Jehra Patrick is the program director of MN Artists. She is also a Minnesota artist. With one foot on planet “arts administration” and the other firmly rooted on planet “studio practice,” Jehra helps us take a broad temperature of Minnesota’s art galaxy.
I have a foot in both worlds, and that makes me very understanding of both worlds. I have as much empathy for the big institutions as I do for the artists on the ground in the studio.
Meghan Murphy: I am so overwhelmed by the amount of work you are doing. Can you walk me through your projects and responsibilities?
Jehra Patrick: If I think about what kind of things I am doing day to day, my flagship commitment is to MN Artists right now. I talk about having a 9 to 5 and a 5 to 9. And MN Artists is my 9 to 5. So that is what I am doing more or less, forty hours a week.
M: That’s a great 9 to 5.
J: It really is. It is a place for artists and their work to live alongside content that we commission—that is where Susannah Schouweiler, our editor-in-chief and co-director’s work comes in. There is this interesting dialectic of proprietary content that we commission and the wealth of the site that is user contributed content, from artists of all disciplines. While it was Minnesota-centric for the past twelve years, when we relaunched the platform we opened to the region and beyond.
We think of ourselves as a regional hub, especially in regard to arts journalism. We are here to catch what is happening between coasts. As far as what is happening in that space, our mandate is to serve Minnesota artists first and foremost—to be a conduit for those working within our state’s borders. But to serve them best, they need to be in conversation with a broader art making public. It’s a big open door for a lot of artists to do, and to gather online, or connect to their next opportunity, or find an event to go to this weekend.
We are really thinking about MN Artists not just as a social media site for artists, but an ecosystem and bird’s eye view of what is happening.
Our program itself is also a little ecosystem. I think of it in three prongs: one is the artist database, the second is our arts journalism, and the third is our offline work. In the last two years, since our relaunch, we really honed our offline content so that it is in conversation with the rest of the Walker facilities. I am personally really excited about the intersection between artists and museums, artists and digital participation, and artists and their community.
And that word community is really sticky too, as are a lot of museum-type-terms, like “engagement.” We kind of know what we mean when we say that, but it always needs greater explanation.
M: How are are you grappling with the word “community” right now?
J: When I think of community, I think of the art makers who are nearest to one and other. So the whole state is a community. There are regions that are communities. There are artists of particular disciplines or creeds. For example, I have a cohort of painters that I think of as my painting community. And the site does this for users, it dices all that content down into sub communities. But that word is tricky. And it means different things to artists that go out and show up places and rub elbows with people than it does to some museums who might not be looking outward enough.
M: We think about that word all the time at Pollen. And the word can become surprisingly heated.
J: Well, because it’s do you mean “we” or do you mean “they.”
M: Yes! That is a really great way to put it.
J: It is sticky.
M: And so how are you thinking of that “we versus they” at MN Artists?
J: When I say, “artists,” I mean we, because that is me also. And that is a comfortable voice that I can speak with. When we say, “they,” that might be the artists I personally have not yet met.
Are there groups that we have not yet reached? With our resources? Have we met in person? Have they shown up at our programs? And why not? And is that a geographic question? Is that an ethnographic question? Is that an audience and marketing question?
M: Tell me about your 5:00pm to 9:00 pm projects.
J: Yes! So after 5:00 pm, I have tried to maintain a career as an actively exhibiting visual artist as well. And when I think about what does career mean, for me it is outside of an academic program. I have been exhibiting for longer than this, but I have been a practicing artist for ten years. I have a studio in Northeast Minneapolis. My practice has long been couched in painting. Though within the last several years, that has expanded to photographic outputs and even installation and more sculptural forms.
After working in the museum, it is sort of no surprise that museum and institutions show up in the concepts of my work.
M: Can you just talk a little bit more about how the museum pops up in your work?
J: We have difficult and reciprocal relationships with institutions. We want to be a part of these things, and we also realize—I realize—these things are structures and frameworks, and we both need each other. But I see a lot of challenge in the way that artists fit in those structures. For me, a real turning point was when I read this book on collecting by Adam Lindemann. And he goes on to talk about various players within the art world structure, and evaluates their role perpetuating collecting. He lists the collectors themselves, the gallerists, the fair type people, the museum curators—this whole major micro-ecosystem.
