Rocky Mountain Women in Business Series Video: April Werle

Speaker 1 (00:10):

So my name is April Werle. I'm a painter. I'm located in Missoula, Montana, and primarily I make paintings for the fine art world. I think that, like every artist, my parents really fostered creativity when I was growing up as a way to give me something to do. And I loved everything. I danced, I was really passionate about writing for a period of time. And then I think pretty early on I knew I wanted to be an architect. And disclaimer, that's not the route that I went down, and that was an agreement with my parents. And I remember I didn't live with my dad, but when I hung out with him, we would go get coffee and then we would drive around or walk around the mansion district and the walking mall in Helena, and he'd tell me the history of buildings. And so it felt like a really safe career path to choose, with creativity.

(01:15):

And my mom is a classic Filipino mom, and she told me what I wanted to be when I grow up until we came to architecture. And that was an agreed upon career path. And so that was middle school when I decided that with my parents. And then up until senior year, I knew that I wanted to go down that path. And I remember at a job fair talking to an architect and being like, what advice do you have for somebody my age that wants to go into architecture? And he said that he wished he took more art classes. And so that is where this major pivot happened for me. I took Art II my senior year and I had a piece that won grand prize at the Holder Museum, and it's just funny saying that because it's so long ago, back when I was 17, and then I went to architecture school. After the curriculum became less art based and more science and engineering based, I realized that I hated it and I dropped out of school and moved to Missoula all in one day, hours after deciding that.

(02:36):

And I started art school here. So that kind of just led me down this career path. And I went to art school and worked a couple odd jobs after college and then realized that I didn't want to try and balance having a "job" job and an art studio practice. And so I just made it work through a lot of trial and error. And so now that's primarily what I do, is my studio practice. Yeah, it's like the multitasking I'm not very good at. And I painted houses full time while I was working on my first show out of college, and the show was just such a letdown for me. I didn't get the paintings to the level I wanted to. And I went to residency in Morocco, saw everybody just, it's mostly a tourism industry in Morocco, so I saw everybody just slinging artwork on the sidewalk, and I'm like, if these people are selling art off the sidewalk, I'm going to figure out how to make this happen when I get home. I don't think that there are any skills that are unique to me. I think that being an entrepreneur is just a necessity for making artwork in a sustainable way, and I think that it's not really a choice at this point. I'm just not happy when I'm not creating. And so it's made me have to figure out how to do all of the business end part of my art practice.

(04:32):

I think the skills that I have developed that have really helped is having a routine. My studio's at home and so I get up, have got my routine, I make coffee, do my emails, I go work out and then shower, eat breakfast, and then I do whatever studio stuff and applications and writing. I think that I wish that I knew how much writing I would be doing in my visual art career, and I definitely would've taken more writing classes if that were the case. But yeah, I think routine is so important and just learning how to be better at articulating myself. I got really lucky and I had a really great boss in college and I learned all the skills from her that I didn't learn in art school, like having a website and marketing and how to create labels. Also, my partner is in digital marketing and he also works from home.

(05:42):

So it's been learning how to market from him has been really helpful and actually has been one of the biggest helps in my journey. He is a great copy editor and he edits everything that I write when it comes to applications or blog posts. Community has been literally everything. Before, I never thought, so before rewind to after college and while I was trying to figure out how to make money as an artist, I was primarily painting murals and primarily just making art that felt good to me, but not with really any intent. I didn't see myself as ever being in the gallery art world. I was more like pop art and then 2020 hit, and I think it made a lot of people reevaluate community and heritage and culture. So I started using my art practice to reconnect with my cultural roots. And simultaneously I was joining online communities like Filipina American Authors Book Club, and I did an entrepreneurship program that was virtual and open to Fil Ams in the United States and Canada.

(07:06):

And that was a small cohort of women just starting their businesses. And so that brought a lot of community. And I started noticing sales increase like prints. It was kind of when I pivoted also from murals to in my studio because, lockdown. So that's part of the reason why I moved out of murals. And then simultaneously, I got my first solo exhibition at the Holder Museum in Helena, and it sent me down a new trajectory. And I would say that my community is primarily people throughout the United States that resonate on levels of being mixed race or being Filipino American, but then also local community like the arts. Yeah, I think that, so I grew up in Helena in a tight-knit small Filipino community. And so I've always been extremely fascinated by my cultural identity and heritage because my home life was a complete contrast to my school life and my work life.

(08:26):

And my mom also at a really young age taught us to be proud to be Filipino as a way to just kind of shield us from a lot of naivete of friends and friends' parents, which did happen. So in college I studied abroad and I came back and went into my BFA year and was making work about being biracial. And at the time it was 2016, 2017, and I didn't feel like we were talking about race here necessarily, and I didn't have the language to defend my work. So it was really disheartening. My critiques were really uncomfortable. And so for a couple years after graduating between 2017 and 2020, I just started making work about formalism. And so when I said before that I was just making work that looked good and felt good to me, it was just rooted in shapes and no real intent behind it, like I said.

(09:41):

And so when 2020, I got commissioned a mural through the ZACC, it was a BIPOC mural series called Feeling Welcome, and it really started me down the path again of exploring cultural heritage in my work because I realized, oh, there is an audience that's interested in what I have to say about this. And then that just kind of snowballed over the years from 2020 to now. And yeah, I've made really good friends with people all around the United States because of the themes of my work. So that's a good question because when I started out, when I came back from that residency in 2018 and I was like, I'm going to make this work. I lived in my car, I lived in a tiny home with my best friend who I met while painting a mural on a place we call The Commune. And I don't know if it's really a commune, but it definitely could be interpreted that way.

(10:52):

So I was just kind of living nomadically and super inexpensively, and that was for multiple reasons. I was just trying to keep my costs really low, and I also wasn't sure if I wanted to move somewhere else. I had previously let go of my apartment and sold all my stuff to go travel and move abroad, and that didn't work out. So I came back and I was like, well, I'm not going to get an apartment. I'm just going to live in my car until I figure out what I want to do. So making work was really challenging when I was living in my car, so I was primarily painting murals. Then I met my partner right before 2020, and we were a Covid couple. So I, along with his friends and his twin sister and her also brand new boyfriend, we all moved into his house and it was more of a situation of like, you got to move in or I don't know if we'll be able to see each other. Because I had just got my own apartment. I was like, I can't live with my dude best friend and sleep five feet away from him and also enter a really serious relationship. So about four months later, everyone moved out and it was just my partner and I, so I commandeered one of the bedrooms, and that's my studio. So in 2020 I moved in and it really sent me into making paintings, and then I was making prints and selling prints.

(12:35):

I think that there's so much to unpack with this, but basically being with my partner who had a really good job really pushed me to perform at a higher level. And so the thing that helped me become profitable is having really detailed spreadsheets of all of my money. So I have all my business expenses. I don't use QuickBooks. I found that it doesn't work for my business. I have my own spreadsheets that I copy and paste every year, and I have my own detailed graphs for things that are very specific to me, and that's helped me make really wise decisions with my money and in terms of do I have extra to invest in terms of buying panels for a new show or going to LA to go show at a fair.

(13:45):

So yeah, the journey has been tricky because I'm in a recent pivot and a lot of my income has come from selling limited edition prints, but now I'm working with a gallery and I'm really trying to focus on selling my paintings. So I'm not making prints anymore, at least not as much as I was in the past. And primarily my money is coming through grants to create shows, so I'm going more of an academic route, and there's a major financial pivot there. Oh, yeah. I actually love it. I never thought that I would. So I spend probably about 60 to 70% of my time, depending on the season and where I'm at, on building a show, on writing applications for grants, for residencies, for other things like mentorship programs. And I've gotten several grants, and I think that I've learned a lot every year about what I'm trying to make and what I'm trying to say through my work, through the process of writing applications. I am at a place where a lot of people get burnt out and quit, and it has to do with, I want to say circular motion of a studio practice.

(15:15):

And every year is a circle, but it's more like a spiral upward.

(15:21):

And I think I go through lows when there's nothing happening, things are always happening, but if I don't have something lined up for the next couple months, I do go through lows. I think that it's happening less and less because as you get more press, things just come a little bit easier. But I think that it is like, I'm an artist and I chose this lifestyle because I don't like long-term commitment, and that's not talking about my relationships, just I need something to be over. I work really well with short-term projects like three months, maybe not longer than three months. And it helps me regain passion and start with good energy on something new.

(16:25):

But I think that the biggest roadblock is just realizing that I'm going to be doing this same thing over and over and over in terms of how I work. I book a show and I make a body of work only for that show. I don't really make work outside of that. And then once that show's over, I go into months of marketing and promoting the work that I just created through blog posts or interviews, writing applications for the next show, and writing applications for grants to support that show. So every year looks better, but it's just, yeah, I'm realizing that it's a lot of the same. I don't think that there's a singular moment. I think that every once in a while I'll get really heartfelt messages from people on Instagram and Facebook or sometimes in my inbox about how much my work means to them.

(17:38):

Sorry, I'm getting emotional. But I think even as an artist, my business is very mission-based. So knowing that I can have that impact on people the same way that I wanted that impact growing up, but saying that is making me remember a singular moment. So earlier this year, I was invited to be the keynote speaker for the Asia Multicultural Night at MSU Bozeman. And I walked in. I couldn't believe how big the stage was and how many people were there. It was just so, because the Asian community is so small in Montana, but people drove in from all over the state to be there, and they did such a great job. It's a student run organization. And I got to talk about how my three most recent shows and how through that process, I've learned a lot about myself and my relationship to cultural heritage and identity and belonging.

(19:00):

And it was just such an honor to be there and to talk with people that are living in Montana and having the experience, that similar experience to what I've had growing up. And I just really want to carve space for people. And my goal is to be cool so that younger kids, BIPOC AAPI just want to be a role model for younger kids so that they have somebody that lives here that is like, oh yeah, April's Filipino. And yeah, that's my goal. I have a little sister and I think a lot about her and wanting to be the big sister in the community.

(19:56):

With my art practice, the most important thing to me is telling authentic stories. And I visually capture real moments and real quotes from my own life. And I am really passionate about sharing this story that is unique to places like the Filipino-American community in Montana, like places that are rural and separate from large cultural hubs because there are so many of us, and most of us that don't live in these city centers are primarily mixed. And so it comes with this entirely different experience of culture and experience with identity and how we pass that down from generation to generation. So I see my work in the future, like I said earlier, going down this academic route and doing a lot more research and talks about the Filipino Montana community.