Hello, my name is Sarah Jane Thomas, and today we are talking with Steph Sneed, a professional creative working from and within South Carolina. As we get started, can you tell us your current career and where you’re from?
Steph Sneed 00:12
Sure. Originally, I am from West Virginia, but I have moved around a lot in my life, and I ended up in South Carolina, about eight years ago, and my job is called Imagine Academy. It’s an after-school program for kids age six to 12, and I also do like a lot of workshops, and I work with different organizations within our community.
Sarah Jane Thomas 00:40
Perfect. Before we go into detail of your profession, we have a brief section of the interview called One Career 60 Seconds, where you describe your job in 60 seconds or less, similar to an elevator pitch. We’re ready whenever you are.
Steph Sneed 00:55
Okay, so my job is basically creating programming for kids, but I also I’m like a one-woman show here. I don’t have any employees or anything. I keep my program very small. I operate out of my house, so I have six students a day. And let’s see what else. I also have a big heart for just kids and youth who don’t get the opportunity to create on a regular basis, and so I actually get to partner with a foster. It’s like a an organization who work with teens in foster care. So I work a lot with that organization, creating classes and opportunities for them to express themselves. And I also work a lot with an occupational therapist nonprofit in our area, who allows me to work with kids on the spectrum and have other disabilities.
Sarah Jane Thomas 01:48
That was perfect. What would you consider your job title?
Steph Sneed 01:53
I am the director, but I’m also like the teacher. But I would say I’m like the creative director. A lot of the program, a lot of the projects that we do, I like push the kids to create like individual, like themes, and so I’m often like directing them individually based off their ideas.
Sarah Jane Thomas 02:20
So, as a director, is there anything in South Carolina in particular that you bring to your work?
Steph Sneed 02:28
Like that maybe sets me apart. So, I think the thing that sets my work apart is that I work kind of so with such a small group. I have done workshops with like the school with different school districts, and I’ve noticed in like based off of feedback from the other teachers, the projects that I have in mind are unique because in school settings they would not have the capacity to attempt them, and so because it requires so much like personalized help and support. So I think that’s kind of that and the that I do two part classes. I do like a guided part where we work on like something technical, and then yeah, we do the project where they’re like really being pushed to express themselves personally, based off their interest in, and it’s it’s amazing because it really asks a lot of them to figure out like what do they like, what are they interested in, what inspires them, and that’s a pretty big question for a child.
Sarah Jane Thomas 03:40
Do you think it gives you a sense of familiarity being in the area?
Steph Sneed 03:45
I don’t know. I don’t know what you mean.
Sarah Jane Thomas 03:47
Like with the kids, do you think? Like, do you work with the same kids consistently? Do you work with the same school consistently? Does it kind of give you the ability to get familiar with everything?
Steph Sneed 04:00
Yeah. Well, I live in a small town, so I definitely see kids in the community on repeat. I’m really fortunate with the organization, the like teens in foster care organization, that I get to work with their group home. And though that does have turnover, it’s been really amazing. I actually the school district pays me to work with them. They have like a special grant, and so I get to go once a week and work with the group home, and it really, really helps me connect with them by getting to work with them regularly. And they really need people to take the time to get to know them, and I’ve seen a lot of growth in engagement with them because of that consistency.
Sarah Jane Thomas 04:50
That’s beautiful. Do you think that there was a defining moment in your life that had an impact on your creative journey?
Steph Sneed 04:58
Ooh, good question. Well, for this career, yes. So I actually was a professional ballet dancer before this, and so I’ve I say that I’ve worked in the arts like my whole like professional career, but I I have had kind of like a switch from like the dance to visual arts, and the way that happened was really organically. I was, I kind of had retired from dance, but I was actually babysitting a family in our area, and the kids moved away, and I realized that I really didn’t want to, and when I was babysitting them, all we did was art together, and I I realized when they moved away, or as I was preparing to like say goodbye to them, that I didn’t want to stop working with kids in this way. They just filled this like hole in my heart, and like also they were wonderful collaborators. So that was the moment. Like that was a big moment in my career where I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m gonna try this out. And crazy enough, it worked.
Sarah Jane Thomas 06:16
So, kind of along the same lines, before entering your field, did you have any fears about that?
Steph Sneed 06:23
Yeah, of course. I mean, I didn’t know if my idea would work. I and also because I hadn’t really trained all my training. It was in the arts. It was in the arts, and I went to like a boarding school for ballet, and like I’ve like and I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and like I have lived and worked in the arts, but I hadn’t really technically been in the trained in like the visual art field. But I, all my dance education had taught me how to basically pay attention to what my ideas are and learn how to like execute those ideas, and so that really translated into like this whole thing, and give me the confidence to try it, even though I hadn’t gone to like art school necessarily like visual art school, but as I’ve done all this work, I’ve also learned and gained a lot more confidence in my visual art skills, of course, and I’m always hungry to learn more. So yeah, I think those were some fears, but I wasn’t I wasn’t that afraid because I knew, like, from the experience that I had with the kids, that it was fun. Like, whatever we tried together, we were all learning, and it was fun. And so, I was like, if anyone is willing to take a chance on me, I think this is going to be fun for everybody who tries it, and I’ll just be committed to keep learning and getting better, and paying attention to how kids learn. And so, does that answer the question?
Sarah Jane Thomas 08:09
Yeah, perfectly. Okay. I was going to ask what inspired you to move beyond those fears, but you kind of encompassed the whole thing for me. Okay.
Steph Sneed 08:16
Sorry.
Sarah Jane Thomas 08:17
No. Please don’t apologize. This is wonderful. Do you have any advice for young adults or students interested in pursuing a similar career path?
Steph Sneed 08:28
I guess so. You have well, you have to be smart, especially like financially. You have to play the game of like how. You really do have to pay attention to. You can’t just go on like your love of art. Like you have to become a business person as well, and so I’ve learned that the best way that I can get like gigs and stuff is to package it nicely, like come up with how it’s going, come up with the plan for how it’s going to benefit the person you’re working with, and like explain that in a concise and clear way, and then just be committed to what you’re doing. Like do a good job with what you’re offering. Like pay attention and be a good communicator. Like those are all like really key elements. But also just like when you get started, you just have to be a little bit brave and show up and ask people if they’re interested in sharing an experience like this with you. Like one of the gigs that I got for a while was at a assisted living place, and what I did was I just showed up with I made this like pumpkin cottage. Like I bought like a little pumpkin from Target, and I like made all these like. Pieces for it that I glued onto it that made it look like a little cottage. I made it out of polymer clay and painted it, and I brought the pumpkin in, and I was like, “Hey, would you guys like it if I like did a class with you and I could teach you guys how to make this pumpkin, like a pumpkin cottage? And they were like, “That is amazing. Yes, and actually, that whole class ended up falling through that time. But later, they reached out to me, and they invited me to come later. And I worked with them for almost a year. And just similarly, like with the organization with the foster teens is called the Trent Hill Center, and I had I think I asked them if they wanted to do the pumpkin cottages as well, and they say yes. So so yeah, I think just being willing to like put yourself out there a little bit. Be kind. Don’t burn bridges, especially if you’re in the community of South Carolina. It’s kind of you know it’s a very small town vibe. Like I think across the state, and so I guess that yeah. I think that’s how I answer that question.
Sarah Jane Thomas 11:22
Well, aside from knowing how to build pumpkin cottages, are there any other particular skills one should practice before entering your career path or industry?
Steph Sneed 11:33
Well, yeah. I mean, I think if you’re wanting to be like an art teacher or like a community Art teacher, you do also need to, like I said, it kind of goes back to like the business, the business mindset. You have to like price things out, and you have to figure out how to make it affordable for your customers. Also, you have to know who your customers are, and I think something that drives me crazy is when people just consider art a business because it’s like you have to love it, like you have to believe in it, and then that helps you make your business decisions, like have an identity, and like your passion for it becomes your identity, and then you can make your decisions from, from like why you care about what you care about. Like for instance, like my son is autistic, and that’s why I like love to work with the occupational therapist nonprofit because I’m kind of uniquely I’m not like a professional therapist, but the experience that I have with my son makes me a little bit more uniquely qualified to at least facilitate classes where kids with who need like additional support, like that’s like that’s a great area for me to explore. And so, like paying attention to what you care about, what makes you mad, like what upsets you, and creating solutions like is really important because if you go through it identity less and you’re just copying things that you’re seeing like other art groups doing, it’s not going to be as interesting, and they’re going to like they don’t really have a reason to pick you over anybody else to select you to be the person who’s going to hold or host or facilitate. So, those are some of my thoughts on that. Yeah.
Sarah Jane Thomas 13:45
Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Would you be open to talking to our team again?
Steph Sneed 13:52
Sure. Yeah.
Sarah Jane Thomas 13:54
Perfect. We will send you the transcript from this interview. Do you have any of those questions you were wondering about at the beginning of this.
Steph Sneed 14:02
So I guess I guess I’m curious, like who I looked at the website a little bit, but like who does this reach?
Sarah Jane Thomas 14:11
A big part is students like me. I go to Coastal Carolina, and so obviously me working on the project, I’m aware of it. My boss Alli will go into different classes and speak to different students about it. We also have a big Gullah Geechee presence on campus, and so any opportunity, like we have days for it, and so any opportunity to do some kind of outreach, we kind of talk about this. It’s a big thing for students still trying to figure out like where we are in the world and like what we can do with our passions, and so like especially you talking about formally being a ballerina and now coming into this world, like I think it’s a big pathfinder, I guess, for students like me. So that’s kind of what it’s intended for, but it’s also intended for people in the community to understand their other community members. So that’s kind of what this specific project is.
Steph Sneed 15:12
Oh, that’s really cool. That’s cool.
Sarah Jane Thomas 15:14
Yeah, I send it like my grandmother looks at it and like sees all the different peoples, and I think too it helps. Like it can be used as a tool for business as well, because we have a lot of artistic creators. We have a lot of film directors. We have theater producers. We have game makers. So it’s kind of just like it could be used as a little directory as well.
Steph Sneed 15:39
Oh, okay. Yeah, I like that.
Sarah Jane Thomas 15:41
It kind of does a lot of things, reaches a lot of people.
Steph Sneed 15:45
That’s great. I love that.
Sarah Jane Thomas 15:47
Yeah. So we’ll get the interview transcript sent off to you if you want anything edited or cut. Feel free to tell us. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to that email.
Alright, hello! My name is Ryleigh and today we are talking with Michelle Iannantuono as a professional creative working from and within South Carolina.
As we get started, can you tell us your current career and where you’re from?
00:15 Michelle Iannantuono
I am from Charleston, South Carolina, in the north area suburbs. I am a filmmaker and have been for 10 years. I am making a little bit of a transition into the games industry, I think.
00:29 Ryleigh Kelley
Very cool, very cool.
00:30 Michelle Iannantuono
I’m kind of between this career nexus point right now.
