We were lucky to catch up with Stacy Conde recently and have shared our conversation below.

Stacy , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Though my childhood was not exactly idyllic, the arts were certainly appreciated in my home. …but it was sort of nebulous, we never talked about “the arts” in any formal way, we didn’t go to museums nor attend gallery openings; I was encouraged to create for the sole purpose of creation. My mother was good at anything she put her mind to, including sculpting, painting, culinary and fiber work, the woman even played piano. She was also an avid reader and encouraged me to do the same. I experimented mostly with photography, drawing, embroidery and writing. These were all diversions to me though, past times, it never occurred to me that these were potential career paths, even as my mother opened her own business designing and painting extremely intricate, and expensive, needlepoint canvases. It wasn’t until I graduated high school at 17 and took a job working as assistant to Barbara Hulanicki, British fashion icon and founder of Biba, that I finally realized I could make a living in the arts. It’s odd how blind one can be to what’s right in front of you.
Barbara is another incredible woman who is interested in everything. Under her I worked on nightclub and hotel interiors, styling for music videos, period style make up, photography, and costume design. Barbara taught me how to create a vibe, a completely immersive atmosphere. My education took place in what was, in retrospect, the arts heyday of South Beach, the late 80’s early 90’s. The rent was beyond affordable, and the visuals were stunning. Picture a post apocalyptic, seedy, Art Deco beach paradise inhabited by artists, squatters, Jewish retirees from up North, Marielitos, and supermodels. We were all living in a Fellini film.
I opened my first gallery, Goodman-Conde Gallery, in the the Design District in Miami in 1998, and wrote my book, “The Red Speck”, in 2011.

Stacy , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Most of my work over the last decade centers around supporting other creatives, primarily visual artists, in their work. Urged on by my husband, Cuban born artist, Andres Conde, I opened Conde Contemporary in 2013. Our focus has historically been on living artists working mostly in classical painting and sculpture, serving private collectors, institutions and commercial projects through our work with designers.

The pandemic years have created an interesting shift, a doubling down on end goals and a dialing in on what actually matters to me. We pivoted from our location in Coral Gables, to Natchez, Mississippi, where we purchased a 200 year old building and are enjoying a greater sense of community and artistic freedom. While sales are obviously still a key aspect of the business, the move has afforded me the ability to broaden the scope of projects in which Conde Contemporary participates.

In 2020 I curated the exhibition “Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil”, an immersive and Covid compliant experience which involved creating a living Southern garden at midnight within the confines of the gallery, complete with fragrant plants, trees, stars, cricket sounds and a pond. In the front windows of the gallery were tableaux, in one window was a black woman dressed sensually in yellow with a gold crown and jewelry, in the other a white woman dressed in gold robes and a crown holding a baby. Before entering the gallery, viewers were stopped in the street and asked to make a snap judgement on good and evil by choosing which woman represented which. After making their call, the participants were handed a sheet on the installation explaining that the women were simply two aspects of one entity in Santeria, neither were evil. Participants were asked to examine why they chose as they did. On entry to the gallery family / friend groups explored the garden and discovered artworks revealed around each bend, then exited through the back before the next group entered.

In November of 2021, I partnered with Lindsay Glatz, Creative Director of Luna Fete in New Orleans, and co-founded “Allumer Natchez”, Mississippi’s first annual light based art exhibition and festival. Lindsay and I also started a 501c3, Arts Danu, which will be a teaching artists residency program based here in Natchez.

This year we’ve got two solo exhibitions slated, one for the Cuban master Ruben Torres Llorca tentatively titled, “WTF and Other Stories”, and another for Andres Conde on cancel culture, which combines realism and his first passion, pop art.

As things return to normal, we’re really looking forward to participating in the major art fairs again.

If pressed I would say my greatest strengths are probably imagination and story telling ability. I can easily understand, imagine, communicate and extrapolate upon an artist’s vision. Likewise, I deeply listen and internalize the needs and wants of a given client, and in doing so I’m able to fulfill the client’s desires, which leads to sales. I am an interpreter between client and artist, with full access to both hemispheres of my brain. I think it’s this duality, the ability to operate as a commercial venture, while appreciating the artistic process at a visceral level that sets Conde Contemporary and all our projects apart.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Anytime we speak of “society” you know we’ll be making sweeping assumptions, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

If we were able to shift from a disposable and quantity over quality society to a generational way of thinking, we’d be doing a huge service to the creative economy.

Buying poorly made, mass produced furniture, clothing, and goods necessitates having to buy them again, and again, because they’re disposable – simply not built to last. Ultimately the inexpensive thing ends up costing as much, if not more, than the well made artisan thing, and in a counterintuitive way what’s meant to be “affordable” keeps us in poverty by forcing us to spend our money on the same thing, over and over.

Curating our homes and lives as we would curate a permanent art collection made to outlive current trends, and handed down to the next generation, would require us to buy from artisans, and crafts people. Well made beautifully designed objects which serve a functional purpose are a perfect example of this idea, a dining room table and chairs for instance, illustrates the point well.

What if instead of rushing for the immediate gratification of Ikea, we waited, and instead made a nightly event of eating while sitting on the floor on pillows until we’d saved enough to afford the hand made dining room set created by a local woodworker we really wanted for our family? That dining room set would mean something to our children because they’d remember sitting on those pillows. The sale of the table would feed the family of the woodworker, and allow them to invest in more materials. The beauty, quality, and sentiment of the piece would increase the chances of the set being passed down to one of the children, meaning that child as an adult would not have to spend money on a dining room set, and free up their budget for the purchase of something else. In the immediate future, we would not have to buy another dining room set.

Once this mentality is in place, it easily expands to include fine art. Why would you hang a poster from Target in a room you’ve intentionally curated over the years? A home, no matter the socioeconomic class, which fosters a love of the arts has the potential to create multi-generational wealth simply by collecting mindfully.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I’m neither for nor against NFT’s. If you’re into making them and people are into buying them, good for you. Make your money.

Contact Info:

• Website: condecontemporary.com, idolsofthetribe.com
• Instagram: @condecontemporary, @cococoasttocoast
• Facebook: @condecontemporary