Lessons Learned Building an Art Business
Entrepreneurs Shannon Riley and Meredith Winner tell their inspiring story of founding their company, Building 180, a full-service art production and consulting agency based in San Francisco.
What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned since starting your business?
Shannon: Oh wow, so many lessons and they are unending — maybe that’s it, be open to never knowing everything and just when you think you know, you don’t. Hire professionals when you need to. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. And every moment is an opportunity to learn, grow, change, meet someone new etc.
It’s always been hard for me to take myself seriously or even more, my ideas, especially when they’ve never been done before. I also hate promoting myself or my ideas which, if you read, “The Artists Way,” you can probably relate to that and it may be why I chose to manage and promote other artists instead of dig deep into my own art. But I have to say that giving yourself credit when it’s due is important, championing yourself is important. Knowing that you will be learning something new everyday is imperative and to be open to making all kinds of mistakes. New ideas and opportunities are hard to accomplish but that’s why many people don’t do the things that haven’t been done — it’s okay to screw up, just remember to be kind to yourself.
As a final note, a mentor of mine shared something important to me right when the Pandemic started. He shared that when the 2008 housing crisis hit and businesses were closing he launched his new company. He shared that when things are going good no one wants to see things or do things differently, no one is open to hearing about a new business or idea, “why fix something that’s not broken.” He went on to say, when something breaks, all the cracks open and this is where new ideas happen. I was stressed about our businesses surviving and his perspective was that this was the time to start something new. That really motivated me to think about how I could be in a position to help people and during this time, and then we created Paint the Void. In a time of despair we needed change. So with that, I would say a huge lesson learned is that there is opportunity in every thing, be positive and stress less (because even if it all falls apart the stress doesn’t help anyways)!
What is the story behind Building 180?
Meredith: Building 180 has both a history as a physical space and as a company. The name pays homage to a former artist warehouse on Treasure Island in San Francisco. The workspace was home to many incredible artists that we still work with today. I worked under Marco Cochrane there after seeing Truth Is Beauty at Burning Man as a volunteer. I couldn’t believe how much art was packed into the space and the amazing community of people that I found there all working together for a common goal: to make monumental sculptures that would surely captivate the imagination of thousands of people.
I also couldn’t believe that so many of the sculptures that had inspired so much awe were now disassembled and tucked away into the dusty corners of the space. All I wanted was for more people to see these works and to feel the same way I had felt. So I committed myself to helping these artists however I could. It was around this time that I met Shannon who had had a strikingly similar experience and who’d been building a business built on this trajectory and had been managing artist’s within the building’s work such as Peter Hudson and Katy Boynton.
We were linked up by Katy Boynton who knew we shared a similar vision. Shannon and I put our heads together and decided to form what is now officially known as Building 180, the company, today. We were well positioned both having unique skill sets and passion and ran with the name. Building 180 the space was torn down in 2017.
S: I remember walking into Building 180, which was an artist studio/warehouse on Treasure Island, in 2012 and a feeling I had never felt before ran through my veins; excitement, nervousness, awe. I walked into a dream maker space with larger than life creations. I had been working at tech start-ups at the time, in Sales and Business Development, and was pretty unhappy. My boss gave me a Burning Man ticket and when I came back I said I needed to return to Black Rock City but I had to build art and it had to be big. He brought me to Building 180 and introduced me to the artists within the shop. I originally volunteered with Marco Cochrane, learning to weld a 40’ sculpture of a woman, Truth is Beauty, and the Cardboard Institute of Technology building a life-size submarine for a Halloween Party out of recycled and collected cardboard. I remember taking the bus to Treasure Island everyday after work listening to Riptide by Vance Joy and there is this lyric in the song that says, “I am the magicians assistant” and I remember that is what I felt like, we were making magic and I was a very small part of it. Those days were some of the best of my life.
In the beginning, I remember wanting so badly to be a part of their community and one of the artists who also led volunteer efforts, Katy Boynton, just told me that all I had to do was show up, I found that so beautiful and poetic and true. I became a full-time volunteer and in return, I received more than I could have ever imagined. Building 180 itself is the warehouse. It was so much more than that though — the artists that worked there, the crazy stories of connections, the conversations that were had, did you know Diego Rivera worked there back in 1939 for the Golden Gate International Expo?
Building 180, today, is a homage to that warehouse. The idea came far before my experience in San Francisco, I knew that I always wanted to build and work with artists but I did not know how. Our LLC is actually called “Broke But Grand.” I started this when I lived in NYC doing small and cheap interior designs; I was broke and living on Grand Street in the Lower East Side. When I started working more with the artists at Building 180, I began managing their artwork, building websites for their work and finding partners to place their work publicly (not just at Burning Man or festivals, I thought the LLC name could transfer well into the world of “grand” art. After using that name and realizing we did not want to be “broke” anymore, we decided it needed to change. When Building 180 shut down for new development in 2012 and I met Meredith, we felt creating a new name for the business would be best, a homage to the time spent and magic made at Building 180. I sometimes feel like taking on such a name is a large responsibility and I hope that we’re doing it justice, I don’t know if that’s possible, but I am happy we still work with all the artists who we met while we were there.
What are your wildest dreams for building 180?
M: I envision the company being a leader in the space and a recognizable name in the industry. We’re well on our way to this point, but I hope people recognize us as being a standout in the field given our commitment to artists and integrity in production.
I also have some wild projects that I would love to figure out how to accomplish. One of them is having an immersive art hotel where each room is a uniquely curated experience. The other is an art train, also with thoughtfully designed cars that move from town to town so people in different areas can experience the art. We’ll bring the art destination to you.
What advice would you give to your past self?
S: “Be curious, not judgmental.” and “No good deed goes unpunished.”
I think a lot of advice stems from lessons I’ve learned. I would tell myself that curiosity is key especially when working with new people and creating new things. I would push myself to be open to all things that arise and take every good and bad as an opportunity. I also would remind myself that being honest and kind, working hard, and being empathic is important. Karma exists. Pay attention to the small synchronicities in life, they guide you in the right direction. Be present and believe in myself more! Every relationship matters and developing them is important. Lastly, I would tell myself to continue to take all the risks and forever be curious.
What inspired you to work in the arts?
M: It’s actually never been a question so I can’t say exactly where the inspiration came from, however, there have definitely been some key moments along the way.
As a kid, I wanted to own an art gallery and I knew as a teenager that I wanted to go into the art business. I’m also an artist myself so I think it’s something that I was born with. I used to beg to stay for as long as my parents would let me in museums and loved being around and working with artists. I was a muse for many years for an oil painter named Martin A. Poole in upstate New York. I studied under him for many years and found solace working in his studio. He was my dear friend and I so admired his career as a painter. He definitely formed my opinion that I should go to art school. I graduated with a BFA in sculpture.
My exposure to Burning Man art and artists led me to co-found Building 180 as it was such a departure from the fine art world I had been working in for so many years. I’d worked in museums, galleries, auction houses, and other art consulting companies before I finally found the community aspect and collaborative aspect that I’d been missing and I was hooked.
How has art inspired you?
M: Art inspires me to dig deeper and make connections to my surroundings that aren’t always apparent. Art always has a story and those stories drive interpersonal relationships and meaning that can’t necessarily be relayed in words. I love witnessing the skilled hand that goes into art and geek out on the details.
I’m inspired every day, by the ingenuity and rawness of artists. I think everyone is an artist in some way or has the capacity to be, but it takes real vulnerability and courage to pursue that path. It’s not easy, yet when the passion is there it’s almost as if there isn’t any other choice. This resonates with me.
Art is born out of ideas and created from figments of our imagination. I think that this is so cool. I am particularly drawn to producing large sculptures as I get to put my head together with teams of people working towards the same goal.
I’m honored to call the artists we work with my friends and get no greater joy than working and building together. I’m inspired by their dedication, creativity and vision and only want everyone to succeed.
What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on?
S: Every project has a special place in my heart. My first inclination is to think back to the early days when I was just a volunteer dreaming up this reality, the moments when I first met the artists. Maybe it was that first project with artist, Peter Hudson. I helped fundraise $300k to build a 3D Stroboscopic Zoetrope to bring to the middle of the desert. I remember those moments of collective fear and anticipation — the climax before you know what’s to come — not knowing if our piece would work properly and then our celebration when it did! I also reflect on more recent projects. The projects that create fear, that seem so out of the wild, seem to be the ones I treasure most. I remember launching our artist residency and turning the pool house into artist bungalows and the day before it launched the valley was steaming hot so we had to tear open the wall and build an Air Conditioner, I had never done that before. I remember winning Ethyl the whale project and we had to build an 82’ life size whale from recycled plastic — yes I was working with the best trash artists I know — but we had never built something to this scale. I remember Lish, one of our rope artists, hand collecting leaves and nails from railroads to hand dye over 5,000 feet of rope, and praying it was going to work. I remember lifting thousands of pounds of steel in the air with Symmetry Labs, building their LED tree in Las Vegas, and finding out the concrete pour needed to be a certain temperature to hold, we were in Vegas and of course it was the coldest night they ever experienced, so we had to wait extra days for safety. I remember standing next to the Ohio River in Cincinnati after we just erected a 75 foot wide, 30 foot high, Rainbow made of multicolored LEDs and the inspection team had to do a last minute check, ten minutes before the opening. I remember the challenges and near failures and the stress and then being accompanied by creators, builders, artists all sharing a collective fear but in the hopes of creating something beautiful and I think that collective thought, those moments of unknowns are so magic.
It’s thinking up the impossible and seeing it become possible. It’s creation in its truest form. It’s watching something never done before come to life, all because a team of people believed it could. I think it’s stepping back and looking at what we made, the impact it has, and the “unveiling” opening moments when the public gets to engage and react. Asking what does it mean, how does it work? Sparking ideas. None of our artworks are recreated, even if a piece looks the same, the environment it is placed in and the crew who builds it is different. There is not a specific project that is my favorite but the many memories that come from them: late nights builds, wearing hazmat suits end cleaning trash next to a volunteer who becomes a partner in a new artist residency, or hours learning to weld on thousands of joints with a special someone (Meredith) who becomes your business partner — in every moment there’s surprise and awe and some new perspective to be seen — and that’s what I also love about art.