Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Zeljak.
Hi Pamela, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was heavily involved in the arts in high school, both visual and music. When I was deciding what to study in college, I decided on music instead of visual art. After a few years in working in not-for-profits in Pittsburgh, PA, my hometown, I relocated to Ocala, FL. Through a serious of starts and stops in other not-for-profit organizations, I started my art career working as a museum administrator. I was fortunate to work for an amazing museum director who allowed me to get involved in some curatorial aspects of museum work.
During that time, I expanded my involvement in the art community by becoming involved in the local art festival as a board member. In addition, the city I lived in was launching a public art program that I immediately become very interested. When my position was eliminated at the museum due to budget cuts, I began watching the public art program for the possibility of expansion and the addition of positions. I got the opportunity to take a job with them in 2017. After working there for three years, I decided there was more I would be able to accomplish in the public art field with my own company. As many people are aware I’m sure, the government has certain rules and restrictions they have to follow and I wanted to be able to expand beyond some of those boundaries. With Civic Icon Arts, I’m able to work in just about any area of public art with any commissioning body and with any artist.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a bumpy road, but overall, I feel fortunate. I started my company during the pandemic. It has hit the arts industry hard. But public art has been one of the areas that has been impacted a little less harshly. People in search of arts experiences while galleries and museums were closed were still able to get out in the open and experience public art. Art has always been used as a way to heal people’s emotions and ease their trauma. Public art has been able to do that during the pandemic. And it has been able to keep artists employed with new commissions. Government commissions have dropped off some due to lower-income to cities during, but other commissions have kept coming in. The biggest challenge to me was the actual act of starting a business. It takes a significant amount of time from filing your first paperwork with the state and federal government to actually being able to advertise your services. You have to complete one step before you can move on to the next and you are always at the mercy of someone else’s time before that happens. It took about four months for that to happen for me.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We offer a variety of public art and creative placemaking services. We work with an artist directly to create teams that apply for site-specific public art projects in response to Requests for Qualifications. We often do that in partnership with another administrator under the banner Manifold Creative. We work with private developers and companies who want to add public art to their projects and buildings. They often desire to have a work of public art but either don’t know where to start or want a professional to handle the details. We also offer full public art and creative placemaking public administration services. We specifically focus on small and mid-sized cities that don’t currently have the resources to create public art departments or hire full-time public art staff. That part of the business covers public art planning, specific project administration, collection management and conservation planning, and community engagement.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’ve just recently moved to the Orlando area. I love that the city has so much going on in so many different areas of the arts, visual art, music, theater, dance, museums, galleries, public art. I can’t even name all of them and I know I left some out. And the level of creativity in those areas are astounding. I am always surprised at the innovated ways that groups and individuals are approaching their mediums. Each community on the edge of Orlando has them as well. One of the only things that I have found to be difficult it that it is sometime hard to break into some parts of the arts scene. I have talked to others, from visual artists to theater groups that have found this to be true as well. There are both so many fantastic established groups that unless you are already part of them, there doesn’t seem to be any room for new arrivals.
Contact Info:
- Email: pamela@civicicon.com
- Website: www.CivicIconArts.com
- Instagram: @CivicIconArts
- Facebook: @CivicIconArts
- Twitter: @CivicIconArts
Image Credits
Maven Photo + Film
