Tuesday 30th April 2019

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Working in Jacksonville, Florida as opposed to New York or Philadelphia has been a big change when it comes to connecting professionally and personally over contemporary art. There’s definitely a smaller scene of artists and galleries here, and I have yet to feel like I’ve found a creative home in Florida.

When considering how to grow my network here, I’ve been reminded of one of the best moments of connection from my days in New York. In late Summer 2011, I received an email Fwd: Let’s. Get. Together. (Women in the arts meetup) from my friend and colleague Kat that had been sent to her by Jessica, the Director of Communications at Creative Time. Kat and I ran a curatorial organization called AD Projects with two other women - Abby and Jess - where we focused on group exhibitions in unused or underused spaces. The four of us decided to attend the meet up together with wine, snacks and open minds in tow.

Jessica organized the inaugural meeting with Stephanie, a curator of video content at the Big Screen Plaza in Manhattan. Their intent was to connect female artists, curators, directors, arts administrators, and writers. A group of about 15 professionals gathered in a lower Manhattan apartment and the creative energy in the room was electric and palpable. We introduced ourselves, explained our current roles within the art world, shared exciting and not-so-exciting aspects of our careers, and workshopped ideas for collaboration all within a few hours.

Over a handful of meetings in various apartments around town, the group came to be known as Ladies Arts Meetup (LAM) and the women involved became great friends and sounding boards for professional support. We showed up en masse to one of the member’s gallery events on the Lower East Side, to artists’ openings in Midtown, or to the Creative Time fundraising benefit in SoHo. Strength in numbers is real, and the fact that we were a large group of women within a traditionally boys’ club atmosphere was fun and liberating.

Specific great benefits with regards to AD Projects that developed from LAM included an October 2011 show of video art at the Big Screen Plaza, a guest blogger spot in the Dossier Journal in 2012, and a write up of our February 2012 Utah exhibition in Art Dossier Journal. AD Projects' Big Screen Plaza show was a group of eight video artists working in a blend of live action and animation/green screen, and the visibility and turn out was great (plus my Dad got to be there which was pretty special). One of the artists in the exhibition, Jacolby Satterwhite, performed costumed in person during the screening which helped attract a good amount of foot traffic from passersby in the Flatiron District.

To this day, I enjoy keeping up with the women from LAM both on social media or in person who are now in cities from San Francisco to Berlin and seeing the paths their careers and personal lives have taken. Many of us continue to pursue the arts, quite a few of us are mothers, and the relationships from our meetings have persisted for nearly a decade.

Today, I realize I need to take a page out of that book from August of 2011 and grow my personal network of likeminded creative people in my new(ish) city. It can be scary to start new relationships and make myself vulnerable, but remembering the amazing payoff of replying Yes to Fwd: Let’s. Get. Together. (Women in the arts meetup) makes me excited to get out there. I’m not sure whether the same model that worked in New York City in 2011 will work for me in Jacksonville in 2019, but I’m willing to dig in and forge a path toward a creative professional network here. Artists, designers, creative entrepreneurs in the 904: I'm looking for you!

Whether you're near or far, if you too are looking to chat about art and to network send me an email hello@jillian-art.com.

(image of Sergio Albiac at the Big Screen Plaza. Photo by Heidi Zito.)

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