The Art of Alchemy Station: Suzi Hlavacek

Today I have with me in the studio, Suzy Hlavacek, who is the co-founder of Alchemy Station. Welcome to Maine again. Well, Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be Here. And you were just saying to me that you actually, even though you are from the Boston area mm-hmm. , you spend quite a bit of time up in Maine, sort of at any opportunity that you can really Yes. exactly. It's actually what, really the proximity to Maine is what 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. And my dad never missed a summer. And 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. And they are in California, so they come back east to Maine. That's where we spend holidays, and it's where my, my little guy, my four year old gets to see his grandparents and cousins and so it's really just the place that we love the most in the world. so we spend as much time as possible being in Well, that's great to hear. I I also love Maine, so anybody that similarly feels that Maine is the place to be, I it is. Immediately there's a connection there. Yes, definitely. alchemy Station. Tell me about that. Yes. What is it and why was it named Alchemy Station? Yes. So we are an art consulting firm and my partner and I founded Alchemy Station about a year ago, and we actually spent a good amount of time, we knew what we wanted to do and what the, what was, and this is where people who might be familiar with Simon Sinek, who are big fans of his, and so we're big believers and start with the why. and our name really comes from the why why we exist is to spread passion and to create connection and to, to really connect people on an intangible level. And that's through art. and so we loved that this idea of alchemy and transformation really speaks to these really almost magical and mystical kind of human connection moments. and also we, we most, most of our work as our consultants, which I'll go into is working on new construction projects and working on really physically transforming spaces and using art to do that. and we loved the idea of a station not as a fixed place of this sort of journey of this idea of movement and change and discovery of kind of these allegories to really taking different pathways and sort of a, a stop on a journey in and moving through different spaces and experiences. So why art consulting? How, how did you get into this field? 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 I've always loved being surrounded by art. I grew up in a home with a lot of art and was in mus taking museum trips especially with my mom on the weekends. And then I was lucky enough to take art history in high school. Actually. I took AP art history with an absolutely incredible teacher. her name was Miss DeVito. I have to give her a shout out. But that really started that pathway. So I took a, I think you could call it traditional sort of art history path. so I took, 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 into, I moved up to Boston again, really to be closer to Maine, try out a different city, and I started art consulting. And what I loved about that was this real combination of the creative and the logistics. and also being in the primary market, I had always with auction houses, I'd been in the secondary market. And so 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 and partnering them where it's the first time an art, a piece of art is being created. and so I quickly kind of was very at home in also 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. or right now we're doing a lot of sculptural works where they need to be to certain fire codes. And so it's, it's amazing to get to partner with these brilliant creative artists. And then also to get to partner with clients who feel really excited about bringing artwork into their spaces. Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the work that the Portland Art Gallery does with their sculptors and, and, and actually all of their artists really. But there isn't, there is a lot of backend stuff that I don't think yes, many people realize. Like when David Moser has a sculpture that's gonna go to, let's say Tampa, Florida, you know, somebody has to come in and box that up and make sure that it's gonna be ready to travel and, you know, make sure that we're putting it the right hands so that it gets there safely. And there's a lot that has to go into that. 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 our consulting and art advisors and but what we really do is at, at the end of the day, we're, we're a middleman. we're, 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're, that they feel really safe and protected and that their investment is safe, and that the project is gonna move smoothly. And then for the artist, we also wanna make sure that they feel really safe and protected and that their work is gonna be safe and that their vision is gonna be executed. And 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 gonna be? How do we access that site? who, 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 sort of different checkpoints. So it's in addition to the, I get really excited about the logistics. I, as much as I do about the creative, 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. When you describe the work that you do some people might think, oh, it's Susie's going into somebody's house and she's helping, you know, design their living room space with them mm-hmm. 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. That's, yes. That's a very, like, conceptually, that's a really different way of understanding what you do. Totally. And that's where we really work across a lot of different industries, I'd say with private clients and private homes are the, the smaller percentage of what we do, we, they kind of end up finding us out 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 needs to fill a, that's purchased a, a new home, and he wants to fill the whole thing and really fast . And so that's, 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 really kind of do a big presentation all in one day. but we have a lot of projects that are larger in scale. and what's really 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. And so say it's a developer who's building a lab building and there's a lobby and amenity spaces and kind of gathering spaces. and so we talk a lot about what we want the space to feel like, what we, 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 really kind of dive in and 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 gonna need to be custom because it's so immense. and so sometimes we can find existing works. Sometimes it's custom commissioning them. and I think I am bringing up lab because it's, that's been so fun for me because it's this sort of Venn diagram of arts and scientists, artists and scientists have so much in common in how they look and think they, they're able to really perceive the world so deeply and to take this close sort of examining eye on the world around them. and so it's, it's, there's just such a rich sort of resource of artists who are taking the scientific experience and translating it in an aesthetic way. and it's, so, 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 just, just exploring the woods and the forest and those sort of, that magic is really, I think, such a unifying link between those in the arts and those in the scientists. So we, it's, it's been very fun to take that approach and actually find artists who work in that capacity and bring them into spaces. You've described the ability to look deeply and perceive deeply mm-hmm. 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? Always . And that's, 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. And I think, I know I've luckily been able to work with clients who are, they're building buildings and doing these really difficult things, but they're also people who are really passionate about the arts. And so some of them understand the process a little bit better, but know that there are something, if we wanted 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 those, those kind that sort of back and forth of making sure visions align. And sometimes there are, 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 gonna get what we get. That's part of my, that's really part of my job, is figuring out the process. and then also maybe understanding if they're willing to work on different sort of with feedback of different kinds and, and understanding too that there might be something that could be perceived differently by different people or just in a, in a, in a logistical sense too. Like, I'm working on a project right now where one of the strongest visual elements actually isn't a code, so we have to go back and reorient. and I think too, it's also, it's both educating, and it can be with 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 push, if we try to kind of get in there and medal. And that's, that's, it's, it's my position to make sure that really the artist can do their work. and whether it's artists or anybody in the planet, nobody wants to be micromanaged , and it gets taken out in the works. So it's about creating these opportunities that I can work with artists and hopefully help them really thrive and that they can, I can kind of take the management of the project off their plate. so it's great. And then additionally too, more and more the, the artists and or rather 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 of when we're about to finalize a project to say, this is how many women this is how many diverse artists are we, are we hitting our coverage? Are we really telling the story? If we wanna be creating a space that is inclusive, are the artists on the walls inclusive of that too? So it's, 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. and so that's 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. It's been interesting for me over the time that I've been talking with artists to, to understand that not everybody likes doing commissions. Not everybody, maybe they like doing commissions, but maybe they aren't able to work with every single type of person. Yes. who might commission something. Yep. not everybody is as comfortable with receiving feedback and being willing to work with that feedback. and I think it, when I describe, when you're describing what you're saying as knowing where the artists are coming from, I mean, 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 co my couch cushion, you know, , that maybe it, it almost goes against the artist's better judgment. A hundred percent. And, and that's where I think it's always about asking. And I did actually have a, a a, it's funny that you mentioned purple. I had a commission with this, this enormous beautiful wood piece that is a carved, sort of 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? Like, we can get some color chips, and this is sort of 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, all that whole range is great. And that whole range looks like it's in line with my work. Like, just, you guys can pick like, within those six colors, like just you pick one and tell me, and that's fine. So that's, I think it's about how you approach and again, how you make sure that if, if we're we're, we might ask, is this comfortable with your work? And you can say, no, you can. It's, it's a collaboration and that's what commissions are about. It's, it's a collaborative experience, and there've been so many custom. And sometimes it, it, I always use the example of there's been so many custom commissions from the dawn of artist existing. I mean, the Sistine Chapel was a commission, and Michelangelo hated painting, and he wrote poetry about like how much he hated painting it, but there's so many kind of commissions. I mean, even the Rothko series that's in Texas now, that was, I think off the top of my head, was for the Four Seasons, and they actually thought it was too dark and they rejected it. so I could be, that, that could be not a hundred percent perfect, but there have been it, it's always been a practice in the art world. I think it's just a matter of how doing your best to manage the process and, and to really make sure everybody feels excited and comfortable about how the process will unfold. Well, and I think that this is something else that I've heard from artists and non-artist, is the idea that you're, this is some, this is a piece that an artist is bringing into the world. It's deeply personal to them in many ways. Mm-hmm. , 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. Mm-hmm. , it's in their space, they're gonna see it every single day. and there's also a sense that, you know, art is wonderful for itself, but it it all it is also a business transaction. Yes. So how much is what one has to offer worth to what the other person, you know, has to give At a hundred percent. And in a sense, I think that's why some of our, our projects that are, I guess, more corporate or developer, whether it's a hotel or an office or building lobby sometimes that sort of 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, like we've put, like, we've literally made check marks and check boxes where we show that this piece is, is checking off every single thing that we want. And of all the goals and of everything we're trying to achieve, like 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, in the home. It's like, is it, you know, resonating in my heart? You know? So it's, that's where it can be a, a more challenging process when it's something that someone's taking home, because then it's less tangible. but I think in, in the way that we have established some of our larger projects where there are teams we come up with a a a really kind of 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. And so I, I mean, I'm self-trained in Photoshop. I like learned it late at night with YouTube tutorials, but some artists can do Photoshop themselves, but others can, they can make a sketch by hand, and then I can drop it into elevations and into renderings. And so in that way, the artist can freely create, and then there aren't too many surprises. We know, or we can even drop things into photographs. So we, there's a better sense of the artist can, can execute on their vision, and there's there's more knowing what the final result will be. and especially with anything sculptural, like, there has to be all of these models and you have to get engineers involved, and you need to get structural engineers. And so you really, there's there's a, a precision to the process that, you know, what you're going to get in a sense. and that's, but that it's, it's sort of different for every media. Obviously my field is very different. The medical field is very different, and there's a certain amount of kind of factual collection that goes on mm-hmm. . and I think about the chief medical officer that I work with, he, he has like almost a file cabinet brain Yep. Where he's able to like, open the file cabinet, whatever it is, and reach in and be like, this is the fact for this situation. Yep. and so as you're describing part of what you're describing, it feels almost like that, like in your mind there's like thing, there are file cabinets full of facts and things that are very solid, that are very kind of rationally explained and measured. Yes. Then there's also kind of the sense of art and Yes, the feeling of art. And I, I wonder how one catalogs that, you know, You know, I, I think that that's why as we, we were thinking about when we were going through really our early kind of marketing days and building out our website and thinking about what our company meant to us my partner Kate, we, we did a pretty extensive sort of visioning process for our own company. And what we kept coming back to over and over was connection. and that artists are able to make real so much human emotion. And I think what we see in art is we connect to art on all different levels for all different reasons, in ways that we can explain. And so for us, I think it's about what we're helping our clients do is finding that connection, finding the ways in which it connects to them. And sometimes it's through the artist's story, sometimes through 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. And so that they can see really why that art matters and, and really what's gonna resonate and why it's gonna hit home and connect to either them personally or to that project specifically. I think it's, it's artists can, 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, again, it's the, the pros and cons of our digital age is 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 is we're, 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, 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 tell people to kind of bring them in. It's so at a really fundamental level artists are the best connectors. And so that's why we wanna be around them. . And, and so I guess one of the questions I have for you is knowing that you can sort of build the files in the file cabinet But the sense of things and the, when you're standing in front of a piece, the feeling that you have that you can't get from looking on a website Completely, That's a very different gathering of information. Yes. And, and must require you to show up in a really different way to kind of collect all the things you need to on a regular basis to make all of these connections Happen. 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 gonna be. And I think I am good at making leaps and I can sort of understand what the final picture is, but I know I need to make it really crystal clear to the client. So, and even I was literally doing this last night in renderings where the image that the artist had sent was really amazing. and, but I could tell, like 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. And that's why, I mean, Instagram is so helpful for artists have pretty, 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 it's, what I really work to do is to fill in those spaces as much as possible. 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. Exactly. And back translating for the people who are going to be living or working with the art. Exactly. 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 it's sort of, 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, what we in terms of that, going back to that idea of secondary and primary market, like what we really feel passionate about is that we are also cutting checks to living, breathing artists, like we really believe in, in supporting a healthy creative economy and supporting creators and allowing them to do their work. And a big part of that too is, I mean, a lot of artists have day jobs, so how can we work around your schedule or just 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, is to make sure that we're taking both kind of logistic logistic work off their plate, but then also making sure that they're being compensated in a really kind of fair and healthy way. But it, it really comes down to doing what we can to make sure the artists can focus on their work. so, and that's where sometimes too, we, we are really excited to collaborate with galleries because sometimes it's a gallerist. We are in the thick of it. And 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, to really kind of come together and work to place, place the, the art. I've really enjoyed this conversation in part because you know, obviously my husband Kevin Thomas owns the Portland Art Gallery. Yes. So I, 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's for them to make a living Yes. To exist in the world. Absolutely. To continue to do the work that they do so well, but also being someone who has come to really appreciate art and now how, how important it is to my own life to live with it. Mm-hmm. I, it seems like there's a lot of, a lot of synchronicity between the work that you do and the work that has be become very important to our family as well. Definitely. And it was such a the, there was a long, I think, established viewpoint amongst a, 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. Or I, I think a lot of, a lot of walls were put up and there wasn't as much collaboration across the board. And so something that we're doing a lot of is just, 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 that gallery knows, the artist knows there's full transparency, and you can create room for these really collaborative experiences. And that's, we had, I we had a wonderful, wonderful project with the Portland Art Gallery where it was, it was one of these projects where we were placing a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And so it was just this incredible experie, a collaborative experience where we all got to work together and make make things happen really fast and place a lot of really great work. so it's, I think that's where there's a new there's just a newer approach I think in the past few years that I've noticed, and amongst a lot. It's a, 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. And so we can all, we can all be competitors or we can all be collaborators. And and you can still do that in a way that it works financially for everybody. and that's even right now we are we're a for-profit company. We're trying to work towards getting possibly B Corp status. Very complicated. Even just getting our women known business stamp has been has been, it's, 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 there's, I think just there's a new lens and there there's a shifting way to do business. and it feels really good to be in that space. I appreciate your taking the time to come in and talk with me about the work that you're doing. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. Well, the pleasure is all mine, so thank you. Today I've been speaking with art consultant and co-founder of Alchemy Station, Suzy Hlavacek. Thank you for coming in today. Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful.