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Julie (Gallagher) Mento: Promoting local artists
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By GARRY RAYNO
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007
Age: 31
Residence: Warner
Birthplace: Prince George’s Hospital, Cheverly, Md.
Family: Anthony Mento, husband; E. Bruce Gallagher, father; Judy Wood, mother, Lora Gallagher-Smith, sister; Matt Gallagher, brother; Nancy Gallagher, sister; Jim Wood, stepfather; Kathy Gallagher, stepmother; 7 nephews, 2 nieces and a huge Italian-family-in-law.
High school: Hillsboro-Deering High School
College/post grad degrees: New England College, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Cum Laude
Current job: Visual Arts Associate and Manager of New Percent for Art Projects at the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (NHSCA)
Key past positions held: Artist services coordinator, NHSCA; archive preparator and Folklife Festival logistics aide, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Volunteer activities: Annual fund-raising, promotion and writing for Concord-Merrimack County SPCA Annual Walk for the Animals, International Campaign for Tibet, Humane Society of the United States.
Most admired person (outside your family): His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet
Key current professional challenge: A key current professional challenge is also a fundamental principle of mine, that is, to exercise absolute impartiality and inclusiveness. The State Arts Council is a publicly funded agency, thus serves the entire tax-paying population of New Hampshire. At each step, I am constantly checking on my decisions and actions as a team member. Is this the fairest most impartial way of going about this? How can we include more people in a certain process, or certain opportunity? When I volunteer with organizations, this is also an important foundation to start from.
Last major achievement: Other than building our own home, I would say the pilot State Arts Council’s E-news service. We are a repository for a flood of artist and arts administrator professional development opportunities (audition announcements, request for artist proposals, workshops, etc.). Prior to the E-news service, these opportunities were posted quarterly in the newsletter. In early 2001, I began the e-news service as an unassigned exercise on my work computer as a collection of 1,500 e-mails in my e-mail address book. Through lots of teamwork, the E-news has evolved over the years into a trusted and primary source for local, regional, national and international opportunities, news stories and breaking arts news for all of New Hampshire. It is hard to describe the feeling that I get when I hear that a New Hampshire artist was successful with a project based on information they received from the E-news service.
Biggest problem facing New Hampshire: That is a tough question. I guess the problem that touches the broadest population is discrepancy between the accelerated rise in the cost of living and personal salaries not keeping pace. Although, I am writing this in January and it is 67 degrees outside and my windows are open. It is hard to ignore climate change and its affect on our seasons. This will have lasting ramifications for our environment, wildlife, and economy.
Favorite place in New Hampshire: Mount Kearsarge. My husband proposed to me on top of the mountain at sunrise on Halloween morning, 1999. We can see the peak from our home windows, and most every place we travel in the Merrimack Valley.
What book are you reading now? "Evening Ferry" by New Hampshire author Katherine Towler
How do you relax? Arriving home from work to play with my pup, Calder, knitting, gardening, canning, cooking and baking, beer/cider brewing, and playing pool.
What Web sites do you visit most often? www.nh.gov/nharts, www.artsusa.org, www.savetibet.org, www.concordspca.org
Favorite TV show, radio station of musical artist: Project Runway (TV), Tom Waits, Bjork (musicians).
MANCHESTER – A project to archive and catalogue New England College’s permanent art collection over its 42 buildings set Julie (Gallagher) Mento on her way to promoting artists in the state.
“I realized I was really good at organizing and making a data base,” said Mento, 31, who is the Visual Arts Associate and manager of the Percent for Art Projects at the N.H. State Council on the Arts.
Her varied duties include alerting artists to available grants and commissions, negotiating arts contracts for state building projects, working with artists on such mundane things as health and liability insurance and retirement as well as helping decide which new pieces to include in a traveling state art show.
Mento studied visual arts and painted in college, but knew it would be difficult to continue her work once she left college as studio space and art supplies would no longer be readily available.
She took a job as gallery director at New England College, did the survey of its art holdings and sent a form letter to every arts organization in the state asking them to help her stay in New Hampshire. “New Hampshire is not a traditional arts mecca like New York City where there is a gallery on every block,” she said.
Mento’s first bite came from the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. While she sat in the director’s office not long after she was hired, the telephone rang with the caller looking for someone to help put together the state’s exhibit for the 1999 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and the director handed Mento the phone.
Mento worked for the Smithsonian during the festival and after the festival was offered a position with the N.H. State Council on the Arts.
She has held a number of positions with the council but says, “I’m here to help. That’s really it. I applaud those who take the risk to become an artist.”
She urges artists to take advantage of the arts council and what it offers. “I’m on the phone a lot, but I’m not on the phone enough,” Mento said.
Artists who have used the council’s services say they wish they knew about the organization earlier, she said. “When I advise students, I say, 'I hope you stay in New Hampshire. Call us when you decide to be an artist, but if you do move, connect with that state’s arts council,’ ” Mento said.
Mento worked on the team that helped develop the “Old Man of the Mountain Awards” and volunteers with the Merrimack County-Concord SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
Mento’s husband, Anthony Mento, an architectural designer, was a member of the 2006 40 Under 40 class.
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