But yeah, the majority of what I’ve done and still continue to do is film and video.
00:40 Ryleigh Kelley
Very cool. So, before we go into the details of your profession, I know you’re talking about a little bit of a career transition right now.
We have this brief section of the interview, and it’s called “One Career, Sixty Seconds,” where you describe your job in 60 seconds or less. I know you kind of briefly discussed about it in the previous question, but this is similar to an elevator pitch.
Okay? Alright. Are you ready?
01:07 Michelle Iannantuono
Oh, I’m actually being timed. Okay, great.
01:10 Ryleigh Kelley
I have a stopwatch ready.
01:12 Michelle Iannantuono
Alright. Yeah, let’s go.
01:14 Ryleigh Kelley
Okay. You’re on the clock. Let’s start.
01:17 Michelle Iannantuono
I am the creative lead and owner of Octopunk Media, which is a film and video production company located in Charleston. I am a sole proprietor, so I do a little bit of everything above the line and often below the line. So that includes direction, writing, producing.
I run a streaming service called Octopunks.tv, which is for our fan community to enjoy exclusives that we produce, as well as our entire backlist library of VODs, films and shows. I’m most known for the feature films Live Screamers, Live Scream, and Detroit Evolution, as well as over 7 or 8 short films over the past few years.
I also take client work on a per-project basis for editing, post-production, that sort of thing.
Or I’m a bit of a Swiss army knife, so whatever you need to put me in, I’ll do.
02:08 Ryleigh Kelley
Okay. That was really great.
You had six seconds left.
02:12 Michelle Iannantuono
I also do Unreal Engine. That’s the other thing.
02:15 Ryleigh Kelley
Yes, yes, yes. I know that. That’s another kind of thing that another part of your background that you do. Obviously we’ll talk more a little bit about that. But yeah, thanks for playing.
So as the director of Octopunk Media and especially with your background in working with Unreal Engine, is there anything South Carolina, or your region in South Carolina, or city in particular that brings to your work?
Does it have a unique influence on you compared to people in the same profession in different states?
02:51 Michelle Iannantuono
Oh, that’s a really interesting one.
So, in terms of film, I think we have a really good community here, especially because of Trident Tech. I have a lot of admiration for Trident. I’ve worked with a lot of graduates from Trident.
My mother actually graduated from there in graphic design 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Then I also have gone through their animation program when the COVID stuff and when the tuition was free.
And, yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to make my SC Indie Grant film, Lotso, without them as well because they fronted a lot of the bill of that film and let us use their motion capture volume and stuff for free.
We also ran an animation practicum for an entire semester where a bunch of students worked on the film. So yeah, I think that that’s probably one of the major places that Charleston has, and South Carolina has that other places may not.
I would say Rough House, the Danny McBride, David Gordon Green stuff is also pretty significant. They kind of have staked their claim on a lot of the film industry in South Carolina. For better or for worse, I think that they do a lot of good for giving opportunities to new grads from Trident and stuff to get on a real set and make union money and that sort of stuff. But I also think that they hire a lot of above the line from out of state.
So, I would like to see more opportunities for directors and writers and department heads to be here in the region as well, particularly from these bigger productions like Outer Banks and Righteous Gemstones and other stuff that’s kind of come to the area. I do think that is a struggle though, even in Atlanta, even in Georgia, they like outsourcing or bringing in from out of town, those department heads and stuff.
We have talent in South Carolina, and I think that we should be given a shot as well. But, yeah, in terms of other influence on the region, I mean, I’ve lived in Charleston for 25 years. I was originally from Wilmington, also a film town. So, it’s kind of just always sort of been a thing for me.
I think that my latest film, Lotso, which was the SC Indie Grant film, takes place in Charleston. It is a cyberpunk Charleston. It is like 2059. King Street’s flooded. It’s all built in Unreal because it’s a fantasy world, but I still sort of am recreating my hometown in there, which is really cool to be able to combine real life references with this sort of sci-fi vision of the future of this town.
As well as the FC&D grants, I should mention as well, that’s another unique opportunity that South Carolina has. You can get up to $45,000 for a short film, and they do that every year. A lot of places don’t have, a lot of states don’t have anything like that.
So that’s a really cool opportunity for short filmmakers to be able to have a significant budget for a short and have access to festivals that they wouldn’t normally have access to and resources and department heads and stuff as well.
06:02 Ryleigh Kelley
Speaking of real life, was there a defining moment in your life which had an impact on your creative journey? I know you talked about how your hometown or Wilmington, or Charleston means a lot to you and is featured in your work.
Was there a particular project or something you produced which showcased your creativity in a way you never had before?
06:26 Michelle Iannantuono
Oh, so I’ve had a lot of big moments. In terms of, I’ve always wanted to be a storyteller since I was four years old and I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 8. So that was always part of me.
But I actually went to school for chemistry. I went to the College of Charleston and got a chemistry degree.
I graduated high school in ‘09, so right in the Recession. I was like, “well, I’m going to get a pragmatic career and then this film stuff will be kind of like the plan B, I guess.” It turns out I did some cool stuff as a scientist.
I was an intern at NASA, I was an intern at MUSC, and I was a chemist for four years, but I was kind of lousy at it. It was very clearly for somebody who’s actually passionate about this and was good at it could do it better.
I remember I was stuck on this project in summer 2015 at that job, and I was really, really miserable in that job. I remember I just turned to my spouse, and I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” I was like, “I have to do something.”
This job is destroying me.
I just had a vision board, and I started just writing down a plan. I was like; I’m going to make a videography company. I’m going to be self-employed. I’m going to climb my way out of this job.
Within a year, I had started an LLC and started taking clients. Then a year after that, I quit my job and was full time in just corporate freelance video editing. Never did super well at that either.
I did okay, but I was not making a lot of money. I remember there was sort of another defining moment in Summer 2018 after I’d been doing the freelancing for a year or two, and it was not super lucrative. I was doing okay. But I had just completed my first feature, Live Scream. At that point I was making movies because it was fun.
I didn’t really have any sort of intention to do it as a career. I remember I was part of a female networking group called Elevate, which was all online. There was a life coach, business coach lady who was giving free consultations as part of our group.
She gave me a personality quiz or something and told me what category I fit into, what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, whatever. She’s like, “your strengths are power and excellence, and your weakness is discretion.” I’m like, “oh yeah, I have no poker face at all.”
That doesn’t surprise me, but power and excellence. I was like, “so what is that?”
She’s like, “you’re committed to quality, and you have, you can command, and you can lead, and you have the ability to be able to get attention.”
I was like, “what do I do with this?”
She was like, “so you just put out this feature film. What have you learned?”
One thing that’s surprising to me, as I go to festivals and stuff, is how much it connects with the audience to where they actually want to see it again or they want to buy it. They want to watch it. I’m, for the first time realizing that, as an independent person, I have the ability to get fans.
I have the ability to actually get an audience interested in my work beyond other filmmakers supporting me and being a peer-to-peer thing, but actually getting an audience interested into my stories. She’s like, “okay, so act like that is possible.”
I started doing these live streams called Octopunk Live on Facebook Live, where basically it was State of the Union for Octopunk. 10 people showed up, mostly my friends, but it started to build a brand.
It started to build the identity of my films and my company as beyond just me, but actually a brand.
I made a fan film called Detroit Awakening, which is in the Detroit Become Human Universe because I was obsessed with that game at the time. Within 8 months of that, I published that movie, and it kind of blew up on YouTube and connected with the fandom. I was having 70, 80, 90 people watching my Twitch streams to talk about my movie.
Long story short, over the next year or two, I leaned more into that fan film thing and built an audience. That audience ended up crowdfunding over $100,000 of other original projects and provided the basis for what Octopunks.tv is today. I had a Patreon with them for six years, and then Octopunks kind of replaced the Patreon.
I’ve basically been able to finance my film career all in crowdfunding and audience building from the last six years.
So, I would say deciding to actually do it and take the life less ordinary. Then also realizing that fans can come.
Like you, even as an independent, even without a publicist, even without a studio connections in finance. If you can find a niche, you can find an audience; you actually can find other people like you who are interested in the stories that you have to tell. You have to believe that.
You have to get over that kind of imposter syndrome of like, “who’s gonna pay attention to me? Aren’t they gonna watch Disney movies instead?”
11:37 Ryleigh Kelley
Yeah, yeah.
11:38 Michelle Iannantuono
Are they gonna pre-judge me? Some will. There’s a lot of audience out there for people who, like for me particularly, like the queer community really latched on to our work. Even specific niches within the queer community have latched on to our work. They’re like, “well, we don’t see like this sort of representation in movies, in Hollywood movies.” So, this means a lot to them.
12:04 Ryleigh Kelley
That’s really beautiful.
So, imposter syndrome, before you entered the field, when you were having these conversations with your spouse about like, “I don’t want to be a scientist anymore. I don’t want to live this kind of life, something needs to change.”
Did you have any fears about becoming a creative professional? What inspired you to continue beyond them?
12:32 Michelle Iannantuono
I think the inspiration was really my spouse being a safety professional, talked a lot about the burning platform.
You’ll be on a burning platform and then there’s shark-infested waters, but the platform ain’t gonna last, so you better take your risk with the sharks. That’s kind of where I was with that chemistry job is like, “well, I can’t stay here.”
I don’t have to go home, but I can’t stay here. So, I have to find something else. Actually, within three months of me quitting, I do believe I had a performance review where my boss was just like, “hey, so, we don’t know if you’re gonna be here in six months, you know?”
I think I would have been fired from that job, had I not quit. What inspired me was necessity. I had to do something else.
Did I ever have doubts? I mean, yeah, it was scary. Luckily, he made enough money to where we could pay our bills. We would not be destitute so long as he had his job.
So, we could live on one income. So, we were never going to lose our house or anything. I was still kind of like, “all right, well; I have a decent amount of savings. I have a 401k. I’ve lived pretty frugally these past four years as a chemist, and I made decent enough money to where I was able to build up a bit of a safety net.” I wasn’t super worried again about that, but I definitely didn’t want to fail, and I didn’t do as well as I had hoped.
I was hoping to have big contracts and stuff within a few years, and it was really hard for me to find work. It was really hard for me to find clients. I actually have to think back on it now. I was…24? I was a kid. I didn’t know anything.
Now that I’ve, looking back on it 10 years later, I’m like, “oh, one of my prime issues is that I kept saying that I was a company and that I was a business.” I don’t like the word freelancer, but I still behaved like one. I still conducted my searches like one.
Now, going into the game stuff and thinking about starting new businesses and structures and what do I do, I have a much different mindset about it. It’s like, “oh, I actually know how to think like a business.”
I know how to think like a studio. I also have the network and the connections and the partnerships to be able to make a structure like that from the jump instead of doing everything myself and pricing my stuff per hour instead of per value.
I also just understand now that people got money. They do, it exists. Companies will write a $50,000 check and not think about it. You just have to know where to look and also understand that writing down that number is not insane.
And it’s still to this day something I have a hard time wrapping my brain around because to me $50,000 will never not be a lot of money. That will always be a lot of money.
It is actually pretty standard if you’re working with a certain level of client and working with a certain level of partnership or sponsorship.
15:49 Ryleigh Kelley
Do you have any advice for young adults or students who have an interest in pursuing a similar career to yours or pursuing a career in the creative world? Are there any particular skills one should practice or have before entering the industry?
I know you talked about when you’re writing that $50,000 check as a director of a company, they don’t blink twice. If you could maybe speak a little bit more about that, especially particular skills that young adults or students may want to think about before or develop before entering the field?
16:22 Michelle Iannantuono
The biggest thing that I see in young people that I always sort of shake my head at is scope. Know what you know and realize that the dream project is gonna take time to get to.
Don’t try to drink from a fire hose and learn it all at once. It’s impossible.
I actually have an apprentice right now in Unreal, and I’ve sort of had to navigate this a little bit with him, and he’s just like, “well, I want a job in six months.” I’m like, “we’ll try, buddy. I’m gonna try my best.”
He’s a very hard worker. He’s a very great learner and he’s becoming very good at something, but in order to achieve his goal, we’ve tried to niche down just into animation.
I’m like, “I’m gonna make you really good at animation and you can maybe get a job in that. There’s still gonna be a ton of other stuff that we’re gonna learn over time that I know that I can share eventually, but we’re putting on the shelf for right now because I’ve been doing this for the better part of a decade, depending upon what we’re talking about, whether it’s Unreal or editing and stuff and I’m still learning all the time.” There’s still certain things where I know a little bit about that, but I’m not an expert at it.
I’m kind of a jack of all trades. I think that that’s something I definitely didn’t do well when I was younger. I also see it in other people all the time. I see kids graduating from film school at 21 and they’re like, “I’m gonna go make a feature film.”
I’m like, “buddy. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You will regret that because it’s not gonna be what you want it to be.”
You’re gonna be like, “man, I failed my passion project or I’m gonna be apologizing for this movie two years later when I’m publishing my second feature film,” and all the press are gonna be like, “well, we really hated his first one.”
No, you move in silence. You only get one shot to be able to move in silence and build yourself up. Fail in private. Don’t fail in public; you can’t come back from it in a lot of cases. I see this a lot as well with crowdfunding.
I see a lot of people who say, “I’m gonna crowdfund $25,000 for my first project and I don’t know anybody.” Then they make 500 bucks, and then the Kickstarter fails. No, you have to have an audience before you can try and do that.
I kind of worked myself up to that a little bit because I crowdfunded Detroit Evolution, which is my second feature. I self-financed Live Scream. That was $1,500.
I just paid for it. Detroit Evolution was about $17,000. That was more money than I had. I was like, “I’m not gonna do a Kickstarter for this because this is still a little fledgling.”
I’m gonna do a Patreon, I’m gonna do Ko-Fi, I’m gonna do Twitch, I’m gonna do a merch store and just any money that I get from that over the next nine months, I’m gonna put towards the movie. That’s basically how I financed the film.
Then after that was a success, I was like, “okay, we have the audience now. Let me see if I can make another one and we’ll do an Indiegogo.” We set the goal at 10,000. We achieved that in 3 minutes. Then ultimately raised $50,000 in that campaign because our stretch goals were doing an event in Europe and doing an event in New York.
Over a month we were able to raise $50,000. And so, I was like, “okay, now I understand crowdfunding.”
You have to have the audience, you have to have the people who are eager for what you’re selling because otherwise it’s really, really hard. I’m really glad that I didn’t try to do a crowdfunding campaign when I was nobody because that sticks with you forever. It’s always going to be on your page that like, “oh, they got the failed crowdfunding campaign. Nobody wanted this project.”
Unfortunately, a lot of it’s about appearances. It’s funny how people who just know me through social media or just know Octopunk through social media perceive it. They perceive it as so much more successful than, maybe it is financially. They’re like, “oh, can you hire me?” I’m like, “I don’t have money for that. I barely pay my own bills. What are we talking about?”
I would say that young people fail in private, move in silence and work yourself up. I know it sucks to basically be like, “oh man, I have all these big ambitions.” I’ve spent maybe my entire life. I mean, I spent my entire childhood in high school and college, wanting to make movies, wanting to write. By the time I finally was an adult and had the free time and the wherewithal to do it, I’m gonna go out there and do it.
Those first projects were not good. They weren’t. They weren’t very good. Luckily, I didn’t spend a lot of money on them. Luckily, I didn’t spend a lot of time on them. I learned a lot. Luckily, a lot of people didn’t see them.
Then by the time I actually did have something that people liked, which was Live Scream. I still made a lot of mistakes on Live Scream, but it was good enough. I was able to be proud of the work that I was putting out and be able to look back on it years later and be like, “oh, people still watch that movie. People still like that movie. Cool. It’s something that I don’t have to apologize for.”
21:37 Ryleigh Kelley
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I really resonate with your advice about failing in private. Move in silence. Take your time because especially with the kind of work that you do. That does take a lot of time and learning.
I’m curious to know more about your work with Unreal Engine, which is a 3D computer design software developed by Epic Games. I’m curious to hear more about your experience with that and how you came across it. What was your experience with that?
I know that you mentioned you have an apprentice learning skills in that. Could you speak a little bit more on your work with that and just the experiences you’ve had with Unreal Engine?
22:24 Michelle Iannantuono
Yeah.
I’ve been into the games sphere since 2014. I didn’t grow up with video games. They just were not a thing in my house. I had a couple PC games, but that was it.
Then I won a PlayStation 3 at work in a raffle at Christmas in college. So I had that and my then-boyfriend, now spouse, was really into games. He grew up with games, and he’s like, “can you use your PlayStation 3 as more than just a Blu-ray player, please?”
So, I was like, “okay, well, what should we play?”
And of course, Portal 2 was my gateway game, as it is for 25% of my generation. And then I played Heavy Rain. That I would say was such a life-changing game for me in so many, so many avenues. It introduced me to Quantic Dream, the studio that made it, which later made Detroit Become Human, which later I made fan films on, which later changed my life.
It introduced me to the fact that motion capture could be used in games, and you could make this sort of photorealistic-like story that wasn’t high fantasy, that wasn’t Beowulf or the Polar Express or anything that had been used in Hollywood. Like a gritty David Fincher crime thriller you could do with mocap, and you could tell a story through it.
Also, it was my gateway into video games at large, which again has completely changed my life. Actually, I interviewed at Quantic Dream last year, which was really, really cool. I applied to be a writer for one of their games, and ultimately, I didn’t want to move to Paris full-time. I was like, “I would love to work for you guys, but yeah, if we can’t do this remotely, this isn’t gonna work.”
That was such a watershed moment for me because I was talking to the interviewer, and I was like, “literally, you guys are responsible for my entire life right now.”
This is big for me. So Heavy Rain was kind of my gateway. From that point on, I started learning more about motion capture, and I started playing more games like Life is Strange, Tales from the Borderlands, a lot of those Telltale games, interactive games.
I was also watching a lot of Let’s Play culture, watched a lot of Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, that sort of thing. I was absorbing so much about games history and games culture, game news, how games are made.
I saw that a lot of people were using Unreal Engine to make little games. It’s free, so these people with no experience were just downloading the engine and just building things in it, putting it online for free, and these streamers would play it. Some of the games were good, some of them were not very good, but it was a tool that I learned about through absorbing, over the course of five years, the game industry.
As I got into film, I was thinking about maybe doing some animation stuff. I downloaded Unreal and just played around with it for eight hours. I was like, “oh, this is surprisingly user friendly. This is very intuitive to me and easy to learn.” There’s a lot of documentation about it, so, I kind of had that on the back burner of my mind.
Then when I had the idea for Live Scream, which essentially is a found-footage movie. It’s a real time found-footage movie. It’s like a screen capture of a Twitch stream as an uninterrupted webcam for 70 minutes of this one actor reacts to gameplay footage that is happening on screen and there’s a chat as well with narrative characters who come and go. Basically, if he dies in the game, his followers start to die in the chat. So, it’s like a high-stakes horror film that I had to build nine fake games for in order to achieve the concept of the film.
When I had the idea for the movie, again, having watched Let’s Play Culture for so long and understanding that world in and out. I was like, “I got to make fake games for this.”
Unreal it is. I was able to pick it up really quickly and by using assets that I was, because I wasn’t a modeler, I couldn’t like square the circle of like, how do I get the stuff to put in the game? All that is available for purchase or download or for free. There’s a lot of assets out there.
If you need a door, if you need a monster, if you need animations, you can find that stuff online and then just cobble it kind of together in Unreal and do some visual scripting and make it work. That was my first intro to Unreal, and this was in 2018. This was at a point where like nobody was using Unreal for film short of James Cameron and like the Mandalorian, maybe.
Over time, I revisited Unreal in 2022, when I was making the sequel to Live Scream, and that was when Unreal Engine 5 came out. Lots of new features, incredible new features. Unreal and Epic Games are starting to get more into the film industry at this point in time. They’re doing a lot of virtual production. They were also doing a lot of like in-engine animation and that sort of stuff.
They were starting to realize that like, “oh, there’s more people who could use our tools than just game makers.” I actually went to the AFM, the American Film Market, in 2023, when I had finished Live Screamers and was pitching it.
I remember seeing Unreal Engine logo everywhere and I just had to laugh. I was just like, “yeah, I knew it. Yeah, right? Yeah.
I was like, “hey, I just made a movie with this.”
They’re like, “oh, virtual production.”
I’m like, “no, not quite.” I was like, “I’m doing a hybrid live-action game capture cinematic thing. I don’t really know how to describe it.” I really dove into Unreal in Live Screamers. Just working on it for months and months and learned the cinematic creation tools really, really deeply. Then the SC Indie Grant(s) thing happened because I have, by sheer happenstance, met an OptiTrack rep and OptiTrack is a motion capture company.
They’re like, “oh yeah, we have a system at Trident Tech.”
I’m like, “that’s in my backyard. I can walk there.” I knew that Trident Tech and the Indie Grants were tied together. They like to put Trident Tech students in the Indie Grants projects.
I wondered if they would go for a pitch where I use their volume because the OptiTrack guy was like, “yeah, they don’t really do much with it. I think that they would like somebody to come in and use it.”
I wrote a short film that was completely animated, completely actually CGI-animated in Unreal, and would use motion capture. Through my Detroit movies, I also got to know Neil Nubon, who is Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3. He’s one of the best motion capture artists in the world.
I was like, “hey, would you like to come direct my mocap?”
He agreed.
Through him coming on to the pitch and us having this interesting concept, I think the Indie Grants went for it. We were able to shoot on their volume at Trident Tech and then use their animation program as well to get some students on the project. I’ve spent the last two years in post. We’re really close to finishing.
That’s sort of my journey with Unreal Engine.
Ultimately, my thesis on Unreal Engine is that it’s the most democratizing thing for indie filmmakers since the DSLR. It is a free program. It is easy to learn. You can make anything in it.
I’m not going to say it’s easy. I’m not going to say it’s going to be quick, but I would never be able to make cyberpunk Charleston in real life. It would always look cheap no matter what, if we had a low budget for that, even with VFX workflow. For me to be able to build that completely from scratch in Engine and also have photorealistic versions of our actors who are able to come to life, who are very, very high fidelity of what they look like in real life, all due to free tools that came with Unreal Engine. Yeah, it’s really cool.
I remember Neil; I was showing him how we were capturing facial mocap on an iPhone, literally just right here beside me. I had my actor sitting in front of an iPhone, and they were doing their facial capture.
He was like, “it captures the neck movement? That’s insane. Like we can’t do that on these big stages.”
I was like, “yeah, man, it’s the future.”
31:05 Ryleigh Kelley
It’s the future.
31:09 Michelle Iannantuono
Yeah, and completely marker-less on the face, which he was telling me is actually pretty normal now. It’s pretty old fashioned to do the markers on the face, although some people still do it. To be able to even introduce some of these tools to a seasoned veteran in this technology and in this world, who’d been doing it for 10, 15 years himself was really cool.
I think that just goes to show how powerful this resource is. It also has so many, if you want to go get a job in it, you could do arch phys, you can do automotive, you can do, the military actually has a lot of applications for Unreal as well. I know that from my mother working for the Coast Guard. So yeah, it’s not just for games and film and television. It also has like wide-ranging applications that anybody can pick up and learn.
32:06 Ryleigh Kelley
Yeah, that is just really so fascinating and thank you for speaking more about that. I know that’s one of the key tools that you use in your work. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
“Find what makes you unique, and lean into that thing. Whatever odd hyper specific thing you are obsessed about can be the thing that connects your art to an audience.”
Quick Facts
Education: Trident Tech & The College of Charleston
Years of Experience: 10 Years
About
Michelle Iannantuono has worn many creative hats throughout her career, from novel writing and chemistry to game design. Now, as Director of Octopunk Media, her film company, she has produced over ten films, blending emerging technology and interdisciplinary techniques into her creative practice.
In 2018, she was one of the first independent filmmakers to create a movie with Unreal Engine, a 3D computer design software developed by Epic Games, and she is a recipient of the 2023 SC Indie Film Grant. Through these experiences, she has refined her skills in teaching, communication, and filmmaking.
A storyteller since age three and budding filmmaker at age six, video games didn’t enter her radar until she reached adulthood. “But my interest in games was far more purposeful,” she says, “I didn’t have them growing up, and when I reached adulthood, Let’s Play culture made them a lot more accessible to me. First, I watched others play games and then became interested in them myself.”
Michelle highlights her own enjoyment for blending different tools, experiences, and techniques from other fields as part of her filmmaking process. She emphasizes the importance of “find[ing] what makes you unique and lean[ing] into that thing,” in order to establish a connection between an audience and a creative piece.
In this episode, we’re exploring resilience in home with Tonya Gore, who’s found a thriving career, make that several careers revitalizing her hometown of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She currently works as the Director of Enhancement and Design with the Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance, Tonya has leaned on her creative thinking to develop our local community.
“I gotta do the right fit for me, because ultimately I’m the one who’s got to show up and do it every day.”
Carol Baker is the Director of Outreach and Community Engagement at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities.
Interview
Transcript
Lexi Raines 00:02
Okay, so first, I’m just going to ask you to introduce yourself. What do you do for what do you do for work? And where are you currently working from?
Carol Baker 00:10
So I- My name is Carol Baker. I am the Director of Outreach and Community Engagement at the South Carolina Governor School for the Arts and Humanities.
Lexi Raines 00:20
That’s awesome. So how long have you been working there?
Carol Baker 00:23
Yeah, so I’ve been there since 2012 so my first school year, we think in school years a lot, was the 12-13 academic year.
Lexi Raines 00:31
Awesome. So what’s one thing that you love about working there, working as like a creative in South Carolina?
Carol Baker 00:41
So I- our school has a statewide mission, which is great, because that means I get to be in all kinds of different communities and all kinds of different places. What I love about South Carolina is I think there’s a really strong identity. So there’s a there’s there feels like there’s a strong statewide identity, for sure. And people who are from South Carolina are really proud of that, like, we’ve got some really amazing things here. But if you have a chance to go into all of these smaller towns, or medium sized towns, or, you know, urban, rural, we have such a wide range. And what you see in the upstate might look totally different from what you see in the low country, and it’s such a, I don’t know when you get to do community engagement work like that. It’s such a joy to get to see all of that and see the different creatives and creative people and the ways that different people approach their their sort of communication, and how they show up for themselves.
Lexi Raines 01:31
I completely agree. I feel like South Carolina is a very dynamic state, and yeah, that’s part of what we’re trying to showcase. So what do you think South Carolina brings to, like, your work? Like, does it have like, unique influences on you compared to being anywhere else?
Carol Baker 01:49
It does. You know, my job is kind of like a mix of things. So I do, I do community engagement, right? There’s building and working in communities. There’s arts education specialty, like I’m an arts education specialist, so that’s my field, that’s my area. And then there’s also just arts management, right? There’s leadership and understanding how to work in a budget and how to write a grant, and all of those things too. It’s kind of a nice mix of things. And one of the things I think South Carolina is really special in and really what it offers is unique- Is a very, very vibrant arts education community. So we have got strong arts education leadership. We’ve got bipartisan support. We have opportunities to advocate. We have opportunities to learn how to be better at our jobs. There’s an arts education community here that’s very It’s tight knit, it’s strong and it’s supportive. It’s, it’s, you know, not as competitive as you might see in other areas. So, and having sort of seen it from the outside, you know, especially when you travel, you go to other states, and they’re like, you have what? I’m like, yeah. So this whole ecosystem here that is really unique to South Carolina?
Lexi Raines 03:01
Yeah I feel like that is very important. Because I feel like the support that young creatives have, like, oftentimes rely on, like, their teachers and just their direct community around them. So yeah, I think that’s really awesome. Yeah, so how would you describe that local professional community?
Carol Baker 03:24
Yeah so for me, local is interesting work, because I have a state mission, and in many ways, my my professional community is actually a statewide community, and not just a local, you know, down the street or in my neighborhood, kind of professional community. What I see is support, which is amazing, people who are willing to cultivate leadership, which I think is important, but also a willingness to kind of allow people to do what they do best. So we have different people who do different things, and as a result, I don’t have to feel like I have to do everything, which is a great feeling. I know I can pick up the phone and call somebody in my professional community and ask for help, or ask for support, or say, hey, students were really kind of outside my my lane. Can I call on you to help? And the answer will be yes, because we have such a supportive community. So the other thing is, I think we’re a little bit of a bunch of misfits, which I think artists kind of are in a lot of ways. You know, there’s only one me. I’m the only one who does what I do. There’s only one person who does XYZ job over here and XYZ over job over there. And in order to, like, build community and have community like, you need to be able to have those individual kind of personalities and roles come together, because otherwise, I think you could feel pretty isolated. So it’s a very deliberate and purposeful community.
Lexi Raines 04:49
Yes, I feel like in like bigger cities such as like New York or Los Angeles, I feel like there is some type of community unity, but it’s, I feel like it’s definitely not as involved as the one that we have here. Because I feel like, at the end of the day, everyone there is trying to get ahead of each other, where here, I’ve heard this a lot through all my interviews, that everyone’s just wants to support each other and help each other out. So I think that’s absolutely awesome. Yeah. So how would you define professional or personal success in your creative endeavors or at your work?
Carol Baker 05:30
Yeah, so 97% of what I do is collaborative. I do very, very few things in a bubble, by myself in a vacuum. So for me, and this is going to sound maybe a little bit heady, but it actually, it actually is, the most crucial piece of it is trust. I have to know that people trust me, and I have to be able to trust other people. So for me, success is when that trust is cultivated and we have a relationship that is built around that. Because community, any kind of community work, whether it’s in the arts or any, you know, in, you know, hospital outreach, whatever community work you’re doing, you have to work with people. It. That’s the whole function of community, right? So when I when I have somebody pick up the phone and call me and say, Hey, I don’t know the answer to this, but I figured you either would know or could help me find the right person that shows that I have developed a trust relationship with that person or that community, and they know that they can call me and we’ll stand with them and figure it out. So that, to me, actually is probably the biggest sign of success.
Lexi Raines 06:37
Yeah, I completely agree. Trust is just so so so important. So you said you’re an arts education like, that’s like your main field. So what was your biggest fear when you decided to, like that you wanted to pursue the arts or being a arts education teacher? I feel like it can be, like, very scary.
Carol Baker 07:01
Yeah I think for me, and I probably still deal with this to a certain degree, is a little bit of imposter syndrome, and also some definite sense of there’s a very specific path you’re supposed to take with this certification and this type of degree and this type of educational outcome, right? Like and if you don’t have those boxes checked, then you’re not really a part of that field, right? And that’s actually not necessarily the case. I’m not a certified teacher, which is interesting. I have a teaching artist background and a management of education background. So when you look at these traditional paths and you kind of think, Oh, well, those people, they must know something I don’t know, or there’s they probably are better at something than I am. I think there, I think if there was a lot of reminding myself that there are other ways to go about doing things and still be a part of a community. So yeah, you know those traditional paths, they are critical. And I don’t, I do not say don’t do that. They’re fantastic. And also there are other ways as well. So it kind of takes, I think, a lot of different ways to approach a problem.
Lexi Raines 08:08
I completely agree that’s one of the main things that we want to do, is to show that there’s not just one set way to get somewhere as a creative there’s so many different paths. There’s people who went to school for something in STEM and then later decided to pursue the arts, right? It’s just such a dynamic range, and it changes all the time. So I definitely understand how it can be scary, but I feel like there is so much of that support here and people to lean on, yeah, so please, can you, like, describe a defining moment that you’ve had in your career?
