Personalized project support for artists and writers
"You are helping me see how much I need to change my thinking and framing around my production. It's really crazy realizing how negative and hard I am on myself... After our meeting, Stanford contacted me with an updated offer and asked me to sign..."
Since 2017, I have worked one-on-one with artists, writers, and graduate students to offer personalized project support. Together, we refine the language around their work, develop holistic working plans that account for the specific circumstances of their lives, and complete major, long-term projects. I offer editing services for doctoral students in the humanities, and for academics producing their first (or second) books. Since 2019, that consulting work has also included teaching seminars, workshops, and developing the Tumbleweed Reading Club - a gathering of artists who want to dig into theory and art criticism, together. My support work comes from my training in pedagogy and my experience teaching college-level coursework at universities and colleges across Texas; it is enriched by the teaching practices I learned outside of institutions, specifically in the artistic communities of Guatemala City and surrounding towns. I consider myself a doula for creative work, an empathetic listener, a coach and behind-the-scenes advocate for you and your practice.
To work with me, send me an email at ella@lauraagosto.com.
From that initial email, we schedule a short phone call to consider what a working relationship might look like. In five years of this consulting work, I have helped artists develop exhibitions, win grants, start nonprofits, plan websites, study theory and poetry, rethink their specific place within dynamics of institutional power and exclusions; I have supported writers as they defend their dissertations, draft their first book projects, and apply for a wide range of funding and employment opportunities. An art historian by training (M.A. and Ph.D., UT-Austin, 2005, 2012), I bring a range of experiences with institutions, individuals, and anti-institutions of all scales to my consulting practice. This work allows me to support artists and writers in quiet and informal ways that are not often provided for within institutional spaces and practices; it also provides stability to my own curatorial and writing practice, which has been unembedded* since 2016.
My working philosophy is premised on the idea that sustained collaboration is a generative method of creative production and organization. I believe in building long-term relationships with artists and writers to develop projects in ethically responsible, healthy, smart, challenging, beautiful, and innovative ways. This doesn’t mean the work is easy; indeed, every project and collaborator brings a unique set of concerns and challenges. But, together, we strategize to develop language that clearly and thoughtfully reflects the concerns of each project, refining its execution and description, and guiding it to its fullest realization. Together, we strategize and plan, brainstorm and make space for careful re-thinking. We talk about boundaries and saying no, we describe dreams and find ways to make them lived realities, and we get into the weeds of writing, editing, organizing, project planning, and public speaking. I don’t believe that just because an opportunity exists you should chase it. I believe in developing projects that reflect the most significant and ambitious aspects of your work, and I suggest that often the best opportunities come from surprising places. Learning from Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry, I am an advocate for rest and care as non-negotiable aspects of professional growth, community strength, historical reparations, and creative experimentation. I offer reduced fees for clients with activist practices, I work with clients to develop payment plans that fit their financial needs, and I offer scholarships for my services as often as possible.
As your consultant, I work as your confidential ally, someone who can help and listen, gently guide and support, edit, tighten, nudge, and strengthen your public-facing creative self.
You don’t have to do this alone.
*I borrow from the poet M. NourBeSe Philip for this descriptor of independence.
We walk through the conceptual, emotional, and material processes of creation, together.
"Just wanted to express how wonderful it is to have you both as a collaborator and friend. I would never have imagined that October 2019 would exist as an idea-in-execution. Just sitting back amazed.”
2022 Consulting Rates
Preliminary 30-minute consult, free.
45-minute session, $130
90-minute session, $220
Editing, $105/hour (two hour min.)
All consultations can be scheduled via email: ella@lauraagosto.com.
Sessions are currently only available via Zoom video conferencing or telephone.
Consulting for artist-run businesses is also available, rates and policies upon request.
Let’s get together.
"As processes go, and especially creative ones, they are messy and non linear, and you are someone who is willing and wanting to go through this with your artists... I know that surrounding yourself by intense artists is hard - and I am one of those - but it also means we intensely love you and appreciate the hard work you put in to developing relationships with us as individuals and community."