ABOUT

Our experience is solidly grounded in art history, museum studies, art education, strategic planning, and financial management, but our methods are experimental. We work with a large network of global contacts – artists, galleries, auction houses, art fairs, non-profit spaces and artists co-ops around the world, but as a free agent, our guidance is objective, independent and focused on client goals, interests and budgets.

Rhonda Lane Coleman

Art museum curator, non-profit art director, and university lecturer turned arts entrepreneur.

 

For the past twenty years, Rhonda has balanced her art career between pioneering the art of unknown or under-recognized artists and experimenting with new ways of making art more accessible. The first half of her career represents a traditional trajectory as a contemporary art museum curator – building collections, curating exhibitions, authoring publications, teaching university courses, and devising new methods for outreach. The past decade, however, has been focused on arts entrepreneurship.

 

 

Bio

Rhonda Coleman is a nationally-recognized arts professional and business entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience in the art and design field. Capitalizing on her BS in Business Administration, BA in Art History, and MA in Art History and Museum Studies, as well as her experience in the non-profit and corporate sectors, Coleman has successfully merged her art and business skills to benefit artists, the arts-interested public, and non-profit organizations.

 

As a former art museum curator, Coleman has held important positions at the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle’s contemporary art museum), the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the University of Southern California's Fisher Gallery. She has taught art history, painting seminars, business, and professional development classes at the UW, USC and Artist Trust and published a number of books including Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape; Fashion is Art; and LAVA 2002: Contemporary Art in Seattle. Coleman speaks regularly to professional associations on a variety of subjects including art, design and entrepreneurial issues and sits on panels, advisory boards, and juries for prestigious organizations around the country.

 

In 2002, Coleman left the museum field to become the CEO and founding partner of THREAD and Director of Visual Arts for the non-profit THREAD for ART. Here, she experimented with creating a sustainable business model for the arts. THREAD for ART 501(c)3 presented artist-initiated, museum-caliber exhibitions and publications at alternative sites; THREAD LLC was formed as a means to fund the nonprofit with its design and retail services. In 2005, Rhonda was invited to join EO – Entrepreneurs Organization (formerly YEO) and served as an EO board member from 2005-2008, and in 2006 was named one of the 40 Top Business Leaders Under 40, by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

 

Upon moving to Twentynine Palms, CA in 2007, Coleman continued working on curatorial projects, as well as developing an online art site with an ex-Google engineer, and from December 2011 to June 2013 she joined forces with Katie Shaw at the Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree. Today, Coleman functions as an art adviser traveling between Palm Springs, Seattle and Nashville, to guide a handful of non-profits, as well as individual clients, and professional artists.