Albany County

Creative Beginnings: Angelique Powell

July 30, 2018 By Maureen Sager

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://upstatecreative.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IMG_0825.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][cs_text]Angelique shared her advice about growing within your organization. We talked about the limited roles/jobs available in arts nonprofits, and how that can lead to high competition and discouragement for people trying to break into the industry.

Where are you from, and where do you live now? I’m from Latham, NY and I live in Albany, NY

Where did you attend school? What did you study? I graduated from Shaker High School and then graduated from Ithaca College with a BA in Psychology.

Family? I’m the oldest of six kids and really only grew up with my immediate family, but they all live locally to this day.

What Job titles have you held? I’ve been at the Palace for a year and 7 months. I started in the Box Office as a Ticket Seller and then after 6 months I was promoted to Part-Time Event Night Supervisor and 10 months later I was promoted to Development Manager and Community Events Coordinator as a part of the Development Department here.

What got you interested in performing arts and acting? I honestly feel like I was born this way. I am the oldest of a tribe of children and I always turned our play time, into full scale productions in which I did costumes, constructed the set, directed and was the lead actor, hahaha! Everything I was involved in, until I finally began to perform in middle school, I brought to it, this very dynamic, performance aspect to it until I finally found my home on stage.

Do you have a favorite role you’ve played? Which? Last March, I played Mrs. Mueller in DOUBT at Schenectady Civic Playhouse.

As an actor and an administrator, how does this impact your daily life and how do you find balance? I wish I could answer this in a more beautiful and inspiring way but the honesty and transparency is that I don’t always succeed at finding the balance. There are some days that I’m learning my lines frantically, backstage, as I’m awaiting my scene to approach. There are some days when I arrive to work two hours early because of the guilt of not being able to stay later the night before. There are days when I’m so exhausted, I feel like I feel it in the very tips of my fingers and toes and I’m just praying to get through the week and I ask myself, why do I continue to do this? The answer; I can’t NOT do this. On days when I am unsure about everything, that is the one thing I am completely certain of; I was meant to be an actor.

What does your job at The Palace entail? What do you enjoy about your job? I have a really big, community relations, aspect to my position here at the Palace. A key component to my roles and responsibilities is being the point of contact for all of our non-commercial events and help engage and potentially reengage the community in a way they may not have otherwise had a relationship with the theatre. I love the community. I truly and genuinely enjoy and am filled with immense gratitude to be afforded this opportunity to truly serve my community and through arts engagement. I have been so impacted by the arts and the ability to use the arts to connect, include, build, rebuild, and heal and to be able to share that with the community as both a professional and an artist; let’s just say the beauty isn’t lost on me.

Many people leave a job in order to grow and move ahead in their career but you’ve been able to grow and see opportunities for growth in your field while staying at the Palace. How have you navigated that? Well, I actually had a long-standing, retail managerial career that I left before I ended up at the Palace. I took a major pay cut and decided, that it was time to think about and take a chance on myself and what truly makes me happy.

Life is so unimaginably short and we only get one; what is the point if we don’t take every gift, privilege and opportunity afforded us and do something really amazing with it? My time, here at the Palace, has been relatively short in comparison to that eight-year career, but it has been so rich in experience and fulfillment. From working in the box office and getting to give amazing customer service and be a part of how excited people would get over their favorite artists or children absolutely beaming at the opportunity to see a movie or performance for the very first time in a theatre, to working in Development and getting to put together a film screening of, “I Am Evidence,” during Sexual Assault Awareness Month to call attention to the significant number of cases that have had justice impeded by backlogged evidence and then to take on the amazing, “Summer in the City” Program, to allow the community children a free movie series, incorporating their favorites, that allows them to enjoy the place that has really become my second home; this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

I truly believe in the mission and vision of the Palace Theatre and what we have and will continue to contribute to the local arts community and now, when I’m at home, still working or thinking about something work related, it’s not simply to hit a sales goal. I have a real opportunity to make a difference, in my own, totally unique way. That being said, it’s easy to think of longevity here instead of moving on to another job, because here, I can create opportunities for myself and others.

What’s one thing you want the community to know about the local arts scene? It’s larger than you think and probably just a Facebook invite away. [/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

Local Producer Commemorates Juneteenth with ‘Talk Eat Art’ Event

June 6, 2018 By Maureen Sager

*Kaciem Swain, Founder and Creative Director of Velvet Rope Group*

This was necessary since the Emancipation Proclamation, announced by President Lincoln about three years before, did not have jurisdiction over Confederate states like Texas and technically didn’t free a single enslaved Black person. Even after it was law, there was minimal support in enforcing the law.

In the Capital Region, a local entrepreneur is producing an event that not only celebrates the Emancipation of Black people, but celebrates the creative impact Black people have made in the region. Through art, poetry and music, Talk Eat Art, or T.E.A. is an event that has been happening for 4 years in the Capital Region, but this year, the event also commemorates an important day in Black History.

Kaciem Swain (aka @CampaignSwain) is the Founder and Creative Director of Velvet Rope Group, an experiential special events company. He says he decided to celebrate freedom and economic development for people of color rather than a history of slavery and inequality. Six venues, over a thousand tickets sold, and 100 performances later, this year’s event will be held at Proctors Theatre on June 15th.

Swain wants to provide a platform for artists, musicians, and creatives of color to share their talents. His event promotion career began as a teenage protegee with a series called “Rock The Mic.” That started Swain on a path to creating a diverse range of experiences and events, like He said She said, a forum about love, intimacy and relationships, and a writers forum called “A Penny for Your Thoughts”.

Swain wanted to offer a safe space for people to come together, eat, drink, and share constructive criticism in a safe creative environment.

Swain has also teamed up with entrepreneur Liska Wilson, marketing consultant, founder of the nonprofit She’s a Boss, and Busy Day co-owner. Together they created Think Tank Thursdays, a mastermind event series in which aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners, and visionaries meet up and share ideas about success, innovation, and growth.

“The goal is to build relationships that are diverse and inclusive. Instead of focusing on us having seats at the table, we should focus on building a table together.” Swain also wants to help the creative economy as well through events like T.E.A., whose business model has changed to a profit sharing model where creatives are empowered to deliver and understand that they can create their own financial destiny. The new business model has allowed creatives to see the impact they can have from a business perspective.

I also got a chance to speak to a musician Jordan Taylor-Hill, who will be a part of the opening performance at T.E.A.

“Juneteenth for me personally means freedom of expression as an artist and a drummer. Practices like drumming were condemned and banned on plantations and places where Africans would gather. So to be able to perform , and commemorate people who have laid the groundwork and made this possible is an honor. I’m excited to be involved in this event.”

Tickets for TEA can be purchased at Proctors website. The event begins at 7pm. For more information, contact Velvet Rope Group.

Guest post by Ashleigh Kinsey, owner, AK Design[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

ACE Inside Look: Nine Pin Cider

May 1, 2018 By Maureen Sager

Nine Pin Cider Works is a thriving business that retains the appeal and loyalty of a family-run endeavor despite growing their wholesale footprint to 3 states and housing a large tasting room in the heart of the Capital District.

Bottles are still hand labeled on-site, all employees are empowered to contribute future batch ideas, and the canning line is as likely to be manned by the owner as it is by the Head of Packaging, Justin. Seven massive tanks dominating the warehouse are playfully named after the Seven Dwarves, while 26 smaller capsules are on hand for creating a constantly changing menu of retail seasonal and specialty blends.

Spend a few minutes with Nine Pin Founder and Cider Maker Alejandro del Peral and you will quickly realize that their success is no accident: Alejandro’s infectious enthusiasm, entrepreneurial spirit, degrees in Biology and Hydrology and experience in Engineering uniquely combine to set a casual, dedicated atmosphere. Asked to have his portrait taken in front of whichever Dwarf tank best fit him on the day of our visit, he walked to Dopey without hesitation. This humility and having mother Sonya (an attorney by day) as the company Business Manager keep Alejandro grounded while leading one of the fastest growing creative businesses in the region.

Location: 929 Broadway, Albany NY [map it!]

Employees: 13 Full-Time, 17 total

In business since: 2013, with the first batch production in February 2014

Products: 4 wholesale cider core products, and 100-150 small batch blends annually

Was any single experience or moment the trigger for your company progressing from an idea to reality?

Alejandro del Peral: It really stemmed from when I was in Grad School – I became very interested in food systems and what I ate and where it was grown. Sustainable food systems usually involve sourcing everything locally, but ‘local beer’ was made with ingredients from all over the world. It was ‘local’ but it wasn’t driving the economy. When I heard that New York had the second largest apple crop in the country that was my “Eureka” moment.

What advice would you give to a person starting a creative business?

AdP: First, you need a lot more money than you think you do. Secondly, you must realize that as much as you want to be creative it is about what your market and customers want and you must be open to being creative within the parameters set by the market you are serving.

What inspires you?

AdP: Inspiration comes from the involvement of everyone in the company. New York produces the most varieties of apples in the country and working with the team to find new blends is inspiring. Having the Tasting Room gives us an outlet to experiment; with our wholesale products we are more reserved with what we produce because there is so much more invested. We can make a 50-gallon batch, put it on tap here and even if it doesn’t turn out incredible we get the feedback from the consumers and it isn’t a huge loss.

Was there a particular moment or milestone where you thought “Ok, now we’ve ‘made it’”?

AdP: I was at a bar and overheard a conversation about our cider and realized the brand had grown beyond just me and those associated with me and my mom. It has its own image out there and it’s not totally in our control any more. Still, there hasn’t been a feeling that we’ve ‘made it’ because we are still in Start-Up mode. Things are going well, but we are not there yet.
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ACE/Center for Economic Growth Creative Economy Roundtable Tour

March 23, 2018 By Maureen Sager

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][rev_slider ACERoadShow2018][x_gap size=”15px”][cs_text]ACE and the Center for Economic Growth have concluded our 2018 Creative Economy Roundtable Tour.

This six-county tour, held in February and March 2018, brought more than 700 attendees to Capital Region cultural institutions and creative agencies for open discussions on our regional identity, business challenges and opportunities, and everything related to our region’s Creative Economy. At the sessions, facilitators also shared new data showing the economic contributions from the creative industries, one of the largest and most dynamic regional employment sectors.[/cs_text][cs_text]Special thanks to our event partners Fingerpaint and WMHT Educational Telecommunications, our event designer 2440 Design Studio, and our hosts: Overit, WMHT Educational Telecommunications, the Hyde Collection, Proctors, SPAC’s Hall of Springs, and Hudson Hall at the historic Hudson Opera House. ACE and CEG also thank the many local companies who provided refreshments for our Roundtable Tour, including Berben & Wolff’s, [forged], Fort Orange Brewing, Mazzone Hospitality, Sunhee’s Farm and Kitchen, and 22 2nd Street Wine Co.

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New Video Highlights Albany Symphony & Creative Economy

November 3, 2017 By Maureen Sager

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_video_embed no_container=”false” type=”16:9″][/x_video_embed][cs_text]Check out this terrific video tour hosted by Albany Symphony’s David Alan Miller, created by the Capital Region Economic Development Council to celebrate and spotlight some fantastic projects around our region, including Creative Economy star Melissa auf der Maur of Basilica Hudson.

Interested in all of the CREDC’s priority projects? Find them here in the 2017 “Capital Region Creates” Progress Report.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]