WAM’s Conversations with Creatives connect you to up-and-coming professionals working in a variety of creative fields. Get advice about how to hustle in the creative economy, from people who have been there and done that. Since we can’t gather in person for this edition of the conversation series, we’ve asked our featured artists to offer their perspectives on creative work as part of our WAM@Home programming. They’re offering tips, tricks, and candid perspectives on working creatively and finding opportunities, even in a time of crisis – it’s especially relevant, since the economic impacts of this pandemic season are disproportionately affecting self-employed artists and creative workers.

This spring’s contributors are curator Alexandra Buffalohead, artist Michael Gaughan, and Renee Powers of Feminist Book Club.

Contributors:

ALEXANDRA BUFFALOHEAD is the Arts and Cultural Engagement Manager at the Native American Community Development Institute and All My Relations Arts Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. Buffalohead is a 2019 Emerging Curator Institute Fellow and has curated exhibitions at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, and Artistry’s Inez Greenberg Gallery in Bloomington. Buffalohead earned a BA from Augsburg University, an AS from the Art Institute International of Minnesota, and an MA from the University of Saint Thomas.

Alex offers a personal dispatch, “At Home, but Not Isolated” – and shares her renewed focus on connecting to community as self-care.

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MICHAEL GAUGHAN received an MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, a M.Ed in Art Education from the University of Minnesota, and a BFA in Painting from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He has over 16 years of teaching experience, and more than 20 years experience as an exhibiting visual, performing artist, and commercial artist. View a selection of his works here, and follow him on Instagram @michaelgaughanfunpix

Michael offers advice for how to stay creative while sheltering-in-place: “Focus on what you can do, not what you cannot do. Think of research as respiration: breathe in information, exhale out your expression. Shower. Exercise. Drink water.”

Renee Powers. Photo byKianna Notermann, courtesy of the artist.

RENEE POWERS is a fan of stories, which is her polite way of saying she’s incredibly nosy. But this is ultimately what drives her interest in literature and interviews. In 2018, she founded Feminist Book Club, a monthly subscription box and community that highlights a feminist book and products from woman- and queer-owned businesses. She also hosts the corresponding podcast Feminist Book Club: The Podcast, which speaks to authors, writers, and readers about the intersection of feminism and literature.

Renee says, “We Were Made for This,” celebrating artists and creative entrepreneurs in the Twin Cities area who are rising to the challenge of this moment, exploring new avenues to keep us all connected, help meet pressing needs in the community, and find fresh ways to stretch creative muscles.

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*Student Services Fee-funded and organized by the WAM Collective.