Pinder Takes Lead at College of Fine Arts

Kym­berly Pin­der was appointed dean of the Col­lege of Fine Arts last July. She grad­u­ated from Yale Uni­ver­sity with a mas­ter of arts, mas­ter of phi­los­o­phy and a doc­tor­ate, all in art his­tory. In her short time at UNM, she is already mak­ing head­way, build­ing on exist­ing ini­tia­tives in the col­lege and look­ing to expand.

Art majors – fine arts, per­for­mance and oth­er­wise – don’t usu­ally fol­low a pre­de­ter­mined career tra­jec­tory. “The future for some­one with an arts degree is nei­ther as lin­ear or trans­par­ent as a busi­ness degree. Artists pur­sue some­thing because they are com­pelled to do it. It is their pas­sion. To be suc­cess­ful at it, artists often pur­sue a multi-pronged path­way,” she said.

To help cur­rent stu­dents under­stand what the pur­suit of art and work is, Pin­der wants to bring in alums. “They can explain how their expe­ri­ences brought them to become an opera man­ager, or graphic designer in a com­pany,” she said.

Pin­der wants to see more stu­dents have intern­ships – not only because they gives them rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence, but also might help shape their career path. “I did a six-month post grad­u­ate intern­ship at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art after grad­u­at­ing from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege. I went in think­ing I wanted to be a cura­tor. While there I con­ducted tours, did some research and wrote labels. I loved doing tours, but I didn’t like it when the groups left! I learned that I wanted to teach – to have a longer term rela­tion­ship with stu­dents,” she said.

Pin­der also dis­cov­ered that the dead­lines and pres­sures in the museum pre­vented her – and oth­ers – from doing sus­tained research they enjoyed. Those were rev­e­la­tions she took away from the intern­ship that made her pur­sue a Ph.D.

Another way stu­dents get expo­sure to the breadth and scope of the arts world is through the Arts Man­age­ment Pro­gram. “There are so many ways that arts orga­ni­za­tions oper­ate that peo­ple are unaware of. Our pro­gram pro­vides interns to var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions, which gives stu­dents real world, real work expe­ri­ence that looks good on resumes and on grad school appli­ca­tions,” Pin­der said.

Pin­der held a com­pe­ti­tion in the fall for an art piece that would be repli­cated as the college’s hol­i­day card. “We selected two, one for the hol­i­days and another to use year round. The orig­i­nal pieces will hang in my office,” she said. Pin­der would also like the stu­dents to have access to their own gallery space some­where in the city. “Not only would their work be exhib­ited, but they would learn all that goes into gallery work.

With stu­dents, Pin­der is orga­niz­ing a day-long cam­pus art event. She explained, “They will present per­for­mances and exhi­bi­tions. It could become some­thing the com­mu­nity looks for­ward to and appre­ci­ates each year.”

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu