Laura Ritchie: Curator, Community Arts Organizer, Arts Advocate
Creatives in Conversation: I believe that we can learn so much from each other and I am fascinated by the ways in which artists of all media move through the creative process. Each month I feature a different local artist as we discuss the challenges and joys that come from accessing and living with their creativity.
Photo by Katie Frohbose
Laura Ritchie is co-founder and former director of The Carrack, a zero-commission community art space that existed in Durham from 2011-2019. A native of Salisbury, North Carolina, Laura has studied at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, the Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy and the Institute for Curatorial Practice at Hampshire College. She is a National Arts Strategies 2015 Creative Community Fellow and a 2014 Indie Arts Award winner. Laura is currently the visiting curator at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte and serves on Duke Performance’s Advisory Board, on the Board of Directors for Elsewhere in Greensboro, and on the Public Art Committee for the City of Durham. Laura lives in Durham with her partner, shirlette, and their cat, Fiddle.
Laura is an arts advocate and independent curator. She works to organize and support interdisciplinary, community-engaged projects across the arts in North Carolina.
You are an artist yourself and also a curator of art. Do you have any other ways in which you would describe yourself?
Most of my work is with emerging artists and artists who are finding their voice or a new direction. And so I spend a lot of time encouraging artists to get comfortable identifying as artists. It's interesting to see how much of a barrier there is for folks to claim that identity. And I say that because I struggle with that as well.
I made art my whole life and went to undergraduate for it, I have a BFA from UNC-Chapel Hill, but I haven't had an active studio practice since we started The Carrack in 2011. I have no idea what my art would look like if I returned to that type of making. Maybe I will someday but I don't know. So that word artist ... I really value it and I do identify as an artist and currently it looks like curating, and bringing people together through community events organized around other artists’ work.
And that's a creative act.
Yes, it scratches that same itch. Sometimes I'll talk to folks about this and their response assumes that I am hoping to find that studio practice again. Maybe I will, but I'm not longing for it. My creative tendencies and desires and energies are satisfied by the field of curation. And I'm starting to look for the right title or next step because [I’m in a transition period and] more and more I'm finding myself in a place of advocacy and community organizing.
“Visioning the world that we want to be in is part of an artist’s responsibility - and power.”
Tell me a little bit about how you see curation and advocacy as creative acts.
There's this bell hooks quote that I return to all the time that a fellow arts organizer introduced me to. She writes that the function of art is to imagine what's possible. And that's what we do as artists and as creatives, and what I strive to do through curation and also advocacy.
In the curatorial and arts organizing realm I’m working with artists to help them imagine their work out in the public with a public audience. It's a really different experience to be in your studio and it's often very solitary. To translate that into a setting where strangers can see the world the way you're seeing it … there's a lot of creativity in that and so that's how I approach my curatorial practice – by trying to align myself as closely and as deeply with the artist [as possible] in order to act as a bridge, to step from that alignment via their perspective into an anticipation of someone else's perspective on their work. I want to figure out how to facilitate that interaction and the authentic understanding and connection that might come from that.
Was there a turning point in your life when you realized that you wanted to commit to the arts realm?
I was always interested in making art. I have a very creative family. My mom is a landscape architect and part of a generation where it was all hand-drafted. I took art classes as a kid and there were always art supplies around. So there was a lot of space for creativity and imagination growing up. When I was in college at UNC-Chapel Hill I started volunteering at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro and I just loved it. I loved the conversations with the artists. I loved arranging their work in the space. And by a series of random circumstances I ended up being the gallery coordinator for the ArtsCenter as a junior in college. Through this experience, this exposure to this other type of work at the ArtsCenter, [I realized] that I wanted to work in this curatorial/facilitator role.
What does living a creative life mean to you?
It means allowing yourself to be curious and then following that curiosity in yourself and in other people. Creative people are really curious people, it's this imagining what's possible. It means that you look around and see the world and you also see what's not there and feel empowered to try and create it. It means being really open to flexible schedules and ways of working, and being willing to put yourself in situations that are outside of your comfort zone, connecting with folks that you might not typically connect with or asking questions that you might not typically ask.
There's a lot of patience in that, there's a sort of push-pull of rigorous activity and waiting. So there's beauty in that and a lot of mess too. And a lot of connecting and relationship building.
I'm also of the mindset that the best creative work happens collaboratively and that's how I work.
Photo by Katie Frohbose
What do you think the role of the artist is within their community?
I think that artists need to first and foremost trust themselves and their work. Trust that they have something important to give to the world and trust that the world needs it, which is a hard goal to hang onto a lot of times because unfortunately our world doesn't always say that clearly, it doesn't always provide that affirmation or those access points to opportunity that encourage artists to keep doing what they're doing. So I think first and foremost artists need to make sure they can make their work.
I do also think that there is a strong social responsibility. I know and respect a lot of artists who don't necessarily agree with me. But visioning the world that we want to be in is part of an artist's responsibility - and power. When I say artists, I'm also extending that out to this whole network of people who make art accessible – like the curator, the arts administrator, the documentarian, all of those other roles that make [art] possible.
What are some creative challenges that you have come up against in your creative journey and how have you moved past them or are you still in the process of trying to move past them?
Two big ones come to mind immediately. One is imposter syndrome, fear that I don't belong here or my voice isn't valuable or it's going to look stupid or fail. When you're creating things that don't already exist, it's scary. There's no clear marker of what the output is supposed to be. It's vulnerable.
We put a lot of ourselves into creative work. And I guess maybe everybody, no matter their profession, puts a lot of themselves into their work, but there's something that feels more exposed ... creative work requires a lot of boldness. But we have to get past that, because if you don't say it, who's going to say it, right?
I'm in an interesting position right now in this curatorial field. I'm talking to you from an apartment in Charlotte, [North Carolina] where I'm working as visiting curator at a larger institution. I don't have a Master's in Art History or a PhD and there are these really different levels and ways of thinking about institutional spaces versus grassroots community spaces, spaces that I like to think of as counter-institutions. So I've had to deal with a lot of that imposter syndrome recently being in an institutional space and claiming the title of curator, while knowing that there are other folks in that field, the more academic and institutional field, who may not give me that title. And just doing it anyway, bringing my best ideas and putting my best foot forward and also allowing myself to learn from this new experience.
I have to remember that the work I've done in my community over the last eight years is really valuable. My work is valuable. So that gets back to that artist's role in the community question. We also have a responsibility to ourselves and each other to go out and do our best work and to bring connections back home with us so that we can all expand our perspective.
And then the other challenge is about sustainability and money and privilege which I'm sure comes up [in other interviews].
For most every person I've talked to, that's come up.
I have access to wealth and I have a very privileged experience of the world in my whiteness and my class background. I'm a queer person but I get read as straight very often, so I also benefit from that straight passing privilege.
I'm sure you've seen these things come across your social media feeds [saying that] the kid with the trust fund is the only one who makes it in the arts world. I often participate in the collective eye roll that follows, but I hold complicated feelings of guilt or shame, as well as gratitude, about being born into a family that has more than we need. I ran a space [The Carrack] that was committed to creating more access and opportunity for artists, and so I very much align with that struggle, but I don't experience it. Whereas for someone who has less access to the resources or privileges that I have access to – which is the story that I hear most often, because it's the community that I work in – there’s this struggle of, can I take this opportunity? [For me] logistically and financially, the answer is often yes, I can afford to take it. And so then the question becomes, should I?
How can I use my privilege and my access to shift this field which is often very inequitable? Thinking critically about that with every step is a challenge, but it's an important one. Which things do I say no to because it's an inequitable opportunity, and if I step into it – even if maybe I'm financially capable of doing so – am I just perpetuating this system where the majority of art spaces that I know are run by white women, or people with class privilege? And which opportunities do I step into and then work to shift from the inside?
That’s a constant tricky decision making process that I try to navigate by being in relationship with a multi-racial, cross-class community of peers and creative thinkers who can help me think through [those questions] from multiple angles. We can make those decisions in community instead of isolation, which I think is also another way that we counter the inequitable system that capitalism imposes on our creative work.
We don't have enough conversations about art and sustainability and just the money it takes to make art.
When you were at The Carrack you were not getting compensated and yet the work would not have been done unless you'd been willing to say I have what I need and I will do this work because I believe in it.
Right. And it's such a double edged sword and a both/and because I'm really proud of the work that we did and proud of what The Carrack created in Durham and I think there was so much good that came out of that … AND there's this edge where the reality is that by working for free I set up an institution with a structure that was too dependent on [that free labor] and couldn't support new leadership in an equitable way. So what is the answer? I can't wait for someone to figure that out.
How do you think that we can get the world to value creativity and art more highly?
That is the question. I'm an optimist, I'm an idealist ... the folks I could get to walk into The Carrack, they got it, they understood it. But man, it was so hard for us to find sponsorship or grants. So I think there's just a lot more exposure and education that needs to happen in a broader way. That means making sure that folks who haven't ever had a conversation with an artist, or who have never thought about what it takes to create a work of art ... making sure those folks know and hear about it, see it, feel it. But also there's a deep value shift that has to happen and I don't know how to do that other than one by one, through relationships.
“[The artist should] trust that they have something important to give and trust that the world needs it, which is a hard goal to hang onto a lot of times because unfortunately our world doesn’t always provide that affirmation or those access points to opportunity that encourage artists to keep doing what they’re doing.”
What advice would you give to someone of any age who wants to access their creativity or be more creative?
Put yourself in community and in collaboration with other people who are making the work that interests and inspires you. The age of social media continues to isolate us. But it is so important that creatives go and see other artists’ work in real life, and have conversations with them.
And then the other thing is to get over that imposter syndrome and fear. Show up. Just do the thing and do it and do it and do it until you are doing it well and then you are ready to do the next thing. Sure, you can get a certificate that says that you have a BFA, but really you have to give yourself that permission.
I believe that we already have all the things we need in each other and that our real work is figuring out how to share the resources that we already have in the art world and also in the world in general. And I think that artists and creative thinkers are uniquely positioned to help us identify those resources and to create pathways and build bridges so that we can share them more effectively.
This interview has been edited and condensed.