Artists on Who Helped Them the Most — and Least

This week, I asked four artists whose work I love to answer two simple questions: Who has helped you the most in your career and — if they were willing to name names, or even allude to individuals — who or what has helped you the least?

While I was asking these questions of painter and writer Carrie Moyer, painter Roberto Juarez, photographer and artist Tommy Kha, and choreographer Jonah Bokaer, I couldn’t help but ask them of myself. The answer to the first question was immediately clear: Will Schwalbe, the author and publishing executive who hired me for my first job in book publishing. He was about 20 years my senior, which seemed old at the time but somehow is the age I am now. He was a strict and sometimes relentless boss; I was often chastised in his office (people had offices then, so you could dramatically say “close the door”) for arriving at my desk after 9 a.m. But I’ll never forget the moment, about three days into my job, when he came out of his office and told me I was answering the phone wrong. I was trying for some kind of professionalism, and instead, I sounded like Publishing Barbie. “Hello? Will Schwalbe’s office?” He told me to answer the phone like myself. To be myself, in general. So after a few false starts, I figured out how to do that: to be myself and do that job. I started chatting with his callers — authors, agents, illustrious friends — if he wasn’t around and they wanted to chat, and I got to know a bunch of fascinating people because those were the only kind of people who called him. He started to trust my judgment about manuscripts, to laugh at my jokes, and slowly we became friendly, even though I continued to get gently, terrifyingly reprimanded when I waltzed in at 9:15 a.m. And now Will and I are real friends, and that all seems like ancient history, especially because it literally did take place (gulp) almost 20 years ago.

The second question — who helped you the least — is harder, and the obvious answer is “me.” But that’s a cop-out. I helped me just as much as I hurt me, and I think that gets at the complexity of careers in general. I often think of Laz, the bouncer outside the bar I used to live above, who told me after a beloved but half-baked essay was rejected by The New Yorker, that “every rejection is God’s protection.” Whether or not you believe in Laz or God or fate or anything like that, it’s probably a good thing to cling to when you’re sure this is the end of the road for your work. There’s always more road.

Ok but honestly, Nick Denton.

Tommy Kha works in self-portraiture and his work often has to do with the American South, and sometimes Elvis. He is a recipient of the Next Step Award, Foam Talent, Creator Labs Photo Fund, and, most recently, named an NYSCA/NYFA Photography Fellow. His sense of humor is often palpable in his portraiture, especially his self-portraits.

Who has helped you the most in your work?

It’s hard to boil it down to one person between mentors like Jack Pierson and Eggleston, and recently my gallery Higher Pictures. I also think about my family, especially those who collaborated with me in front of the camera and put up with my humor. I’m sure most folks would be very confused having to pose next to a cutout of me or wear a mask of my face.

Who has helped you the least?

It’s between me, and and a photographer I admired who I was introduced to when I was starting out when I was starting out. When he found out I was from Memphis, he was dismissive of my work since it’s been done. This is next to bad advice a gallery gave me to just stick to photographing being Asian because that would sell better. I just want to make something beautiful.

Jonah Bokaer is a multidisciplinary choreographer who is also one of the founders of the arts organization Chez Bushwick, as well as the Center for Performance Research, which provides affordable space for research and performance.

Who or what helped you most in your career?

Museum leaders and curators. I am currently working with Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe on the Katonah Museum of Art’s Summer Social. To see joint fundraising occur so smoothly is a dream come true.

Who or what but ideally who has helped you the least?

Proscenium Theatre Presenters in New York City. Without naming names, I was once presented with a $2,000 bill to tune a piano which, upon moving the piano stage left, swiftly knocked the piano out of tune again, by union crews on stringent coffee-break schedules.

Carrie Moyer is an abstract painter and one-half of Dyke Action Machine!, the pioneering lesbian agitprop duo.

Who helped you the most in your career?

My wife, the artist Sheila Pepe. For 25 years, she’s been my consigliere, my Painting Doctor, and everything in between. She’s an incredibly insightful, nuanced reader of paintings. Before the work is shipped, Sheila and I sit around the studio, looking at the pictures, drinking coffee, and free-associating. Paintings are titled based on our conversations.

And who has helped you least?

There are so many! But the prize goes to the famous old male painter who told me in front of my Skowhegan studio mates that I was too old to have a career. I was 35.

Roberto Juarez is a visual artist active in the areas of painting, printmaking, drawing, and large-scale public commissions.

Who has helped you the most in your career? 

Annina Nosei first saw my work at the “New Wave, New York” exhibition in 1981. After visiting my studio, Aninna invited me to participate in a group show at her gallery. She also introduced me to Jean-Michel Basquiat, leading to an ongoing friendship and support.

Robert Miller and John Cheim visited my studio and offered me gallery representation. They played a significant role in getting my paintings exhibited at prestigious venues, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum Biennial. But more than that, they introduced me to some of the best living artists, which they also represented including Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Louise Bourgeois, Kusama, Patti Smith, and many more.

Also, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Ellen Stewart and La MaMa, who as an individual allowed me to paint in her garage space on 1st Street because I couldn’t afford a studio that large, which facilitated the creation of the artworks displayed at the Robert Miller Gallery.

And who or what has helped you the least?

Those that have tried to categorize me and my work into a neat and tidy box.

Enjoying Making It? Forward it to a friend. Or, sign up for Beach Reads Book Club to read Emma Cline’s The Guest along with Emily Gould and other New York writers.