When I was instructed on where to buy my boss’s lunch according to whether his hangover was from alcohol or cocaine I realised that the coveted “internship at a cutting edge contemporary gallery” was perhaps not all it was cracked up to be. I had just left university and, like all twenty-somethings who do not go straight into the City, I was trying to look qualified. Looking qualified meant working for free in as many places as would have me.
For the next couple of years I interspersed my post-graduate education with as many jobs/internships I could get. My original interest in museums and heritage shifted to commercial and modern work. Despite fantastic experiences at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and The National Gallery in London, I came to realise that I enjoyed the business and buzz of being in a commercial environment and working with a living market.