The new normal looks nothing like I thought it would. A disparity which makes me realize how impossible it is to predict anything. Suddenly I’m acutely aware of my own mortality, a sensation akin to the first time I realized adults were people too. The new normal looks nothing like I thought it would, but it exists without a doubt, and it has an excitement of its own, as society cobbles together a path through the COVID-19 pandemic.
New leadership has started to take shape, driven by forces for social change, personal change, and creative change. When Jenna Ferrey founded boutique art firm Trotter & Sholer in August 2019, she had a flexible business model in mind. Together with her partners Angie Phrasavath and Elisabeth Joh, the team focused on hosting pop up shows that featured emerging artists.
This pandemic has savagely rearranged our collective relationship to social interaction. Ferrey found that lockdown had left her craving physical experiences. “I’m not the only person who feels that way right now,” she explained.
This pandemic has savagely rearranged our collective relationship to social interaction. Ferrey found that lockdown had left her craving physical experiences. “I’m not the only person who feels that way right now,” she explained.
Ferrey found herself aligned with everything she needed to move towards her dream of a brick and mortar space. “The people I wanted to work with were available, the space was available, I had the time. I had encouragement from my friends and family,” she told me.
With so many businesses perishing of the coronavirus pandemic, landlords on the Lower East Side were relaxing their rents. Ferrey noted that she found their space “at a price that we could afford, that doesn’t make our overhead untenable.”
The city’s success in keeping infection rates down also proved a fortuitous factor in the space’s inception. “New York has really done a great job of handling the COVID crisis,” Ferrey stated. “People are being really careful and starting to get out and to see things in real life again.”
These factors paved the way for Ferrey to pursue her purpose of connecting enthusiastic art buyers with promising new artists. “I really like working with emerging artists,” Ferrey extolled. “Usually they’re really eager and interested to try new things.”
Trotter & Sholer encourages a wider populace to participate in creative culture. “I think that there is a market for people who maybe aren’t the millionaire, billionaire class but who have some disposable income and rather than buying art from Ikea or posters, it would be more interesting for them to invest in a piece of original fine art from a young artist whose career could go in all kinds of different ways,” Ferrey explained.
As a result, a gallery like Trotter & Sholer helps to redirect funds from making the unfathomably rich richer and into purchases that help authentic individuals achieve a meaningful existence. This ethos is baked into their business strategy. Ferrey told me, “We want the space to be a space that everybody feels welcome in and that everybody can come in and look at the art and enjoy the art.”
Trotter & Sholer’s choice to feature Azzah Sultan for their first opening exemplifies the company’s genuine passion for art. Ferrey met Sultan through a mutual friend who had helped curate Sultan’s work for a 2016 show hosted by The Bushwick Collective.
Sultan told me that for her work, titled Home Sweet Home, “I put a call out on social media where I asked for Muslim women to send me their own headscarves… I hand-stitched it all together to make this flag, red, white and blue like the American flag, but without the stars. Because in a way, it also makeshifts to the Malaysian flag as well, which is very similar to the American flag.”
Sultan told me that for her work, titled Home Sweet Home, “I put a call out on social media where I asked for Muslim women to send me their own headscarves… I hand-stitched it all together to make this flag, red, white and blue like the American flag, but without the stars. Because in a way, it also makeshifts to the Malaysian flag as well, which is very similar to the American flag.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Ferrey elaborated upon her first encounter with Home Sweet Home. “There was this interactive component. I also thought it was a really interesting social political commentary. Prior to being in the art world, I studied religion and multiculturalism in Canada. I was really interested in the piece and in the way she incorporated elements of faith and of otherness and of social critique and political critique into her work.”
“For me,” Ferrey continued, “it’s important to show female artists, it’s important to show people of color, it’s important to show people who come from the non-hegemonic faith traditions, and to create space where people can interact with stuff that’s not familiar to them or not obvious and comfortable.”
Of course, in order to preserve this idyll, Ferrey must stay firmly rooted in the new normal. As such, Trotter & Sholer will follow strict health guidelines from the New York State government by ensuring all attendees wear a mask, remain six feet apart, tour the gallery in groups limited to six.
“For me,” Ferrey continued, “it’s important to show female artists, it’s important to show people of color, it’s important to show people who come from the non-hegemonic faith traditions, and to create space where people can interact with stuff that’s not familiar to them or not obvious and comfortable.”
To account for the physical distance these modern times necessitate, the team has special treats in store to bring attendees emotionally closer. Sultan herself will be present to speak with guests about the new works she’s created for this show. Such conversations will take place over fresh Chai from Kolkata Chai Co, based just blocks from the gallery.
“The concept of food is very important in my work,” Sultan noted. “It’s a ritual for us back home — every day at 6pm I have Chai with my parents. In a way, because they’re not here, I’m still sort of following that ritual.”
Sultan feels this is a crucial moment for her first solo show. “Number one,” she said, “there’s not a lot of spaces for people of color in general. There’s not a lot of work out there by Muslim women talking about their heritage and their culture in a way that’s more nuanced and not super straight to the point.”
Trotter & Sholer represented an alignment for Sultan too, who feels a close knit with Ferrey for the curator’s “great understanding and background of how to show art in a way that’s not being ostracized or through a Western gaze.” Sultan continued, “I don’t feel like I have to change any of my work, or it’s being shown in a way that I don’t like. There’s definitely been shows that I’ve been in where I will give my work, and then I’ll look at the press release, and I’m like, ‘wow, that’s absolutely incorrect.’”
What Ferrey has created, anyone could create. What differentiates the great from the average is not special ability, but a modicum of action. When I asked Ferrey how she shows up to the vast uncertainties looming in her future, she laughed, “That’s a good question.” She’d always wanted to open her own gallery but had no idea that dream would take shape this soon.
COVID exposed Ferrey’s own restlessness. Maybe she was restless from staying in her apartment for three months, or maybe it was some deeper, spiritual restlessness that’d been building all along.
“It was almost like we were just waiting to see what was going to happen,” Ferrey recalled. “At some point, you just say, ‘I can’t wait anymore. I want to try to make something happen.’ It is a risk and that it could all go sideways. But at some point, you have to take a risk.”
Trotter & Sholer’s first opening, Anak Dara by Azzah Sultan, will take place on Thursday, September 10th, 5PM – 8PM at 168 Suffolk Street in Manhattan.
Vittoria Benzine is a street art journalist and personal essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her affinity for counterculture and questioning has introduced her to exceptional artists and morally ambiguous characters alike. She values writing as a method of processing the world’s complexity. Send love letters to her via:
