I’m Alex Schmidt, aka Body Confidence. My pronouns are she, they, or thine. I also like thine. I am an artist and an athlete. I run Dyke Soccer, I also do a lot of community organizing, Dyke Soccer, but also Queer Speed Cruising. I co-organized Dyke TV screenings with Ainara Tiefenthäler. I am pursuing my MFA at Hunter for art. I say combined media, which for me, is mostly social practice, but also quilting and videos, and I make a lot of merch. I make these Gay Gap shirts that have been really fun to see spreading around on new friends and strangers all over the world. And especially during quarantine, I’ve been doing a lot more figure modeling than ever before. So, before quarantine, I was figuring modeling for a consistent group every month, which is how I met Joni, and then I’ve been hosting weekly figure modeling sessions on Zoom, bringing out like a lot more of my characters, so finding ways to blend it with my performance work and my social and community organizing work. I’m busy. It’s how I manage my anxiety. 

I am half Barbara Corcoran, half like, this dyke community organizer, service-oriented person, definitely an entrepreneur and financially savvy, and like to run businesses. And I also feel like extremely committed in terms of what I’m going to leave the world with like, to changing things. And most of all, helping people find connection, not just dating though, that’s great, but finding community, finding support, finding mental health care, finding a doctor, finding places to live. 

Dyke Soccer is a network right now of about 1000 people that spans between New York, LA, and DC. So we have three chapters, and it’s a financially accessible, queer-inclusive soccer team that’s more of a pickup league than a pay to play situation, where you sign up for an entire season. We are free for anyone who needs it and are non-competitive, and definitely are about like owning sort of dyke power in soccer, and taking over the fields with that. For most of us in our lives, that was something that was really missing, like, this queer inclusive sports culture. I had stopped, like, I played soccer my whole life and had stopped playing because there just wasn’t a place for me, or for most of my now teammates. And now through quarantine, we’ve been doing mental health check-ins every week and like, growing a lot closer emotionally, but I think that’s built on creating this community space, kind of out of thin air a little bit. 
And that kind of blends with Queer Speed Cruising as a pretty similar community, or like a big community overlap. Queer Speed Cruising is an event I run with my friend, Lily Marotta. And it’s a speed cruising dating event. We call it cruising, because dating feels like going on an interview or like, yeah, looking at someone’s LinkedIn profile and deciding if you’re going to get married. And we find that queer modes of flirting and finding each other could be like, sitting down with someone for three minutes, talking to them, learning you have a lot in common with their roommate, who then connects you to like an open studio, which is where you end up meeting your partner. So cruising as like a form of loose flirting and meeting and connection building, and it’s built on a lot of comedy. We have referees, which is like the role for our Dyke Soccer players and a goofy like, slideshow that plays. We haven’t done it in the past few months because of quarantine. 
I’ve been figure modeling basically since I moved to New York about eight years ago. It would be like you’re paid $50 and it’s like, five people watching you and I definitely, you know, was trying something new, but also definitely found that it was like a really perfect balance for me between performance and body movement. But I don’t really know what to call it because it is just like posing, holding a pose. It feels so meditative for me, and I love seeing everybody’s way of seeing me, or perception of me in all their drawings. 
So I’ve always been saying like, “God, I wish I could do this more.” And I ended up meeting a group that’s run by my friend Colleen called Sunday Salons.” And that is how I started doing it like, somewhat more consistently, so like once a month, and it felt like a much safer group, because it’s a vast majority of womxn in this group. But also, it’s mostly Colleen’s friends, or like Colleen’s community that I was posing for. And so I didn’t necessarily know a lot of the people before I started posing for that group. 
And then with this pandemic, Colleen and I were talking about it as like, a possibility, like to try it virtually. We posted about it, shared it with this group. And that’s sort of the group that was like the foundation for now over the last couple of months, figuring out an even broader community that I think - because I’m organizing it - is like very queer, very explicitly financially inclusive, which is super central to all the projects I do, especially Dyke Soccer and Queer Speed Cruising. There’s always the option of coming, even if you can’t afford to pay. And that’s kind of, to me, like one way that a community can function as just like on an honor code system. 
It’s been really interesting navigating my boundaries and sense of safety and security of doing this thing that’s always felt like super freeing. I love being naked. I love naked beaches. I love walking around the house naked. I don’t have any shame getting naked in front of people, as long as they’re respectful and for the most part, womxn and/or queer. But doing it on the internet has been - you know - like a total new experience, so many possibilities like, I can show so much more. I have so much more control over what the set looks like, what I’m dressed as, what the angle is that people are seeing me from. And also, there are ways that I have so much less control, because there’s a big difference between being in a room of 10 people IRL, where you can see everyone and what they’re doing, and having like 100 people and kind of wanting to find a balance between being able to spread my legs and be shameless, but also just protect myself, and be able to continue that kind of vulnerability and presence without getting hurt. 
And I don’t totally know what that means. I can imagine a couple scenarios, but mainly it’s about just not having to worry, like, wanting to not worry about it, because I truly feel like this is something I’ve realized I can do that makes me feel really, really, really in my body, which is something that feels impossible to do with people right now. So to be able to do that while being with the energy of like, 100 plus people, just feels like an insane gift to have during this time when I feel super isolated, and I know a lot of other people are, too. 
Because they’re growing every week too, or changing, or I’m figuring out new things that are working. I’m always kind of nervous and trying to make sure it all goes right. So I never know sometimes whether it was an profesh session or was really messy, because I’m really working, so there’s so many things going on. But this person said that going to the session woke up a part of them that had been sleeping, and that really, really resonated with me. I mean, it just feels insane to be doing something that would have that effect on somebody. And I also feel the same, like, I feel that this has completely reset or shifted my way of seeing myself. I’d just like gotten truly hundreds of messages from—in part, because when people register, they can leave a little note. But like, hundreds of messages of people saying like, this is, like, it’s a consistent thing that a lot of people are returning to, which I think is helpful for me also. Some people have started bringing their moms into it, and I often pin my video on a mom, it’s soothing to know that that’s more the demographic I’m excited about than like, someone I don’t trust. I’m like, “I’ll just focus on the moms and not worry about the one or two people I don’t know.”
Like, yeah, I feel a lot of people are running into friends in these rooms, or drawing from all over the world, from places I’ve never been. So that’s also just like a wild feeling to be connecting across the world like that. I have like a gut feeling that I know what body confidence means, but I also don’t. I think a lot of times people think body confidence just means like, what it kind of means culturally now, which is sort of just like, yes, your body, like, woohoo, or something. And I do feel that, but I’m also kind of like, part of it… Like, my story is that I have lived with a lot of eating disorders and body dysmorphia, and depression. And it’s not like I was born confident in my body, or that I feel comforted every day or that the risks that I take don’t keep me up at night for like, a week straight. 
It’s just kind of, I think for me, trying to always remind myself that I want to feel in my body, and I want to make decisions that come from a kind of presence inside of in my body. And it sounds really vague, but I guess it’s just when I moved, or right when I moved to New York, I had a really bad job, I had a whole mental break and became yoga certified, and just got really into that simple idea of being in your body. And that doesn’t really mean much more than it sounds like. But in terms of figure modeling, I think a lot of times the assumption of figure modeling is like, the model is an object and it’s usually, especially, the female body is going to be passive and in repose, and not particularly powerful. 
