We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Renée Ortiz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Renée, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
Oh, the what if’s… I often ponder, what might have happened if I had stayed at Otis and went all in for a career in art at a young age. It was exciting to be admitted into what was then called Otis Art Institute of Parson’s School of Design. I worked hard at creating a portfolio to earn a spot. I started immediately the summer after graduating high school. Even though I came from an highly sheltered Catholic school background, jumping in made sense. I became our class representative and fought for a first year’s gallery show. But navigating life there was difficult. I got scared into making ‘normal’ life choices and transferring to a more traditional college (LMU) to get my teaching degree instead. Maybe I thought that keeping art as a hobby would be enough. Seventeen/eighteen is awfully young to be making these seemingly permanent choices. I guess at the time, career counseling and life coaching wasn’t a thing. Nobody told me that college is just one step on a much longer path. Instead, the prevailing thought was whatever you chose to study, would naturally be your vocation for the next fifty years, so choose wisely!
I studied education to go into teaching, but then took a different route and went to DC to work for a bi-partisan commission where I designed and built an exhibit for the Bicentennial of the Constitution. I eventually returned to California, got married, had kids, and art was the predicted hobby. that would get shoved to the back of the closet, showing up in craft projects with my kids or for community fundraisers. After the first kid went to college I began a practice of completing a painting a day, that I still do without a single miss. This year I will finish painting #5,000. Eventually the kids were launched, marriage abandoned, and I was given the chance to re-imagine what my life could be: Art, front and center. During the pandemic, I finally went back to Art School, SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design, for my MFA in painting. I now teach at Saddleback College, and am a resident artist and educator for Segerstrom Center for the Arts. I also own a gallery, She/They in Santa Ana with the mission of creating space for womyn, queer and non-binary artists, and really all those who are marginalized. I have a regular painting practice where I mainly paint to themes of women and their invisibility in society.
I think I’ve accomplished a lot in eight years, so naturally that bodes the question, of what if I had started sooner.
Given the chance for a do-over, would I? Probably not.. Our journey is our journey. Art sifts through it all and gives us language to process these experiences and life lessons. A different path may not have brought the depth of life experience that I try to put forth in my work. Would I have known or noticed likewise marginalized women? Would I have fast tracked into New York gallery scene to be lost in the commodified art world and never reached the sensitivity that I now paint from? No regrets. Those are unknowables, so we move forward.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
There is a beautiful intersection in my life at the moment where my painting practice of telling the stories of myself and other invisible womyn, overflows into a curatorial practice in my gallery space that opens doors for unrecognized artists and facilitates conversations in the community which help to shift the focus and mindset of people and their preconceived ideas of women in the world of art -or really in the world as a whole.
The bisecting additional pathway through the gallery and studio is my role as an educator. I am currently teaching both ends of the invisibility spectrum: kids, who are discounted as too young to matter yet, and older adults who no longer hold influence. Yet, both these groups, if one takes the time to listen, have a lot to contribute. I learn so much from all of them.
The point of intersection is invisibility. Then in a somewhat cyclical fashion, each begets the next.
She/They gallery is encapsulated in our gallery statement:
A WOMYNIFESTO
This is a gathering spot, a refuge for the unseen, those overlooked and disadvantaged by society.
Here you’ll find community and representation for the stories long suppressed by the systems in place—the ones formed by the patriarchy, infused with gender norms, classism, racism, and heteronormativity. Here we fight against these systemic issues, we listen actively, we champion inclusivity, and challenge our deep-set notions.
This is a space formed in response to a lack of representation to over half the world’s artists. Collectively 85% of those represented by galleries are cisgender men and only 15% are women. In this gallery we aim to not only flip that statistic, but to also broaden our scope to all those Assigned Female at Birth, to Transgender Women, Intersex, and Non-Binary Folx. We heartily welcome and prioritize Womyn of Color and to those paralyzed by trauma, be it physical, emotional, or intergenerational.
Here you are seen. Your stories have weight. You matter.
To me, to us, be it she, ze, or they, here you will always have a place.
It’s hospitality. It is stepping outside of your own bubble, difficulties, and distractions to notice others. It is about taking time to listen, and care. When you do this, you remove some of that invisibility for another person.
As for this gallery segment of my life, my kid, Mal and I opened She/They in the Santora Arts Building In the Artist Village area of Santa Ana. For the past couple of years it has served as a pop up space for the monthly art walk. But plans have been in development to expand hours and opportunities to a more functionally usable community gathering space in between the monthly exhibits. I never set out to sell the art of other artists. I have no interest in this. If an artist makes a sale in She/They, I never take a percentage. But then, there are the business practicalities of rent and insurance… Still, my desire is to somehow remain a place where artists can create installations for something perhaps better than the destination of being hung over somebody’s sofa. I teach to inform my work and enrich my life, but I also teach to pay this rent. This month we are hosting Bloom, a women’s entrepreneurial conference, and are planning future artist led workshops, poetry readings and other events that align with our mission. Hopefully we will find alternative income streams so that the burden of expense to share work never falls to the artists. It is a small amount of money each month to some, but to me as an artist/educator it is a bit to carry alone. I am always open for ideas if you care to reach out.
I truly love what we have created here. The work shown has led to engaging community conversations on gender roles. rape culture, mental health, environmental concerns, narcissism and so much more. With everything going on in our world today, particularly in this current political climate, it is important that these spaces continue to exist. She/They Gallery wants to remain a refuge for for those that have just this week been written out of existence with the signature of a president. deciding not to recognize them. Invisibility.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Art patrons as well as art and culture as a responsibility of a nation are becoming very foreign and antiquated concepts. It is an odd thing to watch this language of visual arts fall out of favor as other things take priority. Often people have no problem paying large sums of money for a sporting event or concert, but want a museum to be free and artwork to be cheap. They ‘decorate’ with prints from a big box store rather than choosing to live with real and authentic art made to experience. Emerging and mid tier artists buy materials, research, and make work, but that’s not the end. They need to also pay fees for competitions to give then notability, to make them worth collecting. If the work is accepted into a show, they need to pay crating and shipping to and from. This is all without any sales. If an artist is wanting to express something in a more conceptual fashion or as installation, there is no income from this. But all of these things need to be done in hopes of museum relationships or press and other avenues of legitimization and credentialing. This shouldn’t be the burden of the artist. They are providing an immense service of helping people to see and converse, reason together and experience life, perhaps even open minds. But then, it should probably not be left to the viewer. I love that I can provide a ‘cheap date night’ to so many young people at our art walks each month. Still, artists deserve to be paid for their sacrifice and work.. Other country’s see value in this and pay their artists. Yes, every now and then I look at grants, but they nearly always come with strings. I don’t know what the answer is. All I know is that as this gets sorted, we can all do our part. Buy original art. Museums and gallery spaces often have donation boxes or or online ways to contribute. Toss a bit their way. How much did you tip on your last take out order? If you spend an evening at a free gallery reception, how much would you have spent for entertainment in alternative setting- concert, movie, play? Donate. If you don’t have anything to spare, you can utilize social media. Share about the artist or the work you just saw. Tag the artist and gallery. Help spread the word. Invite friends to attend their events. Ask how you can help. Art is for everyone. It benefits us all.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Odd, but I just picked ‘resilience’ as my word for 2025. I guess I think if I say it often enough it will be so. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t feeling resilient of late. I have been considering the hard choice of closing the gallery for lack of funding. I spend a lot of time teaching and the balance isn’t always there for my own work, let alone running a gallery space. A few big personal blows as well as some name calling and threatening hate mail over flying a lgbtq+ flag made me consider quitting it all and leaving the country. I was slipping. How are people so mean? I believed better of them. I’m still climbing out of that muck right now- but with the word resilience in neon ahead of me. What fuels that light is the remembrance of people reading the gallery statement with tears streaming, calling over their partner to share, and then being told of how grateful they are. At last they felt seen. -And that is what my work is about. The pieces fall together. I need to hold them in place, dig deep and find resilience– and then breathe.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shethey.gallery/ https://www.reneeortizstudios.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reneeortizstudios/ https://www.instagram.com/she.they.gallery_/
