Interview
Transcript
00:00 Ryleigh Kelley
Hello, my name is Ryleigh and today we are talking with Taylor Emmons, a professional creative working from and within South Carolina.
As we get started, can you tell us your current career and where you are from?
00:12 Taylor Emmons
Absolutely. So I am originally from Orlando, Florida.
I grew up in the Central Florida area, and I moved to Massachusetts for grad school almost a decade ago. I’ve kind of lived all up and down the East Coast.
Currently, I am the CEO and founder of Tailored Impact, an art and culture firm. It is the first art advising and cultural strategy firm in Spartanburg County. We didn’t have anything like this before I created it. It’s really exciting to be in this space, and to be talking with you today.
00:46 Ryleigh Kelley
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so before we go into the details of your profession, we have a brief section of the interview called “One Career, Sixty Seconds,” where you describe your job in sixty seconds or less, similar to an elevator pitch.
01:01 Taylor Emmons
Okay! I am a community-based art historian, and I focus on using art as a strategic tool to drive impact in mission. So, either that be economic mobility, creative placemaking, tourism opportunities.
My company can do that through a whole slew of different ways. It can be through curating a show at a gallery or in a public art space with traditional and non-traditional exhibitions. It could be helping somebody build an art collection, whether it be a business, a hospital, or a private collector. It’s also through creative placemaking ways. So, thinking about how we can infuse art and culture into every aspect of where we live.
You and I both know, and people watching this know, the impact that art can have, but it’s often thought of as the afterthought, or if there’s time or if there’s budget, then we can include art.
I’m really interested in reframing that approach and thinking, “okay, so let’s put art at the very top for me always.” I understand it’s not everyone’s priority, even though it should be, but thinking like, “where can we include art earlier within the project?”
That way it could have impact or drive, and reframing the way that we think about art. That art is for all and that everybody should have access to art, and that it’s not just an afterthought or something nice to have or something pretty to look at. It can be used as a tool.
02:28 Ryleigh Kelley
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, a minute and forty seconds, but I’m just going to say it was great. I will ignore the time because you had a really great answer.
02:40 Taylor Emmons
I had to talk about the, you said clock and I thought of like immediately I was like, “oh, clocks, unperfect, what is it called? Untitled Perfect Lovers.” I think that’s what it’s called.
02:52 Ryleigh Kelley
I think you’re close! In your profession, is there anything South Carolina or Spartanburg County in particular brings to your work? Does it have a unique influence on you compared to people in the same profession in different states?
I know that you mentioned that you’re from Central Florida. So how does that influence, especially in Spartanburg County and South Carolina, how does that weave in conversation with your work?
03:29 Taylor Emmons
Yeah, absolutely. So right now, I am hyper-local to Spartanburg County. That’s where a lot of my focus is because there is nothing, like I mentioned earlier, there is nothing similar to what I’m doing right now in Spartanburg County. I really see myself serving as the community-based art historian, but as a connector and as an activator.
Spartanburg has such a well robust and working artist scene. There are so many fantastic artists here. We have so many arts organizations, but there’s nothing that’s connecting everything together. There’s nothing that’s making us work towards one unified strategic goal.
At a lot of places, you would see somebody in an Office of Cultural Affairs. Or Greenville, which is right next door, has somebody who does art in public spaces. We don’t have anyone like that at a civic level in Spartanburg. I feel like I created this because I noticed the need, right? There’s two competing things going on at the same time, which is really fun, where it’s building this business, but then it’s also, “what would it look like if we built out infrastructure for arts leadership in Spartanburg?”
We have a museum, we have a cultural center, we have a ballet, a Philharmonic, a little theater, and they’re all very active. What would it look like to build out maybe something at a civic level, right? So that’s also some grassroots efforts that I’m working on in addition to building my business.
05:05 Ryleigh Kelley
Was there a defining moment in your life which kind of had an impact on this journey to this point? I know you mentioned your particular projects with your business and you know building that community outreach and especially to grassroots work.
Was there a particular project or something you produced which showcased your creativity in a way it never had before?
05:31 Taylor Emmons
Yes, yeah. I would say there was like a couple of things, but pinpointing one thing in particular, definitely my upbringing. I grew up in Orlando, and my mom was the volunteer coordinator for the Navy base. She was extraordinary. She would do these like superwoman things where somebody would come in and say like, “we need help, a little girl’s missing.” And she said, “okay, we’ll get a helicopter, and we’ll go find the little girl.”