I am very blessed with like a super jacked muscular body. And in my figure modeling, I try to heighten that or heighten creases, make angles come from below so that I’m not just serving angles and poses that are about flattering myself to fulfill some kind of gaze, but also anything like, consistent. I like shape shifting my gender and my character. And I believe that I’m an artist as the model - versus a model in this context is usually referred to as “the model.” And I mean, maybe I’m saying I’m a muse or something, but I really like, I’m an artist. These are choices I’m making. These are angles I’m taking like, this isn’t just a passive body that you’re looking at, and then it’s like a given. It’s like these are, I’m trying to, like heighten the lens and choose the lens. 
And I think, I don’t know always what that means in relationship, the name body confidence. It’s sort of like a nickname that’s stuck because of my handle. But it also does mean being a really buff dyke. That’s like, getting naked and trying to like move from laughter, and humor and failure and empathy, and shamelessness. And all those things like are pretty rare to see, I think. Even if sometimes it feels completely natural to me. It’s been really interesting. I don’t know - there have been so many different things I have dealt with in my personal life and figuring out what feels good and trying to understand why I’m doing this, and not other things that I was doing before. I’ve gone through all kinds of like waves of guilt and fear with it. But when I’m actually doing the thing, I don’t feel that way. It’s more of like, anticipation or post social anxiety, or those kinds of feelings that are a lot about criticizing myself or trying to distract myself from peace by finding things to pick at or something.
But I think the big thing has been really figuring out what my boundaries are and making them super clear and not apologizing for it. And some of that really just took like, for example, I asked the people don’t take photos or video or people are not allowed to take photos or videos unless they’ve asked for consent ahead of time. And that is just because I realized a few times a couple people posted a video or told me that they’d made a drawing from the photo they’d taken. And I realized I wasn’t comfortable with that. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault for taking photos. I’d even kind of encouraged that before. I just realized like as the thing grew, I didn’t really want this free-wheeling house mouth policy around my body. I want there to be limitations like - you are attending this live performance, and that’s what it is. That’s what you’re paying for. That’s what you signed up for. And that’s what I’m giving you, and I’m not giving consent to more than that. Because that’s where it starts to snowball out of control. 
Of course, people might still take photos. They might still go outside of that, but they are at this point, so many things in the way that everybody before I send them a link, meaning that I just confirm that they are who they say they are, cismen need to be vetted by someone in the group or at least, write me a really good sob story or something, a really good application. 
And that’s kind of like enough, because at the end of the day, I am someone that like loves to be naked at the beach and someone could take a photo of me there too, and I don’t have any shame around what I’m doing. I’m literally a preschool teacher, like the families there could find out about what I’m doing. So it’s like, the stakes could be considered kind of high for me, but I just don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. I think it’s my body and I don’t consent to being related to as a thing that’s bad to be seen naked on the internet. I don’t think a photo of me from this ends up in someone’s email box and my life is over. I just don’t even know who that would be. 
So I mean, maybe I’m having... I like to think that I just don’t have enough forethought or something like what if I want to be a politician or something? But I’m like, well, that’s the kind of politician I would be. I would be a politician that has naked photos of her all over, out of her control. Because that’s a piece of me that I’m comfortable with, and I’m proud of. 
I definitely am like a future thinker all the time, thinking about, like, scheming about next steps and plans. I have so many fantasies for the future of Dyke Soccer, the future of my figure modeling, the future of different work I want to make, or events I want to host. I think that’s where we’re at right now, as much as I don’t want COVID to be happening, I think what the mutual aid organizing that’s going on looks like is a lot of what our future could start to look like and hopefully, start to show people the importance of living proactively and doing things, even though they’re not going to be perfect the first several times, you do it and it definitely will never be perfect ever.
But I do think there’s a lot of passivity and it comes from  totally a lot of understandable fear, like, fear of cancel culture, fear of like just doing, like, getting in trouble, or doing the wrong thing. And it is at the expense of our power. And so I’m just like really about building our own systems and maybe through those systems and building power, like soccer, for example. It means that I now have like 1000 voices together. And that’s a group that can come together to demand change in a lot of other ways, but it does start with finding your community, and investing in it and like putting yourself out there. You know, like, going on a limb and inviting somebody you’ve never talked to before to do something with you because you really believe in like what you want to see in the world. And that could be different for everybody, for sure. It’s definitely a lot of work. But the payoff ultimately would be all of our power and our rights not being in the hands of people that don’t understand like, don’t buy into our philosophy, which I guess I’m assuming for listeners, but my philosophy is definitely don’t hurt people, support your community, take what you need, leave the world more beautiful than you found it, laugh and check in on your elders. These kinds of like, just almost small town Midwestern values, but applied to a clear world. 
Cancel culture is to me a super big bummer. And it definitely like, I’ve had comments, trolly comments on like things I’ve done, or people like trying to come for me or telling me to stop or whatever. Like, all the time, it happens all the time when you’re especially trying to create things for the queer community, because the queer community is really sensitive, really aware, really wants to make sure everything’s being done ethically and correctly. Unfortunately, a lot of times that stuff does happen in a public sphere, versus happening directly, where they would sort of call in, which is what I would advocate for. And I think one thing you can do to like, absolve yourself of at least like a small percentage of cancel culture fear is to practice calling in yourself and start building that culture yourself, and within your own community. And just like really, that means that initiating tough conversations from a place of like, genuinely wanting to resolve them and understand each other and not just judging people and coming for people without considering their point of view or perspective. And then obviously, they won’t always agree [and that is when you might choose to “call out”]. 
You can’t always control how people are going to see you, and you do have to sometimes just stand your ground. And I think my advice for people that are sitting on ideas, I definitely sit on ideas, because I’m worried because I want it to be done perfectly when I do it or I don’t want someone to steal my idea. So I don’t even want to put it out there, because I don’t want it to be taken. I do think most of our ideas are probably bad, and so we should probably just try all of them and get them out of our system so that we can move on to the next one. 
And the ones that are good, people will always get inspired from good things, but it’s so worth trying. And the first time you try anything, you learned a billion things you would do differently the next time and that’s why you have to start because you actually don’t know until you do it and it’s not perfect and you get to do it again. So I think that that’s part of it. It’s like, stop tricking yourself into thinking that you have this perfect little crystallized idea. You just need to drop it, because it’s, you’re going to do it and then be like, “Oh, this actually... I never thought of that until I did it and a few people mentioned this thing.” Or, “it was harder to make than I expected,” or whatever. People will have things to say. And have a good friend who loves laughing at that stuff with you, because it will happen. 

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Hi, my name is Megan. I'm an abstract artist based here in Portland. I moved here a decade ago from Arizona. So I was a little bit of a desert rat, and then I came up to Portland. I'm working on a couple of shows. I'm working on some new bodies of work. I'm trying to develop my practice around art as healing. I'm trying to communicate that to other people through some of the different approaches and methodologies. I'm developing that right now. I'm also a writer; I write poetry and essays.