M: What drives where work goes? Who sees work? What is the perceived cultural value of that work? What’s the market value of that work?
J: And in that book, he didn’t devote a chapter to artists, he just wrote one page, that said, Yeah they make the stuff, so we will move on to the rest of the people.
And I was like, Man… that’s not right.
Since then I have had an infatuation with better understanding what are these systems where artists can operate, and who owns them, and how do you get in and how do you play?
And so that started with me looking at the history of museum exhibition. I spent a lot of time in museum archives. It started locally, but not just locally, nationally too. It brought me to MoMa, The Menil, to Houston, to San Francisco, to Chicago—at least a dozen places, and I spent time looking at their museum records. For me it was this cathartic way of looking back through history, and getting a better sense of museum histories beyond what was inside the textbooks I had in college.
M: Do they still have textbooks?
J: It was a very western history. It was like, here are your key players, here’s your Rauschenberg, here’s your white dudes (of course we are familiar with that trope). But that time was cathartic. What are the lesser known histories of these museums? Who are the lesser known artists that had shows? It was a really interesting exercise of looking at histories of display. And thinking about the Walker, in the 1940s, there were gallery installation shots with live plants, with radiators hissing off steam. I have been thinking about how the care of presentation has changed.
I have become a bookworm—reading all I can about museum as subject. And of course I am not the first, there was a rich history of this in the 1960s, where artists were really thinking about the white cube as a container to operate within or a place to deconstruct. Someone like Daniel Buren brought work outside into the streets, and onto awnings, as opposed to being enclosed in that white box. All these things started to fill my practice, just as much as the output in my studio.
My studio practice is now equal parts in front of easel as it is in front of laptop as it is in front of book as it is mining old paper files and that sort of thing.
So I have been trying to think about this—if this is the history of the thing, is there something in that backroads trajectory that is some sort of clue to what the future could become?
M: I am on the edge of my seat! Where are we headed next?
J: I was thinking about exhibition history, also a lot about painting history. Perhaps it is possible to project painting’s future or project exhibition’s future, reinvented through the eyes of the artist. So what does it mean to take ownership of things that are typically managed and overseen by gatekeepers? I had a really interesting studio visit with Toby Kamps, from The Menil Collection. He is the their contemporary curator, and I adore their collection, so I was really flattered to have been able to meet with him. But he scolded me, he was like, Why are you painting these things? Why don’t you just make your own institution?
And I was like, Yeah! That’s a great idea.
In 2013, I had an opportunity to present a body of work that I had made after a trip to three of these museums. My proposal was to get some sort of storefront, do a pop-up show, and present my own work, and do everything from making to planning, to promoting, to presenting.
In this town, exhibition opportunities come from invitation or application, and that was not enough for me. So I just said I would do it myself.
M: So how long has Waiting Room been open?
J: Coming up on two years.
M: You have said you are inspired by start-up culture. Can you talk about that?
J: Artists shouldn’t wait for the right venue, or even wait around for the invitation or the application to get back; they should make their own spaces and opportunities. Any other cultural sector, when they see a gap, they fill it. And I have a bit of background in the tech field, especially with work as it relates to MN Artists. My husband is a web developer. I am definitely mingling with that crowd. Any other cultural sector would just make the thing. If there is an opportunity, make it.
I realize so much of it comes down to income. People start apps because there is a need first, and then there is an income potential after. But I still don’t understand why more artists are not building their own things. So what does it take to have a start-up? The concept, and then buy-in. Buy-in for an application might be underwriting from an angel investor.
Waiting Room was underwritten by the real estate broker with whom I negotiated a really low price point for monthly rent. So the way that Waiting Room has been funded for the last two years is all sales are split—50% with the artist, 30% with me, and 20% with the building. And that way, we have ambassadorship from the landlord. He is an investor in this project and I am an investor too. I am basically putting in X dollars towards staffing, towards hospitality, towards basic hardware installation needs, and that is how much we get back in sales. And so it is a break even venture. It is not a lot of money.
It has been very much an experiment in how to run an institution/organization/project at its most minimal and agile. And working with the Walker for ten years, I see how something can run full scale. It is a beast. It takes a lot to feed the beast. And this was a moment to do something with a minimal footprint and maximum impact.
My major fee is staffing. I pay someone part time to be there when I can’t.
M: I don’t know how you are doing it already!
J: I operate as the director. I do that from behind the scenes and behind my laptop at night. And that is really just planning the direction, finances, promotion, and the exhibition content for our shows. I work with Leslie Barlow who is a current MFA student at MCAD and her title is gallery manager and she oversees a cohort of interns.
M: Will you go the route of a nonprofit?
J: If we look at our landscape right now, and see the places that have come and gone, it is clear that asking for money by way of grants and by way of donorship and membership annually is possibly not a sustainable model—it can be done—it can fill budget lines, but I don’t know if it is right. And so I am not willing to commit. After doing this for two years, and seeing what is possible, it might not need to grow.
M: It might not?
J: Yeah. It might not. Maybe it needs to change.
As arts workers, we always want to grow things bigger and bigger and bigger. And some of this comes from our mandates from our funders. Board members want to see percentages of attendance increase, so a lot of these factors tend to drive what the thing becomes, but what if the thing is just about its core values, which is presenting good work?
As it turns out, it only takes X dollars a year. I don’t want to talk budgets, but it is minimal.
M: Who does Waiting Room exist for?
J: I am not looking to highlight art stars. I don’t want to champion individuals, I want to champion a population. And so a lot of my exhibitions that I have been presenting are interested in seeing the overlap and making constellations of artists that are working in similar veins, whether that is from materials, or content, or methodology.
I like to be a matchmaker, or a cupid.
And I have done that with friends of mine too: You need to meet this person, oh my god, you will love each other.
So maybe that is my drug of choice, rather than being a presenter of work. I am a gatherer of people. Like when we have a well attended program, I get super high. It is my thing.
M: Awww.
J: When people turn out, I know I have done something right.
M: What excites you locally in our our art scene?
- The White Page [A studio, residency program, and gallery space in South Minneapolis] – “They saw a gap and filled it. That’s my kind of gal”
- David Peterson Gallery “He has a clear vision of what he wants to present, he dabbled and found something that is beneficial to the scene at large and he is bringing in new and exciting work.”
- Midway Contemporary Art – “They have a razor sharp vision on a scale that is intimate. Their library is killer. Go to their library!”
M: What is the temperature of our ecosystem as a whole?
J: It is a little tippy. Like when you get a restaurant table where one of the legs is short. It is not to say we don’t have all of our legs, it’s just that they aren’t all the same length.
M: Have you used this metaphor before?
J: No.
M: It’s great.
J: We have a wealth of funding here. We have a ton of nonprofits. Knight Foundation and Jerome Foundation are amazing. We have a lot of state money—and no one else has that. Any artist that complains about it, I shake their shoulders and say, “Are you kidding? No one has this. Don’t take it for granted.”
We have great funding streams that make it possible for nonprofits to thrive. We don’t have a lot of commercial spaces.
M: And they are closing?
J: Yeah, there have been a few that have closed within the last five to ten years. And you can speculate why, in general, commercial galleries are closing. Even when you look to New York. In New York it is more a real estate thing. You can also look to art fairs. More people are buying in fairs, and they have been for the last five to ten years. You could also look at the way we are consuming in general in our culture. I don’t know about you, but I do all my shopping from my iPad on my couch. The very idea of the retail store is in question.
There is a lot of speculation in the art community, that there is a white knight collector—“rich people” that live somewhere else—that will swoop in and take interest.
But that is not really the way that collecting works. Collecting is really about a long built relationships between maybe a consultant or a gallerist, and a base of collectors and a base of artists, and in many ways that consultant/gallerist/agent is a relationship builder. And those things happen over a long time. And artists careers get built over a long time.
M: This is a cheap question, but how do you grapple with the allure of fast Internet fame?
J: The Internet sensationalizes artists. Take that as you will. Is Internet fame being put on a list somewhere? Is fame when a certain gallerist retweets you? What is that flash fame? What do we actually mean? What do we mean by success? What is artistic success?
M: Yeah! What is it?
J: Is it the end game? Or is it at several points along the way? What are those points? For different artists, it means different things. I just made a list of what those success points look like. For me there is not an end game. For me, it is a long game. I knew long ago that I would not have a strict studio career. For me, it would seem satisfying. Being in my studio is satisfying, but I need to do all the things.
I need to make things happen. For me. For others.
M: Before we move on, I just have to say that I appreciate your drive to understand the larger system you are in as an artist.
J: That is everything. That is the core of my work.
M: How are you managing your time right now? How are you grappling with your time? How do you make sure you can go shopping on your iPad? Can you talk about your push and pull of your work week?
J: There is the way time is divided by obligation and there is the way time is divided by how I can arrange it. Certainly, I am working forty hours a week, which is not negotiable. So that is hard time. And then there is soft time. All the rest of the time. And some things are deadline driven, so it allows for a reshuffling. If I have a show coming up, studio time gets a premium. If I have a presentation, all my time is writing a presentation and building a PowerPoint.
I need to have my own version of balance in my soft time.
M: I had several years where if I wasn’t doing one thing, I was doing another. Every minute was filled. I was working up until 11:00 at night. And that doesn’t feel good.
J: I was super tired all the time. And I gave myself permission. You know what? I am not going to be a famous artist this year. It is not going to happen. (And women artists are not famous until they are eighty anyway.)
M: Awwwww.
J: No. That is not true. But it kinda is. No, there will be many young famous artists this year. But I am not going to be one of them.
The kind of artist I want to be doesn’t need to do EVERYTHING all at once. It can happen gradually. I talked to a colleague of mine who works in the ad world. And someone told her once, to stop giving 115% because nobody ever sees the last 15% anyway. You can kind of slack a little bit. Even if you are giving 100%, people are only going to see 85%. Don’t stress everything.
Here is a weird tangent. You and I, and our colleagues, we came from the baby boomer offspring generation, where we were raised that if you work super hard, everything is going to happen for you. All it takes is hard work. And if you put in your time, you will kind of get your reward or whatever. I feel like I did that for a really long time, and saw how other people found success, and it is not always from hard work. Sometimes it is from the right work. Or from the right relationships. Or whatever right is for you.
No one saw me working in my dining room at 11:00 at night, just me, and I was super tired. So I decided I needed to start spending my time to make sure that the right work is in the forefront. And I would give myself space so that I can work better. If you only have four hours of sleep, you have the mental capacity of a drunk person. I can’t drag my tired self around all day long.
I now have a hard cut off at 9:00 pm. So I have two hours to lounge and watch serial TV shows. A lot of cable TV.
M: Favorites?
J: Broad City. I re-watch 30 Rock. It is my comfort food. If I have a bad day, I am watching 30 Rock for the seventh time.
M: With the Guerrilla Girls recent descent upon Minneapolis, gender is top of mind. How does gender play out in your relationship to the art world?
J: I don’t think I have ever missed on opportunities because of my gender, but I have started to realize inequity in regards to being a woman in the last few years. I have started to pay attention to how people talk to me. I think I had heard patronizing conversation growing up and in my 20s. And I figured I was being talked to that way because I was young.
And now, I am thirty-four, Meghan. I am not a kid. So when I get talked to in a certain way, I can only assume it is because I am a woman. And I pay attention, very closely. I have a growing list of remarks called “Would you say that to a man?”
And then mannerisms. I sometimes feel like I am being pat on the head. It is really insulting. I have been spoken to this way by men and women, especially when I am told, Oh! You are so young. I don’t know what to say to that. I use face cream? And no one would ever say that to a guy. Ever.
M: No. No. Never.
J: In fact, as a point of comparison. I got this job when i was coming up on thirty-three. I was the exact same age as my predecessor when he got the job. And I was trying to imagine people saying to him, Oh, you look so young! to some guy in a sport coat. It would never happen. Ever.
M: Did it take more confidence in your work to notice it was happening?
J: No, I have been confident forever. I think there was a certain kind of care and over consideration that was slowing me down. I used to want things to be so perfect. I would labor over everything down to the simplest of emails. Now I know there is a certain amount of ambivalence that gives you freedom. For example, when I would be working on a grant, and could all of a sudden could hit send without laboring over it forever and ever, that amount of not caring felt awesome.
You have to be confident. The better you are able to talk about the work, the better the work is. Not because of how it is qualified but because you are able to share it publicly.
M: I could listen to you talk about your work all day, so you must be onto something.