And they would say, “Marcia, we don’t have a helicopter.”
And she said, “I know I’m going to ask somebody for a helicopter.” She would get a helicopter and then she found the missing girl, right? Like these heroic, really incredible things.
I studied art history in high school, and I fell in love with it. It was like the first thing that made me realize, “oh, I am not just one person. There is a larger world that I’m a part of and a larger history.” I’m just a moment in time and it contextualized things for me in a way that I had never experienced. I had this interest in art history, and then I had this mom who was like out there planting flowers on the highway I-4 in Orlando.
It was kind of my upbringing and then my educational interest that morphed into this community art historian focus where thinking about art in public spaces, art for all, everybody should have access to art, right?
You can go and buy a print and that’s starting an art collection. Like you are collecting art. We’ve overcomplicated it, to an extent, and we’ve kind of like gate kept it. It’s been held within a museum or Sotheby’s or an ivory tower where people are like, “oh, no, no, I’m not an art collector. I just have two pieces of original artwork in my house, but I’m not an art collector.” No, no, that is art collecting. You’re engaging in the process of collecting art.
You’re helping the local economy, you’re helping support artists; you’re engaging in this practice that we’ve kind of thought of as like, “no, that’s not for me.”
So, I would say those two intellectual interests and my upbringing were really helping to define where I’m going in my life.
07:39 Ryleigh Kelley
As you were carving this path, especially like with the combination of like the inspiration from your mother and then like your academic pursuits, you mentioned, in the ivory tower and the gatekeeping culture in art curation before you delved into that space, did you have any fears like entering into it?
You talked about like your mother, how she was able to kind of just like get anything done. If she put her mind to it, she could do it. What are other inspirations that inspired you basically to continue beyond those fears?
08:17 Taylor Emmons
Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t know that in order to work in the art world, a lot of people have great support outside, if you get what I’m saying, if you catch my drift.
I didn’t have that. When I went to graduate school, I went to UMass Amherst. They have a fantastic program. I can’t recommend it enough, and a fantastic assistantship program. I was able to go there completely on an assistantship where I taught, they paid for my classes, they paid for my insurance, and they paid me on top of it.
I was always looking for those sorts of opportunities. I wasn’t really in a place where I could afford to not get paid to work. So, internships had to be paid. I couldn’t take an unpaid internship. Most of the unpaid internships were in curatorial work and most of the paid internships were in like public outreach or museum education. So that’s where a lot of my internships were.
While I was in graduate school, I was lucky enough to get paid to work. So, during the semester, I could do the curatorial internships. But during the summer, I needed to get paid. That just had to happen. My scope of what I was working towards was a little limited.
Through that, being somebody in a museum space who couldn’t afford to work certain internships, it was an interesting dichotomy where I knew my stuff, and I knew about curation, and I knew about art history. I studied Islamic and medieval art and architecture, but I couldn’t operate within those spaces.
When I started this company, I was really intentional about making sure the mission and the values were, I’ve mentioned it a couple times, art for all, but I don’t say that as like a catch all, right?
That is something that’s really important to me because I was not able to do a curatorial internship always. I had to be strategic about where I went. And when you’re in those spaces, it can be difficult.
I think just reminding yourself that it is a moment in time and that things will change and constantly things are evolving. I think museums are getting a lot better with paid internships now, which is really exciting to see. I definitely was in a space even in graduate school where my experiences were a little limited.
10:45 Ryleigh Kelley
That kind of goes into the next question about especially with the piece of advice of like it is a moment in time and things can change.
Do you have any additional advice for young adults or students who have an interest in pursuing like a similar career to you in the creative world or some sort of combination and are there any particular skills one should practice or have before doing this kind of endeavor?
I know you talked about your experience in graduate school and especially to like, I think it’s interesting that you have a Master of Arts in Islamic and Medieval Art. We could talk more about the experience, too. But what is your advice for young adults or students who are thinking about doing this kind of work?
11:37 Taylor Emmons
There’s the skill set that you develop when you’re in your coursework and you’re in your seminars and your surveys and your writing and those skills are really important.
But for this particular career that I’m doing, I had to learn how to get out of my own way quickly. You are your own worst enemy.
All the cliches are really true when you’re engaging as a small business owner. You have to put yourself out there. I’m making videos for Instagram. I’m thirty one. I don’t know really what I’m doing. I’m still young, but in the social media world, I’m geriatric. I should go to like a nursing home.
