Joanne Mattera is an artist whose focus is lush color and reductive geometry, an esthetic she calls "lush minimalism." She has exhibited extensively in New York at the Stephen Haller Gallery; the Elizabeth Harris Gallery; Thatcher Projects; the Heidi Cho Gallery; and at OK Harris. She is the writer of The Art of Encaustic Painting and her reports on the annual Basel/Miami Art Fairs have attracted a following in the blogosphere. She is a visiting lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, Mass. Her most recent curatorial effort was "Luxe, Calme et Volupte: A Meditation on Visual Pleasure," for the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, where she is a represented artist. www.joannemattera.com

I have had the privilege of working with Aaron Landsman on developing the workshops presented through the Creative Capital Foundation. Aaron is a writer and an actor with a wealth of experience in fundraising. He currently provides his fundraising skills to Elevator Repair Service Theatre, where he is a member of the company, as well as for his own productions in intimate spaces such as homes, offices, and bars. In this interview, Aaron discusses his experiences observing and serving on awards and grant panels. Being aware of how the panel process works can help you fine tune your work samples and language to make your presentation more competitive.

Aaron's plays have been produced in New York, Houston and Minneapolis, and internationally in Sweden and Belarus. He is a member of Elevator Repair Service Theater, with whom he has performed all over the U.S., Europe and Australia. Aaron has taught at The Juilliard School and New York University and guest lectured at many universities. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Johanna S. Meyer.

Several years ago, one of my former students sent me an email saying I had to meet Jody Lee. She was impressed that Jody had been able to raise money for her projects from a number of patrons and that I should check her out. Always interested in artists that find a variety of support structures, I called Jody and visited her studio. Not only did I enjoy Jody’s work, but I loved hearing about her personal fundraising experience. Jody’s story is a good reminder that there are many ways us artists can look for support from within our personal network of relationships.

Jody Lee is an artist and writer based in New York. She received Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in German Literature from Reed College, spending one year at the Universität Tübingen in Germany. She received a post-baccalaureate B.F.A. from the University of Washington at Seattle, and her M.F.A. from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Eve Mosher tackles big projects which help to visualize environmental issues and potential solutions to communities large and small. A good example was her HighWaterLine project, which brought her out into the streets, front yards and back alley’s of long waterfront sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn, drawing a six-inch chalk line to mark the zones that would be increasingly inundated from climate change induced storms. Armed with an engaging personality, simple tools, and information/action packets, Eve worked for six months on her monumental “drawing,” and met with hundreds of workers, homeowners and curious pedestrians.

The vision of one artist can make a difference, but it takes a network of partnerships to help bring a project this large to fruition. This interview explores some of the ways Eve reached out into the community, created partnerships, and secured funding from a variety of sources.

Eve Mosher grew up on the borders of urban sprawl, watching the daily disintegration of "wild" in favor of "cultivation" in the form of suburban developments and strip malls. She holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and a Master in Fine Arts. She has lived in Texas, New York, Vermont, Oregon and California, all of which greatly influenced her interest in the environment by providing distinct and inspirational experiences. Upon her return to New York in 2005, she experienced culture shock from the lack of aggressive legislation and services vigorously addressing environmental issues. This new awareness influenced her transition to public, issue-based work.

Her 2007 work, HighWaterLine was profiled in international media, including the New York Times, The Discovery Channel, and Le Monde. Her public and community based artworks have received grants from New York State Council on the Arts and New York Department of Cultural Affairs, both through the Brooklyn Arts Council. She has also had two projects selected as New York Foundation for the Arts fiscal sponsorship.

Her current and upcoming project include a global project encouraging the re-imagining of your own neighborhood, Insert Here and a green roof network called Seeding the City. http://seedingthecity.org/

Jaq Chartier is an artist based in Seattle, Washington. She maintains an ambitious painting practice and co-organizes, with her husband Dirk Park, Aqua Art Miami, an art fair at two locations in December during Art Basel/Miami Beach. In this interview Jaq provides two different perspectives on gallerists. One is her relationship as a painter represented by a number of galleries across the USA. The other comes from the role reversal she has experienced as the organizer of Aqua Art Miami, and being in the position to choose gallery exhibitors in a competitive situation.