I started making art because I was trying to figure out who I was. I'd always studied art. My undergrad is in art history, my grad degree is in arts administration in museum studies. I have helped a lot of artists build their businesses, but never thought that I was an artist. I started making art probably six years ago because I was in the middle of—I basically up and quit my life for six months, what my life had looked like because I was not living. I had panic attacks every day and anxiety, and I had never had those issues before. 

But it was basically indicating to me that I was not in the place where I needed to be in my life, I kept hitting a wall, I was not living authentic and true to myself. I needed to do something drastic in my life that basically changed everything to get back on the path that I need to be on. I wanted my own life according to my personal narrative, versus what other people were telling me was the thing to do: "Have a high-powered corporate job, make sure you get benefits, make sure you have this." Well, that job I was going through every day was making me feel dead inside. I was surrounded by people that I saw going through the motions of life every day, not living life. It was my worst nightmare. I had panic attacks going to work every single day in my car. I had gotten married, and I had always had this in my mind that I wanted to get married before I was 30. I found this person, and we got married. It wasn't going well at all.  I was in this place of my life where I was like, "Okay, I'm going to this job I hate, and then I'm leaving that job I hate to go home to a house with someone that is falling out of love with me." that we weren't connecting. This is not the marriage that I wanted. 

My grandma calls me one day out of the blue. My grandma's in her 70s; she's a firecracker. She owns hardware stores, and she's a stubborn, no-nonsense, powerful woman. She called me, she goes, "I'm going to buy out my business partner, I'm going to run the hardware store myself." I was like, "I'm going to quit my job this week, and I'm going to come out and help you."

I worked in the hardware store and the greenhouse all summer, and I would sit on the floor watching Criminal Minds with her every evening and start making art. I was in a no-fear place in my life. I was like, "I don't know who I am right now, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to be okay with that right now because I'm going to figure it out." But within this space of not having control, I felt the most secure. I left my entire life in Portland, all my friends, everything, to move to the middle of the cornfields in Indiana. I was completely isolated from a lot of the stimulus that I was used to, the opinions.

It may not have been the method that other people would have used, but it worked for me. I needed something drastic to get out of my rut, and to get out of my stuckness in life and to find out who I was supposed to be. 

I became more honest with myself about having grown up as a Christian fundamentalist. In that community, I didn't have a chance to explore my sexuality. I didn't have an opportunity to explore who I was devoid of these expectations that had been put on me. I grew up with the idea that women's' principal value was as a wife and as a mother and as an obedient Christian woman. 

I came back to Portland after about six to seven months and felt in tune with myself and fearless. That's been a massive part of how I always want to be, is completely fearless, and any fear that I do see, to be in the right relationship with it, to see it, and to see what it's there for and what its use is there for. I become a lot more open and communicative with my mother, who is a pastor. She's a Christian pastor. She's a Methodist pastor, and she's badass in her own right. She has pushed and pushed and pushed against a misogynist Christian environment that has continuously told her that she couldn't be a leader and that always said to her that she couldn't be a pastor. Now she's a lead pastor of a church. She tries to do everything that she can to invite women into the conversation and to be more inclusive. Even though I don't align with those beliefs, and I felt they were damaging, growing up, she's a safe person to talk to. We may have different ideas or approaches to certain things, but we've been able to still come together. 

I talked to her about my sexuality and how it was hard growing up in a sort of fundamentalist environment, figuring out who I was. I had to do a lot of things that were damaging to figure it all out because no one taught me. There's no clear, easy path. That conversation has been interesting, and she's been accepting and lovely. The past six years have been a considerable period of growth for me. Gathering a lot of people around me who are also growing and tapping into and doing the thing that they are supposed to be doing despite what other voices might be out there. 

Part of that, too, is being a millennial. We 're entrepreneurial. We think outside the box, and we give ourselves permission to do that. I'm not identifying as a lot of things all the time. It's really, more my intentions that guide all my actions and my relationships in my life. Like, my values, it's more about less—I guess it is the values I identify with. It's less about these specific words about how we describe myself and how I want to live my life and the way I want other people to feel when they interact with me. If you feel loved in my presence, and there's that generosity and showing up for somebody.

I'm known as someone that wears head to toe black all the time, but my actions are colorful, and I use a lot of texture. If you were looking at one of my pieces, there's an exciting interplay of having dark and light. I use a ton of white colors to create this bright space and this interesting interplay of negative space with the chaos of all of the colors and the textures that I use. It is gestural as well. When I start doing my work, I purposely don't do a lot of planning because I want it to carry the emotions that I'm feeling at the time. Through that process, it helps me exercise my feelings a little bit through the process of painting and creating these works. I use a lot of greens and blues and teals and turquoise. Then it juxtaposes with this more pastel yellows and pinks and big splashes of red. I do a lot of these big gestural splashes of red, or even neons. I'm using a lot of neons right now. I used a lot early on in my work, but I'm bringing back into the picture because I love how they stand out from painting and are bright and electric. 

I love the tactile components of my work, because even if you put a blindfold on and reach your hand out, you can feel the landscape and the topography of the paint on the canvas itself, because it's thick. I have valleys and slopes and hills. They're carved into the shade of my works, which I enjoy the fact that you can appreciate the works on both a visual and a physical level. 

I view abstract art and the art that I make as a conversation. So until there's another person there to interact with it and to make their own meaning from it, then the work to me is not complete. The work is continually reinventing itself starting and finishing, even if it's technically a finished piece because of your own physical interaction with it. Like, even people that come into my studio, people will reach out. After all, they want to feel it because some of the pieces also look like you've put a thick layer of icing on the cake. Different people, I see them reach out for it, and then they stop about half an inch from the canvas. They step back. They're like, "Oh, I love this." I'll encourage people, "No, keep going, and put your hand on it." 

Because of the health things that I've gone through, people think that my work is a direct reflection of this, grappling with my own mortality, which it's not. It's a form of healing myself. This is a way for me to process and exorcise the emotions and the feelings that are inside. It may feel that six months that I started painting in the middle of nowhere, it was a meditative practice and allowed me to have something to do with my hand and have an outlet that was a ritual that became a way for me to sit with myself and to sit with my emotions and to sit with all of the changes that were going into my life, and create a more concrete way of thinking about them and feeling them. I have forgiveness for myself and for the circumstances around me. 

I'm constantly curious about life and continuously striving for the most, I want the most out of life, right? Within going after the most, you have to be willing to accept where you're at in the present.

When you're trying to get from point A to point B at lightning speed without doing the work to get from point A to point B, then you're doing yourself a great disservice. You're not doing the hard work that you need to be doing to level up to get to that next spot because you have to pass. You have to go through each of those challenges, and you have to meet them and develop the skills to meet those challenges that helped in all of your future stuff because if you're floating through and somebody else is doing the work for you, you're handicapping yourself. Even though it may look the easiest thing to do at the time.
Because I've had to spend years in the hospital, that almost has become a meditation for me, I've developed ways of being calm and patient and present, even within something I can't control and something that's scary. 

When I was going through my bone marrow transplant, I would sit in my bed. You don't know what's going to happen. I would sit there, and I would go internal, and I would thank my body for doing the best that it can do. I was in my mind, appreciating my body and having gratitude for it. This current situation that I'm in is not ideal. This is not what I've strived my whole life to get to. But because of all of the work that I did to face all of the hard things in my life and to question everything — to try to put things into a place where I wanted them to be — I developed fearlessness. That all served to help get me to a place where I could sit in the middle of a hospital room and use that fear as a tool to heal. 

Fear is not always a negative thing. It can actually be our bodies trying to help us and look out for us. Running away from it doesn't help. Why is it coming up, and why is it present? What is it trying to teach us? I do honestly think that the reason I've been able to stay alive for so long in the face of an aggressive illness is 1) this healing practice I have with art and 2) facing hard things with grace and gratitude. That, paired with this strong community of support I have around me, has done probably about as much as the chemotherapy that I've received.

Art is a daily practice. Focus on the ritual rather than the output in the beginning. It's not about what you're making, but how you're making it. It was in that ritual that I was creating, sitting down every night, when I first started making art, getting some supplies, and exploring and giving myself permission to make bad art. Whatever that looked like, to me, there's no objective definition of what it looks like. But obviously, what I started with is not where I'm at now. 
So the ritual to me is the most essential part. When I do teach my workshops, what I do tend to see is that when people, even the ones that keep painting, keep drawing, keep making things, they're doing it daily. They're actively creating. They may not be making that specific thing that they want, but by creating every single day, they're going to get to that point where they're finally figuring out their style and their rhythm and the aesthetic and their vision and approach. 

There's never going to be a right time or a perfect time to be an artist or to create. It's never going to be suddenly you reach a particular day, and you're like, "Today, I'm an artist. It finally struck me, it finally occurred to me, my entire vision has come true. This hand of God has come down from the sky and now has anointed me as an artist. I am off to the races." You do not be yourself. You are the hand in the sky. You are the one that can basically speak into existence, when you're going to start and how you're going to do it. When you start to let go of any expectations, any preconceived notions of what you should be doing or making, comparing yourself to other people, letting go of the creative shame that has been in your life, you can go from there. It may be that to get over that, you're not even making anything in the beginning. Maybe it's you're reading art magazines, and you're getting inspired that way, and you're going to shows, you're going to galleries, you're observing. You're becoming more of the observer, but you're doing it in more of an intentional way. You're creating tension around seeing how other people are doing work. Developing that piece. Don't use it as a way to avoid doing, but as a way to help feed into the doing. 

When I start my workshops, I usually give people a small canvas and a couple pieces of paper. The paper is meant to be more practice. The canvas is a permanent piece of real estate for the thing that you've conceived. Even that can be intimidating for people. They're already intimidated: "Okay, the paper is fine, but the canvas here means serious business. I have to commit to something, but I don't even know what to do. I've never used any of this before." So we ease our way in. 

Think about who you are at your core. What do you like? What are you passionate about? What are your values? What are your experiences in your life that have moved you the most? 

Your art reflects who you are and your experiences and things you want to put out in the world. Start there. You're not going to know what you're supposed to be making or what your concept is supposed to be or what your progress is supposed to be until you figure out where to begin. Begin the process of figuring out who you are. Being able to articulate some of those core foundational things that make you. 

I've never liked the technical pieces of painting. I want to make it. That's how I knew that my practice is always from the hip. It's just, how am I feeling right now, I'm going to go with that. Then pick out the colors that I want. Make the gestures, pick out the landing place for it. Yeah, I knew that that's how I was able to make the best because if I started to think that I needed to prep more, or do more of this setup work that's too restrictive to me a little bit too overwhelming, a bit too prescriptive. That's not how I view the work that I want to be doing. That's a more accurate reflection of who I am or the work that I'm even drawn to. I don't believe in art for art's sake. That's never been my philosophy. Art should accomplish something or should help us be doing something or tapping into something. 

I want my art to be a lens for people to figure out their own lives if that makes sense. I want people to see that through me doing my practice in many different settings and developing it. I was an artist, but I hadn't realized that until recently, I started making, that you too can do that, that that is something totally graspable, that you can go and start making art as well. That is essential to who we are as humans, is an art practice, and being creative saves us in many ways, and everyone should have some outlet in that respect. There are many times in our lives that we've been shut down in doing that, whether it's because we were told that our sister was the artistic one, or we were not the artistic one. You know, those kinds of voices stick in our heads. Those are traumas that we carry with us. Creative traumas stop us from making the art we're supposed to.

That's why I teach workshops. That's why I invite a lot of people to come into my studio and make art with me, because I want it to be approachable, and I don't want it to be this thing that is fear,, a fear thing for people that they don't feel they can make art. 

How do I invite people into my practice with me, so they can go off and do the creative things that they're supposed to be doing?

Life is precious to me, and time is valuable to me. I want people to be living their most authentic selves in this life, and not thinking it's later and later, or living according to other people's expectations, or thinking they don't have options in their life. I also want to be able to communicate that, which is a lot to teach. Some of the events that I do are almost an art installation. They help to elevate other people and elevate the creative community. Demonstrate to other people the value of going after what you are passionate about. 

All the time I hear, "I've never done this before. Where do I start?" or "I had a horrible art teacher that told me that I wasn't doing art the right way. I didn't do it anymore." Or, "My mom told me that I would never make money off of it. I decided to do something else." 

You get people in a room together, and you give them the tools to make a piece of art. Everybody leaves that room having made multiple pieces of beautiful art that they are super proud of, and they go off, and they start making more. 

It's important to me for people to escape the small traps that people get into in their lives. relationships are interesting to me too, those subjects, talking about, our relationships with each other and…Yeah, that's definitely a theme that I want to explore more in my work. Another development is having more interactive pieces to my work, whether it's actual pieces of neon versus using on paint, using lights in my work, or sort of audio. It's been a vision of mine to try to incorporate some of the health things or the medical tests that I have to go through regularly into my work somehow. 

In the noise of everyday living, those moments bring us back to the thing that is keeping us alive, which when you're in these tests, and you're faced with like, nothing else matters, it matters that your heart is beating at that moment. That's the only thing that matters. It matters if it's the right way. Because if it's not, that completely changes everything. Distill thoughts down to the rudimentary level of no one else is living this for me. I'm the one that is having to do this. This matters more than all the other petty things that we can distract ourselves with, or that we've been convinced should be vital to us. Because at that moment, the only thing that is important is what your blood work looks like, what your bone marrow looks like, what your heart looks like, which are the core things of who you are physically. It's a strange thing to be on such a fundamental foundational level with yourself. 

I would love to reset what it means to show art and to share art. I'm somewhat wary of the white box experience of art. How are you building off of that? What else is it accomplishing, other than asking for someone to come to your art to experience it? We need more avenues around art, inspiring people to create their own experience.

In galleries, people see things in a passive way. We're all standing around art. It's often the same people showing up in the same place talking about the same things. I wonder how then the painting itself is moving the needle toward being a little more significant than maybe a pretty picture on the wall. 

Not that art can't be its own appreciation and it is decorative, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. We're in such a time in our world, and in history, that art does need to be doing a little bit more heavy lifting. 

Art needs to have a perspective, and it needs to have a voice, and it needs to have a purpose. Whether that's raising awareness about certain things, whether that's bringing people together into more meaningful dialogue, I don't know what that exactly looks like. Still, we need to be challenging it, and we need to be asking ourselves, is this the best way to share art, to show art? Can we make this better? Can we make it more powerful? Can we make this stand for something more? 

That's at the forefront of my mind as I'm developing shows this year and creating new bodies of work and creating opportunities for people to come together. This is something I'm challenging myself on, and something that I want to continue to write about and research and explore to challenge other people. 



​

Hi, I'm Sam Gehrke. I'm a photographer working out of Portland, Oregon. I've been here working independently for almost five years now. Before that, I was down in Eugene, working as a video editor. I went to school for video and cinema. Three and a half or four years into working as a video editor and on productions, I like, lost my love for it, and started moving towards still photography.

I'm originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since moving up here and going off on my own working independently, I have a pretty big clientele base locally and nationally. And I've had my work appear in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Spin, The FADER, locally in Willamette Week, in the Mercury. And then I've had a few things pop up. The New Yorker and the New York Times and LA Times, and a few other things, but I do a lot of photography related to music, a lot of portraiture, commercial stuff for agencies, lifestyle stuff, food photography, anything I can do to survive and make a living. But I really like music, portraiture the most.

I'm working on a personal project of quarantine portraits, which is just a way to pass the time and do something creatively for myself, which I haven't really been able to do for the past five years. One of the reasons that I started getting into photography was doing self-portraiture to get out of that rut of being extraordinarily self-conscious and, you know, a problematic use on myself and my body.

There were a lot of things that I did wrong with addressing my social anxiety. The time that it lasted could have been cut much shorter if I did. I will say that photography was perfect for combating that anxiety and just making me feel I was useful, or I had something to contribute. That it applies to a lot of like, creative things. You know, I was just lucky enough to—like, a camera is something you can take with you. Having that sense of identity that you're contributing something rather than letting yourself get in your own head or sink into your thoughts, you know, negative thoughts or whatever, it is a good distraction. It's translated pretty well into my regular life, I feel because I'm a lot more social even without my camera.

I started doing this personal project of quarantine portraiture, probably towards the end of March. And honestly, it was born out of an individual need to want to get out and see people and talk to people and see friends in any way that I could. And also just to scratch my itch to photograph people because that's probably my favorite thing to photograph. I had the idea to do it a lot more naturally than what of it now. That started out with just messaging a few people that I knew that I thought would be good for it. And I did the first few over like, two days and they came out really well. And actually, the first one that I did got around 800 likes or something which is, you know, I averaged approximately 70 to like, 100 or 110 typically, so that was really big. It was only at that point that I was like, "Oh, well, maybe this is something that could become something more," or, you know, obviously, people are connecting with it in some way. I continued on, and it was a combination of reaching out to people directly that I wanted to photograph, but also a lot of social media, crowdsourcing, in a sense. After that, the first two that I put out on Instagram and Facebook combined, it was just 30 or 40 people right off the bat. I would try to average four to five every day. Sometimes it would be a little less, but it allowed me to see people that I knew, and I would typically see every day. It allowed me to see people that I hadn't seen for like, five or six years, and sometimes even 10 years, but I'd remain friends with on social media.

I realized, about 10 shots in, that this wasn't something that was only fulfilling a need to see other people and be social in some way, it was a two-way street for a lot of people because I started getting a lot of the subjects that I photograph telling me either like, while photographing them or after the fact that, you know, I was the first person that they had seen in a really long time, or they just being able to talk to me a little bit, made their day a lot better.

So, it started out as just something that was like, self-serving in a sense, just me wanting to see people, but as it grew, it became something that was like, this is—it's suitable for other people. The particular way that it fulfilled my desire for socialization and seeing other people started to translate through the photos. And that's why so many people really connected with the series and continue to do so. Because even if it's not face to face, other people get to see images of other people stuck at home. And it's right in a sense to know or see some like, visual of others being in relatively the same boat and you know, stuck at home, staying at home with pets or family. It grew into that; I did not expect it to, but that's where it's at now. I'm trying to reach 100 people for the initial goal, but it's going to probably be spread out more depending on how long this lasts.

I go to wherever they're residing. I am using a 70 to 200-millimeter lens, which is a pretty sizable zoom lens. And I will photograph people either in their yards, porches, windows in their apartments, front steps, anywhere that creates a sense of distance and a sense of home or personal space, from a technical standpoint and making me think more about how I'm shooting. I can usually shoot from like, only a certain point, give or take, and I'm stuck in that plane. And then I have to think a little bit more about how I want to present it, making sure that the geometry in their house or apartment is all lined up. And then how I want to convey that feeling of distance along with like, personal space.

It's nice to do that for once and not have the freedom to just go wherever I want and get as close to a person or at any angle that I wish to when I'm photographing. It's strange to say, but it is almost—it's so like, humanizing, being able to see other people that I would typically only see in a setting of them working, or a set of them DJing or people that I usually would see at concerts or even performing at concerts. Now we are all stuck at home. It's almost the great equalizer. It's humanizing and very interesting to see people all kind of, at their homes in their own spaces. From a photographer's standpoint, I want them to be incredibly at ease and comfortable. That it makes a big difference in how subjects act in front of the camera when they're photographed in their own spaces. It's less like an in your face, this is a photo shoot, and they can relax and be themselves. A lot of that comes through in the photos that I've taken so far.

I've done all of these for free. I didn't want to have that underlying like, I'm going to make money because of this. And it's charming to work outside of that constraint because I feel even subconsciously, it affects my mood and my attitude towards my time. Also, I didn't want to feel I was profiting off of others' anxiety or misfortune. People have insisted on paying me for these, and they've donated, but it's totally like, whatever they can afford. And I do think that from the standpoint of this being a personal project and more of an art project or examination of humanity during this time, that if you were to charge, you limit your subjects. And specifically, for what I wanted to do, it's more just seeing people, and that's better than any monetary exchange to me. It reminded me that when I was just starting out doing this, I was doing a lot of work for free. And a lot of work because I wanted to do the job and I wanted people to feel good about themselves when they saw a photo of themselves and be able to just like, get stuff to people and get my work out there. And it reminded me that that type of thing is never—just because you're not making money doesn't mean it's pointless, you know? It always comes back in some form. Ultimately, with this project, I don't even want to think about money right now because it's just that, you know, it's an added thing to think about that that I have thought about incessantly for the past five years.

I will do free work and do my personal projects as long as I can scrape by, and that a lot of people, especially in photography, are going to have to just settle for that and buckle down and maybe think more about what they want to do creatively because, I mean, honestly, freelancing as a photographer, unless you're in that, upper echelon, it's a hustle, and you don't get the chance to think about your creative things that are bouncing inside your minds all the time.

There may be a shift towards a little bit more artistry, but I mean, in a commercial sense, probably a lot more product photography, a lot smaller shoots, a lot more one on one shoots and just possibly a decline in it overall. My bread and butter financially were event photography. Yeah, there's going to be a real downshift in that, but that's all from a commercial sense. That hopefully, this will meet the time that photographers aren't spending on working in the business realm. Maybe this will be a catalyst for a lot more creative stuff that comes purely from people's minds to go to the forefront.

In the past 20 or 30 years, photography has receded into the background as fine art, because images are principally what we see in a commercial sense. Hopefully, this may change that a little bit, we will feel a little bit more, what you would think of as fine art or human base photography coming to the forefront.

My end goal is just making people feel as comfortable as possible in front of the camera. And also working within their comfort zone for how long they want to talk to me. It's like, if somebody wants to speak to me for a half-hour after the shoot, I'm not going to be like, "Hey, listen, I got to go 10 minutes in." I'll basically stay for as long as you want to talk to me. And you know, I'll leave in five minutes if you're like, you don't want to communicate that long. My first approach to it is to make it as fun as a photoshoot as possible. Because the more you put those words "photoshoot" on that forefront or pedestal in people's minds, the more performative they become, and the less themselves they are.

The main thing is to just throw the rules out the window, in terms of a photoshoot, and also work within the confines of shooting from a fixed point and according to the geometry of the architecture of people's homes or apartment buildings. Once things are whatever, like, the new normal is going to be, in many forms of art, people are going to value interaction and socialization in a way that they didn't before.

What I want to do now is totally driven by my—it's something I want to do, and I didn't want to do it because of money or putting money in my account. I wanted to do it because I wanted to do it, and I wanted to see all those people. 


See his work on his Instagram @samgehrkephotography

I work as a creative director, stylist, model, and concept developer. I am passionate about working with all kinds of different people from all walks of life, regardless of any categories that they fit into or any identities that they hold. My goal with the art that I create is to create an inclusive space to uplift all identities, explicitly queer femme folks, and all bodies. Body inclusivity is essential to me, as well. I work a lot on passion projects and building a community of artists who genuinely enjoy creating the stuff that we create. I don't have any specific goals beyond that, and I let things fall into place that ends up falling into that place. Through that, I've built this community of friends that I get to call my best friends and also get to work on amazing projects with. It's one of the most fulfilling things for me to be able to have a social, creative outlet, because a lot of other art mediums that I've enjoyed, and still enjoy to this day, but they're isolated, and I do them in isolation. 

As an introvert, that getting out of my comfort zone and working with other people on art projects is something that kind of fulfills a social need and a creative need in one. That the purpose of art to me is to build community and work with other people and listen to their ideas and have that art be shared among people in general and celebrated. So that is why I do art. I  incorporate my understanding and studies of sociology and intersectionality into the art that I make and being aware of marginalized identities and how my privilege can be used to uplift those identities in photos and give voices to those people that may not be heard if they didn't have a community to uplift their voices. 

I grew up as a pretty confident person. I attribute that a lot to my personality type and also just, I had a stable family life, and I'm grateful for that. I grew up having a good head on my shoulders. That does play a significant role, I think, in being able to feel comfortable in your skin allows you to do things, to put yourself out there in ways that society tells femmes they shouldn't. 

People should focus on trying to enjoy parts of themselves. Take a step back and realize how messed up the social structures are in our society. The goal is to keep people oppressed and especially femme people. You're taught to be ashamed of yourself, that if you don't fit into a specific look, you're not worthy of being represented. That's a systemic issue. That's not worth your time being ashamed about. It's not a personality trait within yourself that needs to stay hidden. No. It's empowering to know that it's not you, it's all of us. 

When you engage in tearing yourself down and other people down, you are participating in the systems that are trying to tear everyone down. Understanding that  gives you a perspective where you can step away from that narrative and say, "Hey, you know what, that's the problem; I'm not the problem." 

That gives you a better headspace to feel more confident in putting yourself out there and being exactly who you want to be exactly who you think that you are because it's liberating to give your middle finger to those messed up—the systems in general. You have the power to go against that if you want to and call out the system instead of beating yourself up for not fitting into the system. 

That stuff is what builds community you know, that's what solidarity is, is understanding, "Wow, we're all being hurt by the systems that are at play here, and I'm not going to compete with you," because that's what the system wants, they want you to remain silent. it's not a fun thing to do is to hate on yourself, you know? 

Community building and art happen simultaneously. When I first moved to Portland, I met some people in one photo community here, and I worked with several different people, and it was fun, but I didn't feel a sense of community. There was a group chat, and a lot of people in the group chat didn't know each other, and some did. But there wasn't this community of people that existed, at least to my knowledge.

I had fun, and I was able to create individual pieces, but I wasn't modeling with anyone else, I was doing solo projects. They didn't have that much conceptual development necessarily. It was kind of on the fly, which was cool, and it was an excellent experience to do that stuff. But I've always enjoyed high school, I would sometimes plan out shoots not extensively, but my friends and I would go out and put on cool outfits that look cute together. We would take pictures together. I liked being in photos with other people that I cared for. I thought it was fun. 

When I moved to Portland without having any close friends, I didn't have other people to do those projects with at all, I was doing the kind of one on one with photographers, and that was fun. then, in the springtime of my first year living here, I kind of decided to start reaching out to people on Instagram and kind of start trying to meet my people, you know, because I had met people…I always say that trying to make friends is dating, you meet a lot of people, and I feel you have this feeling when you meet someone, and you know they're your people. that hadn't happened to me that many times by the time it was late winter. I had a couple of people that I was "Hey, consistently seeing these people, but there's still not this community that I have." I kept messaging different people, and people that I had never met before. 

Some of them had already, I'd seen on their page that they're into photography, so if that were the case, I'd be "Hey, do you want to shoot?" or something that, but throughout the winter and spring of 2019, I met a lot of people, hung out with a lot of people. The people that I liked and felt they were my people, I kept in contact with them. I would plan gatherings at my apartment where I would invite all these people that I liked, and none of them knew each other. My friends that I had made that had had no experience or no connections in the realm of photography, they were "Oh, that's cool that you're doing that," and then they would come onto projects and they liked doing it, and we kind of built this big friend group community of people that enjoyed working on photo projects, and also hanging out with each other. 

Ever since then it's been an excellent way to continue to meet people because I'll meet someone and if I kind of their vibe, I'll be "Hey, we have this group shoot coming up, if you're interested in joining, you should come." then so many people, I've met a lot of people at my school that probably have never done much photo work stuff, and they come, and they do it, and then they keep coming, and it's super fun. 

My exposure to social media and stuff compared to a lot of other Gen Z people who are younger than me is different. I would say that I'm maybe one of the last years of people who didn't have the social media explosion. I mean, I learned cursive, and we didn't have iPads when I was in school. It was still people who started getting cell phones that were my age, usually in middle school, seventh or eighth grade. Whereas now, you know, you're in elementary school, and you have an iPhone. If I could put my mind into someone who is a freshman in high school now, I would say that their experience is probably way different. 

