Meet Rosie Mayer | Co-Director of Nova Community Arts

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rosie Mayer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rosie, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Nova Community Arts is a Queer owned 501(c)(3) nonprofit art studio in Los Angeles. We offer art classes, workshops, open studio access, and guest programming at our studio in Atwater Village five days a week. Our resources include a fully stocked printmaking studio, Risograph duplicator, Glowforge lasercutter, Riso MiScreen digital screen maker, screenprinting mounts, and more. Nova is committed to providing arts education, access to materials and equipment, and a platform of creative expression for the community, including students, professionals, and amateurs alike. We are dedicated to serving underfunded populations in LA and providing inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities.

The studio was founded by myself and my co-director, A. Gray Lamb, in 2021. We met in 2018, when we were teaching classes at a STEM education center in west LA and bonded over our similar backgrounds in the arts and museum education. After a year and a half of teaching middle schoolers over Zoom during the Covid lockdown, Gray and I knew we were ready to take the next steps in our careers.

For years, we had both observed a noticeable lack in adult arts education options in LA, especially printmaking studios. As the 2021 school year was wrapping up, we decided to take a leap and try something new: opening our own art studio where we could teach the programs that we couldn’t find anywhere else, and expand our own creative processes as well. It was intimidating, to say the least, to commit to such a huge career shift into business management, which a space that neither of us had much practical experience in. But, we were confident that after years of teaching and managing educational programs for other institutions, we had a solid understanding of the way we wanted our studio to be run, and that tackling the business ownership side of things couldn’t be too bad. And it really hasn’t been! We’ve learned a lot along the way, but have found that following our instincts and taking an empathetic approach to decision making that places ourselves in the shoes of our audience has always pointed us in the right direction. Also, the amount of resources for small business owners and nonprofits online can not be underestimated – we have truly been able to google our way into solving any issue that has presented itself so far.

Nova is a small operation, and has been kept so intentionally. Gray and I do everything to run the business together: designing graphics, updating our website, maintaining our equipment and supplies, budgeting, filing taxes, social media posting, and developing our monthly line-up of classes. These responsibilities come on top of making and selling art to raise funds for the studio, tabling at community events to raise awareness of our programs, and teaching the majority of our classes and workshops, with the help of our lovely base of studio volunteers. The work-life balance can be tough with so many plates constantly spinning, but it’s worth it to have the freedom to run our business exactly how we want, and to see the students in our classes having fun exploring their own creativity.

We are very lucky to have found such a supportive community of cool, creative people who come to our studio’s programs. Gray and I were both very surprised to see how quickly word spread after we opened in September of 2021, and since then we’ve continued to fine-tune our offerings and expand our programs based on community interest. The most important thing to us in managing our studio space is that the participants in our programs feel safe, welcome, and appreciated, and we think it shows in our large number of repeat attendees.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
As a community focused nonprofit, we are proud that Nova has become recognized in the LGBTQ+ community as a safe space for queer and trans expression. This has always been one of our biggest goals – to create a place where queer artists can come together and feel supported and affirmed. As members of the LGBTQ+ community ourselves, we started our Queer Art Hang program to provide a space for folks in our community to come together and get creative. Initially, Queer Art Hang started as a monthly workshop series with one program a month, but demand was higher than expected, and within months of opening our studio, we expanded our offerings so that every Thursday is Queer Art Hang at Nova! And this pride month, Queer Art Hang has been expanded further to every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday workshop.

Our Queer Art Hang workshop series features a rotating lineup of our most popular projects, from Riso printing to screen printing, to embroidery, and more, presented specifically for an LGBTQ+ audience, by LGBTQ+ teaching artists. This includes some of our favorite guest workshops like our ongoing partnership with Hand Follows Eye Studios to host figure drawing workshops featuring a diverse array of queer models, and our Riso Tarot workshops taught by Mo McMasters. Being able to give a platform to local queer artists to connect with the community and share their skills, while being paid fairly for their labor and expertise, is one of the aspects of Queer Art Hang that we’re most proud of!

Though we are lucky to live in a city where LGBTQ+ identities are largely accepted and celebrated, prioritizing queer and trans safety and acceptance is the main goal of our Queer Art Hang program. As the LGBTQ+ community is constantly under attack, especially in online spaces, it is so important to incorporate building community into our artistic practices. Rooted in the idea that queer joy and creative expression is a radical act in and of itself, we encourage our workshop participants to let go of perfectionist ideals when in the studio, and just enjoy the act of getting to make something. Whether it’s hand printing queer valentines, participating in an affirming figure drawing session featuring a trans model, or screenprinting a silly t-shirt to wear to pride, Queer Art Hang brings together and celebrates the creativity of so many folks in our community. And, the stronger our community bonds are, the stronger we all become.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would start off in our home base of Atwater Village. Down the street from our studio on Glendale Blvd are some of our favorite local businesses! Proof is, in my humble opinion, the best bakery in the city, and their almond croissants, baguette sandwiches, and selection of specialty coffee are not to be missed! I’d also recommend Dune for fantastic mediterranean food, Hail Mary for excellent fancy pizza, and Wanderlust ice cream for dessert. And be sure to stop by our pals at Secret Headquarters, a very cool comics and zine shop!

After a morning hang in Atwater, we suggest heading to one of LA’s many incredible museums. We are so lucky to live in a city with so many cool museums to choose from! The Huntington Library and Gardens are great for a spring afternoon, as is the Getty Villa. I love the Academy Museum – they always have exciting things on view, and their film screenings are my favorite way to catch a movie in LA. Or, if you want something really out of the ordinary, head over the the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City. If you don’t know anything about it, great! Don’t look up anything about it. Just go. You’re welcome.

For dinner, I love taking people to Sawtelle Japantown. There are so many fun options, but my two favorites are Tsujita Ramen (the original one) and Marugame Udon. Somisomi or Millet Crepe are great dessert choices, and you can’t leave without getting a boba for the ride home! I suggest Sunright Tea or Yi Fang.

Lastly, end your night at Junior High in Glendale! Jr High is another nonprofit community arts center that we work closely with, and are hugely inspired by. They put on concerts, art markets, gallery shows, yoga classes, and so many more community events. There’s always something cool going on in their space!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The most popular art medium at our studio without a doubt is Risograph printing, and the Riso community is so important to us! If you’re not familiar with it, Riso is a very unique method of printmaking; originally meant as an alternative to office copy machines, it has been embraced by the printmaking field for its rapid printing abilities, vibrant colors, and environmentally friendly soy-based inks. It’s a complex machine, using a thermal print head to burn a screen, lay it over an ink drum, and push out the ink in an automated process similar to screen printing. The resulting prints are vibrant and full of unique texture, with every print in an edition being slightly different than the last. Riso printing has grown in popularity, especially over the last few years. As zinefests and art fairs are on the rise again post-lockdown, more artists are being introduced to this kind of printmaking that is well suited to making zines, comics, and art prints. We love the community of printmakers and Riso-enthusiasts that has grown so rapidly over the last few years, and are proud to be one of the only spaces in LA to provide access to the machine and educational programs so more artists can learn how to use it! The Riso community is small but mighty, and we owe much of our success as an organization to this weird little copier.

Website: https://www.novacommunityarts.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/novacommunityarts

Other: Email: hello@novacommunityarts.com