CSUN Professor’s Web Site Promotes Art of Job Seeking

David Moon has long used computers to make art. Now the Cal State Northridge art teacher is using digital technology to help his students display their work and get jobs.

Three weeks ago, Moon launched a new Web site--https://www.freshportfolio.com--that is part electronic gallery, part employment agency.

The innovative site, which allows students and others to post examples of their work as well as their resumes, grew out of Moon’s frustration with the clumsy, labor-intensive methods usually used to bring students together with jobs.

An associate professor of art at CSUN, Moon has helped organize the springtime job fair at which advertising agencies and other prospective employers come to campus and riffle through student portfolios, hoping to discover a graphic artist of genius while he or she is still available and still cheap.

But this spring, Moon recalls, “I said to myself, ‘There’s got to be a better way to showcase the students’ work and put their portfolios out there prior to graduation.’ ”

Moon teaches courses in how to use computers in making art, and he describes his own art works as “computer/techno/fine art.” It was a natural leap for him to go from exploring the artistic possibilities of computers and the Internet to imagining ways computer technology could help his students and recent graduates.

So far, 20-some students and others have posted their work on the site.

“Every week, I’m getting two or three more.”

There is no cost to the student for displaying his or her work, nor is there a cost to employers or people who might want to buy a particular piece that’s up on the site.

Artists in all media and forms, including illustrators, painters and animators, are welcome. A musician has signed up. (“We consider music an art,” Moon says.) And he also hopes to have the work of student and alumni journalists posted in the near future.

Even though the site is less than a month old, it is already getting about 60 visitors a day and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 hits a week. Even more important, he says, at least one person--an illustrator--got a job as a result of her electronic portfolio.

One thing Moon likes about the Web site is that he doesn’t have to be the middleman between job seekers and people offering jobs. He maintains the site, but the talent and prospective employers or art collectors communicate directly with each other.

So far, Moon estimates, he has sunk about $8,000 of his own money into the project. Most of that has been for T-shirts, posters, stickers, postcards and other items to promote the site. The motto on the promotional materials: “Fresh Portfolio: The freshest work from the most creative minds.”

Although the Web site serves industry professionals, Moon says, “I wanted to do this for students.”

At Northridge and other local campuses, many students don’t have a lot of money to spend on promoting themselves. Indeed, he says, many don’t have any discretionary funds.

“I’ve got students who work 30 or 40 hours a week just to go to school,” he says. “Those are the kinds of students who give me inspiration.”

Thirty-six-year-old Moon describes himself as a Valley guy who grew up in Van Nuys and Granada Hills and now lives in Northridge.

But like so many other Valleyites, Moon is here because of the courage of his foreign-born parents and their willingness to sacrifice even cultural ease to give their children a shot at a better life.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Moon says, “mine’s the typical immigrant story. My dad came over by himself with $200 in his pocket, and a year and a half later he moved us over.”

Moon’s father worked as a maintenance man to send his children to college.

“I wanted to be the next great Frank Gehry,” Moon recalls, “but I soon found out I wasn’t good at science and math.”

He switched from architecture to art and graduated from CSUN.

Moon is eager to build the image bank on the Web site, but not so eager that he is willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. He vets the portfolios before they are posted.

“We may tell the artist, ‘You submitted 10 works, but we’re only going to accept six of them.’ ”

Besides giving talented artists much-needed exposure, the site serves an educational function as well.

“There is not much understanding of what art students do,” he says. “People say, ‘You doodle, don’t you?’ They just don’t take art seriously as a job, as a career.”

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Even the university does not take art as seriously as Moon would like.

“It’s no accident we’re still in trailers,” he says, noting that the art department has yet to be moved into a permanent home on the Northridge campus.

Moon would be thrilled if a patron or patrons would come forward to help support the site. Meanwhile, he continues to dip into his savings to keep the site up and running.

Twenty-one-year-old Carly Devery is a junior art major at CSUN who has a portfolio posted on the site. She thinks the site is especially useful because, even though Northridge isn’t an art school per se, “now people can see what we’re capable of.”

She likes to check out the work of fellow students on the site.

And, she says, “my mom lives in Washington, and she was able to go online and view my work.”

Spotlight runs every Friday. Patricia Ward Biederman can be reached at valley.news@latimes.com.