#282: Stephanie Kluk (Founder of Future Ink Graphics) (pt. 1 of 2)
Jul 08, 2024
Nick Petrella and Andy Heise // Stephanie Kluk
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Stephanie Kluk. After receiving her BFA in Photography from the Columbus College of Art and Design, Stephanie moved to Chicago, where she exhibited her artwork throughout the city and worked as the Program Director for the Chicago Artists’ Coalition.
In 2008, she moved to Cleveland and became the Program and Community Enrichment Manager at Art House, Inc. where she managed a variety of programs that included free art education classes for children and families.
In 2016 Stephanie became the Director of Operations and Co-Executive Director of Zygote Press, and in June 2020, she joined the CAN Journal as the Development Manager and launched her own arts organization, Future Ink Graphics (FIG).
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Stephanie Kluk. After receiving her BFA in Photography from the Columbus College of Art and Design, Stephanie moved to Chicago, where she exhibited her artwork throughout the city and worked as the Program Director for the Chicago Artists’ Coalition.
In 2008, she moved to Cleveland and became the Program and Community Enrichment Manager at Art House, Inc. where she managed a variety of programs that included free art education classes for children and families.
In 2016 Stephanie became the Director of Operations and Co-Executive Director of Zygote Press, and in June 2020, she joined the CAN Journal as the Development Manager and launched her own arts organization, Future Ink Graphics (FIG).
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:
Welcome podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.
Nick Petrella:
And I'm Nick Petrella. Photographer, entrepreneur and administrator, Stephanie Kluk is with us today. After receiving her BFA in photography from the Columbus College of Art and Design, Stephanie moved to Chicago, where she exhibited her artwork throughout the city and worked as the program director for the Chicago Artists Coalition. Director for the Chicago Artists Coalition. In 2008, she moved to Cleveland and became the program and community enrichment manager at Art House Incorporated, where she managed a variety of programs that included free art education classes for children and families. In 2016, Stephanie became the director of operations and co-executive director of Zygote Press, and in June 2020, she joined the Cannes Journal as the development manager and launched her own arts organization, Future Ink Graphics. We'll link to her websites in the show notes so you can read her lengthy bio and learn how she was helping other artists. Thanks for being with us, Stephanie.
Stephanie Kluk:
Thanks for having me.
Nick Petrella:
You're a photographer by training, but you also work extensively in a variety of arts organizations, including the one you founded. Did your education prepare you for these positions, or did you primarily learn on the job?
Stephanie Kluk:
Well, education, going to school, was just kind of the start of my career path, and so it definitely prepared me as an artist, not so much as a business owner, an entrepreneur, but definitely as an artist. And so that kind of from there after school is where kind of my passion grew, through various other jobs and other positions in different experiences. So I see college as just as important as all the other jobs that I've had. Those have all led me to learning different things and growing in different ways.
Nick Petrella:
So really then, on the job, you learned all your entrepreneurial skills.
Stephanie Kluk:
Pretty much so.
Nick Petrella:
Yeah.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yeah, I was once told I'm good at something called baptism by fire, so I've been thrown into a lot of nonprofit jobs and had to figure it out yeah.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, yeah. And how did some of those prior experiences like at the Chicago Artists Coalition initially, and then your other jobs that you've had along the way with arts support organizations did those lead you to? How did those experiences lead you to founding uh future ink graphics?
Stephanie Kluk:
well, um, so what I did after college is I moved to chicago. I did that thing where you just move by yourself and try and figure it out and I wanted to be an artist and show my work and I started doing that and I was working for a hotel and then I got I was volunteering, just wanted to be a part of the city, got a job at the Chicago Artist Coalition, which was a very small grassroots organization that advocated for artists and then also did a lot of programming, professional development and things like that. So I got into this job as the program director and I had never actually coordinated any programs.
Stephanie Kluk:
And my first task was a five-part panel discussion like five separate panel discussions within five weeks, so with multiple moving parts and so I really fell in love there with. You know it was rough learning it, but it was definitely a great experience and really I found that I loved helping artists and how that kind of led into other, you know, areas of my career.
Nick Petrella:
Yeah. So did you know what the job entailed before you applied for it, knowing that you hadn't had that experience?
Stephanie Kluk:
It's actually a funny story, because I was volunteering and they had a director that was there for 30 years and she had just resigned and retired. And a new director came in and I had been working and volunteering so much with the organization that one of the staff people had actually recommended me, and so when the director called me, I was like okay, yeah, let's do this. And I was like fake it till you make it and you know, jump right in. So, yes, I learned on the job. I had no experience doing that otherwise.
Nick Petrella:
Right, it kind of where I was going, andy and I always talk about. You know what skills you have, what items you have to. You know, bring your art into the world, and this is just another way of doing it with administrative. But it kind of makes sense that you have a had a history, yeah, institutional knowledge there.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yeah.
Andy Heise:
Well, and also underscores the importance of you know, regardless of what you're doing professionally, getting involved and staying involved any way that you can with organizations like Chicago Artists Coalitions or other other organizations that you like or that you, you, you, you know support their mission or that, something like that, just getting involved and participating, you never know where that's going to go.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, I always that's. My biggest recommendation of interns or students or even people you know out of school, is really just to get involved. If you want to be a part of it, you gotta, you gotta get yourself involved in it.
Andy Heise:
You gotta be there. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Nick Petrella:
Who said that was 90% of success is showing up.
Andy Heise:
It's showing up there you go yeah Well, and there was even uh, I think about this all of the time Janice Lesman Moss said that her husband's a musician and she talked about how musicians, like, go to the hang is what she said Whereas artists have a harder time doing that because, you know, art isn't necessarily collaborative in making of the work, whereas music is like in a band, in an orchestra, whatever it is. So she was talking about how she really admired that about musicians and so she adopted that as part of her.
Stephanie Kluk:
Art practice, too, is going to the hang, going to the events, going to the happenings, uh, around art yeah, visual art is very interesting because, um, you have people that are introverts that do it, but you also have people you as artists, you a lot of artists are very collaborative and they want to work together and they need that support. So it's a it's an interesting balance Um visual artists, I think.
Andy Heise:
For sure, yeah, and obviously they want people to come to their thing if they're doing an opening or whatever right.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yeah.
Andy Heise:
Like they want people to come to it. But yeah, yeah, yeah, anyways, yeah, you're right, interesting dynamics.
Nick Petrella:
Stephanie, it looks like Future Inc Graphics. Revenue streams come from services, rents and sponsorships. Has it always been that way, or did you start off, say, with one service and had others as opportunities came up?
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, so, yes and yes. So it's been that way. Where I started the organization and I had not much to start with, where I started the organization and I had not much to start with, so I had a background in grant writing through some of the nonprofits that I wrote. So that was my first step into FIG was to find some funding to get this off the ground. I also had to build out my space, so there was a lot of funding that went into that, and then I knew I really wanted to start with screen printing, and so that was the first services that we were offering.
Stephanie Kluk:
We're still really building even in the. You know, we're early, we're new into being an organization of business and so we're constantly kind of reinventing ourselves and seeing what is the actual need of people and what do they want. So we've definitely added new services and screen printing, and then we've um, just recently started adding a lot more digital arts programming. That seems to be something people are really drawn to and, and everything is digital. There's a lot of mix between digital and actual, like hand printing, that people and artists really like to do.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, so is FIG a nonprofit.
Stephanie Kluk:
It is not a nonprofit. So I ran about three or four nonprofits and when I started FIG during the pandemic, it really was about there's a couple of things, but one was about really showing that artists should be paid. This is a for-profit business where artists need to get paid. I'm totally into the nonprofit side of it, so I still write grants. I have a fiscal sponsor that I'm able to write grants through and they're or the local CDC. They're very supportive and so I'm able to get grant funding to do certain programming. But overall, fig is a for-profit.
Andy Heise:
And CDC just for listeners. Cdc is the.
Stephanie Kluk:
CDC is the well, particularly it's the Metro West Community Development Corporation, Great.
Nick Petrella:
Development Corporation Great. Is FIG concerned with vacancy rates on their studio rentals or is it?
Stephanie Kluk:
different than, say, real estate rents. So we don't rent studio space. We're like one large studio but we rent the space for different events. So we could have, you know, we've had art exhibitions that people rent our space for. We have different art shows. Like MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, has rented our space to do different events. Or a hospital Metro Hospital rents our space a lot to do different community events. So we have this space for a variety of reasons. We try to tend to lean towards anything that's creative and in the arts, but we've also had, you know, like I said, a corporation come in and have a lunch, and so that's a great way for us to be able to bring in some revenue to be able to do some of the other programming that we want to do.
Nick Petrella:
Yeah, and do you collaborate with Mocha in other ways or no?
Stephanie Kluk:
Yeah, and do you collaborate with Mocha in other ways or no? Um, recent, we did their bound program, so, like they had this bound program, um, and they brought that here to our location and so they had vendors, artist vendors, and then they did performances and readings and screenings in our space. Um, they are, they are one of our partners. Um, but we have pretty strong relationships with a lot of different nonprofit organizations in the community.
Nick Petrella:
That's good and we'll link to your site so the listeners can check those out.
Andy Heise:
I'm thinking about. I guess I sort of I came into the conversation assuming that FIG was a nonprofit and I'm interested to know was that an intentional decision that you made? And it sounds like it was correct me if I'm wrong uh, to not do the nonprofit route. Yes, it definitely was Okay, so it's not like something you hope to evolve into eventually, or?
Stephanie Kluk:
It's gone back and forth, but for the both part. I think if, if there will be a nonprofit to it, there will be a nonprofit arm to FIG, so it could be that that is really to so that I can't so I'm you do with a lot of other nonprofits and to be able to then offer the community programming for free um, that someday maybe down the line may be coming, but I have enough work right now building big.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, and, and so the simplicity of getting started without having to organize the nonprofit was was probably another decision.
Stephanie Kluk:
It was, but I did have an advisory committee, so I I liked the idea of. You know, I didn't want to come into the community, um, and I didn't. So I did focus groups, um, and I didn't want to come in and be like here I am with all my ideas.
Stephanie Kluk:
So, I put together a first year advisory committee which was a variety of artists, non-artists, business owners, people from the community, just to get their advice and their thoughts. So that was a really big help for me personally and my growth as an entrepreneur. But having a board sometimes is wonderful and sometimes is a lot of work.
Andy Heise:
Absolutely. Yeah, we've heard that before from interviewees. You know you start the organization because you want to do this thing, and then you get it started and what you're actually doing is managing a board in a nonprofit rather than doing the thing. Right.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, yes, very true.
Andy Heise:
And can I ask you about the fiscal sponsorship relationship that you have with the CDC? Sure, so has that been limiting for you at all in the grants that you go after, for example, some grantors don't necessarily want fiscal sponsorship relationships, they want to go directly to nonprofits. Or do you just specifically seek out grants that are open to?
Stephanie Kluk:
that. No, it does limit me. So I can't get certain like county grants, I can't get certain things that other, like nonprofits, could get. So that in that way is limiting, and some it depends on the foundation. So usually I have to do my homework. I'll usually, you know, if I'm approaching a foundation, I'm definitely letting them know up front that I have a fiscal sponsor, and so sometimes you know, they say no, thank you, that doesn't. That's not how we operate. So it does limit who I can make requests to.
Nick Petrella:
Yeah, and is that a small portion of your revenue? Yeah, if you can answer that, yeah.
Stephanie Kluk:
And is that a small portion of your revenue? If you can answer that, yeah, so so I would say, like, primarily, we have contracts, we get commissioned work, so most of that is all like fee-based programming. And then really our grants supplement other programming, like, for example, we have a grant which did not have to go through my fiscal sponsor, but from the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities. They have a grant for adult artists and so through that program we were able to bring you know, bring artists in and give you know this was a totally paid for program. Through that grant to allow artists to come in, the artists got paid to work one on one with the participants that were in the class.
Nick Petrella:
Do you have to do reports At the end of those and so? So my question is cause? That's time, time is money. Is that calculated in the amount that you asked for?
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, it did Something actually like it's been interesting, kind of moving from a nonprofit to a for-profit, because as a nonprofit you can get general operating support, you can have that money that's there to pay your employees or yourself and you can use that time so you can say, okay, I'm going to write this grant and I don't really need to build that in because I'm getting paid to do it through this grant. So definitely administrative costs, the amount of time we put into it is definitely a part of it and when you don't get it, you you have. You know you may have wasted that time or you started that relationship because grants really take a long time to to build those relationships up.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, and it's you know, it's. It seems like, while it's just a part of what FIG does, it's it's part of the overall community building aspect. Right, you're not just providing services in space, but also the programming and the outreach type of development programs.
Nick Petrella:
Yes, Plus, you know I like to look at things. You know, especially when I was in the music products industry. Whenever you're doing things like that, it's almost it's marketing, it's inverse marketing, it's awareness of what you're doing so that maybe next time or, you know, they may want to partner with you in other ways two years from now. Correct, Absolutely.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yep. So we have a lot of it's like these kind of short-term programs and commissions that we get and we build those relationships with those businesses. But we do the same thing with foundations and I see them kind of. You know they're two different things but really they both contribute to what we do here at FIG.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about balancing your artistic practice with working at art support organizations, particularly like I'm? Again, our primary audience is is students who are studying art or music and they're thinking about getting out into the world. So I don't know if you could talk a little bit about that, like early on in your career, when you went to Chicago, and how did you navigate that balance of I need to work because I need to support myself, but then also I have to get my artistic work out there well, I will say I made more work as an artist when I did not work for an arts organization.
Stephanie Kluk:
So when I worked at the hotel I was making a lot of artwork, um, and when I started working for these arts organizations, it really gave me a creative outlet and so I was able to create different things these programmings, these ideas, these conversations. But I do want to make more artwork and wish that I would. But sometimes too, you're at an arts organization all day and you could stay there and there could be a maker space, but you're like I've just been working here all day. I'm not sure I want to just go in the other room and start making some artwork. So it is a tough balance when you work in a creative field to find that time. I'm also a mother of two children, so just it's hard to find the time to do those things. But it's necessary, it's definitely necessary. I tell this to all the artists that I work with. It's like you know the advice you give everyone else that you don't follow, but it's really important to continue to create, yeah.
Andy Heise:
Yeah, well, I can imagine the hotel job was like you know, start and you go home and do whatever you want, correct?
Stephanie Kluk:
Yeah.
Andy Heise:
Whereas, whereas you know, as Nick and I know, working for nonprofit organizations, you're there, yeah, you have sort of your day job or part of it, but then there's all these other events and meetings and things that happen outside of traditional work hours or a set schedule.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, absolutely.
Andy Heise:
And when you own your own business, right Correct. Ultimately, the buck stops with you. Yes, absolutely. Plus.
Nick Petrella:
I imagine when you're at a hotel or working something like that. You have to go to work but you get to make your art, so it's appealing maybe.
Stephanie Kluk:
Yes, it's definitely, yes, absolutely. It's again like I said it would be. It's important for artists to make work and so hopefully, after this, this will inspire me to go and make some work. I actually just applied for a grant to make some of my own work, so if I give myself a project, exactly If I give myself the deadline and then I and you know I get this funding, then I have to do it.
Stephanie Kluk:
Then I'll do it and be like oh, why have I not been doing this? It happens every time. So hopefully we'll get that grant and I'll be making some work. Um, the next time you you chat with me.
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