Sally King McBride | From the Met to Finding Flexibility In Art and Freelance
by Neha Ruch
Sally McBride is the kind of friend who within minutes of meeting you want to offer up all the tiny ideas that you have in the back of your head and see how she can build on them. She’s a package of openness, creativity and experience. It’s hefty experience she draws from her education and career at The Met that she’s now translated to a combination of freelance and entrepreneurship to afford her the room she wanted for family life. Most fun to watch is how her elevated eye of the museum world inspires her collection of children’s art, The Letter Nest. I had a lot to learn in our first of hopefully many coffees so I asked her to share here her thoughts on pivoting work, making space for family and creativity and staying inspired outside of the traditional work force.
Neha: You shifted from full-time work at The Met to creating The Letter Nest and consulting alongside motherhood. What did that path look like and how has it changed over the last 2 years?
Sally: Leaving The Met wasn’t an easy decision. I had been there over ten years, and had developed deep friendships with so many colleagues. Coinciding with my second pregnancy, though, I started to consider a next step beyond the museum. I was seeking something new, something more flexible, and in the back of my mind, something that would allow me to launch The Letter Nest—an idea that had been percolating since I’d started to make watercolor name paintings as baby gifts for friends and family, about five years prior.
CultureTech is an online platform for the management of digital image rights. My job, to help them facilitate museum partnerships and to generate interest among potential funders and influencers, is a wonderful way to keep a foothold in the professional art world, while naturally coinciding with my creative work at The Letter Nest. My initial introduction to the company was the result of a fortuitous conversation my mother had about my museum work with a family friend at a holiday party.
Neha: You have two little kids, Letter Nest and consulting, how do you tactically divvy up your time to make space for each? Are there tools or habits that have helped?
Sally: This is a work in progress! But two strategies have helped: first, Parkinson’s Law states that a task will take up as much time as the doer allows for it. So, the artificial deadline is key, particularly when it comes to something that could be endlessly refined or edited—like a painting. Given that I often work from home, I prioritize the tasks that require my exclusive attention for hours when my sons have childcare or school—like managing online orders, or drafting a blog post for CultureTech—and I save anything domestic or logistical for later in the day.
Neha: There are other smart women looking for the 2-day a week freelance or consulting opportunity. What advice would you have for anyone to find and negotiate that role?
Sally: Finding it requires activating one’s network through face-to-face meetings (the kind where you treat to coffee and write them the thank-you note); indicating your interest to friends and family; and importantly, having the courage to reach out to people beyond your immediate network.
Negotiating it is a constant process of self-advocacy, humility, and compromise. I was unofficially consulting to CultureTechfor a number of months before securing a seat—this being a thrifty and ever-changing start-up culture. This was one of the few similarities to my work at The Met, where a sizable workforce necessitated advocating for oneself, and navigating the professional terrain with equal parts grace and grit.
Neha: I love hearing you talk about The Letter Nest and how it brings in your history in fine art to the childhood space. For any of us with a passion we want to explore and build on, how do you stay inspired and growing with this interest?
Sally: The Letter Nest started as a means of making thoughtful baby gifts for my friends; there seemed to be white space for educational, elevated alphabet art that didn’t look cartoonish, and that would truly grow with the child. I’ve applied my studies in art history, my work at The Met, and my artistic training from schools like RISD and the MFA School in Boston in creating these works. My letters are infused with references ranging from the 19th-century photography of Charles Marville (Paris Alphabet) to the contemporary children’s literature of Chris Van Allsburg and Beth Krommes (Circus Alphabet). While I’m privileged to have had this training, it’s just as often conversations with other moms or their kids that can lead to new ideas.
In my 20s, I was naïve to think that creativity was so self-generated; I’ve learned time and again to be more forthcoming about what I’m working on and thinking about. (A lesson I’m learning in motherhood, too!) Most of all, I stay inspired through the time I get to spend with my sons...quietly witnessing their reactions to the world, or to what I’m making.
Neha: Whenever we meet, I'm awed by how put together you are. When and what do you make time to take care of yourself?
Sally: Neha! If this is at all true, let’s attribute it to a glamorous college senior when I was a freshman, who told me that if you do nothing else, curl your eyelashes before leaving the house to make you look more awake (and heat the curler for 5 seconds with your blow-dryer first!). I also try to go to the dance-cardio class 305 Fitness once a week—the mood boost from that hour alone carries over for days.
Neha: You and I can go back and forth on things we've read or listened to recently. Can you share something that's stayed with you and has been impactful in this stage?
Sally: I read the New York Times Book Review for ideas—a habit I picked up from borrowing the Director’s copy on quiet Fridays at the Museum, and which for better or worse now offers the motherhood convenience of not having to read entire books.
Non-fiction: Audiobook versions of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion; David Epstein’s Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, which confirmed for me that being an artistic generalist as a child has helped me focus on visual art in a more meaningful way; and Daniel H. Pink’s When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, which leads me to assign the toughest work tasks exclusively to the mid-morning!
Fiction: Anything that takes me to a very specific time and place—like Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach and Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers. Looks like I’ll need a second article for my list of podcasts... My childhood goal was to be a children’s book author/illustrator—something I still hope to realize—so aside from these grown-up recommendations, my kids’ library continues to be as impactful on me as it is on them.
Image by @eileenmenyphoto
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