Carol Baker 08:47
Sure. You know, I saw that question last night, and I was like, gosh, I feel like there’s a million, and I don’t even know how I would pick one, but I think, I think I would pick something that’s actually happening now that we started in 2016 but it’s important, because actually everything in my career path sort of led up to it, so I’m currently- so as the Outreach Director, we run a lot of different types of programs, right? We have, you know, just a wide range of things that you can kind of choose from, if you’re a teacher or an after school provider. One of the programs is called Spark, and it is a program that uses drama strategies to support literacy. So reading, writing, oral communication, all of that, primarily reading is what we’re mostly interested in, but getting kids up on their feet and using playful strategies and using creative strategies instead of that. Hey, not everybody wants to sit and read a book. I personally love to sit in read a book, but that’s me. I understand that that’s when you’re eight years old. You need to move your body and you get it, you need to physically embody and understand what’s happening. I could not have known that that was going to be an opportunity for me when I started this a million years ago. But what’s interesting is that if I look at my path, where. I started was and when folks asked me my art form, I started in story. I started in the development of story, of why and how people tell stories. You know, I started leaning into the management of these kinds of programs. How do you build them? How do you structure them? How do you find funding for them? What do people need? Data do people need in order to believe you and trust you, right? How do you work with teachers to, you know, provide professional development services and all of that, I didn’t, I didn’t and couldn’t, have known that this would be an opportunity for me. And yet, everything that I was doing was pointing me in that path. And so when I look at it, I’m like, “Oh my gosh”. Like, that’s exactly what I was supposed to be doing all along. I just didn’t know, and yet, now I’m in it. I’m like, Well, this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. This is where my choices led me. So I feel like as a defining moment, that’s an important piece to say, “Hey, I didn’t know I was going somewhere, but the things that I cared about and trusted enough to learn about led me to the right place”. That’s awesome. I feel like that is such a comforting feeling at the end of the day to look back and be like I was supposed to be here. My path led me to this. And I feel like that also goes back to what you’re saying about imposter syndrome, because, like, you got yourself here at the end of the day, like you- Right, exactly, right.
Lexi Raines 11:30
So also, can I ask you, what is the best and worst advice you’ve ever received?
Carol Baker 11:36
Yeah, so probably the best advice actually got two pieces of really good advice, but that would say the best advice for a community person and it was actually said, go to the kids. Always go to the kids. The idea was so I was, at that point, I was debating between working in more of an education setting or more of like an arts setting in education, like a performing arts center that has education programs, slightly different, dynamics, very similar, and either one would is they’re both great. But regardless of that, at that time, the advice was, don’t ever assume a child or a community member or a person that you’re working with is going to come to you. Your job is to go to them. It is to be in their community. It is to trust their decision making. It is to recognize what they need. It is not that they come into your space. And that advice was given to me specific about school kids. You know, we’re talking about school kids. Well, where do they go every day? They go to school every day. So like, how do we work with schools? Right? But it actually is true for any community, right? No matter what you’re doing, community driven work is about the other person. It’s not about you, it’s about what they need, what they’re asking for, what they’re assessing within their own situation, right? So I think that was the best advice I’ve never I can’t actually call up the worst advice, but I do have a thing that I think is probably falls in that category. I was very lucky. I grew up in a family of musicians and community service people, people who worked in nonprofits and arts and all this stuff. So in some ways, what I do makes complete sense, right product of my environment. Not everybody has that, you know, experience. But what was interesting to me was the expectation so they were musicians. The the expectation was that I would go into music. That was just it. There was no question about it. It was never said. It was never even a thing. It was just kind of, well, that’s what’s going to happen. It was almost like a the world around me had just decided this for me, right? Yeah, I spent a lot of time in my early adult years really trying to figure out the difference between what other people expected from me and what I needed for myself creatively. That was never going to be my gig. It doesn’t mean I don’t love it, because I do. I’m actually interested in all the arts, but especially interested in all the performing arts. Very interested in stories. I’m very interested in how we embody stories, right? So if I had sort of allowed that sort of wave to direct where I was going, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am. And so I think there is a necessity to evaluate yourself and your own needs as well as what’s actually available to you, right? Like, because I was, again, I was looking at parents who were like, That’s cool. Go a different direction. That’s fine. The community at large, that was actually also kind of interesting, because people knew who we were, and there was an expectation that, oh, she said, I probably do that. That was not the right thing for me. And so I say that, to say that there are social expectations and social dynamics that we all face, regardless of what they are, whether you want to be a musician or chiropractor or whatever it’s still, there’s a certain. Level of I got to do the right fit for me, because this is, ultimately, I’m the one every who’s got to show up and do it every day at the end of the day. So I think that was, I wouldn’t say it’s bad advice, but it was almost like a very quiet assumption that had to be pushed against.
Lexi Raines 15:16
Yeah, and I feel like there’s a lot of things that are true for like, a lot of students like that, like, I know, for me personally, I came into school with a computer science degree because kind of growing up, my whole family was like, you can do anything, but don’t do anything in the arts because you’ll never make money. So and I feel like that’s how it is for, like, so many students everywhere. And then I was miserable in that, like, so miserable because, like, that’s just not what I wanted to do. That’s what other people wanted me to do. Wasn’t what I wanted to do. And so I ended up switching to English, and I’m, like, significantly, significantly happier. Like, I’ve never missed computer science a day in my life, right, right? So I when I ended up telling my mom she was okay with it, because she was like, at the end of the day, it’s, it’s your life. But I feel like just having any ounce of support is from your family, from a community, is so, so important.
Carol Baker 16:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things when I was trying to decide my degree, I’m also an English I had an English major and did some arts management as well. Never heard of arts management. I just fell into it as an elective at school, because I was interested in writing and publishing and, you know, the arts and all this kind of stuff. But I remember my dad was told me one time. He was like, you know, what do you not want to do? Let’s focus on that first. Get that out of the way so that we don’t end up accidentally doing something that sounds horrible, right? Like, sometimes you don’t know what you do want to do, but you definitely know what you don’t want to do. Yes, which I thought was another, another good piece of advice.
Lexi Raines 16:57
So I completely agree that’s, that’s something really good to go off of, yeah. Okay, so can you walk me through a typical work day?
Carol Baker 17:08
Yeah, I can do my best. So a typical work day for me? Actually, one of the joys of this job is that I don’t have a super typical work day, which I love. Like each day could look different than it did the day before, but the kind of broad strokes things that are generally expected of me during a day, we have a lot of public facing documents. There’s a good bit of reading, writing and editing that has to happen, making sure that you know, you don’t accidentally say 2004 instead of 2024 which may or may not have happened to me just last week and a document, there’s also a lot of advocacy work that gets done, so whether that’s internally within my own leadership team, and I have amazing support here, so that’s not a huge thing, but there’s just a reminder of what does it mean to be a community person, like an explanation of, sort of the back end, that these things don’t magically happen Every day. There’s budgets that have to go behind them. There’s, you know, procurement and purchasing that has to happen. There are rules about what you can and cannot do in a public school that I’m responsible for making sure that my team follows. You know, do we have media releases on this kit these kids before we take photos of them? So a lot of the stuff that I do is actually an ef- in and done in an effort to make sure that my teaching artists, who work for me can actually teach so they focus on the teaching. My job is to say, Do you have the right lesson plan in place? Do you understand what you know? Have we aligned this appropriately with the standard so that the teacher that you’re visiting will have a quality lesson and a quality experience. Do we need to go explore a grant option and make sure that we have written that correctly so that a donor and we’re gathering the right data for that donor? So there’s a lot of back end work that happens. There’s also a good bit of travel that happens as well. That’s a part of the job. And I remember during COVID, I was like, a community director is meant to be in their community. So there’s just being out with people and in their, you know, local restaurants or their schools or their after school clubs is a big part of it as well. Yeah, that
Lexi Raines 19:17
sounds very busy, but it sounds like very, very engaging. That is what we do, community engagement. But I feel like it sounds just so interesting to always be out there in the community see what’s going on. So that’s awesome. Yeah. What are some habits that you have that you think would be beneficial for others wanting to join your field?
Carol Baker 19:42
I think one of the things that’s super important is a very clear awareness of yourself and how you function, because the this type of job can wear you out really fast. You spend a lot of time in the car, you spend a lot of time in hotels, you spend a lot of time in other people’s environments and that also is- Goes to your creativity practice as well, right? Like, if you’re going to maintain boundaries and all of those things, you need to know yourself well enough to know I probably can’t actually drive that far and what, even though I could five years ago, maybe I can’t do that now. Or I need to make sure I stay in a hotel that has this kind of situation, right? Like those personal boundaries have to actually really be strong and in place if you’re going to be in a position where you’re constantly giving and putting out. Because if you don’t do that, you’re just going to run yourself run yourself ragged. And I think the other piece is really knowing what you can and cannot provide. You know, we have folks, and be clear about that. You know, we have folks who will call. We don’t have this as much now, but when we were first kind of trying to decide on some things, outreach can look and community engagement can look like. So many things, there’s a million ways to do it, and they’re all great like that doesn’t mean one is better than the other, but you have within your capacity, whether it’s budget wise, staffing wise, just human capacity right to show up for you have what you have. So if you if somebody calls and asks for one thing and you can’t meet that need, it’s actually okay to say, I love that you have that need I can’t meet it, but let me help you find someone who can, because you’ll just end up being like, Oh no, this person needs something, and this person needs something, and you have to have pretty clear professional and personal boundaries. I would say boundaries, I think is the biggest, the biggest answer to that probably.
Lexi Raines 21:36
Yeah, I I completely, complete. I feel like that’s an amazing piece of advice, because I feel like so many people do struggle with setting those boundaries. So is that like, how you would say you created your like, work life balance?
Carol Baker 21:52
Yeah, in a lot of ways, and I think also, you know, for me and this, this might look different depending on the kind of artists or creative that you are. I consider myself more of a creative than an artist, but artist, but I’m more interested in the process than I am in the product. So I’m not the type of person who’s that worried about getting my thing that I’ve done, my piece that I’ve written, or whatever, exactly right? Because I’m not that interested in putting it out so that 20,000 people listen to it. I do it more for myself and my own sort of creative expression and my own mental health and well being and personal curiosity, right? That means that I’m more flexible. I can do it more places. I don’t have to. I’m not tied to a rehearsal that’s happening at the theater down the street or whatever, right? So that’s that’s unique to me. And some people are like that. Some people are in the other direction. That’s totally cool. One of the things I think that’s fun about this job, though, is that you get to go into all these communities, and you get to participate in their cultural stuff, which is fantastic. So you get your needs met in a lot of ways, because you’re exploring the culture. You can go to the local museum while you’re in Barnwell. You can go to the local art festival while you’re in Georgetown, right? You can do those things because you’re there, and that’s actually part of your job, which is fabulous, right? So I would say that a lot of it is taking advantage of what’s immediately in front of you, in terms of your creative outlets, practices, things that you want to explore. You know, there is nothing wrong with a great night in a hotel room working on crafting a piece of something that you might not even do at home. Because when you’re at home, you’re like, how do the dishes, right? Like, it’s kind of, I don’t know, it’s kind of nice to kind of have an escape to a certain degree.
Lexi Raines 23:34
Yeah, that’s a really, yes. That’s a really, like, fun and interesting mindset that like, I haven’t really heard heard of a lot, but I feel like that’s definitely a good thing to keep in mind when you are traveling so much and it’s for work. Why when you work creatively, why not find stuff to do within what you’re already doing? So Right? I feel like that is an amazing mindset to have so almost my last question, so, do you have, like, any questions that you wish you were asked?
Carol Baker 24:12
I think the one thing I would say, I don’t know if it’s a question, but I think the one thing that would say is that it’s okay if you are not a specific artist within a specific area. So, like, if you’re not an assistant block yet, I’m trying to think of an example. But if you’re not an oboe player, right? Like, and you have this very clear defined thing, I’m an oboe player. This is what I am. It’s okay if you’re not that, it’s okay to say, I love all of the arts. I love all of maybe I don’t love all of the arts. Maybe I love everything that has to do the writing. Or maybe I love everything that has to do with the performing arts. Or, oh my gosh, I I just love three different things, right? Like, I think this idea that an artist and a creative has to be. Assigned to a specific thing is, is good. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s plenty of people who do that. I work in a school that supports that, so I want to be really clear, like, even my school here, that’s what we do for kids, is we’re like, that’s your passion. Let me help you go deep with that. Not everybody’s going to do that. Some people will also be in the broader sort of multi art kind of domain, or the hyphenate artist, or whatever it is that you’re considering. That’s also great too. There are plenty of roles for that. I think I may have mentioned this earlier, but when I first started working, I people would ask me my art form, and I’d say, “Well, you know, primarily drama, but really it’s story”. And that was, that was, that was a thing people be like, when you type what? That doesn’t fall in the box, right? But it actually is the connecting piece between all the art forms that I’m interested in. I’m interested in how artists and creatives tell stories. So it’s, I think it’s one of those things to remember that all of those things are important, right? It’s a pie. It’s a puzzle. We need those deep dive people in order to be in the symphony, and we need those deep dive people to make beautiful pieces of photography or whatever. And also we need other people who can help pull it all together from sort of a different perspective. So we just toss that out there.
Lexi Raines 26:22
No, I can- I completely agree with that. I feel like also, when you are just you’re only limiting yourself to one thing, I feel like you can, kind of like hinder yourself from other opportunities or other things you might end up loving even more than you love one thing so and I feel like I feel like interdisciplinary artists are definitely growing in popularity, because people are finally realizing, “oh, I can do everything I want to everything that I love. I don’t just have to market myself towards one thing” which is absolutely awesome.
Carol Baker 26:59
You know, I’ve actually most of the folks, when I was kind of coming along, were exceptionally skilled in multiple art forms. I mean, it was mind boggling to me, and I was like, Oh, you’re actually an artist. Like, that’s here. Let’s zoom up and talk about it as, like an artist versus this or that and I don’t- and again, I those that does not mean that those other things aren’t valuable. It means that we need all of them, and if we just focus on one or we just focus on the other, then we’re missing the point, right? But I love the term creative. I love the idea of the creative as a type of individual, right? Like it just kind of kind of shakes it out a little bit and gives you some room to breathe. If that is the right place for you to be.
Lexi Raines 27:44
I completely, I completely agree with that. So my last question for you is, do you have a creative or an artist that you would like to nominate to be interviewed?
Carol Baker 27:57
I do actually have two. Can I nominate 2? Am I allowed to do that?
Lexi Raines 27:59
Yeah, let me get a pen and paper.
Carol Baker 28:02
They’re both affiliated with the Governor’s School, so I don’t know if that is I don’t know how you make your decisions about who you choose, but-
Lexi Raines 28:08
Okay, I’m ready.
Carol Baker 28:10
So the first one is Dr Cedric Adderly, C, E, D, R, I, C, A, D, E, R, L, E, Y. He’s the Governor School’s president, and he is also a so he’s an educator, but also a composer. And, you know, just has a really cool, interesting story and dynamic to tell the others. Anne Tretromsness: TR and with an E, and then T, R, O, M, S, N, E, S, S, to look up at the sky, to follow the letters. How do I spell that?
Lexi Raines 28:45
Okay, so wait, S N, what is that?
Carol Baker 28:50
Yeah, so it’s, let’s start the beginning, T, R, O,M, S N, as in no, E, S, S, Tromsness.
Lexi Raines 29:01
Okay awesome.
Carol Baker 29:02
Yeah, she is on our faculty here, but she’s been an educator in lots of different settings, but she’s also an active director and active performer, very much into social justice type movements. Just a really all around interesting. She was Teacher of the Year for Greenville County. I think they both have just really nice, interesting stories. I think, yeah, what you’re looking for, I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I don’t even know how I ended up here. So there you go. How does this happen? So, yeah
Lexi Raines 29:33
Yeah so you were nominated. I could, could probably pull up who you were nominated by, actually, because we can tell you. You were nominated by Thurraya.
Carol Baker 29:45
Oh, okay, great, yes.
Lexi Raines 29:46
And then we also actually do have Dr Cedric on or Dr Adderley on our nominations list.
Carol Baker 29:54
So I figured he probably, I think I have actually nominated him before in some other capacity, so that’s good. Yes. So they’re very different individuals from each other, but, you know, they’ve got really great stories. Yeah,
Lexi Raines 30:05
That’s awesome. So I’m going to be sending you a follow up email eventually, if, in that email, I’ll also ask in there you could connect like Ann’s email, because we already have Dr Adderley’s email, okay, just so that we can look into her a little bit more and put her on our list to reach out to.
Carol Baker 30:31
Yeah, absolutely.
Lexi Raines 30:32
Thank you so much for your time.
Carol Baker 30:34
Yes!
Lexi Raines 30:34
I loved interviewing you, its really awesome, and-
“I gotta do the right fit for me, because ultimately I’m the one who’s got to show up and do it every day.”
Carol Baker is the Director of Outreach and Community Engagement at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. An experienced arts administrator and educator, she has worked since 2012 to build statewide programs that empower creative youth through education, storytelling, and trust.
About
Since 2012, she has served as the Director of Outreach and Community Engagement at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, where she has developed programs that connect young people across the state with powerful, creative learning experiences. Carol Baker didn’t set out with a roadmap, but she followed her passion and it led her exactly where she needed to be. With a background in arts management and teaching artistry, Carol understands that traditional paths don’t always suit every artist or every learner. Her work is built on trust and access, meeting students and educators where they are. One of her hallmark programs, Spark, blends theater and literacy to help students engage with language and story in a dynamic, embodied way.
Carol’s outreach isn’t just about exposure to the arts: it’s about long-term transformation. She builds relationships across school districts, supports teachers with arts-integrated resources, and fosters spaces where creativity is not only welcomed but required. Her work reflects her core belief: that the arts are for everyone, and that there are many valid, beautiful ways to belong in creative spaces.
“Take time to celebrate every achievement, because it’s huge. And your creativity is a gift. You’ve got to keep stewarding that gift.”
Ronda Taylor is a poet, writer, storyteller, and program director of Youth Empowerment Services, a non-profit organization in Charleston. Taylor earned a B.A. in English with a minor in creative writing, as well as a Master of Arts in Writing, both from Coastal Carolina University. She published a children’s book titled Radiant Girl: Daughter of the King (2024), and her work appears in two poetry anthologies: This is the Honey (2023), edited by Kwame Alexander, and Ukweli: Searching for Healing Truth (2022) Taylor is the founder of Seen Heard Loved Publishing, LLC.
Interview
Transcript
Ronda Taylor
My name is Rhonda Taylor. I am a poet and author. I’m also a program director for a nonprofit organization called Youth Empowerment Services. So we were middle and high school girls, and I live in Charleston, South Carolina.
Emma Plutnicki
Perfect. And how long have you been working there?
Ronda Taylor
The nonprofit?
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah.
Ronda Taylor
The nonprofit, was technically at the beginning of last year, so January, but I have been working in my different capacities since 2020. I actually was introduced to them because of my poetry. I did a poetry event at their annual Dream Girls Conference that brings in about 1,200 to 1,500 girls from across South Carolina. And then I just started serving and volunteering, and then I ended up loving it so much, that I ended up becoming program director. So.
Emma Plutnicki
Amazing. So, would you say that that conference really helped spark your career? Without that conference, do you think you would have ended up where you are now?
Ronda Taylor
I think it was a big turning point. But, I think it was always there.
Emma Plutnicki
Like, yeah.
Ronda Taylor
happens for…creativity was always there. That’s what I went to school for. So, I was always pursuing that. And then that conference just kind of solidified, is what I would kind of say. It solidified what I already knew was kind of my passion, and then being able to work with young people. It just all aligned, with what I was looking for.
Emma Plutnicki
That’s Amazing. So, what background did you have that specifically helped you learn that role? I know you said that you’ve had some interest in creative fields before, but what specifically in that role within your background helped you land that?
Ronda Taylor
So, of course, I’m alumni from Coastal Carolina University. So, I’ve always wanted to write, I’ve always kind of been creative and artsy, so I knew if I went to school, it would be for writing. And so I went to Coastal. I got my bachelor’s in English with a minor in Creative Writing. And then, I went on to get my Master’s in writing. And so I think I got introduced to the Athenaeum Press in undergrad. And I loved it so much, I continued to stay with it even in my graduate program. And so all of those things were very helpful to like, set the foundation. And then, during my college career and being a part of things like the Athenaeum Press, it just helped me refine more and more what I enjoyed about writing and what I enjoyed about my creativity. So with the Athenaeum Press, cultural things that that the press highlights, different communities, that was always important, because it felt like it was creative storytelling with a purpose. And that’s what I love. Is creative storytelling with a purpose.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, amazing. So, can you please walk us through a typical workday? What your process looks like? what’s expected of you on a daily basis, is every day the same? Does it change?
Ronda Taylor
Every day is not the same, which is hard to… It’s so hard to answer. Because I don’t have like a specific structure, like I go into the office, I do what I need to do, and then I leave every day. So, like, vastly different. It just depends on what each project or thing requires. And I think the Athenaeum Press kind of set me up for that too, because you could be doing a bunch of research on a computer or in a library at a research center. Or you could be in the field, visiting St. Helena Island, talking to different people in the community, like, it just depends on on what’s needed at that time. And so, like I said, I work with a nonprofit. And so we do a lot of mentoring. And so, it could look like going into schools and group homes and talking to students. We have different Summer programs and Fall programs. Sometimes, we take the kids on cultural events. The students on cultural events. And so, yes, not just one thing, it looks very different.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah.
Ronda Taylor
Each time, depending on where my creative will is, I’ll make space to write. I’m also working on a book right now. I’m coming out with a children’s book called Radiant Girl, Daughter of the King. And so, there’s also the business entrepreneurship side of creativity. Of just figuring out, okay, how do I get this book out there? How do I market it? How do I, how do I fund this? Invest in this? Invest in my creativity. And so, when I graduated from school, one of the biggest things that I did was, I was like, I really want to pursue writing children’s books. I really want to pursue poetry. And so what I did was, I would go to different writing and author events to connect with people. And that was the big thing, is for me to network. I would go to conferences and retreats, and I created, like, some of the best networking experiences I have, like, I’m on personal levels with, with authors and illustrators that I was inspired by and I look up to. And so, that was a lot, but, I’m saying that because not every day is the same, but it’s also very exciting because you never know what the day will bring.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, and no, I love that. And so, you mentioned some projects. So, how many projects at a time do you typically work on? Are there set projects? Or is it more just whatever pops up? Or are you working on long-term projects? Short-term projects? All at the same time? And how do you juggle those?
