We were lucky to catch up with Elena Ruocco Bachrach recently and have shared our conversation below.

Elena, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

I met Ryan Kelley when he was 17 years old, I was then the Executive Director of a regional arts association North of Boston. He arrived with an amazing sculpture to enter into the annual Young & Budding Artists Show. I was immediately struck by his talent and capacity to execute at such a young age. Our relationship would evolve over the last dozen years or so — mentor/mentee, Executive Director/Board Member, professional colleagues. To mark ten years in as a professional artist, Ryan wanted to publish a book which would tell the story of the making of a special sculpture … really, it would tell his story. We had been working together on grant opportunities, and this grew into an invitation from him to write the copy for the book (which would also include the work of a brilliant photographer, Ryan Gregory). I became an anthropologist and translator, as well as writer. Ryan has achieved much professional success as an artist in recent years and the publication of the book this Fall will be a particularly meaningful moment of recognition and reflection. Having launched Writing Art in late 2022/early 2023, Ryan’s success led to an opportunity for me to showcase the services Writing Art offers to individual artists as well as arts and culture organizations. It has been a win-win experience. For us personally, it has been a professional “full circle” allowing Ryan’s talents to shine (again) and for me to gain further visibility for Writing Art.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Are you an artist, or an arts and culture organization, looking for a writer to help tell your story and broaden the reach and appreciation of your art or work? That’s what I do.

I am a Freelance Writer focused on translating visual and performing arts into the written word. As a passionate supporter and consumer of the arts, I thrive on the translation of artistic vision into the written language with experience helping others achieve their individual or institutional goals. I have a deep understanding of organizations committed to the arts, service, and action. My expertise is in celebrating and communicating the creative’s story for artist statements, book projects, marketing materials, strategic planning and visioning documents, grant applications, or editing assignments. The finished products can be targeted for the digital space and/or the print world. Writing Art is agile and collaborates with individual artists as well as with teams serving arts and culture organizations. In addition, given my start in the world of academia and the social sciences, I am comfortable with assignments that take me outside of the art space and back to thinking about issues of social, economic, and environmental justice — and sometimes the spaces may inspirationally collide.

Throughout your time working with me, you will draw upon my skills as an expert project manager, problem solver, and creative collaborator, and benefit from my strong writing, research and editing skills. I can be trusted to meet deadlines and have the capacity to see and value the minutiae as well as the big picture. You can rely on my ability to be both a self-starter and a team player. And all with humor tossed in to keep us grounded.

Let’s talk and write your story.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I used to think of myself as a non-creative. After all, I came from an extensive social sciences background and “creating” was not a word that was often found in our lexicon. But I now see that the threads for Writing Art were being woven all along as my career progressed. Early on I decided that a narrow tenure-track university faculty life was not for me (too many other interests!) and that, with my PhD in hand, I could work on the administrative side of a college or university. That’s what I did, and I was very fortunate to work at two fascinating institutions (New School University, formerly The New School, and Bennington College). I was exposed to very different administrative and managerial styles. When I was offered opportunity which I thought was beyond my reach, it turned out it was not, and I began to trust my skill sets. At Bennington, I was also introduced to creators (dancers, costume designers, ceramicists, musicians) who were my senior staff colleagues and taught me about innovative, vulnerable ways to solve problems. And soon, I was traveling down the road of arts administrative work — this would be my work for almost twenty years. I still thought of myself as a non-creative. It turns out, however, that the work I was called to do on a variety of occasions was in fact asking me to be creative. Then, fortuitously, I was invited to lead a community of 650+ artists and was steeped in all kinds of creative expressions, and my own was beginning to take hold too. Life and family needs would mean a move out of state — I was preparing for a job search in the same arts administration arena. But something stopped me. Instead, the small assignment I had taken on with one artist broke open for me a new possibility: my own creative venture which would weave together the eclectic (maybe not so much) threads of my academic and professional lives. And Writing Art began to take shape. My message to “non creatives” is to not narrow your understanding of what it means to be creative — I expect you too may be a creative and not yet recognize, know that about yourself. Explore the possibilities and you may be surprised!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The years I spent in arts administration pointed me towards the mission of Writing Art. Many artists are gifted writers and serve very well as their own marketing executives. However, more often than not I found myself in conversation with artists who bemoaned the need to share news about their art in words, but could not bring themselves to muster the energy and focus to do so. So many marketing and communication formats require words (paired with still and moving images or music). A few years ago when asked by an artist to assist with grants research and writing (something I thought I would do on the side of some other bigger job), I had no idea what that assignment might mean. After a couple of years, work on grants research and writing moved to writing a book. When asked to write the copy for a photo essay book, I probably should have Googled all kinds of things. Instead I jumped in and created my own process for the writing (in conversation with the artist) that proved to be very productive. As much as writing was required of me, I also infused the process with my anthropological curiosity and capacity for translation — both proved integral to my writing and the final copy. And the joy that I experienced in bringing the artist’s journey to life in words provided the starting point for Writing Art. Why could I not to the same for other artists and/or arts and culture organizations? The answer? I could. And so I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.writingart.net
• Instagram: @writingarterb
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088838397409
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaruoccobachrach/
• Other: Writing Art email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Portrait photo: Eva Timothy, illumea.com “EL” logo art credit: Debbie Shirley, debbieshirley.com Other website photography: Elena Ruocco Bachrach Book images: Ryan Gregory, rgphoto.co; Ryan Kelley, wirebyryan.com, Meg Saunders, MarshallCreativeDesign.com