The images that I work on, regardless of the photographer who takes them, is being kind of a color explosion on people's bodies. My favorite styling era in the late 60s to the 70s, end of the 70s, probably, and that's a lot of my wardrobe. I style with my closet, you know because I don't have some budget to have my styling clothes and then my average person. My styling clothes are my everyday clothes. Most of those clothes are colorful. I love color in general. Color has always been something that I'm drawn to, and I enjoy messing around with primary rainbow colors and pastels. Instead of reds, I do pinks, and instead of primary greens, I do lime greens.

I love 70, vintage fashion in general, and I love it. It also much aligns with my ethics of using all sustainable second hand clothing to style. I don't want to contribute to the fast fashion industry. It all aligns well with what I enjoy in terms of how things look and my ethics, it's a win-win, in my opinion. 

My shoots have a pretty diverse range of different looking people. I include short people, tall, whoever wants to be involved, you know? People who show up every time it's different, but our community is quite diverse. Some of them are professional models who are signed to agencies, and they do fit into traditional beauty standards. But then there are plenty of people who are they have never done modeling before in their entire lives. 

I try to be as inclusive as possible, honestly. Everyone looking at content deserves to see images with people in them that they can relate to and that they can look at and be "Wow, that could be me," you know, because that when you're growing up, you feel so detached from mainstream media. I remember as a kid…and, you know, I'm a white, thin-bodied, middle-class cis-read woman. You know, someone who sees me and be "Oh, that's a cis White woman," you know? But even with the identities, I hold who are represented in the media; I still grew up thinking, "Oh, those are the models," you know, you just, you don't feel they're a separate category of people "Oh, they're a model," you know, it's just…If I walked into an agency, a regular mainstream agency, they would probably say, "No, bye." That's not something to harp on yourself for. That's society's issue. That's not our bodies' issue. 

What is represented in the media should be relatable. Some people want to do modeling, and they may never get the chance to because they only have access to trying to get into an agency. The agencies are in alignment with the status quo of only allowing for a particular body type with specific features and whatever that fit into that category of who's represented, and that shouldn't be the reality. 

As far as process, I don't have a structure for figuring out how I want to go about each project. My inspiration is usually the clothing I have. I also think about ways that people can look attractive together with outfits and in a specific location. I don't come up with one particular shortlist or anything. I come up with outfits to a certain extent but honestly, a lot of times I just, I know the color scheme in my head or I have some sort of idea, but I pack a bunch of clothes with me and then kind of figure it out as we go when we actually all meet up together to get clothing and makeup on, and then we choose a location, and then we kind of let, whatever happens, happen, and I don't have a specific goal with trying to get this published at this particular place, or you know, I don't have any expectations of "making it" or anything that. My goal is to make art and have fun doing it. 

Start with the skill that draws you to a medium in the beginning. It can be intimidating to look at a skilled person who has taken a lot of time to curate their style and produce these images with high production value. If you're starting and you go on Instagram, you see these images, saying, "Oh my God, the production value of that is unbelievable. I want to do that." It can be discouraging because you started taking photos, looking at the photographers who have fantastic equipment, being shooting in studios, and having an excellent team behind them. All of that stuff isn't salient when you look at an image, and you don't understand all the things that have gone into that and all of the years of practice that person has had. 
if you have a specific skill, if you are "I'd to start with taking part in these, and I'm interested in the fashion aspect of it," or, "'m interested in the shooting aspect of it," or, "I'm interested in the concept development aspect because I have so many cool ideas and I don't know how to bring them to life." You might be interested in being in them as a model. You have to start working with people who have the skills that you need, but even if those people don't necessarily have the highest quality skills or the most perfected skills, and you have to be okay with that. Many photographers who I've worked with earlier on in my journey into this world where I didn't take on any creative director role really, and in general, was more relaxed, the whole vibe around it, and the skills weren't as refined. Each time you make something where it's more thoughtful, it's you gone to kind of the next level, and you keep getting more mesmerized by what you're creating.

When I was kind of still new to this world as a model and stylist, one of my best friends, Hannah in Bellingham, had some work on her page with the gel lights. I remember seeing that picture on her page before I had ever even worked in a studio, I explained to her how cool that was and then fast forward to now, it's I've worked with gels so many times. If someone said to me that hadn't gotten into this world yet "Oh my god, that picture is so cool." If they were moved by it, I probably would brush it off too. You need not be comparing your stuff to theirs, and its just…No art is comparable in general. Still, especially if you're a new artist in a specific medium, you can't compare your stuff to anyone else's art but primarily, a professional and super refined technique, because you'll get discouraged. 

Start working with a lot of different people, it's okay if you have images that come out that are produced from people you work with early on that you don't love. There have been plenty of shots I've gotten back, especially earlier on where I'm I look back at now—maybe I was excited about it then or somewhat excited about it, but I look back now, and I'm, "Ugh…Oh," I just…that's fine. You know, I'm so grateful for all that experience I had because it helped me…With that experience, that wasn't necessarily "my style." It helped me develop my style, you know, you have to be super flexible with what you create. If it feels good. It's your style that feels good. What I created back then was my style at the time, and it helps me have a more clear path or a clearer understanding of what I wanted to continue to create and what I wanted to kind of leave, you know, and move on from you. 

The more you work with people, the more you'll be exposed to different types of artists, and you find the artists that you work well with, and then you keep working with them. That's kind of the case for me, I've found that I produce the best work with people who I have good chemistry with and continuously work with because we have that solid foundation and understanding and trust with each other. I never have to worry about leaving a shoot with someone who I enjoy and have previous experience with, I don't have to worry about the final product, it's I know that I'll get them back, and I'll love them. 

When you're starting and working with different artists and trying to develop your ideas, you're going to be working with people who likely have a similar skillset as you, and you're not going to necessarily love all of the images or whatever art medium it is. Still, specifically in photography, you're not going to enjoy all of the outcomes of what you work on with those people, because every artist works differently, every artist has a different style, editing style, communication style, and all that stuff, and you're not going to mesh well with everyone. 

Same way when you're trying to make friends or dating people or trying to find a place to live. You're not going to like everything. Through that, you will find the people that you do mesh well with and continue to work with them, and the art that you produce is likely going to continue to get better and better. Or if you see that work and you're "Ah, that's …it's not really... It doesn't have potential, in my opinion," then you can be grateful for that experience and move on and then you have a more precise understanding of what you don't want to be creating, you know, 

For a long time to do a rainbow-themed shoot where each person was in a monochrome outfit, it ended up falling through. Fast forward to three or four months later, I was explaining this idea to our friend Mandy. We shot that project, and everything ended up working out so correctly, though, and the images were terrific. I fully creatively directed that and styled it and brought on all the people I felt that was a big game-changer for me and, kind of, figuring out what I want to do with the art I make. My potential with creating projects that, and I don't know, I feel that was a big moment for me to understand that what we can create when we all bring our skills together is impressive. 

All of these projects, for the most part, are passion projects, and no one is getting paid. It's literally for the love of art, and I am terrified that I'll be in a position where I don't have the time to do that and feed myself and live under a roof. That is super terrifying to me because I am I plan a lot of the things you know, I carry a lot of weight in the projects that I work on. I love doing that, you know, it's so fulfilling to me, and there's nothing I want in return from people you know, and that goes entirely against…I don't want to charge people to be part of it. That's goes against the idea of the art that I'm making, you know? 