I remember thinking, “I want to make a video.” We have Art Walk coming up in Spartanburg. I wanted to make a video about the three most exciting gallery openings for me or yada yada and why I’m going. I’m recording myself and I’m like, “stop thinking, just go, just act, stop doing.” Get out of your own way and get out of your own head. How I did that was a lot of just like grounding technique. And it sounds so like “woo woo,” but it actually works for me at least.
You’ll have to find what works for you. Really good therapy. I can’t understate it enough. I think that’s really important.
And surrounding yourself with people who are supportive and really just believing in your own reality, right? When I say that, when I started this business, I remember being uncomfortable telling people what I did. And then I was like, “no, no, no, I have to really own this because they will then buy into it, right?”
So, do your coursework, do your surveys, do your seminars, and do all of the studio art classes that you can do.
Then, also outside of that coursework, really work on the internal stuff because that’s what I found has allowed me to then push it, right? Like I know my stuff, I know my art history, I know my dates, I know my mediums. But if I don’t get out of my own head, nobody else is gonna know that I know that. If I don’t start putting myself out there, then it’s not gonna happen. So that’s the advice I would give.
13:47 Ryleigh Kelley
I really resonate with the get out of your own head. That is like the story of my life, just like everything. So, I resonate that with a lot, especially to I appreciate how you touched on there’s the practical, the techniques and all that coursework you have to do, but also you got to apply that same effort and energy into yourself.
I think that’s very valuable for young creatives to hear and to also just reflect and think about.
I’m curious to know a little bit more about just like more about your graduate school experience in terms of pursuing a Master’s in Islamic and Medieval Art. Could you touch a little bit more just about that and how did you end up doing that? How did your interest begin with that?
14:45 Taylor Emmons
Yes, absolutely. So, the interest was completely accidental. I had no experience in Islamic Art at all. Like in the survey book, you kind of go through it, but it’s just like a little blimp, maybe a couple pages.
I was signing up for classes in between like the add-drop week in undergrad. I was using my phone, and this was like a decade ago. So, the app wasn’t all flushed out like it is today. And so just saw briefly, it said ‘Visual Cultures’ and I clicked on it. I was like, “I signed up for that class, met my requirement.”
I showed up for the first day and it was Visual Cultures of the Islamic World. This professor walks in, this art historian walks in, and she says, I’ll never forget: she’s like, “I’m sorry if I forgot how to speak English. I was in Turkey all summer.”
And I was like, “what is happening? Like, where am I?” By the end of the class, I was hooked. I was just hanging on every word that she was saying, and she was so mesmerizing.
She was from Istanbul and the way that she spoke about her hometown, which is kind of crazy to say that, but yes, that is people’s hometown. To just hear the way that she talked about art, and she thought about art, specifically Islamic art, I had never experienced before and I was mesmerized.
After that I was like, “I have to take every class that this professor offers.” I took all her courses. She was a huge mentor, advocate, and champion of my work. She allowed me to; I received this grant to study abroad in Paris. And while I was there, I got to conduct research.
Then I came back, and I turned it into this huge project and presentation that I then was awarded an opportunity to go to Capitol Hill and present that research. Without her mentorship, that would have never happened.
I would have never conducted international arts research and then come back and presented it on Capitol Hill, with the representatives asking me questions, which was incredible. She allowed me to the opportunity to go to Oberlin and be a visiting scholar there when I was an undergrad. She really championed me getting into graduate school. She helped immensely.
While I was in graduate school, I went to UMass Amherst, like I mentioned, and I studied under Walter Denny. And he is known as the carpet guy in the field of art history. So, he studied and wrote the book called How to Read the Islamic Carpet. It was published by the Met, and he completely was a pioneer in that field in the carpet world.
You adopt the love of these professors that you admire. It was fantastic. Then I got to travel to Istanbul three years ago with my undergraduate advisor and we got to be together.
It was amazing to be in these spaces, in her hometown, with the architecture that she taught me about, and walking through them. I saw my graduate advisor, I saw Walter’s, one of his pieces that he wrote about these blue tiles. Being there with her was really magical. I love Islamic art, yeah. Yeah, that’s so surreal.
18:11 Ryleigh Kelley
That’s just so interesting that it just happened completely on accident. This is how beautifully it unfolded. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
18:26 Taylor Emmons
Thank you so much, Ryleigh! This was great.