Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tina Picz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on, so far, has been opening Firefolk Arts, a family-run gallery and art space in rural Vermont, which amplifies and uplifts underrepresented artists and voices. Firefolk Arts is the only Asian American or BIPOC woman-owned gallery in Vermont. It is also a community center, third space, co-working studio, and event venue, where we host multi-disciplinary exhibitions, workshops, performances, and gatherings of all sorts.
It has been so meaningful for me, as a life-long artist and entrepreneur, who mainly worked from home, to finally have a brick and mortar space to share with our community of artists and neighbors, because it felt much needed in our area. As a Filipina American woman-owned space, we seek to foster community-building practices, while representing a diverse range of lived experiences and nuanced stories of the diaspora. We uplift the stories, heritages, and work of those who are less heard in the mainstream media, museums, and galleries, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, women, and youth. We find it crucial to continually thwart gatekeeping in the arts, by offering more space and air time for oppressed or underrepresented people, and their art, to be seen and heard more widely.
Having the ability and privilege of offering shared space to promote and build up other artists, while utilizing my own creative skills, is a heart-filling joy.
Tina, 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?
As a Filipino American artist, creative director, photographer, published writer, singer, and female entrepreneur, living and working in the extremely homogenous state of Vermont, having moved here in 2020 from diverse cities like Boston and Brooklyn, the need for uplifting varied cultures, food-ways, and ancestrally affirming creative practices became very clear to me. I had worked in food photography and styling for 8 years in Boston and Vermont, and was ready for a shift, regarding how I share my creative skills with the world. In June of 2023, I founded Firefolk Arts gallery and art space, after working in the arts and collaborating with others for decades, through various art collectives and jobs.
My family is multiracial, and I’m the daughter of an immigrant mother, and after joining a few collectives for BIPOC in Vermont, hearing many stories of racial discrimination, inequity, and supremacy culture, I felt ignited to do something about it, locally. Firefolk Arts was my response.
It started with an empty, garage-like space in an old firehouse on Main Street. I began brainstorming how our family might utilize this space to bring together humans from many backgrounds and life paths, to allow cross-cultural edification, skill-sharing, and greater in-person connection, after such an isolating time had arisen out of the pandemic.
Our society is currently experiencing a time of isolation on epidemic scales, with our country’s mental health crisis rising. A CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll put a number to it: 90% of Americans feel we are in a mental health crisis, and it rose during the pandemic. That loss of connection and need for community, inspired me to create this space, as there is no YMCA or dedicated youth center in our area, aside from the ski resorts.
We now host all types of multicultural art events, from music and poetry performances, to comedy, to visual exhibitions and classes, and have seen people repeatedly drive 1-2 hours (and even from Canada) to participate in our offerings, as they say they’ve found a space that is difficult to find in Vermont. We also have co-working art studios for rent, that artists use long-term, or for brief projects and music lessons. We’ve now had 5 art exhibitions, with a range of concepts from caregiver / mother’s issues, to BIPOC land tending and labor, to heritage and Arab issues, all of which were curated to highlight current topics and stories that affect underrepresented or marginalized people.
My teen daughter, Harmony, who is Vermont’s first Youth Poet Laureate, also assists in organizing youth-centered events and open mics, to engage kids in cultural diffusion. And my husband, Devo, a creative entrepreneur, has been a huge support in co-hosting these events with me. Their volunteer help, time, and efforts are essential to our ability to keep this space going, while I manage all of the administrative, organizational, and financial aspects of the business. The website design and upkeep, planning and curation of events, social media, calendars, photography, marketing, grant writing, flyer design, contracts, and budget are my responsibility as Founding Director, and I’m ever grateful for the sense of purpose that I glean from the opportunity to serve our creative community in this way.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
The main resource that I wish I had greater knowledge of earlier in my creative journey would be grant writing. Since I opened my art space, I have needed assistance with many costs, including unforeseen ones, like water damage from flooding. I’ve had to apply for several grants, and it is not my strong skill, so it has been challenging to get the help I need financially, as I chose to take no loans for this endeavor. If I had learned grant writing as a young entrepreneur, it would have helped on my long journey of owning a few independent businesses, and not having much financial knowledge prior. I now often send other artists links to grants that can help them on their paths, in order to get more support from the many outside sources, locally and nationally, that offer funding to creatives. I think it is so important to learn this skill, and to perhaps take a course on grant writing, if you plan to have a career in the arts or business ownership.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist, is self-expression: the joy derived from putting something out into the world that came directly from inside of me… from my heart, soul, body, and mind.
Having the ability to share my inner world and emotions, using creative skills, has been a lifelong aid in allowing me to grow and expand my emotional intelligence, and connect to others on a deep level. From writing poetry as a teen through adulthood, to photography, singing, painting, curating, and promoting my own and others’ art, I have loved the catharsis that comes from releasing whatever arises from within. It’s a way to continually learn more about my ever-evolving self, and others.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.firefolkarts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firefolkarts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565121166823
- Other: Press:
Boston Globe
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/07/arts/aapi-owned-gallery-firefolk-arts-fills-critical-gap-vermont-art-scene/TV News WCAX
https://www.wcax.com/2023/10/27/new-mad-river-valley-gallery-seeks-showcase-under-represented-artists/Article
https://www.valleyreporter.com/index.php/news/artsent/18743-ritual-as-portals-into-ancestral-knowledge?highlight=WyJmaXJlZm9sayJdArticle
https://www.valleyreporter.com/index.php/news/artsent/18388-art-show-highlights-the-hidden-realities-of-caretaking?highlight=WyJmaXJlZm9sayJd
Image Credits
Daniel Brooks, Tina Picz, Harmony Devoe, Jon Devoe, Shannon Aubourg