Her galleries include Ameringer Yohe, New York; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; Elizabeth Leach, Portland; and Platform Gallery, Seattle. Her work has been recently been featured in exhibitions at Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland; and the Kunst-Museum Ahlen, Germany; and in collections including Microsoft and the Progressive Art Collection. Awards include an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship, and a PONCHO Special Recognition Award from the Seattle Art Museum's Betty Bowan Committee. She was also a recent Creative Capital Grant finalist and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award nominee.

I interviewed Susan and Wendy in a noisy hotel lobby on the last day of the Art Basel | Miami Beach in 2007. I was excited to find that they not only visited the fairs each year but brought a group of art students from Wyoming with them. Living in New York, all too often, I take for granted how easy it is for me to access a wide variety of art in the studios, galleries, and museums. I was intrigued to discover how these two artists/administrators kept themselves up-to-date with the art world.

Susan Moldenhauer

Ms. Moldenhauer has extensive experience in museum programs and administration. At the University of Wyoming Art Museum, she has primary responsibility for overseeing day-to-day operations of the 50,000 sq ft museum: including exhibitions, educational programs, collection acquisition and conservation, personnel supervision, institutional budgeting, development, museum store, and facilities management. She has established a diverse exhibition program that presents contemporary and historic exhibitions from a variety of ethnic, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives and is qualitative and international in scope. She has curated more than 130 exhibitions and overseen the implementation of more than 200 exhibitions and has written and published more than 30 exhibition brochures and catalogs since 1993. She has created and implemented the institutional policies for collection development and management for the museum’s 6,500 objects, overseen a strong education program for K-12 through adults, furthered the integration of the art museum into the academic mission of the university, and reinvigorated the art museum’s outreach programs. She has successfully led the art museum in establishing its 5-year academic plan for 2004-2009, exceeded its 5-year capital campaign goal of $2.5 million, raised more than $200,000 in grant funds, and restructured the museum’s staff and National Advisory Board.

Moldenhauer was the executive director of Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (1986-1991), curator of museum programs for the University of Wyoming Art Museum (1991-1996), assistant director & senior curator, University of Wyoming Art Museum (1996-2000), interim director & senior curator, University of Wyoming Art Museum (2000-2002), and director & chief curator, University of Wyoming Art Museum (2002-present).

Moldenhauer is a practicing artist working in the medium of photography. For twenty years, the landscape of the American West has grounded and inspired here photographic explorations. Seeking synchronistic, transformative moments when earth, sky, wind, and human presence are one, she captures images in one exposure from performances with fabrics in the landscape. Her images are captured in color and printed full-frame in black and white and without manipulation. She has exhibited widely and is represented by Braham Contemporary Art, Toronto.

Moldenhauer received an MFA in photography from Penn State University (1982) and a BFA in printmaking/drawing from Northern Illinois University (1972). She has minors in Film History and Art History. She is a member of the American Association of Museums (AAM) and is the Mountain Plains Regional Representative for the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries (ACUMG).

homepage.mac.com/wyooutpost



Wendy Lemen Bredehoft

Wendy Lemen Bredehoft is the Education Curator for the University of Wyoming Art Museum, a working visual artist with a national exhibition record, and consultant on arts, arts education and non-profit organizational issues. Recent clients have included the University of Wyoming’s Visual Art Department, the Wyoming Arts Council and Wyoming Alliance for Arts Education, the Western States Arts Federation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bredehoft was the Director of Cultural Resources for the State of Wyoming from 1999 – 2004, directing five cultural programSusan: the Arts Council, State Museum, State Historic Preservation, State Archives and State Office of Archaeology. Previously, she managed the Arts in Education program for the Wyoming Arts Council (1988-99). She has served on numerous arts and education boards and review panels and worked as a teacher, lecturer and artist in residence in Wyoming schools and colleges.

Bredehoft’s current artwork reflects her interest in developing a visual vocabulary, rooted in color and line, which expresses a personal response to landscape; one that elicits a separate, but similarly personal response in the viewer. Color and texture become the means for communicating something that is more than the compositional elements, and an imaginative documentation of interaction with a particular place and moment in time. Examples can be seen at http://www.wlbart.com.

Bredehoft attained an MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College in 1996, and a BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Wyoming in 1984.

Jennifer McGregor wears many hats. She is currently Director of Arts & Senior Curator at Wave Hill in the Bronx and served as the first Director of the New York City Percent for Art Program. In this interview she offers insights into the process of applying for public art projects as well as how she develops her exhibition program at Wave Hill.

Jennifer McGregor is the Director of Arts & Senior Curator at Wave Hill, 28-acre public garden and cultural center in the Bronx, presenting artworks in the galleries and on the grounds that engage the public in a dialogue with nature, culture, and site. She revitalized the visual arts programming in 1999. Since then, she has curated over 50 exhibitions and special projects and she now oversees the performing arts program. She closely produces interpretive materials for all projects and works with the education staff to develop related programming.

As Director of the New York City Percent for Art Program from 1983-1990, she implemented the program guidelines and supervised sixty public art projects. In 1990, she founded McGregor Consulting to work nationally on public art commissions, exhibitions, and planning projects. Most recently she managed the design selection process for New York City’s Flight 587 Memorial that was dedicated in November 2006. She advised the Freedom Park in Atlanta, GA and the Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA on sculpture-park planning, and facilitated the start of the Public Art Network, a program of Americans for the Arts. Ms. McGregor regularly serves on juries, panels, and selection committees. She received her BA from Brown University.

Artist Ellen Harvey maintains a varied schedule of works in public spaces and a gallery-based practice. In this interview we briefly discuss her guerilla art work, New York Beautification Project which involved creating 40 tiny oval landscape paintings on outdoor graffiti sites throughout New York City over a two year period. We also discuss how she manages other aspects of her active career.

Ellen Harvey is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and took part in the PS1 Institute for Contemporary Art’s National Studio Program. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Recent awards include a Pennies from Heaven Grant, a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Grant, a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Her most recent solo exhibitions include “The Museum of Failure” at Luxe Gallery, New York in 2007, “Beautiful /Ugly” at Magnus Müller in Berlin and “Bad Mirror” at Galerie Gebruder Lehmann in Dresden, Germany in 2006, “Mirror” at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia in 2005, “New is Old” for the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland, and “A Whitney for the Whitney at Philip Morris” at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris in New York in 2003. She has exhibited extensively at venues including the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the Gwangju Art Museum, Korea, the Museum for Photography in Braunschweig, Germany, the Wyspa Institute in Gdansk, Poland, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Prague Biennale, the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Queens Museum of Art, Artists Space in New York, the Secession in Vienna, Austria, the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, the PS1 Museum’s Clocktower Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, Apex Art and the Kwangju Biennale, among others. Public projects include a mosaic for the Queens Plaza subway station and an upcoming mosaic for the New Yankee stadium both commissioned by the MTA Arts for Transit and a mosaic commissioned by the Chicago Transit Authority for the Garfield station. Her first book “The New York Beautification Project”, was published by Gregory Miller & Co. in 2005. “Ellen Harvey: Mirror”, a catalog of Mirror and other projects was published by the Pennsylvania Academy in 2006. More information can be obtained at www.ellenharvey.info.

Kurt Perschke is a public artist and sculptor. His ambitious project, RedBall, is both a public event and a sculpture work comprised of a series of daily architectural installations of the fifteen foot inflatable RedBall in urban sites. Our interview discusses Kurt's development of the project and how his sculptural practice has responded to it as well.

Kurt Perschke’s public projects have taken place in Barcelona, St. Louis, Portland, Sydney, Arizona, Chicago and received a national award from Americans for the Arts Public Art Network. He has worked with Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, been commissioned by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and participated in the Busan Biennale in 2006 as part of the Contemporary Art Projects, the only American invited. His video work Momentary Geometry Series has been screened in Europe and the US and as an AIM fellow at the Bronx Museum. Recent residencies include Jacob’s Pillow, MANCC, and Kala Institute. A native of Chicago he is based in New York.

The RedBall Project is a public event and sculpture work that comprises a series of daily architectural installations of the 15 foot inflatable RedBall in urban sites over a period of one to three weeks. The larger arc of the project as it travels globally develops a story about our individual and cultural imagination.

I met Janine Antoni years ago when I took a group of students to her for a studio visit. Janine generously shared with them the organizational and creative details of her practice, from how she kept her work archive, worked with her studio assistants, to the ambitious project she was currently working on in the studio. I was impressed with the grace by which Janine managed the administrative details of a thriving career and continued to challenge herself as an artist.

Janine Antoni was born in Freeport, Bahamas. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship; the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Inc. Painting and Sculpture Grant; and the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award. She has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad at venues including Luhring Augustine Gallery, The Wadsworth Athenaeum; The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The Reina Sofia; The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; The Whitney Museum of American Art; The Museum of Modern Art; The Guggenheim Museum; and The Aldrich Museum. Her work was included in the 1993 Venice Biennial; the 1993 Whitney Biennial; the 1995 Johannesburg Biennial; the 1997 Istanbul Biennial; the 2000 Kwangju Biennial in Korea; SITE Santa Fe in 2002; and Prospect.1 A Biennial for New Orleans.

Debby and Larry Kline work as a collaborative team creating artworks that focus on social issues designed to question the status quo and effect change. They discuss how the collective functions as a support group and its role in promoting artists rights with public art commissioning agencies.

Current projects use a wide range of experimental approaches and materials chosen to take viewers from their comfort zones to a place where they must challenge their own perceptions and preconceptions. Elements of social interaction, participation, and performance are often present in these works, which use humor or surprising context to address serious and controversial issues.

The Kline’s collaborative works have received international acclaim and coverage in both fine arts publications and mainstream magazines such as Utne and Orion. The artists have lectured at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies Art and Science Forum, SF Camerawork (San Francisco) as well as numerous colleges and universities. They participated in The Center for Land Use Interpretation's residency program and were recently nominated for Headlands Center for the Arts’ prestigious Bridge Residency. They are currently planning a solo exhibition at California Center for the Art Museum. The Klines have been awarded three grants from The Gunk Foundation, NY, and a grant from Potrero Nuevo Fund, San Francisco, for their unusual approach to art in public spaces.

Artist Matthew Deleget discusses how he went from having a solitary art practice in Brooklyn, NY to co-founding MINUS SPACE, an art collective/curatorial project that has connected him to a network of artists and venues all over the world.

Matthew Deleget is an abstract painter and curator. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is a member of American Abstract Artists and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation's Artist Advisory Committee. Matthew has received awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Golden Rule Foundation. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Flash Art, Artnet Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Basler Zeitung, among others.

Matthew co-founded and directs MINUS SPACE, a curatorial project based in Brooklyn, NY, presenting innovative reductive art by international artists working in all media. At MINUS SPACE project space, he has curated solo exhibitions by Jan van der Ploeg, Gilbert Hsiao, Michael Brennan, Michael Zahn, Tilman, Lynne Harlow, and Mark Dagley. Other recent curatorial projects include: Machine Learning, a national traveling exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age; and Escape from New York, a group exhibition in Sydney, Australia, surveying reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City.

Matthew also works at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), where he founded and oversees NYFA's Information & Research Department. This includes the foundation's web site, artist magazine, learning area, and other information programs for artists.

Matthew holds an MFA in Painting and an MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.

Susan Lee is a Certified Financial Plannerâ„¢ as well as a Registered Investment Advisor. I started working with Susan Lee over 20 years ago, when I was overwhelmed trying to figure out my own tax returns. From the beginning, I found working with her reassuring. She was careful, compassionate, and had tremendous experience with how small business tax laws relate to creative people, especially since she was a literary artist herself. Since then, I have called upon Susan to discuss these issues in my classes and seminars and have deeply appreciated our long-term partnership.

Susan Lee has prepared taxes for freelancers and artists for over twenty years. She is a Certified Financial Plannerâ„¢ as well as a Registered Investment Advisor. Her website, http://www.freelancetaxation.com/, gives freelancers and artists basic information that will allows them to take advantage of their self-employed status and meet the challenges inherent in freelancing.

She has written articles for, as well as spoken to, freelancers and artist organizations including Graphic Artists Guild, National Writers Union, Editorial Freelancers Association, Music Cares, Artists in the Market Place, among others. Susan also has a weekly personal holistic financial radio show, You And Your Money, on WBAI-FM in NYC at 10:30am EST on Friday mornings. You can access it on the home page of this website or at wbai.org.

This is the transcript from a panel session, which was part of a day long workshop, Finding a Place for Yourself in the Art World: Strategies for Emerging and Mid-Career Artists sponsored by the College Art Association at their annual conference in Dallas, Texas in February 2008. The workshop was co-led by Joanne Mattera and me. At midday, we invited Diane Barber, Co-Director/Visual Arts Curator of DiverseWorks Artspace in Houston; Cris Worley, Director of PanAmerican ArtProjects; and Andrea Kirsh, Art Historian, Art Critic, & Writer to join us for a discussion about relationships between artists and art professionals.

Diane Barber has been the Visual Arts Curator of DiverseWorks since 1997 and Co-Executive Director of the organization since September 2006. During her tenure, she has curated more than 60 exhibitions for DiverseWorks including Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion, named Best Art Show in the Houston Press Best of Houston awards; Maria Elena Gonzalez: UnReal Estates, a collaboration with Art In General (NY) and the University of Memphis; and William Pope.L: eRacism, named Best Art Show in an Alternative Space by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) in 2003. While at DiverseWorks, Barber has given particular emphasis to commissioning new works and site-specific installations and to developing programs with charged social, cultural and political undertones. Barber has served as guest curator for the Austin Museum of Art , Houston Center for Photography, McNeese State University (LA), Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center (NY) and Estudio Abierto in Buenos Aires, where she organized a major public installation by Houston artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck. Prior to DiverseWorks, Barber served as Exhibitions/Publications Coordinator for FotoFest. She is past board president of the National Association of Artist Organizations (Washington D.C), former Chairman of the Houston Coalition for the Visual Arts, a current member of FotoFest's Art Advisory Board and has served as guest portfolio reviewer at various regional and national conferences.

Cris Worley holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Southern Methodist University and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of the South. Since 2003, she has held the position of Director at PanAmerican ArtProjects, Dallas, the first of now two galleries in Dallas and Miami, and following a directorship at Karen Mitchell Frank Gallery. She is a charter member and chairperson of the recently formed Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas and is actively involved in supporting her local art community. The gallery represents artists in national and international art markets including Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Milan, Italy, and Basel, Switzerland.

Andrea Kirsh is an art historian with a very non-linear career. All the artists in the room will appreciate that. In the Eighties and Nineties, she worked as a museum curator and administrator, and she spent two years administering a public art program in Miami. Later, when living in Eugene, Oregon, and unable to do museum work, she wrote a book, Seeing Through Paintings; Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies, that introduces art historians, artists, museum docents and others to what can be learned about paintings as they might be encountered on museum walls, by paying attention to materials and condition issues. Since moving to Philadelphia in 2003, she has done some teaching and has been writing criticism for two web publications. One of them is the Fallon and Rosof Art Blog, which has been names one of the top art blogs in America. Andrea is their star correspondent. She has been on the board of CAA since 2006.

Joanne Mattera is a studio artist whose focus is lush color and reductive geometry, an esthetic she calls "lush minimalism." She has shown in New York City with the Stephen Haller Gallery; at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Thatcher Projects, the Heidi Cho Gallery; and at OK Harris, where she has had two solo shows, the most recent in May 2007. She writes regularly, teaches occasionally, and curates when concept and support converge. Her book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, is the standard reference on the subject, and her reports on the annual Basel/Miami Art Fairs have attracted a following in the blogosphere. She is a visiting lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, Mass. Her most recent curatorial effort was "Luxe, Calme et Volupte: A Meditation on Visual Pleasure," for the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, where she is a represented artist.
www.Joannemattera.com and blog, www.Joannemattera.blogspot.com

I first noticed Julie Baker Gallery years ago with her ads in Art in America. I loved the design and I've been keeping track of the gallery ever since. When I was looking for a gallery to interview that wasn't in a major metropolitan area, hers was the first one that came to mind.

Julie Gerngross Baker is the Co-owner of Garson Baker Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, NY that opened in 2008 (http://www.garsonfineart.com/). Since 2001, she is also the owner of Julie Baker Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery in Nevada City, CA. She is the Co-founder of flow, an invitational art fair (2006-present). She is the former President of Gerngross & Company, (1992-1998), an Arts Marketing firm in New York City, established by her father Hans Gerngross in 1946. In 1992, she was the Assistant Producer and Marketing Manager for the Soho Arts Festival founded by Simon Watson. She founded the Soho Gallery Association with Charles Cowles board member, an active organization from 1992-1994. From 1989 - 1992 she was the assistant to Diane Upright at Jan Krugier Gallery and at Christie's in the contemporary art department.

Julie was born and raised in Manhattan but now lives in Nevada City, CA a gold rush era town located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with her husband Richard and three sons Miles, Theo, and Trey.

Sergio Sarmiento is a rare person: an artist with an engrossing conceptual and performance based practice, a lawyer, and a versatile educator. To any subject he teaches, he brings multiple points of view based on his experience. When he discusses legal issues with my students, he comes as an artist and a lawyer. They respect the fact that he has a law practice and, simultaneously, is able to maintain his studio practice.

Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento is an artist, writer, and lecturer interested in cultural production stemming from the discursive sites of art, law, and philosophy. His work has been shown in national and international exhibitions, including Mexico, Germany, Spain, Dallas, New York City, El Paso, and Los Angeles, and has published essays and projects in Five Continents and One City Exhibition (Mexico), Capital Art: On the Culture of Punishment (US), Cabinet Magazine (US), Law Text Culture (Australia), Afterall (US/UK), and Unbound: Harvard Journal of the Legal Left (US).

Sarmiento has previously taught at Hofstra University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, California Institute of the Arts, Occidental College, and the University of California at Irvine, and has participated in lectures in the United States and abroad, most recently at The Yale School of Management, Parsons The New School for Design, The Vera List Center for Arts and Politics at The New School, Columbia Law School, Columbia University School of the Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The School of Visual Arts, Cornell Law School, and the Centre Sociologie de l’Innovation, Ecole des Mines de Paris.

Sarmiento received his BA in Art from the University of Texas-El Paso in 1995, and was awarded a Philip Morris Fellowship to attend the California Institute of the Arts, where he received his MFA in Art in 1997. He was a Van Lier Fellow at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art the following year, and in 2000 was awarded a studio residency at the World Trade Center by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 2006. He is currently a staff attorney and Director of Education with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York City.

Clandestine Construction Company International (Clancco), a corporation founded in 1968 and based out of New York, is an interdisciplinary project which explores, investigates, and examines the relationship between art and law through architectural-sculptures, performances, writings, interviews, and an internet website/blog, all made available in different material and digital formats. Clancco may be viewed at www.clancco.com.

Janet Riker took over as director of the Rotunda Gallery in 1989. I passionately recruited her for the position, as I knew what the demands of the job were and who would be a great candidate. I actually called her up and said I wouldn't hang up the phone until she said she would apply. I was not disappointed. Janet stepped into the Rotunda Gallery and brilliantly began new ambitious programming and a coveted NEA grant. She also made me look good. To bring insight into the thinking of a director of a non-profit, I turned to her.

Janet Riker is director of the University Art Museum at the University at Albany, a 9,000 square foot museum designed by noted architect Edward Durell Stone, which features a changing exhibition program focused on contemporary art and a permanent collection of over 3,000 works on art.

Prior to moving the Capital Region in 2004, Riker was Director of the Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn for fourteen years; there she developed a highly regarded program of changing exhibitions and innovative educational offerings for children and adults. She served as director of the Queensborough Community College Art Gallery, Bayside, New York, and Assistant Curator at the Drawing Center in New York City from 1984 to 1988.

Riker holds the M.A. degree in Art History from Columbia University and B.A. from Alfred University. She has organized dozens of exhibitions of contemporary visual arts. She has served on numerous selection panels and commissioning bodies, and has lectured widely on contemporary art and artists'issues. In 2004, Riker received the Betty Smith Arts Award from the Brooklyn Borough President and was cited by the New York City Council for her contribution to the arts in Brooklyn. She lives in Guilderland, New York with her husband, photographer Michael Marston and son Philip.

Colleen Keegan is one of my colleagues in the Creative Capital Professional Development Program, http://pd.creative-capital.org. At Creative Capital, she has applied her extensive business background to create a Strategic Planning methodology for artists of all disciplines. I have used career planning for myself for over twenty years and have included it in my own teaching. However, working in the Professional Development Program with Colleen has been a great education in the solid business principles behind many of the activities I have done intuitively in my own practice.

Colleen Keegan is a partner in KEEGAN FOWLER COMPANIES, an equity investment and consulting firm specialized in providing strategic planning and business affairs services for companies in the communications and entertainment industries. Keegan has also worked as a producer for MTV Networks, WETA, and SHOWTIME. She has served on numerous Boards of Directors including the American Refugee Committee, the MS Foundation, Texas Film Commission, Emily's List, the NOW Legal Defense Fund and Senator Dianne Feinstein's Advisory Council.

I had seen Camilo Alvarez's booth at several art fairs and knew two of the artists he represents. Because he is an ambitious gallerist with an adventurous program, I was eager to speak with him and get some insight into his point of view.

Camilo Alvarez is a curator of contemporary art who has experience ranging from the traditional to the experimental. He has worked at museums, commercial galleries and alternative spaces, as well as in art consultation, delivery and installation. Born in New York City during the Summer of Sam, Alvarez graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. From there, he returned to NYC as Gallery Manager for Exit Art/The First World. In 2002, he served as Program Associate at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture coordinating the summer visual arts residency program. He organized the 2004 Max Wasserman Forum on Contemporary Art for MIT's List Visual Arts Center with panelists Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi, James Ackerman, Kimberly Alexander and Kyong Park. He recently assisted Caroline Jones create a catalog for the MIT List Visual Arts Center's Sensorium exhibition.

Letha also has incredible skills as a web designer having worked for many years with Artists Space, an alternative space in New York City, in charge of their artist registry and later as an Associate Curator. When I wanted to make sure that I had up to date information about work samples and being an artist in the digital age, the first person I thought to speak with was Letha.

Letha Wilson is an artist and and freelance website consultant / web designer who received her MFA from Hunter College. She graduated from Syracuse University with her BFA, and studied abroad at the Glasgow School of Art, and in Florence, Italy. Her work has been shown in many venues including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Exit Art, Fredrieke Taylor Gallery, White Box, Jack the Pelican, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, and The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Letha was the Artists File Coordinator, and subsequently the Associate Curator at Artists Space. During her tenure there she led the project to publish the Artists File database online in 2002, and launched the current dynamic website in 2006. Over the years she has worked with many arts organizations in New York City including Art in General, Alexander and Bonin, The America’s Society, and Visual Aids. She is currently working as a Project Manager for the Drawing Center as they finalize their online Viewing Program.

Letha has also collaborated on curatorial projects including Majority Rules in Glasgow, Scotland, (Your Show Here) at Mass MoCA, and co-organized the Salad Days exhibition at Artists Space. Born in Honolulu, and raised in Colorado, she resides in Brooklyn.