HOW DOES ONE SUM THE LIFE EXPERIENCES OF A PERSON?
MOTIVATED BY THE QUESTIONS
I’ve often wondered how people go about packaging and thus marketing themselves. It often feels like a lie, a false, like there are many more bits absent than there are present. I waited a long time to hit my 30s, to feel like the directions and pursuits of my 20s added up to something package-able.
BIO IN BRIEF
Willow Goldstein is an arts administrator and educator with over 10 years of hands-on experience. From Boston to Brooklyn to Atlanta, she has forged a unique path by pursuing her diverse range of interests including facilitating programming, community projects, and event coordination. Originally from Atlanta, Goldstein was born at Grady Memorial Hospital in June of 1987. She is a Gemini through and through but, astrology aside, she has been driven by a duality and seeks to merge her personal interests with her professional career. Infinitely curious, she is driven by a desire to understand the world. She strives to incorporate underground culture into mainstream mentality in an attempt to create a world she believes is just. At times, this requires rogue strategies while integrating mainstream practices. Raised between Cabbagetown and Buckhead, her background allows her a unique position to traverse worlds, whether fantasy or physical.
Her career in education started in Boston, MA, where she moved to study at Northeastern University based on their Co-op Experiential Education. As part of the program, she worked at the Museum of Fine Arts as a Studio Art Classes Program Assistant. She enjoyed maintaining the programs but found joy in interacting with the teachers and forming connections with the students. She continued this work in Brooklyn while working with the Community Projects team of Arts in Bushwick which facilitated mural projects and founded a Fellowship Program for local middle school students.
She learned the art and pains of running a small business while assisting Rick Friedman Photography, a Boston-based photographer who specialized in political, academic, and event photography. She interned with Flatbush Pictures, another small operation which specialized in documentary storytelling. Once she returned to Atlanta, she began assisting John Folsom in his studio and learned more closely the daily process of an established, working artist. In Brooklyn, she continued working directly with artists via the Arts in Bushwick blog and realized the importance press and media brought to emerging creatives. She continued on this path by interning with Blouin Media (Art + Auction, Modern Painters), Chashama, and The Invisible Dog Art Center.
Once she became the co-editor of the Arts in Bushwick blog, she began to work on a retrospective book. While this project was never realized, archiving, history, and reflecting is something she values highly. Throughout her career, she has worked odd-jobs from babysitting to Task Rabbit to assisting on the PuppyBowl, each of which gave her insight into the production cycles of American Capitalism, a system which she has wavering views of. A decade of work in the hospitality industry gave her additional insights in the struggles of small businesses as well as an in-depth look at customer experience. Her life's work is to find balanced and meaningful ways to live within these systems through art, community, and activism.