Tate Shaw, Director, Visual Studies Workshop
Tate is Director of Visual Studies Workshop, a center for the media arts with an MFA Program in Visual Studies and co-publisher of Preacher's Biscuit Books both in Rochester, NY. He is also an artist with work in most major collections for artists' books and writes essays, reports, and reviews on artists' books and photography for Afterimage, JAB, Contact Sheet, and The Blue Notebook, amongst other publications. Tate has an MFA from VSW and a BA from William Jewell College in Liberty, MO.
What drew you to this work?
With a partner I started publishing artists' books in 2005 as Preacher's Biscuit Books. Supporting artist's projects and collaborating to create the publishing venture was as engaging and interesting to me as making my own work so I started contributing where I could at the organization where I studied and now direct. The notion that artists direct programs at VSW is something that drew me to the place to study for my MFA. Artist's decision-making processes are different from other executive models and I have a great mentor in VSW's founder, Nathan Lyons, who exemplifies artist-centered executive practice.
What keeps you engaged with this work?
The thing that always keeps me engaged is putting artist's ideas into the world in some form or another. We are very project-based and idea-driven at the Workshop. You can see the ways in which visual concepts have morphed over our forty year history and this engages me as well. The numerous ways artists passing through the VSW community have worked with images in relation to text, for instance, and how this evolves on a micro and macro level is very interesting. In this way you could say what is engaging to me is both historicizing the community at VSW and constantly challenging concepts with new artist-based projects.
What was the most pivotal moment of your leadership journey?
This is very practical but reading a handbook on budget-thinking and development was a key moment for me. I did this about three months into my first year as director. Once I understood budgets and ways of breaking down projects into expenses and potential revenue areas, that really helped me think of how I delegated work to others be they staff members, students, or interns.
What are your strengths as a leader?
My biggest strength is that I don't put limits on myself or VSW for what we can accomplish. This is artist executive-thinking, again. If it can be imagined, it can be created whether it's an image, or a program. Another key to this is being extremely flexible about finding solutions to problems (or about what you define to be a problem). I find that we have the most problems when we are unchanging in how a program develops, functions, or is resolved so staying extremely flexible is important.
How do you stay on top of your game?
I'm not sure I'm ever on top of a game, I'm more in the middle of the game all the time. I'm not trying to get on top of anything, just trying to contribute to the fields of interest consistently.
What are you working on that gets you excited and inspired?
We have a commission for an artist to create an outdoor video screen that is also an artwork. Our jury selected Adam Frank of Brooklyn, NY, an artist and designer who works with light. Frank is truly innovative presenting complex ideas that he delivers very simply and with a goal of improving human thinking, which I personally think he is very successful at doing. The outdoor screen artwork will be called Spectator and it has built into it a way of engaging with the viewer. Also we will be programming moving image works to be shown on the screen--video art works, dance on film, poetry readings, oral histories, local youth documentaries, and so on. This is an inspiring work that will engage the whole community and I'm very excited to have a big part in its inception and its ongoing direction.
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