The Art of Alchemy Station: Suzi Hlavacek

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I have with me in the studio Suzi Hlavacek, who is the co-founder of Alchemy Station. Welcome to Maine again.

Suzi Hlavacek: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Lisa Belisle: And you were just saying to me that even though you are from the Boston area, you spend quite a bit of time up in Maine, at any opportunity that you can.

Suzi Hlavacek: Yes, exactly. It's actually the proximity to Maine that brought us to Boston. I grew up in New Jersey, but my grandparents started coming to Kennebunkport in the fifties, and after the first summer, they were hooked. My dad never missed a summer. So I have spent every summer of my entire life in Maine, and it's become really our home base. My sister and her kids are in California, so they come back east to Maine. That's where we spend holidays, and it's where my little guy, my four year old, gets to see his grandparents and cousins. So it's really just the place that we love the most in the world. We spend as much time as possible being in Maine.

Lisa Belisle: Well, that's great to hear. I also love Maine, so anybody that similarly feels that Maine is the place to be, it is. Immediately there's a connection there.

Suzi Hlavacek: Yes, definitely.

Lisa Belisle: Alchemy Station. Tell me about that. What is it, and why was it named Alchemy Station?

Suzi Hlavacek: Yes. So we are an art consulting firm, and my partner and I founded Alchemy Station about a year ago. We spent a good amount of time, we knew what we wanted to do. This is where people who might be familiar with Simon Sinek, who are big fans of his, we're big believers in start with the why. Our name really comes from the why. Why we exist is to spread passion and to create connection, to really connect people on an intangible level. And that's through art. So we loved this idea of alchemy and transformation that really speaks to these almost magical and mystical kind of human connection moments. Most of our work as art consultants, which I'll go into, is working on new construction projects and really physically transforming spaces and using art to do that. And we loved the idea of a station, not as a fixed place, but this sort of journey, this idea of movement and change and discovery, these allegories to taking different pathways and a stop on a journey, moving through different spaces and experiences.

Lisa Belisle: So why art consulting? How did you get into this field?

Suzi Hlavacek: So I have done a few different things in the arts. I have known I wanted to work in the arts for a long time. I've always loved being surrounded by art. I grew up in a home with a lot of art, taking museum trips especially with my mom on the weekends. And then I was lucky enough to take art history in high school. I took AP art history with an absolutely incredible teacher. Her name was Miss DeVito. I have to give her a shout out. That really started that pathway. So I took, I think you could call it, a traditional art history path. I was an art history major in college. I graduated, I moved to New York, I worked at Christie's. And then I also ended up getting a master's in arts administration. And then I worked at MoMA for a bit, and I moved up to Boston again, really to be closer to Maine, try out a different city, and I started art consulting. What I loved about that was this real combination of the creative and the logistics. And also being in the primary market. With auction houses, I'd been in the secondary market. That's where a piece of art has changed hands multiple times. So it's not moving straight from the studio, from an artist, it's maybe moving from a collector to another collector. And I realized how much I loved being in there with the artist or with galleries, partnering them where it's the first time a piece of art is being created. So I quickly was very at home in logistically complicated projects. So maybe it's a high volume, it's 500 pieces that all need to get to a building at the same time, or it's a 30 foot canvas. Right now we're doing a lot of sculptural works where they need to be to certain fire codes. So it's amazing to get to partner with these brilliant creative artists, and then also to partner with clients who feel really excited about bringing artwork into their spaces.

Lisa Belisle: Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the work that the Portland Art Gallery does with their sculptors and actually all of their artists. But there is a lot of backend stuff that I don't think many people realize. Like when David Moser has a sculpture that's going to go to, let's say, Tampa, Florida, somebody has to come in and box that up and make sure that it's going to be ready to travel and make sure that we're putting it in the right hands so that it gets there safely. There's a lot that has to go into that.

Suzi Hlavacek: Yes, there's so much that has to go into it. And at the end of the day, I sometimes describe myself and what I do, and there are different types of art consultants and art advisors, but what we really do is, at the end of the day, we're a middleman. We're this go-between and this sort of translator between our clients and our artists. And we exist really to serve both parties. From a client side, it's to make sure that they feel really safe and protected, that their investment is safe, and that the project is going to move smoothly. And then for the artist, we also want to make sure that they feel really safe and protected, that their work is going to be safe and that their vision is going to be executed. So it's both in what the piece is, but then also those day-to-day things. Like for an exterior sculpture, do you have to have concrete footings put in? Do we need a structural engineer to actually determine what the weight is? How are we drilling into that footing? What is the attachment point? What's the epoxy going to be? How do we access that site? How do we lift the piece into place? Is whether going to be an issue when we're putting it in? There's so many different checkpoints. So in addition to the creative, I get really excited about the logistics. I want there to be these really magical, incredible art experiences. But I also am sort of captivated by even what it takes to get a work of art to its home.

Lisa Belisle: When you describe the work that you do, some people might think, oh, it's Suzi going into somebody's house and helping design their living room space with them from an art standpoint. But you actually do work with pretty large clients who are asking you to bring in art from lots of different places for huge spaces. Conceptually, that's a really different way of understanding what you do.

Suzi Hlavacek: Totally. And that's where we really work across a lot of different industries. I'd say private clients and private homes are the smaller percentage of what we do. They kind of end up finding us, where maybe we've worked with a developer, interior designer, and then they pull us over for their house. Or we have a client that's purchased a new home and wants to fill the whole thing really fast. We had an amazing partnership with the Portland Art Gallery, where we were able to pick a lot of different pieces and then organize it and do a big presentation all in one day. But we have a lot of projects that are larger in scale. And what we love is we do a pretty heavy, really early visioning process where we talk to them about whether it's maybe a hotel, or right now we're actually doing a lot of lab and biotech clients. So say it's a developer who's building a lab building and there's a lobby and amenity spaces and gathering spaces. We talk a lot about what we want the space to feel like, what we want people to be experiencing, how we want it to resonate, and what their vision is with this space. And then once we have those goals established, we can figure out what artists are sort of matching their vision. And then depending on time, depending on budget, if it's a, right now I'm working on a piece where there's a niche that's a 20 foot by 10 foot niche, so that's going to need to be custom because it's so immense. So sometimes we can find existing works. Sometimes it's custom commissioning them. And I think I am bringing up lab because that's been so fun for me. It's this sort of Venn diagram of artists and scientists. Artists and scientists have so much in common in how they look and think. They're able to really perceive the world so deeply and to take this close examining eye on the world around them. So there's just such a rich resource of artists who are taking the scientific experience and translating it in an aesthetic way. And it's what's so special about Maine too, I think. So many people are close to nature where you're digging in tide pools and exploring the woods and the forest. That magic is really, I think, such a unifying link between those in the arts and those in the sciences. So it's been very fun to take that approach and actually find artists who work in that capacity and bring them into spaces.

Lisa Belisle: You've described the ability to look deeply and perceive deeply, artists, scientists. Do you ever have a sense that maybe people could be different in the way that they perceive things? Do you ever have to work through any early initial conflict about how people may want a space to look?

Suzi Hlavacek: Always. And that's part of the process that I work through with clients, especially when you're commissioning an artist and working with an artist. I've luckily been able to work with clients who are building buildings and doing these really difficult things, but they're also people who are really passionate about the arts. So some of them understand the process a little bit better, but know that if we wanted something to exist in the world, sometimes you do need to make changes and you need to problem solve. And I feel like in every project, there's always that sort of back and forth of making sure visions align. And that's where I will also try to get a handle on seeing how much an artist wants to collaborate, or if they just want to do their work and we're going to get what we get. That's really part of my job, figuring out the process, and then also maybe understanding if they're willing to work with feedback of different kinds, and understanding too that there might be something that could be perceived differently by different people, or just in a logistical sense too. Like, I'm working on a project right now where one of the strongest visual elements actually isn't to code, so we have to go back and reorient. And I think too, it's also educating clients, where sometimes maybe they'll look at something and say, oh, could that part be blue? But it's my job to push back and say, well, this artist is trained in color theory. That's the whole aspect of their work. So that actually won't work if we try to kind of get in there and meddle. It's my position to make sure that the artist can do their work. And whether it's artists or anybody on the planet, nobody wants to be micromanaged, and it gets taken out in the works. So it's about creating these opportunities where I can work with artists and hopefully help them really thrive, and I can take the management of the project off their plate. And then additionally, more and more the clients that I'm working with, we are choosing the artists also for their work, but also for who they are. And I think that is one of the biggest things we've been focused on in the last year since founding our company. Whenever we present artists to clients, we include as much of their bio as possible. We usually have a picture of them. And we've actually even been making pie charts when we're about to finalize a project to say, this is how many women, this is how many diverse artists, are we hitting our coverage? Are we really telling the story? If we want to be creating a space that is inclusive, are the artists on the walls inclusive of that too? So I think when you're choosing an artist for a project because they're telling a certain story, you want their story to shine through. So making sure we're set up and starting in that way is really the best part to make sure that their vision is coming through in the end.

Lisa Belisle: It's been interesting for me over the time that I've been talking with artists to understand that not everybody likes doing commissions. Or maybe they like doing commissions, but maybe they aren't able to work with every single type of person who might commission something. Not everybody is as comfortable with receiving feedback and being willing to work with that feedback. And when you're describing what you're saying as knowing where the artists are coming from, that's so critical, because if you have the wrong people coming together, neither one may be trying to insult the other person completely. But as you say, somebody who's trained in color theory and somebody comes along and says, I would like that purple to match my couch cushion, that almost goes against the artist's better judgment.

Suzi Hlavacek: A hundred percent. And that's where I think it's always about asking. And it's funny that you mentioned purple. I had a commission with this enormous beautiful wood piece that is carved, these carved ribbons of wood. And there was a purple couch that was a very strong purple, and we sort of said to the artist, would you be willing to factor in this color? We can get some color chips, and this is the range of what we're thinking, but it's really strong and we would love the space to kind of sing together. Are you okay with us having more input? And he was actually like, oh, that whole range is great. That whole range looks like it's in line with my work. You guys can pick within those six colors, just you pick one and tell me, and that's fine. So I think it's about how you approach, and how you make sure that we might ask, is this comfortable with your work? And you can say no. It's a collaboration, and that's what commissions are about. It's a collaborative experience. And there have been so many custom commissions from the dawn of artists existing. I mean, the Sistine Chapel was a commission, and Michelangelo hated painting, and he wrote poetry about how much he hated painting it. Even the Rothko series that's in Texas now, that was, I think off the top of my head, for the Four Seasons, and they actually thought it was too dark and they rejected it. So that could be not a hundred percent perfect, but it's always been a practice in the art world. I think it's just a matter of doing your best to manage the process, and to really make sure everybody feels excited and comfortable about how the process will unfold.

Lisa Belisle: Well, and I think this is something else that I've heard from artists and non-artists, the idea that this is a piece that an artist is bringing into the world. It's deeply personal to them in many ways, whether it's commissioned or not commissioned, they're putting themselves into it. But then on the receiving end, this is something that people are going to live with, also deeply personal. It's in their space, they're going to see it every single day. And there's also a sense that art is wonderful for itself, but it also is a business transaction. So how much is what one has to offer worth to what the other person has to give?

Suzi Hlavacek: A hundred percent. And in a sense, I think that's why some of our projects that are more corporate or developer, whether it's a hotel or an office or building lobby, sometimes that sign off process is almost easier, because when we come up with a vision and we come up with a list of goals, we can literally show, and we've put this on, sometimes when a client's not sure, wavering, we've literally made check marks and check boxes where we show that this piece is checking off every single thing that we want. And of all the goals and everything we're trying to achieve, this is checking off everything, so we know that it's doing what we want it to do. And that's more tangible in a commercial project. In the home, it's like, is it resonating in my heart? So that's where it can be a more challenging process when it's something that someone's taking home, because then it's less tangible. But I think in the way that we have established some of our larger projects where there are teams, we come up with a really tight vision, and then it's easy to see that the artist falls in line with that vision. And also in our digital world, it's gotten so much easier to render pieces. I mean, I'm self-trained in Photoshop. I learned it late at night with YouTube tutorials. But some artists can do Photoshop themselves, and others can make a sketch by hand, and then I can drop it into elevations and into renderings. So in that way, the artist can freely create, and then there aren't too many surprises. We can even drop things into photographs. So there's a better sense of the artist can execute on their vision, and there's more knowing what the final result will be. And especially with anything sculptural, there has to be all of these models, and you have to get engineers involved, you need to get structural engineers. So there's a precision to the process that you know what you're going to get, in a sense. But it's sort of different for every medium.

Lisa Belisle: Obviously my field is very different. The medical field is very different, and there's a certain amount of factual collection that goes on. And I think about the chief medical officer that I work with. He has like almost a file cabinet brain, where he's able to open the file cabinet, whatever it is, and reach in and be like, this is the fact for this situation. And so as you're describing part of what you're describing, it feels almost like that. Like in your mind, there are file cabinets full of facts and things that are very solid, that are very rationally explained and measured.

Suzi Hlavacek: Yes.

Lisa Belisle: And then there's also the sense of art and the feeling of art. And I wonder how one catalogs that.

Suzi Hlavacek: You know, I think that's why, as we were thinking about our early marketing days and building out our website and thinking about what our company meant to us, my partner Kate, we did a pretty extensive visioning process for our own company. And what we kept coming back to over and over was connection. Artists are able to make real so much human emotion. And what we see in art is we connect to art on all different levels for all different reasons, in ways that we can explain. So for us, I think it's about what we're helping our clients do, finding that connection, finding the ways in which it connects to them. And sometimes it's through the artist's story, sometimes it's what the visual language is, sometimes it's just the beauty of it. But what we always are looking for is amplifying that connective moment and figuring out ways to tell that story and making sure that it's coming through, so that they can see really why that art matters, and what's going to resonate, and why it's going to hit home and connect to either them personally or to that project specifically. Artists can translate what so many of us feel in these real tangible ways. And it's so much of what we're looking for in the world. And I think too, it's the pros and cons of our digital age, that we are very connected, but at the same time we're further apart. And I love that art is this real tangible way to get back to each other. And I think even especially in this post-COVID era where we were all really sequestered, we are working on these spaces, and it's about how do you bring people in? How do you make them feel welcome? How do you make them feel excited to be in a space? And art is so much that reason. Art is the reason to beckon people. Whether it's a home and you put a piece of artwork above a couch and that literally pulls people in, or it's a sculpture that's interactive that you can play with, that kids can gather around in a public area, that actually is that punctuation point of a space to bring them in. So at a really fundamental level, artists are the best connectors. And that's why we want to be around them.

Lisa Belisle: And so one of the questions I have for you is, knowing that you can build the files in the file cabinet, but the sense of things, when you're standing in front of a piece, the feeling that you have that you can't get from looking on a website, that's a very different gathering of information. And it must require you to show up in a really different way to collect all the things you need to on a regular basis to make all of these connections happen.

Suzi Hlavacek: Definitely. And that's where I think when we're in that process, it's part of our job to make sure that everyone is really understanding what this piece is going to be. And I think I am good at making leaps and I can understand what the final picture is, but I know I need to make it really crystal clear to the client. I was literally doing this last night in renderings, where the image that the artist had sent was really amazing, but I could tell I needed to add in even just a silhouette of a human to show the scale, because when you were looking at it on a screen, maybe it wasn't jumping off as much. But then all of a sudden you put a silhouette and you realize the scale, and that gives you this little link to see just how big it is and to see just what the piece is. And that's where sometimes whether it's getting physical samples, things you can hold, things you can touch, or making sure you're looking at tons of imagery. I mean, Instagram is so helpful. Most artists have pretty robust Instagram accounts, so we can pull tons and tons of imagery. But there's definitely a leap when you're commissioning work. There's definitely a gray area. So what I really work to do is to fill in those spaces as much as possible.

Lisa Belisle: So it almost sounds as though the artist is doing their version of translation, and then you're doing your version of translating the artist's version of translation, and back translating for the people who are going to be living or working with the art.

Suzi Hlavacek: Exactly. And that's where I want to do as much as I can for the artist. In the same way galleries operate in this way too, where we want the artist to be in their space to create, and how much can we take off of their plate to help support them and to help the art find a home. And I think at the end of the day too, going back to that idea of secondary and primary market, what we really feel passionate about is that we are also cutting checks to living, breathing artists. We really believe in supporting a healthy creative economy and supporting creators and allowing them to do their work. And a big part of that too is, a lot of artists have day jobs, so how can we work around your schedule, or how can we place these projects to keep you as a fully independent full-time working artist? So that's a big focus of what we're doing too, to make sure that we're taking the logistic work off their plate, but then also making sure that they're being compensated in a really fair and healthy way. It really comes down to doing what we can to make sure the artists can focus on their work. And that's where sometimes too, we are really excited to collaborate with galleries, because sometimes it's a gallerist. We are in the thick of it. So again, we can just let the artists paint, let them sculpt, let them do their work, and then the gallerists and we get to come together and work to place the art.

Lisa Belisle: I've really enjoyed this conversation, in part because, obviously my husband Kevin Thomas owns the Portland Art Gallery. So a lot of what you're saying is very similar to what I hear him saying on a regular basis. And having met and worked with and become friends with many of the artists, knowing how important it is for them to make a living, to exist in the world, to continue to do the work that they do so well, but also being someone who has come to really appreciate art and how important it is to my own life to live with it. It seems like there's a lot of synchronicity between the work that you do and the work that has become very important to our family as well.

Suzi Hlavacek: Definitely. And there was a long established viewpoint amongst a lot of art professionals and gallerists too, I think, of kind of a zero sum game. Like, if that gallery's making a sale, then it's a loss on our end. I think a lot of walls were put up, and there wasn't as much collaboration across the board. So something that we're doing a lot of is, we go into projects in a really transparent way, and we make sure that everybody knows who's being paid what and how it's all breaking down. The client knows, the gallery knows, the artist knows. There's full transparency, and you can create room for these really collaborative experiences. We had a wonderful project with the Portland Art Gallery where it was one of these projects where we were placing a lot of work in a very short amount of time. So it was just this incredible collaborative experience where we all got to work together and make things happen really fast and place a lot of really great work. So I think that's where there's a newer approach in the past few years that I've noticed. It's just an openness of realizing and saying that everyone needs to get compensated, and we're all in this for the same reasons. So we can all be competitors, or we can all be collaborators. And you can still do that in a way that it works financially for everybody. Right now we're a for-profit company. We're trying to work towards getting possibly B Corp status. Very complicated. Even just getting our women-owned business stamp has been, it's not easy. There's a lot of hurdles, and actually we've learned because there's a lot of fraud in that space, which is crazy. But I think there's a new lens and there's a shifting way to do business. And it feels really good to be in that space.

Lisa Belisle: I appreciate your taking the time to come in and talk with me about the work that you're doing.

Suzi Hlavacek: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Lisa Belisle: Well, the pleasure is all mine, so thank you. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you have been listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I've been speaking with art consultant and co-founder of Alchemy Station, Suzi Hlavacek. Thank you for coming in today.

Suzi Hlavacek: Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful.