We recently connected with Danielle Galligan and Nicole Folino and have shared our conversation below.

Danielle Galligan and Nicole Folino, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

In March of 2020, like so many others, we realized how fragile our business truly was. When production crews were no longer able to assemble to collaborate and create imagery for advertisers and editorial clients to share with audiences, our professional lives and those of the incredible artists we represent came to a complete standstill. As safety protocols were being designed, budgets were being adjusted and schedules were being shifted, we thought about how disarming it was to have our agency stripped from us in an instant. We couldn’t make the production world re-open any faster than it was safely allowed to but we could ready ourselves for when it did. We could start to envision what kind of company we wanted to create once we were at the helm of our own business, and that’s exactly what we did. We dreamed up the idea for Artists With Agency on one agonizingly uncertain day late that spring and resolved to celebrate the resiliency and resourcefulness of the artists we have most loved championing in the last two decades – artists who realize, as independent contractors and individual small business owners, they hold the reins of their careers and they have limitless potential. From there we came up with the name: Artists *With* Agency.

We offer a unique lens to our role as agents in being transparent about the importance of each individual we work with – their talent, their grit, their creativity, their adaptability. We know we can help these talented artists flourish so long as they know their value and remain open to going with the ebbs and flows of the industry, and as an Agency, we’re along for the ride *with* them.

Danielle Galligan and Nicole Folino, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

At Artists With Agency, we represent wardrobe, prop and food stylists, hair and makeup artists, production coordinators, location scouts, set designers, wranglers, and styling assistants.

AWA provides clients in the film and photography worlds with the support of consummate professionals who are incredible at their craft, hard working and adaptable collaborators. Before opening our doors in October of 2023, we spent over fifteen years with Ennis Inc, a boutique agency of the same nature, where we were able to identify the attributes that led to its successful forty-year-run. When Barbe Ennis retired, we were excited to take the helm of an agency of our own.

ENNIS had been formed as an extension of Barbe’s illustrious career as a makeup artist when she incorporated in 1984 to allow for sale of her makeup line and the representation of artists her clients approached her to book on photoshoots in the Boston and New York regions. In 2006, ENNIS went bi-coastal when a group of the agency’s New York based artists and one of the agency’s in-house Artist Representatives relocated to the west coast and began pursuing and accumulating clientele in and around Los Angeles. Over the course of four decades, the agency represented close to one hundred artists working with clients ranging from TJX and New Balance, Fage to Friendly’s, Macy’s and Sam’s Club, The Hollywood Reporter to Vogue, Saucony, Alex & Ani, Ross Simons, Reebok, Living Proof, Real Simple Magazine, HGTV, Citizens, Toyota, Delta, Goop, Globe Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Uppababy, Beachbody, Boston Magazine, First Aid Beauty, iRobot, LLBean, Savant, PUMA, Thrive Market, Vista Print, Billboard, Clarks, ESPN Magazine, Harvard Business School, Underarmour, Amazon and countless more.

Danielle first assisted wardrobe and prop stylists represented by ENNIS Inc in the fall of 2006. She applied her experience on photo and commercial sets as a child model in the late 80s and 90s, her work designing theatre sets as a Theatre Major at Boston College, and her organizational skills honed in various leadership positions throughout her educational career to the work and absorbed information about the industry while on the sets of shoots for major advertising and retail clients of Ennis’s. In February of 2007, she stepped into the role of one of three Artist Representatives beginning to focus on the New York roster and client list. She moved to New York City in 2008 and spent five years representing talent from a remote office there, taking on the LA market as a portion of her territory in 2010. She relocated to Los Angeles from January 2014 – July 2015 to get the lay of the land there as well. She has been based in Boston since August of 2015.

Nicole Folino was hired by ENNIS in the spring of 2008 to manage the office and handle the agency’s billing and invoicing. Her impeccable attention to detail and unmatched productivity led to her assuming additional responsibilities in part time assisting of key stylists and her keen eye led to opportunities for her to lead wardrobe style herself for clients like Reebok. Her years working directly with the artists to polish their invoice packages gave her an extensive understanding of the elements of efficient and economical sourcing, and with a background in sales and strong network from Lasell University in Newton which boasts programs in Fashion Design and Production, Media and Marketing, Merchandising and Management, she was quick to master the range of skills required for repping.

We pride ourselves on being problem solvers, creative thinkers, and Jills of all trades. Together we’ve curated a roster of artists who have navigated this industry for decades with agency and agility. We’ve built an ethos where reliability, flexibility, and teamwork are the core of the representation we provide — supporting healthy, meaningful careers of artists.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Our conversations with our boss, Barbe, regarding her plans to retire and our intention to take over her business started the year before Covid had us all in a period of perpetual pivoting. Our vision for the transition changed considerably during the shut down as we realized that, rather than acquire the existing company, we were eager to put our individual mark on the industry with an all new masthead, brand and voice. Still, out of gratitude and respect for Barbe’s mentorship, we were committed to first helping wind down operations at Ennis gracefully. In the summer of 2022, we came to the table with Barbe and laid out a timeline for doing so based on her desire to continue working for a couple more years. That timeline would take us to a launch date of July 2024 for our new business, and with that timeline in mind, in our personal lives we set to work planning two major projects – Nicole, a full home renovation and Danielle, starting a family with her husband.

Fast forward to March of 2023: Barbe shocked us at a lunch we were having to go over the transition timeline when she told us she was ready to retire effective immediately and she hoped to shudder Ennis by June of 2023 – a full year ahead of schedule. Her decision was spurred by the loss of her mother-in-law and a dear friend to cancer within a few months of each other, and while it threw us for a loop, we were up to the challenge of expediting our roll out. Especially after the years in business we’d had that were dramatically impacted by Covid, we had been looking forward to prioritizing the life side of our work-life balance for the majority of 2023 and to picking up the design and plans for our new business ideally after Nicole’s home situation was stable and Danielle had cleared a maternity leave, but in light of Barbe’s new goal, we pivoted.

We asked her to stick with us and the artists on the ENNIS roster until the end of September since we had contracts with six month severance periods in place with all of them, and we got to work enlisting the help of a web designer, an accountant, a lawyer and a social media team. Danielle found out she was pregnant the weekend before the news of Barbe’s retirement was shared with the artists, and Nicole’s construction had a break ground date of October 1st – the same day we were launching AWA. It was a whirlwind summer, but we couldn’t be prouder of how we managed to maneuver through the expedited transition and find our new rhythm as business owners.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We are super excited about how intentionally we have set out to build Artists With Agency’s audience on social media. We made the fabulous decision early on to team up with the dynamic duo of Julia Sweeney and Christina Berlinguet at CJPR on all things social, and we defer to them when it comes to advice regarding social media.

CJPR takes a holistic approach to follower growth, putting an emphasis on quality over quantity when it comes to building a strong followership. Consistently engaging and interacting with like-accounts builds a true community of followers more likely to connect and authentically engage with content. CJPR’s holistic approach also focuses on creating strategic calls to action that lead to increased traffic, not only to our social pages, but our website.

Keeping a finger on the pulse of algorithm trends and closely monitoring insights has also allowed us to be more thoughtful in when and what we choose to share with our followers for maximum impact.

Check us out @artistswithagency – we look forward to continuing to build our audience with readers like you!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artistswithagency.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artistswithagency/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550890774471
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/artists-with-agency/

Image Credits

Image 1 Hair & Makeup by Lori Greene, Styling by Anica Buckson, Photography by JJ Miller
Image 2 Styling by Erin Riley, Photography by Leonard Greco
Image 3 Styling by MNK Studio Art, Photography by Michele Anderson
Image 4 Styling by Anica Buckson, Photography by Elizabeth Joy Sanders
Image 5 Styling by Christian Adams, Photography by Lena Mirasola