Rococo launched in 2022 and organized its subsequent Rococinco dinners the same year. office dove into Maria’s art journey, discussing her primary business principles, finding your tribe, and more, below.
Even before Rococo, you were an art advisor beforehand. What incited this journey within art originally?
I feel like this is the typical path for someone who feels super creative and inspired but doesn't necessarily know where they land. And by that, I mean, when I was in college, I dabbled in so many different creative fields. I had a degree that was communications journalism and art history and throughout college, I thought I would land in any one of those places at a given time. But I later started realizing, one by one, that all of these professions after college weren't what I wanted to do. Meanwhile, art history was always there. I was always a history buff throughout my life. I learned that I could go on to study art business in a graduate program. When I am convinced of something and I want it, there's no stopping me. So it was at that moment that I decided I was going to get into this course and move to New York. What I didn't know is that there was so much more outside of positioning myself in a university context in the art world that would come and the learning curve that would come even after getting that degree. Art was never in my life growing up, at least not presented in this formal way, and then as soon as I realized it existed, I wanted to be a part of it.
I feel like when we're a bit younger, we don't even know of what jobs are out there in the creative field. So I think that's really cool that you found that pocket here and could see a future in New York City. What lessons did you learn before Rococo that you still carry with you now?
I had a pretty untraditional pathway towards Rococo in that I purposely wanted to try a lot of different roles within the art world and sponge up all the information I could from different parts of it. As soon as I felt like I wasn't being challenged or there wasn't growth available, I moved on. So that was pretty much my entire twenties. And at one point within that period of time, I worked for an advisor. I was really starting to feel like I was coming into my own through this position. So after I finished working with that advisor, I continued to advise on my own while supplementing with a full-time job. After all of those full-time jobs that I went through, I felt like I had done it all. My last full-time job, when I was ready to leave, I had this thought of, 'Okay, I think this is the moment where I go off onto my own,' and that was always something I had in the back of my head anyway. The typical art advisor is primarily a salesperson who is helping to sell art. I think my interpretation of how I operate is very different than maybe a traditional, sales-focused advisor. I'm sales-focused too, but I'm also focused on all these other considerations of how artists and people in the art world want to be treated. I used to spew a lot of negative talk toward myself because I was frustrated I could never just focus on one thing. But now I can give myself a little bit of grace and realize that all of it had intention behind it, whether it was obvious to me at the moment or not.
What were some of the practices or traditions in the advising realm that you noticed, that you decided to restructure when you went to start Rococo? I know your approach, as you mentioned, is an artist-based approach that aims to lead with a little more compassion for the artists and the people that you work with.
I think a lot of it stems from my first job in the art world, which was at a blue-chip gallery. Those are the mega galleries that have locations worldwide and rosters of one hundred-plus artists. Landing there, I felt so fortunate that I was offered a job and the gallery had a name with a lot of weight to it. And then I got there and it was a cold, shallow place — I felt like we could have been selling car tires or something because the artistry felt so distant from where I was. From where I was standing, it seemed very far off from what I thought working in a gallery or in a job in the art world would feel like. It was sterile and unpleasant to work there. And it was a very confusing moment when I was able to say, 'I don't want to be here.' Because you think when you land at that type of place, you've made it, right? So everything thereafter, I was searching for something that gave me the exact opposite feeling. I was chasing places and people within the art world that felt like the loving compassion for art was fully there.
From then, I pretty much aligned myself with positions that made me feel that way and also inserted myself in such a way that I was able to interact with artists on an individual basis. I started doing a lot of studio visits and it became a big part of my life. I've met so many of my friends through these essentially ‘cold call’ type visits and then you never know what's going to blossom out of that. And I love that you used the word compassion because I'm always approaching with that as well.
Accessibility in these spaces is something that I think is like really hard for many people to grasp. It just seems when you're younger, that these things are so far away from you — especially in the art world. It doesn't seem like these things are extremely accessible to the average person. And once they become accessible to you, it's like, 'Wow, okay, now I'm here and I have to revel in this.' But I think there's often this facade within art, and media as a whole because these things look glamorous from the outside and then you're working in it and there is a disconnect.
As soon as the veil was lifted for me, I couldn't pretend for a second that anything would change or be different. And as I got older, I had other big galleries reach out to me for job opportunities, and part of me was tempted — but I had to remind myself why I'm doing this.
But that's why I think, in your case, creating that space where you couldn't really find one that you resonated with is really important.
I think New York itself can confuse you a little bit when you land here and you have to think, 'Who am I? Who do I want to be?' Especially in inherently exclusive industries. So that was also something I definitely have carried with me — don't be the person who thinks they need to buy that outfit because they saw someone wearing it and they looked prestigious.