We were lucky to catch up with Michelle Ramin recently and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)
The best investment I’ve ever made is in myself. I have doubled-down on myself over and over again in my life, and I’ve trusted that things would work out for me. And, generally, I think they really have!
Growing up, I was constantly being swayed towards something more “practical” than art. I’ve never been good at following rules or instructions, but I have always been good at being honest with myself and following my heart. I invested wholly in that.
I feel very lucky and grateful for that, but I am also acutely aware of how much work it took to get to where I am. I tell my students this all the time – never let someone else dictate your future. You are the only expert on you, and you are capable of anything and everything! You do, however, have to be brutally honest with yourself, in all of your strengths and weaknesses, and the clarity of those dreams – and absolutely follow through, every time. If you do this over and over again (for larger, career-based goals, this can take years – be patient and keep going!), things start to align with the path that you’ve set out for yourself. No one else can do that for you. There’s so much freedom in that, but also so much responsibility – to yourself. It’s a lot to take on as an individual. But, if you’re someone who’s willing to go that distance, to continuously battle on behalf of yourself, you will succeed in literally anything you set your mind to! I truly believe that.
Invest in yourself. Invest in your own truth and happiness. It will lead you down the right path, I promise!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m an artist, art professor, and gallery director/curator living and working in Los Angeles, CA. My career has meandered quite a bit since I was a kid – though I always knew I wanted to be an artist! It’s taken a couple decades to get to a point where I feel financially stable as well as creatively and emotionally fulfilled. I think that combination equates to success for me, and I actually finally <i>feel</i> successful! I’m not sure my 16 year old self, or 24, or 32, or even 38 would’ve believed that to be possible – but here I am!
I’ve worked so hard in my life. I went to undergrad at Penn State University and graduated in 2005 with a B.A. in fine art and minor in Art History. I didn’t know exactly where to go with that, so my then-boyfriend, now-husband Joel and I moved, semi-arbitrarily, across the country to Portland, Oregon – an inexpensive (at the time) hub for artists, musicians, filmmakers, and creatives of all sorts. It was an amazing time to be an artist in Portland – we all kinda grew up together there. I worked at an indie art supply store where I met many other artists like myself looking to support themselves while also having a lot of flexibility to create art. Some of my best friends, to this day, I met in that store (RIP Art Media – thank you for everything!). I could go on and on about those years in Portland because it truly was such a bohemian utopia for awhile. Such a beautiful community and thriving art scene. Those were the years of Etsy and craft fairs and DIY and riding bikes to our art studios in old deserted warehouses (one of which was an old coffin-making factory, I kid you not! Another story for another time.). Everything just felt possible then, and the vibe of that time in Portland really encouraged me to keep growing creatively.
The Recession years were harder, and I decided at that point to go to grad school. I had friends around me doing the same, and I loved the work that they were making and the conversations that they were having. Their work was growing by leaps and bounds, and I wanted that for myself, too. It was a great time to go back to school, because there weren’t a lot of art jobs then. I applied to MFA programs all over the country and ultimately decided on attending the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). This also turned out to be such an incredibly transformative experience, meeting some of the best artists and art mentors in the world. Fellow grad school peers, professors, and visiting artists all inspired me and supported me in my art practice. The SFAI visiting artists that I got to work directly with are some of the best visual artists of our generation including Nicole Eisenman, R. H. Quaytman, Lisa Sanditz, Wendy White, and many more (Shout out to my mentor Mark Van Proyen for bringing in many of these artists through the Clive Visiting Fellows program – what an amazing opportunity semester-after-semester for us!) – many of which I still keep in touch with! And SFAI was just so PUNK. Anything and everything was encouraged; experimentation and exploration were at the heart of that school, and I’m just so grateful that that was my art grad school experience. What a gift it was! It was here that I realized I also wanted to be an art professor (a good one, with punk ethics!), as my professors were so important to my growth as an artist and as a person.
After my years in SF, exhibiting and selling work in galleries and museums all over the country and getting started in my teaching career, I moved back to Portland to reset my life a bit. I was offered an adjunct teaching position at Clark College which eventually led to my first gallery directorship. These years, some of the hardest working through the pandemic, got me prepared for a tenure-track position that I now have at Norco College.
I’ve now been in Los Angeles for 2.5 years, and on the west coast for almost 20. Each of my career paths – in art, in teaching, in curation – have all been growing simultaneously. They finally culminated in this current iteration and combo of job titles “Artist” “Art Professor” “Gallery Director”. I always say “I wear a lot of hats!”, but what’s actually more accurate is I intentionally made these things happen and just never gave up (I am SO stubborn, y’all!).
I worked hard and manifested this moment. I’m more proud of this, defying a lot of expectations (including my own), than I can honestly put words to. And I’m so grateful for my community, my dear friends (hopefully you know who you are), who inspired and supported me along the way. I wouldn’t be where I am without you!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn a lot of incorrect ideas around failure, limits, and capabilities. What I was told growing up in a small conservative town in rural PA about what was possible in life (“You’ll only be successful if you’re doctor or a lawyer.” “You’ll never make it across the country; you’ll be back in 6 months.” “Art isn’t a practical career path.” etc.) – a lot of those ideas were full of fallacies. I think those fallacies were told to them, and they just passed that information along to me. I was always the “why” kid, much to my parents’, teachers’, and later bosses’ chagrin. I always needed a reason, because just telling me “no” for the sake of it didn’t, and still doesn’t!, make sense to me – and I didn’t back down from demanding a rational answer.
I try to give my students reasons for things whenever I can. I try to listen to their ideas, even, and maybe especially, when they go outside of set parameters. Parameters are general guidelines most of the time – it never hurts to ask if there might be another option! I often give my students, especially the ones that come to me with exciting and inspired ideas, room to go the direction they want – successful art is based in breaking rules! So I encourage it. I encourage my students to prove me and my guidelines wrong. I think it’s the rebellious punk spirit in me that I hope never ever goes away!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was accepted into the San Francisco Art Institute, I was very poor. I couldn’t afford to move to San Francisco, let alone pay for my tuition to an expensive private art school and live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I’ve never had financial support from family, and everything I have now my husband Joel and I have created and worked on together with a ton of resourcefulness and labor.
So, as is the case when I hear the word “no” in my head, I found a solution – which was to create an art auction, online and in-person, to sell off my artwork to raise funds to help us relocate. This was 2010 – Kickstarter wasn’t a thing (or at least, if it was, I didn’t know anything about it), so I created my own WordPress website (it’s still functioning actually! You can check it out here: https://michelleramin.wordpress.com/) for the auction, connected individual auction artworks to eBay, and every day for a month, I posted a new piece of art for 24 hours. I emailed my network and posted to social media (at the time, it was just MySpace and Facebook – no Instagram yet) when the artworks would come up for auction. The pieces went to the highest bidder, and at the end of the month, I had an in-person art show, auction and sale at my dear friend Jason Doize’s gallery FalseFront where we auctioned off the remaining larger works. I needed $5000 to move, and I think I ended up raising something like $4910. It was like it was meant to be!
Every problem always has a solution… and creative out-of-the-box thinking is usually part of the answer (art education vitally teaches this!). I stretched, as always, to find a way through. And it worked – I got to go to grad school in San Francisco! and the rest is history.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.michelleramin.com/
- Instagram: @michelleramin
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-ramin-4271b919/