Graduate Profile: Justin Fiske

Justin Fiske might be an artist, but his head certainly isn’t in the clouds.

A Columbia College graduate, Fiske, who majored in art history, has held internships at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, a SoHo gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was the recipient of the $10,000 Arthur Rose Teaching Assistantship—all while painting and working part-time jobs. But Fiske’s interest in the art world waxed in his junior year, when he stopped running on the track team.

Hailing from a small town in California, Fiske was recruited to run for the Lions. But by his junior year, Fiske said he felt ready to explore other options. He explained, “I felt like I was being limited. I didn’t think track was going anywhere. I wasn’t the top runner on the team. I was one of the top guys, but not Olympic material.” So Fiske left the team to pursue the art business, a field he felt he loved enough to dominate.

Tibetan studies professor Gray Tuttle, Fiske’s fellowship advisor, said, “There would be 1,800 people applying for those internships, and he would end up getting them because he’s so driven.”

Fiske has been running since he was eight. And at age six, he began his foray into art, drawing cartoons for his barber Bill. Fiske said of the experience: “Every time I got a new haircut, I brought in a cartoon and he put it on the wall. And that got me motivated.”

By age 12, when Fiske was “too cool” for cartoons, he started pursuing art seriously. Now, he describes his paintings as “abstract” and prefers to use acrylics and charcoal. One of his paintings features a distorted, multicolored and textured face, slightly reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Since then, Fiske has also served as a resident adviser and Tuttle’s direct assistant. Under Tuttle, he helped students gain access to the storage facilities of New York’s most prestigious museums.

Whether on the track—he now competes occasionally in marathons—or in art, Fiske has remained true to his maxim through drastically varying interests: “Pursue your dream, because you’ll have no regrets in the end.” And he means it.