 |
| Peter Mays, Executive Director, LAAA |
Peter Mays
is the Executive Director and Board Member of the Los Angeles Art Association
and Director of Gallery
825 which is the exhibition space for the association. Since I am a past member
of the LAAA, I can speak first-hand in saying that for emerging artists the
association and gallery is fertile ground for artists to develop their work,
tap into the LA creative art community and to link to contacts for galleries. Mays
seems to seamlessly navigate between
artists, curators, board members, collectors, and the community to achieve the
organization’s mission - to provide opportunities, resources, services and
exhibition venues for Los Angeles artists. Originally founded in 1925, the
gallery found its home in 1961 when benefactor Baroness Helen Wurdeman, a
long-time arts advocate and writer for Art in America bought the building at
825 S. La Cienega Boulevard.
 |
| Gallery 825, Gallery Opening |
Mays hasn’t always lived in LA.
He was born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. His father and brother are engineers but Mays
naturally found his way into art and began drawing and painting when he was 5
years old. In school, he found that he
was good at rendering objects and people and often got the approval and praise
of teachers and peers. He received a B.A. in Studio Arts from the University of
Pittsburgh and went on to get an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Indiana
University in Indiana, Pennsylvania. His
art combines printmaking, etchings and lithographs which encorporated highly
rendered images with an expressive style. In graduate school Mays gained
experience with curating shows, working alongside his professors as well as with
community arts associations. When he
graduated, Mays worked as Gallery Director at a Pittsburgh gallery which
exhibited a mixture of traditional fine art and where he gained experience
managing the gallery and curating shows.
Encouraged by a family friend/mentor, Mays moved to Los Angeles in 1993.
His mentor helped him learn the business and leadership side of the arts. His first job in LA was working as a product
designer for a giftware company and after he realized it wasn’t a great fit for
him, he went on to pursue non-profit management. At the Tierra del Sol Foundation in Sunland,
California, Peter oversaw an expansive arts program that served the needs of
hundreds of developmentally disabled adults. In his 5 years there, Mays
launched fundraising campaigns, wrote grants and managed the program that
sometimes included working with individuals in the program. While consulting
for the Electronics Art Academy, a federally funded program for children, he
helped develop the curriculum. He also began working for the Galef Institute,
another non profit that pursued grants for educational programs at community
centers. Part time at first, Mays was asked by the CEO to take over the job as the
Director of Development and Supplemental School Services where he did
fundraising, oversaw school contracts and curriculum development in the arts. In 2005, board members of the LAAA asked Mays
if he was interested in becoming the Executive Director of the
association. After a six month process,
he was formally offered the job.
 |
| Annual Auction Night, 2010 |
In his 8 years as Executive Director of LAAA, Mays sites several areas
where he has made contributions. He has
implemented cultural exchanges with Switzerland (Basel), Korea, Germany and
China, initiated collaborative programming with institutions like Harvard, MoCA
and Otis, as well as with artists Tim Hawkinson and Lita Albuquerque, and secured
well known curators to jury LAAA
exhibitions. He also enlarged the LAAA's
career development programs and created LAAA's public art program which was
selected as one of the top public art works completed in 2010 by Americans for
the Arts. He implements the annual fine
art auction which is the association’s biggest fundraiser as well as developing
a mentoring program for member artists. Mays believes that perhaps one of the
greatest developments he has seen over the years is the close knit friendships,
and in some cases, married couples that have met at LAAA and the overall
community of artists that has grown and been nurtured over time. One thing is
certain – if you want to meet and talk to Peter, you will always find him at one
of the monthly Friday night openings at Gallery 825.
 |
| Auction Night, Out Front - Gallery 825 |
No comments:
Post a Comment