Meet Your Director

Hannah Shepard recently received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design. She graduated magna cum laude from the College of Charleston, where she was a double major in Arts Administration and Studio Art with a minor in Art History. She has exhibited her work throughout Charleston and Atlanta, while also working as a store manager, assistant gallery director, and intern for museums and non-profit spaces. She currently holds the position of Executive Director at 701 Center for Contemporary Art.

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Working in the Arts Without Being an Artist

I pursued a degree in the humanities and was convinced for most of my twenties that I was going to work as a tenured professor after getting my PhD. What I had not anticipated was that I was going to shift careers after finishing my studies. All in all, the graduate school hustle was brutally painful to me, leaving me not only burned out, but also emotionally scarred from abusive mentoring, student harassment, and cultural adaptation. On top of all that, I realized that a crucial reason why grad school had almost never been energizing to me is that it was disconnected from my interests in art and design. (Later on, I would also learn that it was disconnected from my values and that job placement for PhDs has been at an all-time low in the face of a collapsing academic job market .) The next problem I encountered was that I lacked technical artistic skills, which made it hard for me to contemplate career shifting without pursuing further education and acquiring eve...

Spring 2019 Internship

I was really happy to have the opportunity to work here as I had heard things about it from friends who volunteered for a long time. Being in the space and getting to work with the install and uninstall process was something that I was looking forward to the most and proved to be as rewarding of an experience as I hoped it would be. Getting to come in and help put up art by real recognized artists and meeting people in the arts community was something I wasn’t expecting to happen as much as it did. Actually being able to talk to these people doing this work professionally is something that helped me to appreciate just how much goes into these organizations and the process overall. Working here was also a good thing for my resume. Personally, it gave me time to create professional designs and to hone my skills with website design. Being able to be the one to redesign the 701 press packet, relatively soon to the time I started, was assuring that I would truly gain experience. I als...

Summer 2019 at 701 CCA

When I found out I was going to be an intern at 701 CCA, I was incredibly excited for the opportunity as I'm finishing a degree in Fine Arts and had heard of this experience from a professor. Being able to work in an art gallery environment and assist with projects that aided in the organization’s marketing and outreach to the community has really been invaluable to me. Mana Hewitt : Persistence, Opening Reception Overall, I feel as though my time with 701 CCA was well spent and incredibly meaningful. From the start I was tasked with projects that directly impacted the organization and could see the fruit of my labors immediately, even small tasks I was happy to complete because I felt like everything I did had purpose. I would love to continue working in this field and investing in communities via arts nonprofits, and this internship has given me the skills and confidence to begin building this career. -- Elizabeth McCaw

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