REBECCA TRAWICK: Hi, everybody.
Thank you for joining us today's program presented
as part of the Wignall Museum's Home Edition,
a series of curated artist talks, workshops,
and discussions featuring artists and cultural workers.
My name is Rebecca Trawick.
I'm the director and curator of the Wignall Museum.
The Wignall Museum is a teaching museum,
an interdisciplinary art space that introduces Chaffey College
students, faculty, staff, and community members
to innovative contemporary art objects and ideas.
By fostering critical thinking, visual literacy, discourse,
and empathy, the museum seeks to enhance
the intellectual and cultural life of our community.
We want to take a moment to recognize that we are situated
on the Rancho Cucamonga campus of Chaffey College, which
resides on the traditional and unceded lands of the Tongva
people.
We offer our respect to the elders, both past, present,
and future.
And hello.
My name is Roman Stollenwerk.
I'm the assistant curator at the Wignall
Museum of Contemporary Art.
Please visit our website www.chaffey.edu/wignall.
Please write your questions for the presenter
using the chat function.
We'll be reviewing the chat function
throughout the presentation, and at the end,
we'll answer the questions as time allows.
Thank you.
ANDREW HADLE: Hi, everyone.
My name is Andy Hadle.
I'm the preparator at the museum.
And alongside Rebecca and Roman today, I'm
going to be helping with the presentation.
So just a real quick breakdown of the program's events--
in a moment, Rebecca Ustrell is going
to present for about 30 minutes, and then with the remaining
time we'll use that available time for question and answer.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Great.
So I'll start by introducing Rebecca,
and then she'll take it away.
So Rebecca Ustrell is the founder and editor
in chief of Curious Publishing.
Curious Publishing was established to promote
and nurture the underrepresented and under-serviced talents
of the Inland Empire--
Los Angeles and greater Southern California.
Through her experience in coordinating the Claremont Art
Walk Pop-up Gallery from 2016 to 2018,
she decided to highlight the many talents
in her first indie publication, Curious Magazine,
in September 2018.
Since then, Curious has published a new edition
of Curious every quarter, with a new theme each issue,
focusing on top of topics of social justice, aesthetics,
and beyond.
In addition to Curious Magazine, Curious Publishing
also publishes a biannual lifestyle and cultural journal,
entitled Abyme.
Curious also acts as a consultant and publisher
for independent artist publications
for artists throughout Southern California.
Ustrell's movement in the arts extends
through several collaborations in the Inland Empire.
She sits on the board of The Artlands,
as well as serves as volunteer special events
coordinator for The Arts Area.
These projects are all in addition to her solo career
as a visual artist and creative writer.
It is our honor to welcome Rebecca Ustrell today.
So please join me in welcoming her.
REBECCA USTRELL: Thank you so much for that introduction.
I'm really happy to be presenting today.
I've been a student at Chaffey off and on for quite a while
now.
I have been living on my own since after high school,
and been building my career in publishing,
as an independent artist, and still working towards a degree.
So it feels really good to be presenting
to my peers, and just all-around interested folks
for the company.
So I'm excited to present to you today.
Whenever you want to start the presentation, Roman, thank you.
OK so over on the right's a self-portrait
that I did a year back.
In addition to being the founder and editor-in-chief of Curious
Publishing, I'm also an illustrator and a short story
and poet writer.
That kind of is what, of course, gave my initial interest
in the arts in general, but also I've
been collecting art publications since as far back
as I can remember.
If you're interested, after the presentation--
since it will focus mainly on my publishing company--
you can go to my personal website rebeccaustrell.com
to see some of my solo work and upcoming projects
and updates on there.
Next slide.
As I said before, and as they introduced me,
I have been an art show curator for a few years now.
My background in that started in Claremont
initially with the Claremont Village Marketing Group
doing their pop-up gallery, which happened monthly
on the first Saturday.
So my first experience with meeting
a high volume of artists at once and also representing them
was in that capacity.
After my volunteer period of time was up,
I started volunteering with The Arts Area
and developing their pop-up gallery, which was
quarterly rather than monthly.
So we did that up until COVID, of course,
since that was an in-person event,
and we haven't resumed that quite yet.
And that was just a small part of the greater art walks
that take place in Claremont and Ontario.
So in that role, that's where I initially
met a lot of the artists that I actually still work with today.
Prior to that I did have a nonprofit sector
experience in fundraising, and I worked with foster youth
all over the Inland Empire.
And my main job there was cultivating
donors, doing a little bit of grant writing,
and also just coordinating little events here and there
for fundraising purposes.
So the non-profit aspect of my company
really stems from me having a good understanding
of how a nonprofit works.
Having a company that is geared more towards community rather
than the bottom-line profit was really important to me,
and always has been in my career experience.
So that's where that experience comes from.
My personal work-- there's actually
a photo over to the right.
It's a promo photo for this tarot deck that I'm working on.
It's called the Social Justice Tarot Deck.
Kind of in the bottom area, you'll
see a couple of illustrations that
are based on the original writer tarot deck,
so that's what that is.
There's more information about that on my website.
And other than that art project that I'm working on,
my artwork does heavily focus on human sexuality and societal
trends.
My major is actually in sociology,
so that's where that kind of ties in with my interest
of trending groups, kind of studying groups
and what their interests are and how that all
affects a society in general.
I'm also a commissioned illustrator.
I have experience in being a private tutor,
so I've worked with students in the Claremont community
as a private tutor at their home for drawing.
And of course, my main focus right now
at this point of my career is being the editor-in-chief
of Curious Publishing.
Next slide.
So Curious Publishing is a non-profit art book publishing
company, meaning we have our titles that are called Curious,
but we also publish many other art books from solo artists.
And also we have new titles that roll in year-round.
And we work on those project proposals with the artists
directly.
We're based in Upland, California right now,
but since it is an online company and I do move around,
we were previously based in Pomona.
So that's where we grew most of our following,
was out of Pomona, although we do serve the greater Inland
Empire first before we branch out into other zones.
We're 100% artist-owned and operated,
and there's a website--
curiouspublishing.org-- for your future reference
to see the goings on of our company.
Here's an introduction.
Of course, I would have loved to have them
here in the room with me to introduce themselves,
but our staff is 100% volunteer based.
And actually, we have a couple of current and former Chaffey
students that are on our editing staff.
So there's myself, who is currently
taking classes on an off at Chaffey, and I act
as the editor-in-chief, which means
that I curate the overall themes and make those final decisions
before going to print.
I also act as the designer for a lot of our publications.
Eduardo Galvez, who's currently at Cal State Long Beach--
he is starting special initiative projects
under our publishing company.
And Nicholas, who I believe is actually on in our meeting
right now-- so thanks, Nick, for attending and watching this.
He's our lead designer.
He designs the little aspects of our publication,
like digital illustrations, layout ideas,
and all of our merch.
Haley is a freelance artist, and she's our photographer.
Jessica Spindler is a current art history student.
I believe she still is at Chaffey--
I'm not sure about this coming semester.
And then Brianna, who is a friend of Eduardo
at Cal State Long Beach.
She's our brand new assistant editor.
She's our first regularly paid employee,
which is a huge milestone for our company,
since we recently got the following capital
to start paying out our staff.
So our biggest titles would be Curious Magazine--
that's quarterly.
Today is actually the launch of the women's issue,
so that just got published online.
It's our biggest issue yet.
We actually had, I want to say 116 submissions, which
is about double--
I want to say almost triple-- a little
over double the amount of submissions we usually get.
So that was extremely exciting for me to see
all of the submissions come in.
And we published our largest volume.
It's a 250 page volume book.
So typically, our books would be around,
I want to say 90 pages--
90 to 120 pages.
This is significantly larger.
And yeah, that was really exciting.
So take a look for that release, which is available online
right now, and also in print.
That's going to ship out next week.
And Abyme Magazine, that was a title that was actually in
print in Pomona, and I met the person
that started that magazine.
She actually was also a Chaffey student.
And she just stopped--
simply stopped-- printing the magazine,
and I was really interested in keeping up that lifestyle
magazine.
And I thought it would be a great way of highlighting
things that don't necessarily fit into the themes of Curious.
So Abyme is biannual, and this upcoming issue
is coming out in October.
And our indie art books would be the projects
that we work with independent artists--
say a photographer or a poet that
wants to print a Chat Book that has
some artistic elements in it.
A lot of people are really into DIY right now
and publish their own our books, but another way that we
help indie artists, if they don't need that layout
assistance, is we front the cost of the printing
and work with our own printers who can give us a lower cost
to get their projects to fruition.
Or they just simply want our help
with getting distribution out there--
that's also something we specialize in.
The Curious Magazine is where we have
focused a lot on the trends that are going on in society.
Big movements, identity, empowerment, and gender.
That's what we focus on for all of our issues.
This was a recent initiative that I thought
was really important, just with the changing
climate politically and all the protests.
It just seemed irresponsible to not
focus on something that is really happening out there,
something that artists obviously are in touch with,
something that I wanted to get artists' perspective
on movements going on.
So that's kind of why we decided to do our Latinx
issue in March.
And then after that, we had our queer issue,
and then this is the women's issue that came out today.
And our next issue will be all focused on BIPOC,
so we're really excited about that, too.
Here are some examples of our past covers.
We haven't always focused on social justice issues
and identity empowerment.
We do do the occasional aesthetic-based issue--
the Pink issue was actually something
that we did with our debut issue, which
is we focused on the millennial pink color trend.
So that was our anniversary issue on millennial pink.
Over to the right in the back area
is the Psychedelia cover, so we did all psychedelic themed art.
And then over to the bottom you see the women's edition,
and then over to the right is Latinx,
the cover done by Pavel, who's also a former Chaffey student
and permanent muralist at the Chaffey campus.
So he's a good friend of mine now, thanks to that issue.
I got the chance to meet with him,
and we have our schedule of submissions,
which exists on our website for open submissions year-round
for titles such as these.
So we feature approximately 120 artists per year.
Well we've only been operating for just over two years,
so this figure is going to change.
I believe that it's going to grow exponentially,
just from what we've seen in our submission
rate and our capacity to print, of course.
That's about 30 artists per issue.
So again submissions are year-round.
We take open submissions from anywhere all over the globe,
but we do make sure that the magazine has at least 75%
Inland Empire-based artists, since that is our mission.
Here's Abyme magazine.
As I mentioned before, it's our biannual lifestyle, art,
and culture magazine.
This hasn't debuted yet-- this new issue.
We've actually only had one issue in print so far.
It's our newest self-titled magazine.
The cover on this is during the Black Lives Matter protests.
I believe this photo was taken in Los Angeles,
but the photographer Julian Lucas--
who's based out of Pomona--
took photos at protests all across the Inland Empire
as well.
So that magazine will feature things such as that.
We do also do one off special interest art books
with small groups, and create compilation art books
on various topics.
During quarantine, I decided to do a pandemic issue.
So this is really similar to Curious Magazine, in that it's
a compilation zine focused on a theme,
but it was a little different.
It released between a couple of our Curious Magazines.
And then it was really exciting to work
with Chaffey College and the Wignall, working with Rebecca
and getting the Student Invitational edition out there.
It was something that I just--
it was experimental, because I hadn't done a book
with another organization or big group of artists that weren't
directly connected to me.
But as an active Chaffey student,
I thought it was really important to see
what the perspectives of art have been over time.
And doing that publication was just awesome.
I mean, we featured artists historically.
I think the oldest submission that
was in there was from, I want to say, the early '80s.
So we included some pictures of old magazine articles
based on the artist that was in there and their work,
all the way up until current Student Invitational artists.
And this is something that we hope to do in the future
as well.
I want this to be a repeating publication,
and we did actually sell out of that issue at 100 copies,
so that was exciting.
Right now since we have gained quite a following
and a little extra capital--
which is really exciting for a business
that started with zero dollars and just an idea--
it's our absolute mission to start getting artists paid.
So we want to start providing more paid opportunities
for artists that are in our network.
Our first initiative, of course, was with the art books, which
has been extremely successful, but we're also
open to suggestions and collaboration
that do get artists paid.
Here are some art books that we've
published, over to the right.
We do everything from people that
paint, people that are collage artists, people
that are a hybrid of the two.
Today we also debuted Gina's book, The Heart of Me,
which was a hybrid Chatbook and photography
experiment with some prints that actually came in the book.
So we're open to not only just art books, but books that
maybe are a hybrid of the two--
anything that fits within the art world, which is
pretty expansive, as you know.
We offer free design and layout services
to artists that can't do that on their own,
and we do pay out commissions on a monthly basis based
on books sold.
So our model is you give us your idea,
we design it if you need that help designing it,
and we get it printed and out there into your fans' hands
and pay you for it.
So that really was my goal in the beginning--
was to help people make their book ideas come to fruition
in any way that we can, and that's how we utilize
our volunteer staff as well.
And if some of our books require some special design layout,
I'll ask our designer, Nicholas, for some tips on that.
If it needs extra elements that are maybe handmade,
we also offer those services, too.
So far this year--
well, within the last year-- we've
paid out $3,000 in artist book commissions, which
I think is just amazing to look at, again, as the company has
started with nothing.
I truly believe that there's demand
for artists to want to get their work out there, and what better
way than creating a mobile gallery, if you will,
especially since we can't have as many in-person events.
This is an excellent way for artists
to get their work in the hands of people
all over the world really.
Here's a photo of some examples of the handmade elements
that we do offer.
So for this zine-- it's called Frown.
It's by Izzy Valle, who's out of San Bernardino.
And he had a vision for his reprint of his zine
that he had with us that there would
be some handmade elements.
So we found an artist and commissioned the block print,
and had the artist actually block
print the cover of the book onto these individual envelopes.
And we found a handmade envelope that
fit exactly the size of the prints that
were going to be made, and we hand assembled those.
So we don't only do the mass-produced perfect bound
books.
We also do offbeat things, like print zines
with handmade elements as well.
In addition to the book services,
we also will create merch with local print makers, screen
printers, embroiders--
anyone in our network that we know is a small business
and can get part of our project realized,
we'll definitely reach out to those people
and make the launch of the book even that much more special.
So we do have paid internships available through Curious.
Right now we have a paid photography internship.
This gives people the opportunity
to shoot new content for upcoming issues.
We have product photography opportunities, and even
journalistic type of opportunities
for freelance writers.
We also have a paid assistant internship for Curious Magazine
for editing.
So you can-- this is the biggest challenge in the company right
now, since it's such a small--
I want to say small business, but really it's
a tiny business.
Managing our expectations properly
and being able to handle the volume of editing that
can come up on a quarterly basis,
and making sure that everything looks
squared away and perfect for the artists
so that it's really on that professional level
that we strive for.
So we do have different opportunities
for people to actually get paid and also
be involved with curious and those
always go up on our website
So of course, pre-COVID--
pre-quarantine-- we had launch events,
which is how we initially would rely on our income,
as we would do these public vendor events,
and we would do a pre-sale model, which
would pay for the event itself.
So hopefully soon.
I don't want to jump the gun on that one.
Our biggest highlight to date was our Latinx launch
at The Ram in March.
So that was Riverside Art Museum.
We had over 500 in attendance.
In addition to our launch, they also
had their just regular museum hours open,
and a couple of live performances, which
did help with the attendance.
But it was excellent.
We had, I want to say, 20 vendors.
We have often [INAUDIBLE] performances.
We have opportunities for assisting in event planning,
so we do have a coordinator internship that is
available for in-person events.
And we use these events to bring all the artists together
that are in the publication, and really celebrate
the launch of the book event.
We do this big scale events, but we've also
done really small-scale book signings as well.
Pretty much anything that fits the particular publication,
we'll partner with local businesses
to make that come to light.
The cool thing about in-person events and collaboration
is you have the opportunity to do collaborations.
This was an excellent collaboration
that we had the opportunity to have with the Latinx event
at the Riverside Art Museum.
The Arts Area, which is our fiscal sponsor company,
decided that it would probably be an excellent opportunity
to host a panel discussion based on the topic that
was concurrent with Curious Magazine.
Here's a photo of the panelists from that discussion.
So it brought in that more educational element
that we do hope to incorporate more in the future,
and it just brings different diverse audience that
may not have just seen the magazine in the first place.
So that was an awesome opportunity.
I believe that we sold out of that panel discussion event,
too, and it was hosted in their largest room,
so that was a surprising, eye-opening, and exciting
collaboration that we did.
And we're definitely planning to do more in the future--
whenever we can do in-person discussions.
Here's some photos from the Zinefest hosted
at Chaffey College, which was awesome I
think that this happened literally
right before lockdown--
which it was on the verge of not happening, and then all
of a sudden there was nothing.
So I was happy that we were able to do it.
So this was Zinefest at Chaffey College.
We do participate in a lot of Zinefests.
We host the biannual 5th Street Zinefest.
This is brand new-- part of Redlands Art Walk--
and we've actually only done one.
The next one was supposed to be less so last spring,
and there was supposed to be one next month,
but since this whole year has been kind of blacked out
for events, it hasn't happened again.
But for the 5th Straight Zinefest,
we basically close down 5th Street during the art walk
and have vendor events.
Different zinesters show.
We've participated in IE Zinefest,
LA Independent Art Book Fair, the Claremont Zinefest--
which is hosted by Pitzer College--
and the Pomona Zinefest as well, which is an independently
run Zinefest.
So since we have switched to virtual,
we're definitely keeping up with the movement to all online.
When we have the opportunity to, we
do do live broadcasts on Instagram, talking to artists
and discussing their released art books,
or discussing just topics in general in the art world.
We always do these over Instagram,
so if you're not following our Instagram
and you are on Instagram--
just @curiouspublishing.
And we'll always post upcoming events that
will be happening virtually--
happening different times a day to kind of suit
different audiences as well.
Even though we had to switch to all virtual events,
it surprisingly has not affected our sales reach at all,
or our audience reach.
On average, we sell about 100 issues per magazine,
and that hasn't changed, even though everything
switched to virtual.
Which was really surprising to me--
I really always thought that in person
was why we were reaching so many people.
So that surprisingly is going well.