Ronda Taylor
Yeah, great question. I would say, naturally, I would prefer to work on one thing at a time. But as I stepped more into this world, it’s kind of multiple things at once. So, like I said, I’m coming out with this book project. And I have to learn a lot about watching the book and getting it into libraries and getting it into stores and making sure that it’s online. And all of those parts are a lot of things that lead to kind of one. But also, within that I have a publishing company that I published through. And, the goal for that is not just to publish myself but eventually to publish future authors, to partner with illustrators, and just different people in the publishing world. And so, I have a long-term goal, which is, I really want to have a solid and successful publishing company that, you know, produces diverse. Which is really important. Diverse work, for children and for future generations. And so, I would say multiple projects, even though that’s not how I’m naturally built, it’s, it’s just a learning curve for me, and it stretches my capacity or stretches me outside of my comfort zone, but that’s, that’s also how you learn.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, I love that. And can you describe a defining moment in your creative journey? You were just talking about the book, that might be it, but, maybe a particular project that has made a significant impact on you, or something that you produced that really just was the pinnacle of your creativity.
Ronda Taylor
Oh, I think it’s a lot of little things, honestly, that makes it kind of grand. Because when I really look and reflect, I’ve been able to accomplish some really great things in a short amount of time. And if I don’t take the time to reflect on those little things, I’ll just be so focused on going forward that I won’t even realize my successful moment. So there’s a few I think, honestly being published, this is a big deal. I’m publishing two Anthologies, as a contributing poet. So, one of them is Ukweil: Searching For Healing Truth. And then the other one is a big one, which is. This is the Honey, edited by Kwame Alexander. Those are really two beautiful moments, especially with This is the Honey, because I’m in a work of art with, literally, poets, black poets that I grew up on and who I’m inspired by. Some who are personal friends, and also people that I’m learning about, I’m within that, that community. And that’s really awesome. And then on top of that, I’m releasing my first personal project, which is a really huge step. It’s something like if you’re a kid, and like the goal, and your dream was always to be published and have your own book, like, this is the moment where I can say, I’m going to be able to hold my own book in my hand, and other people will be able to read it, I’ll be able to share it with young girls, I’ll be able to share with children and their families, and they get to take that book home and read it and enjoy it. That’s very exciting.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s gonna be great. Do you think it was, has been challenging in this field? This is a very difficult field, for sure. But how have you been able to kind of face the challenges that you’ve found along the way? And conquer them?
Ronda Taylor
For sure. Specifically, with the writing. When I came home, I took a really big step to pursue this. And so, you never know what that road looks like, and how much it takes to get through that. And so, you do have disappointing moments where things didn’t work out exactly how you saw it in your head, but you have to take those disappointments and the rejection and just redirect.
Ronda Taylor
And so, that’s what I had to learn in this process is just, you had this destination, and you weren’t able to go this route, but you’re able to redirect, and you’re still getting there. And so, still, persevere, still endure. Try a different way, and know that it’s okay, and what’s for you is for you. And so that’s what I had to learn, is, I had to shift and make that change. And so, I’m still in a beautiful place, even though it took me a different route to get here.
Emma Plutnicki
Perfect. I love that. And can you recommend any specific skills that someone should have to increase their chances of you know, making it in this field? Are there any specific skills that you use on a daily basis that you find are particularly important in your work?
Ronda Taylor
I would say networking has been really important. Finding those spaces where there’s just opportunity for community has been important. So, that’s looked different in different ways. Sometimes, that looks like specific memberships, being a part of a children’s membership. Being a part of even social media, Facebook groups. You can find really great communities and opportunities for networking and mentorship. When I don’t have the answers. I ask questions. I find someone who I admire, and I see what they’re doing, and I want to do something similar, and I just shoot them an email or shoot them a message, and I don’t get a response from everybody, but when I do get a response, people take the time to pour into me, share with me their insight, and those things have been really huge. I’ve also made time just to invest in myself. That might look like a workshop or a class just learning more about whatever field I’m interested in and passionate about. And so, that’s how I pursued that. And a really helpful thing for me, because you mentioned the South Carolina Arts Commission. I received a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, the Artists Business Initiative Grant, and that was really huge to help me launch a publishing company. And to invest in an illustrator, invest in a website, and be able to make that dream of publishing a children’s book come true. So, that was a very helpful thing as well.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, amazing. So, for networking that you mentioned, are there any specific programs or organizations or events within South Carolina that you find particularly important for networking, or things that you’ve gone to?
Ronda Taylor
Yes, for me with writing, I think about independent bookstores that we have. Which are really important. So Best in Books has been a great community partnership. That’s where we did a poetry reading with This is the Honey, and that’s a great community partnership. There’s Turning Page Bookshop, which is an independent Black-Owned, Black Woman-owned bookstore in South Carolina, which is very rare. So, those independent bookstores are great communities; the Charleston Libraries, of course, are just great for me. And then different people like our Charleston poet Laureate. Formerly, was Marcus Am . He’s doing great things in the community. And now in Asia, Asian man, she’s really great as well. And so I just tried to find specific events and conferences, and people to connect to.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, perfect. So, as we’re wrapping this up. Do you have any advice for current college students or young adults who are about to enter the workforce and looking to make a start in a creative field of work?
Ronda Taylor
Don’t get discouraged. Definitely keep going. Definitely surround yourself with a community that will support you and encourage you. And yeah, just just keep, keep going, keep moving forward, because it will happen even if it doesn’t happen in a certain way. And take, take the time to celebrate every achievement because it’s really huge. And your creativity is important, and it’s a gift. So you just got to keep stewarding that gift.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, that’s great. Well, thank you so much.
Emma Plutnicki
I’ll be reaching out to you for a few more things. Thank you for sending over the headshot. That’s great. And would you be open to speaking to our team again, if anything comes up?
“Take time to celebrate every achievement, because it’s huge. And your creativity is a gift. You’ve got to keep stewarding that gift.”
Ronda Taylor is a poet, writer, storyteller, and program director of Youth Empowerment Services, a non-profit organization in Charleston. Taylor earned a B.A. in English with a minor in creative writing, as well as a Master of Arts in Writing, both from Coastal Carolina University. She published a children’s book titled Radiant Girl: Daughter of the King (2024), and her work appears in two poetry anthologies: This is the Honey (2023), edited by Kwame Alexander, and Ukweli: Searching for Healing Truth (2022) Taylor is the founder of Seen Heard Loved Publishing, LLC.
About
Ronda Taylor said she’d always wanted to write, and her education at Coastal Carolina University was the foundation for her career. Her work at The Athenaeum Press, the student-driven publishing lab at the university, was an important ingredient of that experience, as it allowed her refine her interests, “to become involved in the area, getting immersed in its community and its culture, as we pursued creative storytelling with a purpose.”
Networking has been essential to Taylor’s career. She performed spoken poetry at the Dream Girls Conference in Charleston, S.C., which drew more than 1,200 girls from around the state. “That was a big turning point,” said Taylor. “The creativity I’d been looking for was there, the energy was there. That conference solidified my passion. It all aligned with what I was looking for.”
As a creative, Taylor said she faces challenges regularly in her career. “You never know what the road is going to bring,” Taylor said. “You have to take disappointments and rejection and just redirect. That is what I had to learn: to persevere, endure, try a different way if the first path doesn’t work out. I’m still in a beautiful place even though it took me a different route to get here.”
Taylor encourages students interested in a creative career to attend events, meet people, and make connections. “Networking has been really important, finding those spaces where there’s opportunity for community,” said Taylor. “Sometimes it looks like membership, and sometimes it’s social media groups; there are many places you can find opportunities for community and mentorship.” Taylor mentioned the South Carolina Arts Commission, from which she was awarded an artist business initiative grant, which allowed her to launch her publishing company. She also noted that local bookstores and libraries can be important places to connect with people.
“Don’t get discouraged,” Taylor advises students. “Keep going. Surround yourself with a community that will support you. Keep moving forward, because it will happen even if it doesn’t happen in a certain way.”
“Art has been a language to me that made sense throughout my life.”
Katie Hinson Sullivan is an Art Therapist and program director of the Arts and Healing program at MUSC Health in Charleston, SC. She holds a degree in Studio Art and Psychology from the College of Charleston and a Masters in Art Therapy from New York.
Katie Hinson Sullivan was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where her art journey and career path in healing began. From a young age, Sullivan was always surrounded by art. Her mother, an art teacher, often left out materials that Sullivan would use to express herself when she was young.
About
Katie Hinson Sullivan was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where her artistic journey and career in healing began. From a young age, Sullivan was immersed in art, as her mother, an art teacher, often provided materials for her to use in creative expression.
Although she was initially unsure about how her passion for art would evolve, Sullivan began her college education at the College of Charleston, where she majored in Psychology while also taking art classes. During her senior year, a professor highlighted potential career opportunities that combined her interests in psychology and art. Inspired, Sullivan began researching these careers and applied to schools for a master’s degree in art therapy.
After completing her graduate studies at the School of Visual Arts, Sullivan worked in New York. She first joined a preventive agency that supported families and children experiencing issues related to child abuse and neglect, and later served as a mental health professional at Rikers Island Jail. There, she established art therapy programs and advocated for increased services for female inmates.
Upon returning to Charleston, South Carolina, she founded the Arts in Healing Program at MUSC Health in 2018. “We are providing access to the arts to impact the health and well-being of patients,” Sullivan states.
A typical workday for Sullivan includes a variety of administrative tasks, such as developing programming, ensuring its sustainability, and offering mental health support to individuals and communities lacking access. Additionally, she is involved in several research studies exploring the effects of art therapy. One collaborative study focuses on enhancing young patients’ engagement in physical therapy, facilitating earlier hospital discharge.
Drawing from her experience establishing a career in art therapy and becoming the program director of the Arts in Healing Program, Sullivan offers valuable advice to aspiring creatives interested in pursuing this career path.
“Art has been a language to me that made sense throughout my life.”
Katie Hinson Sullivan is an Art Therapist and program director of the Arts and Healing program at MUSC Health in Charleston, SC. She holds a degree in Studio Art and Psychology from the College of Charleston and a Masters in Art Therapy from New York.
Interview
Transcript
Katie Hinson Sullivan 00:00
My name is Katie Hinson Sullivan. I am a board certified and registered art therapist and I am from Charleston, South Carolina; I actually moved to New York to get my masters to become an art therapist, and I worked in New York for 10 years as an art therapist and then moved back about six years ago and started the arts and healing program here at MUSC.
