Mark Salinas

profile

Many creative people enjoy trying their hand at different media, but Mark Salinas is a master of a number of fields, including fine art and costume, set, and fashion design. The AAS Fashion Design graduate cites having multiple design skills as an advantage in today’s economy: “My strength is my varied experience.” So when installing holiday windows at Macy’s, he draws on his experience in set design for film and TV as well as prior work for museums and galleries.

 When designing costumes for a theater company or a Halloween getup for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Salinas relies on the tailoring skills he acquired at Parsons and as a pattern maker for Zac Posen. And when writing his winning grant proposal for the New York State Council on the Arts, he made use of his degree in fine arts. Although Salinas says his career evolved organically, he describes each new step as an enhancement rather than a makeover. “At Parsons, I wasn’t discarding my prior experience and knowledge. There’s no sense in reinventing yourself if you lose your origins in the process.”