Artist Studio Management and Liaison Services for Visual Artists
There is an amazing catch-22 at the center of an art practice. Your career advances, and now there is more to manage. The more serious your practice becomes, the more administrative weight it generates. The expectation remains that all of this should be metabolized by one person while also sustaining meaningful creative production. How are we supposed to know all of that, have the time to do it all, and make work?
A serious contemporary art practice is a complex professional enterprise. The administrative, operational, and institutional demands it generates are significant, highly specific, and almost entirely undocumented -
Statements. Institutional relationships. Bios. Inventory. Gallery coordination. Grant cycles. Documentation. Collector communication. Public commissions. Shipping logistics. Contracts. Press requests. Financial administration. Installation coordination. Opportunity tracking. Art fair logistics. Collection placement. Institutional partnerships. Relationship maintenance.
There are many names for what I do. Artist manager, artist agent, artist liaison, artist representative. But in short: I help artists build and maintain the professional infrastructure their careers require. That might mean managing the daily operations of a studio, coordinating a major commission, preparing grant applications, maintaining years of institutional history, or building systems that allow a practice to grow without losing itself in its own complexity. To be clear - this is not mentoring, coaching, critiquing, or related to improving or changing your art. It is the administrative, art business, and systems focused work so you can focus on making, and move toward and achieve your professional goals.
My name is Mallory Shotwell. My approach is shaped by twenty years working across the arts ecosystem. Alongside my own studio practice, I've worked as a curator, arts administrator, founder, educator, consultant, and project manager, building exhibitions, organizations, partnerships, and operational systems for artists and arts institutions alike. I've spent years learning how creative work moves through the world, from the studio to the gallery, the nonprofit, the collector's home, the public commission, and the museum. That experience allows me to support artists not simply as an administrator, but as someone who understands the larger structures their careers inhabit.
Just some of what my studio management work looks like in practice for artists:
Statement and bio writing. CV restructuring and maintenance. Image list creation and documentation. Artwork inventory database setup and management. Consignment tracking. Financial tracking for sales, expenses, and consignments. Invoice setup and management. Exhibition and deadline calendar maintenance. Contact database organization for galleries, curators, collectors, and press. Digital file and archive organization. Grant research and writing. Residency and exhibition opportunity research and applications. Public art RFQ and RFP research and applications. Shipping and insurance coordination. Professional correspondence drafting. Gallery, curator, and institutional outreach. Press release drafting. Exhibition photography coordination. Art fair logistics and coordination. Collection placement strategy. Institutional partnership development. Brand and positioning strategy. Website editing, optimization, or build. Social media content strategy. More.
I intentionally work with a small number of late-stage emerging and mid-career artists at any given time. Every practice has different ambitions, different pressures, and different administrative needs. Rather than offering a standardized package, I build long-term systems and support around the particular realities of each artist's career.
When you're ready to stop doing everything alone, I'd love to hear about your practice.
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