We recently connected with Desiree Brothe and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Desiree thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

Advocate for yourself. We hear this all the time in one way or another, and I think largely we either ignore it, or we determine that it means that we need to do more social media to tell our own story. And, while that last part has some truth, that’s not what I mean.

My first three years working in community/economic development were rough, rewarding too, but rough. I was consistently viewed as young, as female, as inexperienced. All of those things were accurate. However, I had also learned quickly and gained more knowledge of the industry that I was working in than several of my counterparts, and I wasn’t afraid to speak up about what I thought would work best for our community. Then our Executive Director left; and after a year and a half leading as the Interim Executive Director, our board chose to seek out a more seasoned individual in the field to act as a replacement. While I had not thrown my own hat in the ring, I had realized that the leadership and work I had been doing was not enough to garner the support of my colleagues.

And that was when I learned what advocating for myself really meant. It wasn’t enough to put in the 60+ hour weeks, to be at all the functions, to be as diligent and passionate as I was. Those things might be recognized, but until I spoke up and said, “I want the job and here’s why I’m the candidate that best fits this role,” no one was going to take me seriously.

So, how does this relate to my art-making? If it wasn’t for that very difficult, painful, and annoying lesson, I’m not sure where my art and my art business would be today. During that time I didn’t make art and I didn’t leave time for it–I wasn’t advocating for my own art. I had found people that I could trust working in the creative sector, and we had started to build a stronger foundation for an arts supported environment. That network and support has allowed me to feel that I would be respected and heard by putting myself out there as an artist and not just as a work professional.

I’m still uncomfortable with advocating for myself and speaking up; I do much better talking about any work I do that relates to arts advocacy and programming than I do about my own artwork. And I know that the limited time I still have to make art stifles my ability to truly excel at the practice of it. But regardless of those factors, I’m controlling my own message, my own brand, and how I chose to advocate for the work I want to be doing and my role within it.

Desiree , 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?

Creating things has always been important to me, and my hands and mind always have to be busy. I like trying out new media, experimenting with what works and riding that process through a series of art pieces until I’m tired of looking at them, and then moving on to the next thing. It’s partially why my portfolio remains eclectic; I get excited about texture and color, line and feel, and how different mediums can impact the way we experience it all as the viewer.

As a kid I created with paper media in 2-D and 3-D forms; architectural and landscape design, and learning the curves and anatomy of the human body. As an adult, that creation has pared down to accommodate space and time, but usually results in watercolor and acrylic as the media, with function and use as the final product. And there’s still so much I haven’t had time to uncover. I’ve always wanted to be an illustrator, whether for books or album covers, or whatever the end-result. I like storytelling through art and the ability to hint at some of the deeper things we encounter in life.

I have a current series going, which will be acrylic paint on birch wood panels, that features ‘muses’ of time. I have a bit of an obsession over the usage and impacts that time has on my life, and I wanted to call back to my art history roots by showcasing each function of time as a haloed icon. Ironically, I haven’t had time to sit down and really dig into the series.

2022 has started off great for my art making and art business. I’ve got one mural in the books, and another large one to keep me busy for the rest of the year. And between the Time series and a few other ideas, plus preparing pieces for a few shows, I’m not lacking for creative outlets. But, 2022 is also proving to be a comeback year for our community art movement, and I’ve spent the first three months working on several different community-based art projects with my fellow arts partners. Focusing on community arts work ends up just as important (if not moreso) to me because of the direct need and my ability to help further our local arts environment. I can’t wait to look back in December and see our successes and challenges, knowing that we did some cool shit this year.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Living in Wyoming, we learn to make our own fun. This means that if we want a resource, an idea, an amenity to come to life, we spend a lot of time figuring out how to make it happen. This is due to multiple reasons: we don’t have state income tax, which is great on the paycheck and many other life aspects, but it also means we don’t have funding to support a lot of community and government driven arts efforts that other states benefit from. We are also a big state with a small population (just under 600k total) and we’re very spread apart. In Cheyenne, we have a lot of leakage between people and money to and from Northern Colorado, which impacts our economy and local support systems.

All of these things come together to mean that our arts networks can be siloed, creatives are driven online, or need to create their own small arts communities to find commonality with one another, and we work hard to celebrate art successes across our towns and our state to make sure the arts are supported. But this is often not enough when it comes to acceptance and funding of all arts. It’s important to understand the cultural diversity that exists across our state and how we support that through engagement, display, and funding to ensure it maintains just as high a regard as the more common western cannons.

Talking about art and creative economy as an impact driver, leveraging millions of dollars into the local economy isn’t done enough. Pre-pandemic 2019 reports from Westaf showed that in Cheyenne alone, with a population of a little under 100k, there were roughly 1500 jobs in a creative industry, with 37.8 million total earnings. Our cultural non-profits were deriving 6.4 million in annual revenue. As artists and creatives, we need to use data and strategic language to help show that making art in any form not only boosts the identify of the community, but informs the community’s economic success.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

When I was in middle school, I read ‘My Name is Asher Lev’ by Chaim Potok. It’s the story of a young Hasidic Jewish artist prodigy, growing up in Brooklyn in the 50s and 60s. It’s a deep, impactful story, that’s not always easy, and speaks to values of making and becoming an artist that feel very different today. There’s a part in the book, where Asher’s teacher, a fictional, infamous artist named Jacob Kahn, tells Asher not to become a ‘whore’ for his art. This is in reference to them encountering a somewhat sleazy, quick-talking artist, whose insistence that everyone should be moving to the next big art city, where everyone is going to stay relevant, where the big money is, is the thing to do.

This idea of not becoming a ‘whore’ to one’s art is about maintaining your conviction as an artist, about being true to yourself, your ideals, your way of thinking, and your way of portraying the world, and has stuck with me for a long time. I’ve recently reread this book for at least the 5th time, and that instance struck me a little bit when I think about how we make and share art today. Social media is important for an artist, since so much of our lives and ability to reach an audience has moved online, but I think it’s important to not to simply follow trends and the next big thing on social media for one’s art as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: magpiecreations.art
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