Meet Ariel Mercado founder of The Salon New York

Welcome to a Curvy Mom Blog. We are uber excited to have you within our community to share your story. 

MEET ARIEL MERCADO FOUNDER OF THE SALON NEW YORK AND AN ARTIST, WRITER & EDUCATOR 

1. How did you get started in teaching; was this something you were always inspired to do? 

The way I got started in teaching is actually a little serendipitous. I come from a relatively matriarchal family that is pretty involved in education. Teaching is a very gendered occupation so I spent most of my youth pushing against that, I didn’t want to be forced into a “caretaking” career. For as long as I could remember I wanted to be a painter, and so I went to California to study Fine Arts painting at Academy of Arts University in SF. Retail was not going to cut it in the financial roller coaster that is Bay Area real estate so I ended up applying for Americorps.

They not only paid for living expenses, but they also provided an educational grant and loan forbearance while in the program. Americorps allowed me the opportunity to train and act as an academic interventionist in East Oakland. After my first month, I fell in love, teaching became a passion.

2. Being an artist and an educator, does wearing both hats become a challenge at times? 

Being an educator is an extension of my art practice. They aren’t really separated from one another. 

Being an artist just like being an educator is being intentional about how you are going to communicate and for what reason. The difference between an artist and an educator is really just the “why”. As an educator, my labor is to do what is necessary to close the gaps between what a student knows and doesn’t know, as an artist I am including the audience in a collective journey to close gaps in what we think we know and what we don’t. Both careers require me to have interpersonal intelligence, imaginative thinking, and lots of forethought. 

I always feel challenged but in a very good and satisfying way. By producing and designing artist workshops I hope to show how education and administration can be a gratifying extension of an art practice. 

3. What keeps you inspired and motivated?

Being in a constant state of very righteous anger is always very motivating, lol.

Humor aside I am very motivated by how necessary the work I am doing is, which is confronting the overlap in diversity in the arts, career preparedness, and arts education. 

What keeps me inspired though is being in the presence of so many talented artists within The Salon, the artist cooperative I work within. It’s truly incredible and overwhelming to see how limitless imagination is and how art is a practice of making something where there once was nothing. I am around artists all the time who show me anything and everything is possible if you’re persistent.

Related article: 100 Women in Business Pursuing their Passion: Part Two

4. You are the founder of The Salon; please share what your business offers? 

The Salon is a BIPOC artist cooperative, we are a group of artists who work together collectively to produce art shows, artist-led workshops, and to sell our artwork. Our primary service/program is our Salon Critique which we are named after. Once monthly we host a salon-style inquiry-based critique for BIPOC artists. We work together regularly to build stronger critiquing methods that are equitable and based on consent. 

We recently wrapped a pilot of The Bridge Program which teaches low-income/working class BIPOC artists how to translate their art practice into a workshop they can then utilize as a source of income. 

Our mission is to provide low-income BIPOC artists with accessible practice and professional support through workshops, criticism, and skill-sharing opportunities. We also operate a digital store where we sell art and merchandise in order to support our programming.

5. Through your artist cooperative, you offer art programs to help working and low-income artists: this is amazing. Do you find artists within the program are often grateful and take advantage of the resources or shy away at first and need time to warm up? 

Working with artists within our critiques and Bridge Program I have noticed that everyone comes in very shy and definitely has a warming period. Which was part of the impetus for me in founding the critiques. Going to art school everyone feels a little intimidated but I noticed for low income BIPOC people how much we felt like outsiders and even imposters in art spaces. That carries over after graduation and definitely into the career space. 

I hope that with what we’re doing at The Salon that low income artists feel empowered through our critiques to advocate for their artwork and find a safe supportive community to mature their practice. I also hope that through our Bridge Program they will gain a vital income generating skill which will give them the confidence to recognize how important their art practice is to so many communities.

6. What is one of the most challenging hurdles you have faced with starting your business?

There has been more than one hurdle but the most challenging is organizing a team in an unconventional workspace, especially with creatives. We do not have a shared workspace because we live throughout so many boroughs and some even out of state! Coordinating schedules with a team of people traveling for shows, having studio practices and some even working second jobs can be really hectic when we have to make our own deadlines. Not having a shared physical space in combination with the challenges of COVID has been tough.

7. How has COVID affected your business and how have you pivoted? 

The Salon started as a once monthly in person critique, where we would sometimes be hosted by galleries and artists studios. When COVID hit we had to go online and for so many of us our whole lives stopped. Virtual art shows cropped up, online artist talks, virtual events and workshops- the internet was over flooded with arts programming. We were not prepared for the digital market, we didn’t even have a Zoom account. 

The way we pivoted was by focusing on building a strong base and connecting with our direct community to provide high quality online service. Most digital programming that would be our “competition” had events with 400+ people that lacked intimacy and connection which is something so many of us were needing. We also maintained the regular schedule which became a welcomed source of consistency that reminded artists to not neglect their studio practice or peers. In reality COVID helped us lock down our values which are communal care, access and excellence.

8. In what ways do you educate yourself as an entrepreneur? 

I’m a firm believer in being a lifelong learner. I still take continuing education and certification courses to build my skills in project management, I read non stop about arts management. I’ve started making taking classes a part of my life in the same way some people go to the gym.

Most importantly I listen when people speak, I am beyond lucky to be surrounded by other artists who are unselfish in sharing their experiences with me. I talk to educators outside of arts education, knowing the needs of people in careers that run parallel to yours I have found to be very beneficial. 

Most importantly, I do. It’s impossible to anticipate everything, I’m learning that you’re going to have to accept that mistakes are part of the journey in learning. What’s great about working within a cooperative is that you have people to bounce ideas off of and their experiences inform decisions as well. And when no one knows how to do something it’s very reassuring that learning is ok.

9. You recently held your first public workshop, Language & Touch: Intro to Making Portraits like a Conceptual Artist: how was it? What was your biggest takeaway? What would you do differently next time? 

My first public workshop was so sweet! As someone whose studentship is normally teens and older women it was so touching to have young Black men in a workshop that was essentially about using empathy as a tool in art making and they all did amazing. Everyone was really brave and fully committed to the activities. They built touch portraits without hesitating, and talked about their experiences writing narratives in the voice of objects with a lot of enthusiasm.

I think my biggest take away was my workshops should be longer and I underestimate how excited people will get in the class. We ended up with so much to talk about and we only scratched the surface! If I could do anything differently I would trust the workshop more and leave more room for discussion. Public workshops are different in that the group that participated won’t be seeing each other again like in a school etc. 

10. What do you see for yourself and your business in the next three years? 

In the next three years I really see myself as a strong freelance project manager and grant writer who leverages these skills to build arts programming that generates art careers for overlooked communities. I want to support grassroots and DIY arts groups/projects through partnerships with The Salon. 

I see The Salon in the next three years having built the model for a culturally literate form of critique that is accessible to the communities we’re passionate about. The Bridge Program will be successful in supporting artists transition into becoming teaching artists. I see the Salon gaining a Fiscal Sponsorship with an aligned organization and I see us making meaningful community partners in the next three years. 

Truly, in the next three years, I hope that The Salon and myself will be well into our work of confronting inequity in the arts through community building, education, and art-making. 

11. What are your top three tips for an artist looking to turn entrepreneur? 

• Make friends. Create meaningful relationships that are based on reciprocity and look horizontally when you do it. Hearing your peers’ experiences is a vital learning tool and can make a big difference in making decisions about residencies, gallery relationships, and who you should form work relationships with (i.e. who pays on time & at what rate). 
• Read everything & Be Organized. It doesn’t matter how good your work is or how talented you are if you aren’t prepared.

I like to imagine if I was on a reality show like Making the Band but instead, it’s Making The Artist Administrator, Diddy bursts in my studio and says “Pitch me a 3-month art show with a complimentary workshop!”. I shouldn’t be scrambling for images of my artwork, not knowing its location and I should have an elevator pitch for my projects prepared. 

Do you have a digital portfolio? When was the last time you updated your website? Do you have a headshot and an artist bio? How about contracts or templates? What goes in those contracts? A boilerplate? If you cannot pitch a project or respond to a sale or provide a press kit within an hour you are not prepared. If you don’t know all the things you need to run your business as an artist you still have some reading to do. 

Not only will you drop the ball because you’re scrambling to get the necessary items, you’ll fumble it because you feel insecure. Do everything in your power to communicate your vision clearly and concisely.

• Don’t let the quality of your artwork lapse. What is it to gain the world and lose your soul? If you do a great job at filling your cv what does it even matter when the quality of your artwork is so bad it’s not even a part of the cultural zeitgeist? Making strong work that people will be interested in after you’re dead or too old to do the footwork guarantees that the work lives beyond you. You can do this for ego (immortality)  or you can consider this is what will generate income for your family (or a cause) after you’re gone, your career can become an inheritance as long as it’s eternally relevant.

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5  Spotlight Questions! 

 

What is your daily self-care routine?

Stretch before I get out of bed, moisturize, hydrate all day. I don’t know what it is but if I am tight or dry I cannot function in life at all.

Best advice you received…

“People like to get on a moving train”. A very dear filmmaker friend told me that when we were relatively young, he was running the South Asian Diasporic Artist Collective and making films at the time. It’s the most important piece of advice I’ve ever received because it always reminds me the project really is dependent on just starting. People respond to what they can see.

Favorite thing to do when you have alone time… 

Watch really horrible B-Movies & color my hair. It’s really important for me to turn my brain completely off whenever I get the chance.

What would you tell your eighteen-year-old self? 

I would tell myself to get a skill before going to college and I would tell myself it’s ok to not be perfect. I wish someone told me at 18 it’s ok to not be good at things, make bad art, and not have “a voice” but a direction. 

What would be your natural talent if you weren’t doing this? 

A socialite, I love talking, and being good company has always been my other talent. I also throw the best dinner parties, put together a mean menu, and have a knack for storytelling.

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To connect with Ariel: 

Instagram: 

IG: @ SheSoPleasant

Email: 

Salon Inquiries – Ariel_Mercado@thesalonnyc.org

Art, Project Management & Grant Writing – ALuisaMercado8@gmail.com