Featured in NYU ~ Art Digest ~ Fall 2015

Moonlighting: The Artist in the Office Next Door 
by Renee Alfuso

By day, Callie Danae Hirsch programs telephones on campus as a communications analyst for NYU's Technology Operations Services. But when work ends she heads home to paint, relieving the day's stress with her iridescent acrylics.

Hirsch (STEINHARDT '96) has been an IT employee at NYU for the last 25 years but has always made time to pursue her passion for art, earning a master's degree in studio and environmental arts and exhibiting her work in numerous international shows. She even won a commission to design a subway station for the MTA Arts for Transit program.

All of Hirsch's paintings are inspired by nature, and her lifelong fascination with sea creatures is reflected on her canvases. "In my art I bring to life the enigmas that exist just below the surface," she explains. "Deep in the fabric of my being is the desire to generate excitement about the world in which we reside."

Hirsch's dream is to someday visit the Great Barrier Reef, using the sales from her paintings to fund the trip. In the meatime, Hirsch says she loves working at NYU - which allows her to be an artist but still pay the bills - and enjoys that her office job is so different from her creative outlet. "I think if I had to work in something like graphic design all day, I wouldn't want to go home and create because I'd just be burnt out, so IT is such a wonderful opposite, " she says.

- Renee Alfuso

Wonderful News Indeed!

Being "discovered" can take a lifetime (if it ever happens), as many singers, actors, and musicians know, and so I feel extremely fortunate to be able to support myself with my day job so that I have the freedom to pursue my art, my true passion, in the evenings. 

I finally got the attention from the owner/curator of a large gallery in CA. One step down, many steps to go.  The process consisting of negotiating what the art to be shown should look like, creating art pieces especially for the gallery (size and look), shipping the art (which was then lost in NJ for quite some time), then coming up with pricing (based on previous sales), my work is ready to be framed and hung at, drum roll please......

Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, CA

Fantastical in Blue, 2015

How did this come about? How did I get noticed? I submitted art for acceptance in an art journal, which is sent out to galleries for free.  The artist pays for the inclusion and gets a copy of the journal, if selected.  In hopes of getting noticed, one partakes in this practice.  It just goes to show you, you just never know.   Exposure does pay off, just may take quite some time and the artist needs to have the passion to just keep moving forward despite the silence...  The director informed me that she rarely looks at these journals and on a whim took it to bed for a night's viewing.

Together, 2015

The other day I was presented with a fortune that read:  "You will conquer obstacles to achieve success.", the cookie delivered a double fortune, because one sometimes does need to be hit over the head, the second one read: "You will come to the realizations in your life that change you forever."  I interpret that change to be believing in myself as an artist.  It is so very easy to have doubts.

Recently my day job really got me down and I wondered if I would ever be able to support myself with my art, I think this is a wonderful start on a new path facing the right direction.

May you all be healthy and gravitate toward a peace existence.

Callie 
www.CallieArt.com