Jason Cuvelier:  

had previously had gotten along with the least, proved be to be a tremendous task. I was too young & hadn’t been out on my own long enough. Being nearly the same age as the grad-students had me constantly paired up with some that were really aggressive & temperamental, who felt I had nothing to offer. Fortunately this was not the case with the undergrads; they were great listeners & huge workers who faced up to the tasks I presented them. With the undergrads, it wasn’t like a job at all; it was like it was meant to be. But alas, it wasn’t going to last, the 2 years went by quickly & my hope of finding another job vanished into the sea of the other myriad MFA students from around the world all vying for those few jobs. With nothing else to do I moved to New York City. I was easy for me; my girlfriend was already down there working on a Masters in Architecture. I came without a job & at a difficult time; it was September 2001. Before 9-11, I had a couple of interviews & there were jobs, after, nothing. It took 3 months, almost filling for bankruptcy & dozens of phone calls to find a Preparator position at Christie’s New York in Photography. I thought of it was temporary, a job that I would leave behind. I didn’t expect to gain any knowledge being there, however coupled with real life in NYC, what I was to gain was unexpected & immeasurable. I’m still at Christie’s - having had the unthinkable happen, a new boss coming in & conspiring to have me & a few others removed as to make way for his old team from a rival auction house take our jobs. I fought back & ended up helping unionize the Art Handler’s. We finally wrestled through the Unionbusting & have a contract. In the last few years in addition to painting I have been exploring black & white photography. Oh, I should mention that I have also recently gotten married to the same girl that I followed to NYC & we just had little baby, Justin Jeon Cuvelier.