Some people may think I became the first Artz Centre apprentice because I just fell out of love with the mainstream/formal education system. To a degree, this is true. I’d always been extremely academic in school (we’re talking… winner of multiple science competitions… not to brag) but when I went to college and university, it seemed as though that love for learning disappeared. Truthfully when that happened, I think I lost my identity a little. I was always a future scientist. If that wasn’t true, who am I?
Now that I’m a little older I can look back at 18-year-old Joe Howard and see that all that inner turmoil is something everyone faces somewhere down the road. What I can also see, is that it wasn’t a case of falling out of love with education, it was that I’d found another passion. That passion was the great wide world of arts and culture. Musicals, communities, history, music… life! Joining the Artz Centre had sort of cleared the fog away from my eyes and I could see that the world was so much more vibrant than I’d realised.
So as a result I took a step in a new direction. One that didn’t seem as ‘high flying’ as the one I walked away from. But I was stepping onto a path that made me want to get up every morning and try to change the world! What that meant in practical terms was that I withdrew from university and took up a full-time volunteer position in the Artz Centre for a year.
Over that year I did all sorts! From teaching drama sessions, to creating a studio album, even to directing my first show. Of course, that year was anything but glamorous… there were plenty of times where I felt like I was living the epitome of a rough and tumble life. But even now I proudly look back and know that I spent one of my formative years where working for money wasn’t the priority, neither was working for a qualification, instead the work was for me and for our team’s mission.
From there it was a question of looking at how to turn my year internship into a longer lasting position which allowed me to have a career in the industry I loved. “How can I make this work for me?” I asked myself; a 19-year-old uni-dropout from a community where jobs in the arts were hard to come by to say the least. The answer lied in an apprenticeship that was created just a few weeks beforehand.
It took some figuring out, proper planning and plenty of phone calls with the apprenticeship providers but eventually Mark (Artz Boss!) and I signed on the dotted line and I become the first Artz Centre Apprentice, a job that has seen me learn about business, theatre making and teaching while putting together projects like Sing It: The Artz Lockdown Singing Competition, Seven: A Musical Theatre Showcase and even building a brand new all singing all dancing Artz Centre website. Again… the job isn’t always glamorous – but fortunately I love it! I even love the parts of the job that I should for all intents and purposes hate.
And for those academics out there that may feel like I abandoned you after paragraph 2, don’t fear! What I have realised since starting my apprenticeship is that I still love education, that fact that in work I am always learning is probably one of the reasons I’m so excited to come to work every day. More recently I’ve been able to re-ignite my passion for science and technology; actually bringing it into my job. I’ve been integrating new IT systems into our Artz Centre workflow, my goal (one of them at least) is keep us up to date with the most cutting edge tech because why should anyone in the Artz Family settle for anything other than the best in innovation? ps. Keep your eyes peeled for my 3 year plan of bringing Virtual Reality into our technical theatre department… it is equal parts exciting and super nerdy 😉
So I’m still on a journey. I’m still growing and I still make a load of mistakes along the way! But I’m learning from that. From the outside my motivations for becoming an apprentice may seem like the ‘back up plan’ but in reality, because I’ve sampled so many of the pathways that were available to me, I know with confidence that this is the one I am meant to be on.
My advice for anyone else out there reading this, is to try new things! Pursue your passion even if it changes, take on opportunities the old you wouldn’t and don’t be afraid that you might take a step in the wrong direction because it is never too late to get yourself on the right path. That’s what I did, and I don’t regret any of it.