Year in Review

July 2022 – July 2023

Why hello! After about a year of silence, I’m here to share what I’ve been up to, and some lessons I’ve learned about myself, aspirations, and work/life balance. Let’s dive right in!

For the past year, I’ve been working as the studio/programming manager of the Wellsville Creative Arts Center in Wellsville, NY. After my time in North Carolina as an intern at STARworks, I found myself reuniting with my partner Kyle O’Connor who was working at Alfred University and Fredrickson Kiln Company in Alfred, NY. Itching to continue making a difference in the artist community, I decided a position as studio manager would help me develop some skills to move forward. Some of these skills include planning techniques, graphic design skills, ways to delegate – all amidst building strong friendships and fostering creative community.

With everything, there are ups and downs – learning curves if you will. Communities cannot thrive without different personalities, and some personalities mesh better than others. One of the main things I aimed to achieve during my time at Wellsville was to listen to those around me, and take action. What did the community want? What did they need? How could the studio function more efficiently and in turn provide the students with a “better” space? What did “better” in this context mean? What was working well before any changes were made? What was in my control, and how do I facilitate a good learning environment? These kinds of questions, and having discussions with the students really helped me prioritize different tasks, and figure out the next steps. In doing so, an initiative of mine was to implement financially accessible workshops. 

Making connections in the community and finding artists who the students have not previously met helped to bring together new friendships, and encourage conversation about the art being made in our studio. It brought me joy to see others learning from people who I look up to and seeing their influence coming through in more of a daily studio conversation. I kept reverting back to the question: What would I like to experience if I was a student here? Because I was placed in this planning role for the studio, I found myself being more active than ever to encourage these relationships and expose interests of my own. I would not be the maker I am today if it weren’t for teachers and the external experiences I’ve had. This being said, I wanted to organize events that would include the conversation of a variety of voices and creative processes. I felt as though the net was being cast wider – introducing different makers to each other, talking about different means of ceramic processes, encouraging the students and the teachers to share more about what interests them.

I found I really enjoyed organizing events like workshops, because it felt new and exciting. The same goes for introducing new classes to the roster. Because students were telling me they wanted new opportunities, I did my best to follow through. One of the feelings I experienced a lot in trying to make this happen was the feeling I was never doing enough. Not that anyone particularly told me this, but there was always a looming feeling that something else could be done to make the studio “better”. I briefly mentioned this already, but what does “better” even mean? I was often told by students, “We’ve survived with less,” which I found frustrating not relieving because the standard should not be “barely passing by” or “I can just do it myself”. In a community studio, everyone brings something to the table, and there is a lot to be considered to help keep the space efficiently functioning. From day one, I really wanted the students to feel as though they could talk to me openly, and I actively instigated conversations with them about the art they were making. These connections, in my opinion, were making the studio “better”. Vesting interest in their works helped form a bond between us, encouraging open communication even if they were not used to it.

Below are some photos from different workshops organized this year including ones that feature John Gill, Amy Bennett, Matthew Kelleher, and Anne Currier.

I really enjoyed getting to know the community of makers in Wellsville and bringing these new opportunities to the table for them. It really made me feel a sense of purpose, and brought a level of happiness to the position that made the hard work worth it.

Planning the classes and exhibitions held in the space was also a huge challenge for me. While some classes had been taught for many years, in some instances, new teachers needed to be found to fill roles and different classes were constantly being introduced. Creating deadlines for myself helped me move forward and execute the plans for classes which helped prevent me from losing my mind (too often). It was a lot to keep track of because the timeline for the adult classes didn’t align with the timeline for the kids classes, which didn’t align with the timeline for the exhibitions, etc. Sticking to these deadlines and writing them down was a vital strategy for me.

Brainstorming sessions with frequent studio goers was essential to planning out the next season/session of classes as well. Being able to talk through different ideas was very helpful for me to process students’ interests as well as bring up aspects I missed. I chose to stick with the system they had in place for class rotation as many students who participate in classes have been coming for many years and were used to year round access — once one session ends, another begins. This system breaks up the year into five 2-3 month chunks, aligning longer sessions with times many students would lapse more than 2 weeks absence (summer vacations and winter holidays). Each session has built in weeks of break, thus allowing the teacher some flexibility to choose when class will be canceled. Just because class is canceled, did not mean the studio was not open to the students, but rather encouraged students to come in and work independently. Communicating updates to all community studio members was essential to helping the new classes be successful.

Through advertising and promoting these events, I learned a lot about timing, poster design, press release writing, and posting on Instagram as well. Procreate became my best friend as I didn’t have access to the Adobe Suite at the time. Because I didn’t delegate much time to my own studio practice over the past year, playing around with color pallets, fonts, and information placement on posters and media gave me alone time and exercised the need to create.

Being a weirdo who likes to clean, I really thrived in maintaining studio upkeep as well. Something about a physical task, that I knew like the back of my hand, helped me to clear my head, whereas the social aspect of the job I felt was more mentally taxing. I wanted to keep up with all the students and remember the details they were telling me because their interests and needs are important, but a repetitive task such as loading a kiln or mopping the floor, helped me to recharge a little during a day of talking to people. Realizing this about myself provided some insight as to how I’d like to move forward in finding my ideal future position. Creating some sort of balance is needed – having the ability/access to talk to people in a larger community, and also being able to set aside some quiet time. Without working this sort of position, I do not think I would have realized just how important alone time is to me.

Enjoy this little photo montage of many memories made in the studio 🙂

Cannot stress enough how grateful I am to have met so many new friends during my time as manager at the Wellsville Creative Arts Center, and learned a lot about myself in the process. While I have some work tips for my future self (and others feeling a similar overwhelmed way), I’m saving those for the next post because this one is feeling a little long winded. Anyways, thanks for reading, and look to the next post if you’d like to read more about these sorts of tips!