Today we’d like to introduce you to Quentin Ring.
Quentin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve been in love with books and literature since the age of eight, when I spent most of a summer break reading, making up stories, and dreaming of being a writer. For most of my life since that time, my greatest passion has been for books and for thinking about language as an artistic medium. In my own practice, I was interested mostly in writing fiction, but in my reading I had a particular interest in poetry, to the extent that – for a time – I thought I might pursue a PhD in poetry and poetics. However, after receiving my M.A., I decided I’d rather devote myself to writing and to pursuing other forms of literary community outside of the academy. After moving to Venice in 2011, I encountered one of the country’s great literary communities, Beyond Baroque Literary / Arts Center. I had recently set myself up as a freelance grant writer. After attending a few events at Beyond Baroque I decided to offer my services as a volunteer. I was swiftly put to work helping out on digging a new garden out front, and then on helping out with grant writing. Very shortly thereafter that I was offered work as a part-time grant writer and began working to raise money for Beyond Baroque’s programming.
The great thing about a grassroots nonprofit arts center is that it provides an amazing array of opportunities to learn new skills and develop new relationships. Though I started as a part-time grant writer who had a passion for books, I soon became full-time and took on managing our overall fundraising, bookkeeping, operations, long-term strategic planning, new program development, and PR. All of this culminated in Beyond Baroque’s landmark 50th anniversary in 2018, which featured a full year’s worth of major programs, festivals, fundraisers, and community gatherings. In 2019 I was appointed Executive Director, and what had begun as a part-time gig to help me support my writing had turned not only into a full-time job but an incredibly rewarding life that is constantly enriched by a set of amazing friendships and constant engagement with some dazzlingly talented writers and artists.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Managing a grassroots arts nonprofit is never easy. The United States as a whole devotes very little public funding to the arts, and of that only a small sliver goes to the literary arts. As a result, it’s a continual challenge to raise money for our writers, our staff, and our work in the community. Fortunately, we’re sustained by a truly extraordinary community of artists and friends. However, planning programs, maintaining and improving a space, and producing events is always a bit of a juggling act.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Beyond Baroque Literary / Arts Center story. Tell us more about the business.
Beyond Baroque Literary / Arts Center is one of the nation’s most successful and influential grassroots incubators of the literary arts. Founded in 1968, and housed in the original Venice City Hall building in Venice, it is a nonprofit public space dedicated to cultivating new writing and expanding the public’s knowledge of poetry, fiction, literature, and art through cultural events and community interaction. The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming, including readings, workshops, art exhibits, and education. The Center also houses a bookstore with the largest collection of new poetry books on the west side of Los Angeles; the Mike Kelley Gallery, which specializes in text and language-focused visual art; and a 50,000 volume archive of small press and limited-edition publications that chronicles the history of poetry movements in Los Angeles and beyond.
Few literary spaces have done more to cultivate innovative art from cultural outsiders, or to shape emerging artistic movements. Across five decades Beyond Baroque has nurtured the Venice Beats, cradled the Los Angeles punk scene, and provided crucial support to a series of seminal writers, musicians, and artists that include Wanda Coleman, Mike Kelley, the band X, Will Alexander, and many others. Its workshops have helped thousands of writers develop their craft, and it’s reading and performance series has exposed L.A. audiences to some of the world’s most notable writers and artists,
Today the Center continues to provide a vital cultural forum through its workshops, reading series, youth programming, and artistic gatherings.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
In my own life I count myself incredibly lucky to have grown up in an environment rich with books, to have received a great education, to have been given the encouragement and sense of access to pursue a life in the arts, and to have been able to take on the leadership of an institution as vital as Beyond Baroque.
That Beyond Baroque itself exists at all is perhaps not the result of pure luck, but rather of a series of extraordinarily generous acts – by our founder, George Drury Smith, by the city of Los Angeles – which provides us with a space in the Old Venice City Hall – and by countless dedicated artists, donors, and community members. And yet, taken together, all of this *is* luck because every community in the United States should have an arts center that provides cultural programming to its people.
Pricing:
- A yearly membership to Beyond Baroque cost as little as $40; members receive free entry to almost all of our events
- Beyond Baroque offers a number of free weekly writing workshops. Check our website for more information
Contact Info:
- Address: 681 N. Venice Boulevard
Venice, CA 90291 - Website: www.beyondbaroque.org
- Phone: 310-822-3006
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/BBLitArts
- Facebook: facebook.com/BBLitArts
- Twitter: twitter.com/BBLitArts
- Yelp: yelp.com/biz/beyond-baroque-foundation-and-literary-arts-center-venice
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