Making Things Happen
(Beth Waldman, who wrote today’s guest blog, also attended Wellesley College, and though our years overlapped, we only seriously connected very recently on a Facebook page. One thing led to another, and when she was telling me how she started her arts consulting business–basically, she saw a need, and decided to fill it–I did everything but burst into song. Oh, you people know me: I ADORE that can-do spirit. Life is tough, kids. Life is full of people and experiences seemingly designed to cut you down and make you feel worthless, and encourage you to give up. Not surprisingly, many people do give up on themselves. Perhaps that’s why I especially loved Beth’s story: By helping a friend in need, she helped herself. By encouraging and nurturing a colleague, she nurtured herself. She took the skills and passions she had at hand, and used them to create the business and further skills and LIFE she desired. It wasn’t easy, but she’s doing it. I asked Beth to share her story, as an early Christmas/Kwanzaa/Three King’s Day gift. If you’re reading this, at home, or on your smartphone, crying in the bathroom, in despair, or frustration, in boredom in the boardroom, and you have an idea inside of you, an idea that both terrifies you, and fills you up with more joy and excitement than you know what to do with…maybe 2015 is the year you’re going to do right by yourself, and your beautiful, fragile idea and allow it come to life? )
It was 10 pm on a chilly San Francisco night, and I was wrapping up an evening session at my Mission-based studio. As I often did, I stopped by to visit my old studio mates in the neighborhood at CELLspace (www.cellspace.org), where I had maintained a studio for four years prior to that spring. It was within this large art and community space, that we 10 artists had formed a collective, curating monthly shows with resident and guest artists for over three years. Heated exchanges and late night preparations for shows fueled us as artists to make things happen.
We were, after all, part of the “Do It Yourself” San Francisco art scene. Independent Thinkers. Instigators. While we had a review process for guest artists, we said to them, “Bring us your latest work or build it here on-site. We want this to be a ground for experimenting as you have not been able to do somewhere else”.
While those days were over, spontaneous visits there always launched my mind and work to the next level. That night, I ran into a close friend, Robert,an artist colleague who had received an MFA from one of the top art schools in the country. His work had always been strong conceptually and in execution. He had a record of solid exhibition opportunities, including a few museum shows, but that night, his strength was not in him. He had lost his path.
He had recently been creating raw works on paper inspired by patterns from his heritage and had also just reorganized his studio (something every artist does more often than one would expect, especially when about to embark upon a new phase of work). As ideas unfolded between us, I discovered a continuum between artwork of his that had previously been well received, and the raw studies that he was currently creating. We discussed a pathway to lead him to his goal of getting his work back into the art market. He had been traveling down that road before, but that night, it seemed unreachable as it does cyclically for us artists as we go around a familiar, and sometimes overwhelming, bend.
I left that night having given him direction for his work, stepping stones to guide him over the next month or two, and, most importantly, friendship and hope. Robert was someone whom I had always admired and worked with, as a partner on exhibitions at CELLspace. I was at his MFA thesis show and had seen his work develop over the four years since. The next morning, I received a beautiful text from him. He thanked me for the motivation to move forward and for breathing new life into his artistic soul. It was that text that confirmed feelings within me. I knew that I could be of service to artists, and that very day, I began the process of launching WaldmanArts.
Over the next two weeks, I developed a consulting page on my artist website with the tag line, “I don’t just tell you what to do, I help you do it.” Unlike many consultants out there, I want to serve artists by taking care of the “grunt” work they are expected to do, at the same time they struggle to create their art; “grunt” work such as writing statements and biographies, making pricing decisions, even doing the research necessary to find platforms for their work inside and outside the art market. I wanted to bring back a more nurturing, viable structure wherein the artist can spend time doing what an artist does, rather than distracting herself by taking Social Media 101, Marketing 101 and How to Build a Website in 10 days. While all these skills are essential to marketing one’s work, they certainly may not be the forte of many artists and even pose great challenges. However, they do need to get done. I was going to be that person to help artists get it done.
Beth Waldman, www.waldmanarts.com, has been an artist since the age of 15 and an art consultant since 1998. She has simultaneously maintained her studio practice and foothold in the art market with degrees in Art History and Studio Art from Wellesley College and the San Francisco Art Institute. Beth has been commissioned for public art projects by The Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma, CA and International Lofts in Oakland. In 2013, Beth launched WaldmanArts, guiding numerous artists through the demanding process of identifying themselves and launching, successfully, their artistic careers.