We actually sold out of the first edition of the women's
issue before it was even out, and had
to reprint a second edition, so that's going well.
Which is awesome-- thanks for your support.
So these are ways that you can stay updated
with Curious Publishing.
We're extremely active on our Instagram.
Next I would say would be our website.
Facebook as well, or if you just want to email me directly.
I'm basically working from my phone
when I'm not working my day job constantly.
So I'm happy to answer any of your questions,
or keep you updated on things going on with Curious.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Excellent.
Thank you, Rebecca.
That was really wonderful.
So I think at this point we'll move to questions.
So as Roman mentioned, those of you
who are in attendance, if you have questions,
please do feel free either to ask them--
you can raise your hand, unmute yourself,
and ask your question.
Or you can type it into the chat,
and either Andy or I will read it for you.
And I think we also have a few questions already.
Andy, if you want to kick that off.
ANDREW HADLE: Yeah, hi, Rebecca.
Thank YOU that was really incredible
work that you're doing with Curious Publishing.
I mean, just everyone--
artists and small businesses and Inland Empire.
It's really incredible.
And you did it from the ground up, which is really, really,
really great.
So my question kind of follows that.
I'm thinking-- do you have any advice for young artists
who are trying to find their way in the art market,
or just finding their way, finding their place in the art
world just in general?
REBECCA USTRELL: Sure.
I think first I'd say is to really try and not
be afraid to put your real self out there,
and just trust that there is a ton of people
that will be like-minded.
And even if they're not like-minded,
will be really into your mind.
Will want to know why you create what you're creating.
I do highly recommend moving to smaller versions
of displaying work, such as a zine or a postcard.
Or Instagram works, of course, but that physical element
I think is really important still.
And just finding economical, affordable ways
to get yourself out there.
I, of course, had some background and event planning
and worked for the non-profit sector for a little while,
so it kind of flowed into I guess my confidence
in thinking that I could do it.
But it really just stemmed from me just
in my head knowing well, if I love this so much,
then there's got to be people out there that
want to know about it, too.
Because of course, when I started
a company that was print-based, I got a lot of eyebrow raises.
Like, well, why the hell are you doing a print magazine
when even some of the biggest magazines
have transitioned online?
I think the answer simply is that yeah, it's a magazine,
but it's also a collection of artwork.
It's a print bound together, if you will.
And a lot of the time, that's the only way
that some people have access to that much art at once.
Consider it like a mobile gallery.
So I think artists inherently are creative,
and you just kind of have to harness that energy that you
have with your own work, and want other people to see it.
And if you don't want other people to see it,
then you're probably not watching this.
Or you're trying to get the confidence to,
but really it's just all about having a little bit of balls,
I don't know--
taking a risk and trusting yourself.
REBECCA TRAWICK: So I have a question.
I know 2020 has been a challenge for a huge host of reasons--
COVID among many.
For so many of us, I know you yourself have experienced
additional challenges personally and professionally
in your own life, which you don't necessarily
have to share about.
But I just wonder how 2020, how COVID, how this year affected
your work, affected your vision for the future, both
of Curious Publishing and your own professional practice
as well.
REBECCA USTRELL: Sure.
So pretty much like in the beginning of the year
is when all of the lockdown stuff started to happen.
It was in March, so we weren't really much into the year,
especially after the holidays.
I do work in retail, so we were still
coming off of that exhaustion from doing holiday stuff.
And I had this big issue planned with Latinx,
and we didn't get to do that event.
It was actually also right before everything
was shut down.
So luckily it didn't affect that,
but when I had to start canceling smaller book launches
and considering that I would have
to not have a launch event, it scared the crap out of me.
I was just like I don't get it.
This was my format--
in person stuff was my format.
So it took a--
obviously, psychologically it was devastating.
I honestly was like I'm not--
I don't understand how I'm going to be able to even print
another magazine.
If I can't have that in person reach, I don't understand much.
I did have an online store, but I wasn't shipping
hundreds of packages at a time.
So the volume aspect was scary to me.
And then I'm totally willing to talk about the house
fire that happened at my house in June, which was accidental.
I was living with a couple of artist friends,
and we lived in one of those really old houses
in Lincoln Park and Pomona, and there was a fire.
And it totally destroyed our personal belongings, injured
one of my roommates, and of course, I'm
a small business-- all of Curious Publishing's property
was burned to the ground.
The stuff that was salvageable, it wasn't really salvageable
because it was either wet or covered in soot.
And that's-- I think I estimated it around like a $5,000 retail
value and a just over $1,700 print value of our items,
which were just totally gone.
So we had to totally just close our store for a whole month,
and we lost money of course.
But I think that I kind of--
I mean, I know I have a supportive community,
but I think I underestimated how supportive they would be.
And we immediately started getting donations
on our GoFundMe, which put me back on my feet personally.
And then we had a separate GoFundMe me
that was for Curious Publishing.
Our printer-- Spin Print out in Lake Forrest
that we work with-- totally replenished
our book without charging us, which was just huge.
It was hundreds of books.
They really did not have to do that,
but I just simply emailed them and said,
everything burned down.
I'm safe, and I need to reorder my books.
Because I did have a little bit of money that was donated,
which I could use to get the store back up and running,
but they did it with no questions asked.
And we also had the auction, which was donated artwork.
And people could bid on online, and we made probably--
after the auction and after all the donations--
we were able to replenish everything that we lost,
within a matter of two months, which was a huge turnaround.
I even landed on my feet personally
and was able to find a home with an artist friend and colleague,
really local, too.
I only moved from Pomona to Upland.
So all of the community that I gained through Curious
Publishing is the only reason why I have a roof over my head
and my company didn't totally fail after the fire.
So of course, those things are traumatic personally for me.
I almost totally stopped my personal artwork after that,
because all of that original artwork
did get destroyed as well.
So that's been hard to deal with--
just not having those cherished drawings
that I spent all this time on.
But it also taught me such a valuable lesson
of just not holding onto things so preciously,
and really seizing the moment, and also just being
real prepared and switching to digital.
I mean, we have all our files for Curious that survived,
because I happened to save my computer
and my external hard drive.
That's basically all I ran out of the house
with was my phone, my purse, my passport, and my computer.
And that's why Curious is probably doing OK,
other than the support that I got.
So hopefully that answers your question.
REBECCA TRAWICK: What an amazing example of mutual aid
and community coming to the aid of someone who
is really important to them.
So I'm so sorry you went through that,
but it's a beautiful story in the end.
Thank you for sharing that.
So I had a question, too, about your own personal work.
I know that wasn't the focus today,
but I think we saw little hints of it in your presentation,
right?
It's very personal-- very confessional.
And so I think you kind of talked about that--
about having bravery.
I just wondered if you have any advice for young artists
who are a little trepidatious about sharing
work that is of a personal nature, or a political nature,
or something that is controversial.
REBECCA USTRELL: Well, sure.
So I do draw nudity--
both female and male.
And honestly the first time I ever
do a fully nude male drawing, it freaked even me out,
even though I'm used to seeing that kind of body,
and it was in private.
And was like, oh, no--
I drew a penis.
Do I show anyone?
That kind of thing.
So I think being nervous about sharing the body
or sharing deep thoughts--
that's totally healthy and normal.
No one really wants to be totally exposed--
unless you're that kind of performance artist, then
that's amazing.
I want to meet you.
But even I don't really love putting myself out there,
but it's just important to me to give little peaks
into my identity, because it's really what drives my art.
And I think that just trusting that--
trusting in yourself, and making sure
that you're not exposing a part of yourself you're not
comfortable with, and trusting that other people do
have empathy and want to relate.
And just knowing that there are allies out there,
and there's the right community.
There's an audience for almost any type of art, I believe,
and it's just a matter of finding that community
and thriving in it.
ANDREW HADLE: I have another question, and kind
of a comment.
First of all, I just want to say I'm
sorry to hear about your loss of summer.
I know you did well on it, but that's terrible news,
and I'm glad you bounced back.
So maybe kind of going off of that a little bit,
I wanted to ask you about maybe the importance of networking
as a working professional, just in the business
sense in the art world.
Obviously that networking and that social environment
you've created helped you a lot.
Is there anything you can talk about in how you built that?
REBECCA USTRELL: Sure.
So I know a lot of people in my age category
just loathe the word networking.
They just hate it.
Networking-- it sounds lame, sounds sales-y,
sounds ingenuine.
You don't have to call it networking--
just call a building a community.
It's the same thing whether you're in sales
or you're in the art sector.
So art as it is-- as a form of entertainment or indulging-- it
doesn't exist without a network of people
that are interested and excited to share those words
or pictures or what have you.
So as an artist, I really don't think that without my--
I don't really know how to put it.
So obviously my friends were my first patrons,
so I do want put that out that that's totally normal.
But those friends will tell their friends,
and then when you--
when you put your work out there,
even if just in the magazine-- don't mean to plug it,
like I've already been plugging it.
But you're going to have those opportunities
where people that wouldn't have seen your work will see it.
And just expanding your bandwidth
is statistically just going to have more eyes on your work.
So I think that it's always important to not always be
having tunnel vision about your work--
not only focusing on your one captive audience--
but expanding your captive audience
that's inevitably going to be ever-changing.
So good ways to network--
I think right now Instagram is the hugest way for artists
to network, just reposting, commenting on things.
Collaborating in group projects is huge.
Group shows, even if they're just virtual right now.
Applying to different compilation magazines
other than Curious.
There's a ton of opportunities out there.
And then also just keeping an open line of communication
to your allies.
And just being-- if that's your personality,
being the kind of person that can
take feedback and collaborate and make bigger ideas
come to fruition.
Because even though I do take a lot on with Curious,
it wouldn't be happening if I didn't have my crew--
my networking crew.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Louis, do you have a question?
LOUIS: [INAUDIBLE].
One second.
I just wanted to talk about what she talked about.
These are the really beautiful things.
[INAUDIBLE] beautiful things like small business owner,
and I mean not like--
I'm really down, but I think it's amazing what she does.
That she's a small business owner, and she's doing.
I wrote it down, non-profit people, [INAUDIBLE] yourself.
My grandfather was a small business owner.
And she went out, and she helps people.
She helps people.
I'm in my grandfather's room right now, [INAUDIBLE]
right now.
I mean, just like, everything that she said was beautiful.
How she wanted to help people, in put herself out there.
I'm sorry.
REBECCA USTRELL: Thank you.
LOUIS: [INAUDIBLE].
She's a sociology major and [INAUDIBLE] sociology later
to be a therapist.
And [INAUDIBLE].
To be a small business owner, that's not easy.
I mean, I can go to therapy in school
because of my grandfather.
He started a small business, and that's
why I'm able to do things I can do, because of him.
I can see so much motivational from her, and that's classy.
REBECCA USTRELL: Thank you.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Thanks, Louis.
Rebecca, I have a question.
I love-- I think it's so amazing that through COVID you
haven't seen a decrease in sales and outreach.
I mean, brava to you-- that's incredible.
So sort of going through this experience
and seeing the fact that you're still building community,
you're still making sales, your outreach is still working--
has it reframed your vision for future events and programs
and outreach?
REBECCA USTRELL: Oh, absolutely.
So it's made me realize that even in a pandemic,
there's an audience on wants art.
They want to see their friends' art.
They want to see their peers and what they're doing.
That want hasn't gone away.
I think it's actually gone up, especially
not only as a form of escape, but also just
as a form of support.
There's a lot of people that financially aren't doing well
right now, so they're really hitting hard with DIY,
making their own prints, opening up
their online store-- which they previously had no time to do.
I think that in the future, what I'm going to realize
is to take it a little more easy and not
put so much pressure on myself to present
these things in person, since now I
know that it totally translates virtually and through delivery.
We really don't know what to expect-- what's
going to come next-- so I anticipate
there's going to be another change when the market opens
back up.
How are those in-person events going to look?
Probably not going to be as crowded.
It's all things that I'm just constantly going
to have to adjust to.
So I will say that owning a small business-- you really
can't expect the same thing to always happen,
especially if you're in the creative field.
You have to be willing to change with the trends and the laws,
honestly.
REBECCA TRAWICK: John shared something in the chat.
John, do you want to--
REBECCA USTRELL: Thanks, John.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Thank you.
REBECCA USTRELL: Yes, it's been awesome working
with a fiscal sponsor.
I mean, they basically do all of my back-end accounting
paperwork, and they do this for other smaller businesses--
not just mine-- but I was their first project.
So I feel lucky in that.
REBECCA TRAWICK: That's great.
So you mentioned your day job, and I know
that can be a real challenge.
You've also talked about taking it easy on yourself
and changing your expectations.
And so you've got your personal practice,
you've got the business, you've got your day job--
that's a lot going on.
I hate the word balance, but for lack
of a better word, how do you find that balance?
REBECCA USTRELL: The truth is, it's
not very balanced right now.
I'm working myself hard--
probably the hardest I've ever worked myself.
And I think that that's just because my lifestyle has
changed since I lost my possessions.
Obviously that's going to take a lot of adjusting,
and I think most people would put their company on hold
for a little while, but I really didn't
want to risk Curious being forgotten.
I'd worked so hard that that was my baby and my priority.
I don't have any kids, and I'm not married--
that was like my main priority.
So I consider it like I'm married
to my company or something.
Yeah, so my next thing that I'm going
to do for myself and for the company is take that risk
and actually step back from taking on as many hours
for my day job, as soon as I can.
I'm already in the strategy process of starting
to build a salary for myself.
There's the money--
I know that the money is there, but I simply
have never taken a paycheck from my company,
because I want that to build up as much as I can before I start
living off of it and being able to pay
my staff in a fair manner.
So I'm hoping as soon as next year Curious will
be not only my non-profit book company, but also my career.
So I'm going to--
it's scary.
You have to take that risk and just trust
that the sales will keep coming, and that you'll still
be interested in this work, even though you're
doing more hours of it.
But I'm not too scared about the interest part.
Art books and books in general are my passion.
I love doing the layout and design,
and I'm really excited to make that transition soon.
I'm young right now, and I'm able to do a day job
and then do a little bit of editing on the side.
My desk job does have a lot of downtime,
so I've been lucky that way-- that I
can whip out my laptop or my iPad and do double duty.
But I'm getting to the point where
I want to put more focus in the company.
REBECCA TRAWICK: OK, so I wanted to ask one final question.
So what are you reading, watching, listening to--
podcasts, book, film, music, et cetera--
that is just feeding you?
And also is there an artist or group of artists--
I think I know the answer maybe--
but whose work you'd like to amplify?
REBECCA USTRELL: Absolutely.
So to unwind, the things that I indulge in
are surprisingly also art books.
People probably think that I would get tired of it,
but it's truly my passion, and I love doing it.
So I recently have been trying to get into stuff that I'm not
used to looking at, like maybe like skate culture photography
in the UK.
So I recently hit up a creator over there,
and-- what's his name?
It's called Futurist Pictures, so I've
been indulging in Futurist Pictures zines.
They're all film photography of skate culture,
and when I was growing up in the high desert,
we used to drive down to the Vans skate park in Ontario.
So even though I was never great at skateboarding,
I've always been really into the culture and watching
skating and that kind of thing.
So I do want to give them a shout out.
I'm one of those people that binge watches stuff on working,
so I've just been like watching Cold Case Files, to be honest.
It's just like, oh, and then what.
I feel like it just gets my mind jogging, like all of a sudden
there will be something that happens,
and I'm like, oh, yeah.
So it will keep me up and sharp while I'm editing.
But I also follow the--
I listen and follow this podcast called Here Be Monsters.
I think it's through NPR, but it is an independent project,
and they do a summer art exchange globally.
So every year they have artists send in their work--
well, they have artists submit an artwork virtually
through email.
And then they'll pair you up with someone else that
has similar interests, and you'll basically
mail your art to each other.
So every year I receive art from someone that I've never met,
and you can put in your preferences--
like do you want zines, do you want a sculpture,
do you want a painting, do you want a letter.
One time I got a five-page short story handwritten
from a Cornell University student.
And then this year I got a zine from someone in Arkansas,
so you really never know what you're going to get with that.
And they focus on offbeat topics,
and they usually focus on metaphysical topics--
just anything that you wouldn't really
see normally in podcasting or--
it's not very traditional.
It's a very loose form.
They heavily reliant on indie musicians and sound engineers
to make the experience a little more and ASMR,
so I'm into that stuff, too.
There's this new art book store opening in downtown Upland
called Curated Chronicles.
A friend of mine, Melanie Walden,
will be opening that in October.
So you can actually follow her Instagram
to see the update on the opening of that store.
Super excited about it.
She's one of our wholesale accounts,
so she's definitely familiar with our work.
She'll be carrying our stuff, and she's
totally refurbished this building
and has murals being installed right now, so I'm really
excited about that store.
And Artlands over in Redlands--
also a friend of mine, Daniel.
Similar store, but they also have an art gallery,
and that's in downtown Redlands and walking distance
between all the shops and stuff.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Thank you so much, Rebecca.
We really appreciate you spending time with us today.
It was wonderful to hear about your [INAUDIBLE]..
REBECCA USTRELL: My note from my mom.
Thank you, Mom.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Very sweet.
REBECCA USTRELL: My mom just graduated from Chaffey College,
so--
REBECCA TRAWICK: Oh, congrats.
Bravo.
REBECCA USTRELL: Thank you.
REBECCA TRAWICK: So I think Romney
is going to close us out and give us a few reminders.
But again, please join me in thanking Rebecca for spending
some time with us today.
And thank you all for joining us as well.
ROMAN STOLLENWERK: Of course, we wanted
to thank you for your participation and your support.
And we also wanted to mention that we
have a quick online survey that will
help us evaluate our online programming as we
plan our future programs.
So that's the tiny URL that you see on the screen now--
tinyurl.com/wignallfall20.
We also would encourage you to visit our website,
www.chaffey.edu/wignall.
We also wanted to mention if you're
interested in learning more about Native Land
Acknowledgment, there are a couple of websites
on the screen that you can check out to get more information.
Thank you.
REBECCA USTRELL: Thank you, it was a pleasure.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Thanks everyone.
Stay well.