Figuring out ways to make it work is still something I struggle with when about the future — how can I do this and even work on all these passion projects? And also be able to do this so that I can live and not have to work a nine to five job that doesn't feel fulfilling to me where I’m thinking about doing shoot stuff? I don't want to be able to be there mentally in a position that I'm getting financially supported from, where my head is in the space of, "Okay, what's next?"

I imagine continuing to do this type of photo work. I'm still trying to figure out how I can make it work, and it turns into this whirlpool of 'what if, what if, what if." I try to take one step at a time and be, "Okay. I got to keep working on what feels right and what feels good." I have noticed that the more I do all this work and work on shoots and stuff, I get more job opportunities as a freelance artist, here and there. Different brands have reached out to me seeing my page on Instagram and saying, "Hey, love your style. Can we work together?" 
Those opportunities are fantastic, and I'm grateful for them, but there is no way at this point I could survive off of it. It intrigues me, but relying on being a freelancer, it gives me a lot of anxiety because of the instability. I'd be more interested in either starting my brand — a business but with other people, not by myself. There I could manage, lead, use my skills to the brand's advantage. Other people could bring their expertise. I'd like it to be collaborative and stable. 


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George Thorn is a co-founder of Arts Action Research, a national arts-consulting group.  As a consultant, he works in all aspects of organizational development as well as making presentations to conferences and workshops.  In parallel with his consulting activities, for eighteen years he directed the graduate program in Arts Administration at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.  He was the Associate Director of FEDAPT.  Prior to these activities, he was the Executive Vice-President of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.  George spent sixteen years in New York where he had a general management firm that managed Broadway, Off-Broadway, and touring companies.  He began his career as a stage manager of Broadway productions. In 1996, he relocated to Portland, Oregon, to open the West Coast office of Arts Action Research.  In Portland, he has consulted with over three hundred and fifty arts and cultural organizations and artists.  The focus of his consulting is the Regional Arts and Cultural Council’s Cultural Leadership Program.  He co-leads RACC’s Art of Leadership, a six-part board training program. 

He spoke to us about navigating the uncertainty of this pandemic and creating a strategy for engaging with artists and audiences. 

Here are our favorite insights from George: 

Arts and culture will never be needed more than they are today. Considering artists and arts organizations, we know that everyone's going to be hurt in some way, except for the very wealthy. There are a lot of people and a lot of sector’s going to hurt really, really badly. That's the world that we are inhabiting. Our message to audiences is: “Please stay with us. We're in this together.”

What’s the next step for arts orgs in putting together a strategic plan for after the pandemic? Some people are in relatively good shape, some of them really have cash flow problems, whatever it is. We know that we're not going to go back to the way it was. It's going to be a very different reality. It’s time to ask t the leadership of each organization to begin to envision what they think this new reality will be for them, how they begin to think about, envision this new reality, what needs to be in it, who needs to be in it, what are the needs within that, what do we need to learn? Knowing as they develop this vision of the next reality, they'll have to be very adaptive and keep learning. 

How are we going to evolve? We need a very simple sort of plan of evolution and financial framework and a programmatic framework. With that plan, which will keep changing, leaders can say to everyone who’s close to them, “This is what we know now. These are things we're envisioning. We have a timeline that we want to begin. We have intended to do this project here and there. At a certain point, we have made a decision whether or not we can do that project.” Then it’s a matter of helping keep that information going. So, as an arts leader,  you're really saying, “Knowing what we don't know, so and so, what we're doing, please stay with us, we’re this together. We can't wait to get back into a room with you, with artists making art.”

There is a point of no return. If we want to do a show in October, what's the point of no return when we have to do that, when we have to make that decision? What artists are doing now, in terms of streaming and video, that's all testing. Is this a good experience for the artists? Is this a good experience for the audience? It’s different from someone teaching yoga. I think it's pretty straight ahead. We could consider hosting one-person shows, but we also know that people at some point will want to get into a room again with artists making their work, or get into a gallery.

I had some contact with some arts leaders, and they said, “We don't know anything, so we can't plan.” Well, now's the time to plan, because if we wait till we know everything, we'll be too far behind. A good example of someone who's doing good work is Samantha from Shaking the Tree Theatre. When the pandemic began, I said, “Samantha, so what are you doing?” 
She said, “I spent half the day in the office. The other half of the day, I'm in the theater. I'm painting eight, six by eight panels. I'm working with a sound engineer and a lighting engineer. I'm going to create an immersive experience called Refuge.” That production may have a life in the fall. But this is the artist’s way of thinking: “I want to be back in the studio. I want to be making work.” 

Art’s now going to be redefined in different ways by different people. What is that connection with audiences, with readers, with gallery goers? 

Artists give us perspective. They give us a way of thinking. It’s in their responses to what they're seeing and hearing and thinking about. We saw that so much after 9/11: people went out eventually, but they wanted a wide range of things. Some people wanted Beethoven. Some people wanted to laugh, so they went to a comedy club. Some people needed to write. We will come back together, but people will want to experience art in a very personal way, and in all forms: theater, dance, music, literary, AR/XR, visuals. We may get some new audiences through that. Some people may not think of going into a performance venue, but they somehow got into streaming one artist or another online during COVID-19. Oregon Shakespeare Festival is streaming video of shows they've done, but it's a different experience. 

Many arts organizations want “the younger audience”. In Gen Z, everyone is a storyteller, a videographer. They're making work. They're showing their work. They're influencers. They participate; their communication is totally participatory. Most traditional art is observational; you sit and observe — a totally different experience. Smart arts leaders need to think about how to market, then, to these people. Normally, when you go into a theater, the house lights go to half, then you turn off your phones and devices. We may be ready to change that model. We need to be thinking about meeting everyone’s needs and making art more participatory. We do have examples of, “After the show, please go on the web and leave a comment”, but that’s not a real talk balk; that is still observing. 

Now, if we have phones out at a concert, the older audience may resist it. They want to have a singular focus. We have tension there. It’s time to address it. This is an interesting space. Let’s see if there is some other way to address this, creatively. This is what artists do every day. Artists come up with an idea for a project, whatever it is, and they invest in that, whether it's a single artist or a group project, it’s about problem solving. What they do is they solve problems, they have vision! There's never enough time, people or money, but they still make it happen. How do we collaborate, who do we need to collaborate with? Where is our audience and our buyers? What artists do every day is solve problems, move forward, have a vision, and keep the project going. In that way, the pandemic is not as new — this is the type of thinking artists do every day. 

For any artist starting any project, there’s a risk. You have no idea how it’s going to turn out, whether anyone's going to be interested in it, what's the audience that we want for this work, etc. But we do have a process. Scientists and artists share a process: trial, discovery, vision. With a scientific process, the idea is someone puts forth an assumption, and everybody does everything they can do to disprove it. If you can't disprove it, it becomes a new reality. With making art, someone puts forth an assumption and through collaboration and work and so forth, something new and larger is created. The making of art, the creative process, is the best planning, problem solving and decision-making process available to human beings. I'm amazed every day by what artists make with so little.

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