at the VAST lab and at the entomology labs on campus.

What have you been up to post-graduation?:
From 2017 - 2018 I worked as an assistant at a gallery in Kansas City. I lit and hung works, helped with restoration efforts on some of the pieces within the collection, and did a wide variety of logistics for the shows and exhibitions held there.

In 2019 I moved to Los Angeles, and for a few years was a project manager at a fabrication shop that specialized in set and prop pieces for productions. I had a hand in a lot of things that made it to screen and many more that didn’t. The highlight of that time was working on the Tim Burton Lost Vegas retrospective, for which we did several of the larger monster sculptures. I’m sure that our shop getting overrun with black widow spiders the day before he stopped by was purely a coincidence.

From 2021 to the present I have been working as a Designer and Project Coordinator at a printing press in Burbank, where we make, print, and produce custom packaging for a number of influencers and big brands across the US. If you’ve ever bought something and looked at the microscopic text on the back and thought to yourself “who picked the font for this?” --That person is me. 

I’m the one making sure the colors are crisp and accurate and the final product matches the customer’s expectations. Having a solid knowledge of printing techniques, color, and how ink and paper like to interact have been so valuable to me in this role, and they’re all things I first learned in the KU printmaking department.

When I’m not designing paper packaging, I’m usually in my garage woodshop
working on personal projects. Thanks to my time in the Common Shop and the VAST
Lab I have designed a series of puzzle boxes and gaming accessories for tabletop
RPGs like D&D, which takes up most of my spare time.

All in all, the education and skills I gained through the art classes I took at KU have been invaluable to me. I never would have thought (and certainly many people I talked to agreed) that specializing in traditional paper-making and print-making techniques would be this relevant in our increasingly digital world. I’ve come to realize that precious few people know, or even think about, how things are made. Having focused on making things, and making things creatively and artistically, allowed me to hone the physical vocabulary of dissecting the made world.

If I had to highlight any one part of my arts education which has been most useful to me, it would be learning how to look at things. Really looking at things--seeing it as it really is rather than as a symbol of the thing. Our brains are great at not really seeing the things we look at, and early morning drawing classes (as much as I may have grumbled about them at the time) are a great way of breaking that pattern of visual apathy.

Any last thoughts to share with future and current students?:
“What you’re doing is important even when it doesn’t seem like it. The time you spend here is important, and every act of creation, no matter how seemingly meaningless it may seem compared to the Big Things in the world, matters.

Being creative and working in creative fields is difficult at the best of times, and these aren’t the best of times. Claims that the arts are outdated and a waste are increasingly loud, but the ability of creatives to see the world for what it might be, or to show it for what it really is now more important than ever. So do something you like, make something weird, and commit to the bit when you’re put under pressure.

I’ve found a surprising amount of ways to use the skills I developed in Chalmers -- My semi-obscure knowledge of inks, paper, and color theory get used every day in my professional life. That knowledge is pretty valuable in the right circumstances, so keep an eye out for unexpected avenues to use your creative skills. It may not look like what you imagined, but so long as you’re looking you’ll be just fine.”