So, we started Arts and Healing in 2018. And it started off with as a very small program, I think the CEO initially here wanted to create some kind of art program, he didn’t know what that was, he was thinking more of art on the walls, but hiring an art therapist, I kind of went in the more clinical evidence-based direction and started a Creative Arts Therapy Department here, which is… art therapy is actually a mental health field. A lot of people can misunderstand that as kind of an educational field, but it’s not, we’re not teaching any kind of art activities. We are using art in a way to impact the health and well-being of patients from children to you know, end of life. Essentially, I have worked in a number of different populations. I’ve worked with vets; I’ve worked with children of abuse and neglect. I actually worked at Rikers Island in New York for three years working with the incarcerated because when words are really hard to find, or really unsafe to use, I think art therapy has a really important place for those types of people, especially the underserved populations out there, which is kind of where my heart lies.
But when MUSC Arts and Healing was created, we started with just one art therapist and one music therapist and doing work within the palliative care space with both adults and children, and that just exploded. I think people quickly saw the impact of having that kind of holistic approach in the hospital. Counselors and therapists don’t typically work within hospital spaces. It’s generally, you know, just like a psych eval, but people are going through a lot of things. And we have people that stay here for years sometimes in the hospital, which is really sad, or family members are just experiencing a big loss. So, losing a family member happens often here in the hospital, so we work directly with patients and family members as well. So, we now have three art therapists and four music therapists working at MUSC. Music therapy is a separate field. Music therapists focus on functional goals. If you like, I can connect you to a music therapist as well. But it’s a completely different field than art therapy.
Yeah, so that’s kind of us in a nutshell, in the inpatient world. We’ve also expanded with the help of the South Carolina Arts Commission to be in our school systems across the state, which is like the most exciting work ever, especially after COVID-19. Kiddos are very isolated; they really struggle socially. I think anxiety really just took off. We wrote a grant to get funding, a little funding for this to start things off before partnering with the South Carolina Arts Commission, because we were seeing an increase in our emergency room with kiddos having suicidal ideation or just feeling completely overwhelmed and having mental health crises. So, the best place to reach our kids is in schools, especially with those who are underserved and don’t have access to mental health care. So that was our main goal. So, we started pushing into schools using art therapy two years ago. And again, we’ve expanded to four districts. Thank goodness to the South Carolina Arts Commission for helping that work along.
We’ve been in the school system, and we’re pushing into underserved populations as well within our community. So, we’re working with an addiction agency and working with their clientele. We’re working at an assisted living facility, we’re actually doing art therapy with the blind and visually impaired in partnership with the South Carolina Arts Commission, we’re actually pushing into a children’s group home and also working with foster care families as well. And then a myriad of other populations. It’s kind of expanded to very diverse settings. But yeah, that is where we are at – MUSC.
Emma Plutnicki 03:59
How long have you been there and doing the show? And what’s your official job title?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 04:04
So, I’m the leader of the Arts and Healing department and I started the program in 2018.
Emma Plutnicki 04:08
Okay, perfect. And so, what kind of background, like, led you down this path? How did you end up doing what you’re doing now?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 04:16
Yeah, I’ve been asked that question before. I was a kiddo who actually had open heart surgery here at MUSC Health when I was five. And I think, throughout my life, I had an art teacher as a mother, so I think she always just put materials out and that was my way of expressing myself when I was very young. So, art was just kind of a language to me, so it made sense throughout my life. I didn’t know what that equated to. I was actually going to the College of Charleston, I was majoring in psychology and just taking art classes on the side because it was like my interest, just growing up doing it. And I had a professor my senior year at College of Charleston, and I didn’t know what the heck I wanted to do, but she was kind of like, you understand that there is an actual profession that kind of blends your two interests, psychology and art. So, I looked into it and then started applying to schools. You have to have a master’s degree to become an art therapist, just to get training. And then there’s a whole myriad of board certification tests, all this and collecting hours in front of patients just like any other mental health field. But yeah, in my senior year, I decided to become an art therapist. I really didn’t have any idea what that was until I got into it. And just, it just makes so much sense to me, just given my history, I think.
Emma Plutnicki 05:28
Yeah, amazing. So, on a day-to-day basis, are you going to schools and teaching the kids, or what does your day-to-day look like?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 05:38
Yeah, so, I am more on the administrator’s side. Now, I can speak about what that looked like when I was an active therapist. But my day today is really building programming, really thinking strategically about how we can build sustainable programming and these spaces that don’t have access to care. I am doing a research study currently in the hospital. So, I’m working with pediatric patients who have just had a bone marrow transplant, which is a really tough procedure to go through. So, I’m working on a study that is looking at whether or not art therapy helps young people be discharged quicker. I’m working alongside PT (physical therapy) so if children receive art therapy before PT, does it make them, essentially does it help them to engage in their services a little longer, or more readily, because as we know, if a kiddo going through BMT is compliant with their physical therapy they can be discharged a lot quicker. So just providing that support, assisting them.
Emma Plutnicki 06:51
Has there been one project that has stood out to you over the years, that was the pinnacle of your creativity, or just had a significant impact on you?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 07:02
Yeah, I think my work at Rikers was the most impactful work I did. Actually, my job before that, I worked at HeartShare human services before that in New York, and it was an agency, it was called a preventive agency. So, child abuse cases would come through the city, and then we would be contracted to provide support for those families. I worked with the entire family. I think that just allowed me to get every type of issue or struggle that a family was going through, and whether that was child abuse or neglect, that really gave me a very dynamic view of the world, I think. As a new therapist, I worked there for five years. And then I think that kind of led me to my position at Rikers. I answered a cryptic job posting about a mental health clinician wanted, and luckily, I got the job. And I mean, it was really intense. As people know, Rikers Island is very known for being a really scary place and giving inmates a voice or helping them process what was going on. I mean, there’s so many layers in jails, right, like just who we incarcerate and why we incarcerate them. But allowing them the space to have support in a really scary time, was really impactful to me.
Then I fought to work in the women’s jail. There are over 10,000 inmates on that island, and only about 1500 Women were in the jail at the time. And they were receiving little to no services because the men were just, you know, they were having a lot more issues and like code reds throughout the days. And women, a lot of them have children at home. And they were trying to get through their time at Rikers, to find out what the outcome of their sentencing was, et cetera. So very impactful work for me gave me a very different view of the world.
Emma Plutnicki 8:51
Wow, that’s incredible.
Katie Hinson Sullivan 8:53
Yeah, a bigger view of the world. I mean, it was really impactful. And the women were so strong.
Emma Plutnicki 08:58
Wow. That’s amazing. So, has it been challenging, like the work itself, and also the way that you got into this career path? Was that challenging to find and kind of get your foot into the door?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 09:09
It’s very challenging in our state to become an art therapist. There are no grad schools here, and you have to have a master’s degree to become an art therapist. There are some online schools. And I didn’t know what the field was like; I didn’t even know that it existed. I had a professor that was from New York, where it, you know, obviously mental health is a little more accessible in another state. In South Carolina, not only am I a mental health clinician, but I’m an art therapist, which, you know, I think is a double whammy. We don’t have licensure in our state yet. We’re pushing hard for licensure. So, I think that’s a challenge, but we’re doing it. In 2018, I think there were 39 art therapists throughout the entire state. Right now, we are sitting at like 62 therapists, so within a few years, it’s really grown, which is crazy. Then we have a bunch of interns that are working with our program and then just people are flocking to the state because we now have the opportunity for art therapists to work. It is challenging here in South Carolina, in New York; it was not a challenge. There was a huge community of art therapists that were great and wonderful to work with. And there were jobs available and all of that. But South Carolina is really moving along. I have high hopes for the next few years, for sure.
Emma Plutnicki 10:19
Yeah. And within South Carolina, do you know if there’s any like programs or events or organizations that kind of allow people to network or meet or find out more about a field as an art therapist? Are there any like organizations or anything?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 10:33
Yeah, the South Carolina Association for Art Therapists, our state organization. I’m actually the treasurer and have been a past president for that organization. They’re great. We’re small, but I think anybody who’s interested in the field of art therapy, please just get in touch with a licensed or credentialed art therapist to ask about what the field looks like, there’s a lot of art therapists out there that are claiming to be art therapists in our state, because there’s not, I think there’s just a lack of understanding of what it is. But if you’re interested in the field of art therapy, get in touch with me, get in touch with somebody who has an ATR behind their name. That’s the credential to be an art therapist and ask questions. There are online programs to become an art therapist. There are internships available across the state, the association is happy to connect people, or I am happy to connect anybody and/or just have a conversation with people about what the field entails.
Emma Plutnicki 11:30
As an applicant, are there any specific skills that you think would be beneficial to have? If you were hiring somebody and saw, “Oh, this applicant has this skill, this skill, this skill, they’re good,” or any skills that you have or use on a daily basis that you find come in handy?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 11:44
Yeah, they would have to have their training and their credentials to become an applicable applicant. And for any job with us, I think just, I mean, art therapists, you have to be interested in the mental health field, right? And you also, I think, artists just generally are more or are a little empathetic to the world around them, you know. It’s a hard job. Because you’re, I mean, it is mental health, and you’re just hearing trauma and dealing with trauma. And as an art therapist, I think you get to those spaces a little quicker, because you have this process and product that you’re doing with a client or a patient, in that therapeutic space, but I think skill sets would be – A: that they’ve been through their training, B: that they’ve been willing to do the work personally.
So, I think any art therapist who’s, you know, been in therapy, or you know, has a good idea of where they end and where a client begins. That’s always a good trait to have as a therapist. To experience therapy yourself, as a therapist, I think it is really important. And just willingness to learn. I feel like even, you know, well into my career, I’m still getting supervision myself, and still learning from others. And I think just always being open to growing. And then also having your own art making on the side, you have to have a place to dump all this stuff, right. I think art is why we became art therapists, right? Or why people become art therapists because they believe in that process of art making. So also, applicants, one of the questions I always ask is, how do you take care of yourself? Do you do anything creative on the side? That is, I think, just a really important piece of that creative outlet as well.
Emma Plutnicki 13:25
So just as we’re wrapping up, do you have any advice for someone who’s looking to get into the field?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 13:30
Just connect with an art therapist, ask them about possible programs they can go to, if they’re in South Carolina. Ask, you know, just talk through what you’re thinking because there’s so many different ways that art therapy is applicable. You can do art therapy in a museum, just you know, going into museums and maybe creating work based on what you’ve seen. There’s, there’s so many different directions an art therapist can go. But again, I think it just takes diving into training, like I said earlier, like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into as an art therapist until I actually got into the training itself. Also, if anybody ever wants to come and shadow an art therapist here at MUSC, we have that opportunity for people, if they’re kind of like, seeing whether or not they want to volunteer or want to come into the field like there are opportunities to shadow or volunteer with a program like ours. Yeah, just throwing that out there.
Emma Plutnicki 14:22
And then is there just anything else you’d like to add overall, any last thoughts?
Katie Hinson Sullivan 14:27
Not necessarily, if anybody wants to get in touch, I always do offer conversation.
