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In the sixth episode of NOTABLE, host Adrienne Beckham (she/her) sits back down with Bailey Gamberg (they/them) to hear updates on their professional journey towards leadership and the experiences they draw from to navigate the structure of and integration into board leadership spaces.
Bailey M. Gamberg (they/them) is an emerging leader and museum educator in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Currently in their role as Educator of Adult and Community Programs at the Brandywine Museum of Art, Bailey develops creative, accessible programming for adult and family audiences in collaboration with community partners. Some of their favorite programs to plan include Sensory-Friendly Access Hours and Plein Air painting workshops. They also serve on the Programming Committee for the professional networking group, Museum Council of Greater Philadelphia. In their free time, Bailey enjoys soaking up the sun with their dog, painting thrifted objects, and reading autobiographies.
Music by Eric Stewart, “Cloud Anthem”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Records / Center For Creative Works
Thanks for support from Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Transcript
[00:00:00.06] – Adrienne Beckham
In today’s episode of Notable, I am sitting back down with Bailey Gamberg to hear updates on their professional journey towards leadership and the experiences they draw from to navigate the structure of an integration into board leadership spaces. Come join our conversation.
[00:00:21.17]
Hello. The first question that I wanted to ask… Because I know it’s been a few months since we last spoke and gathered here in the global space, I wanted to ask how your professional development has been going over the course of these few months.
[00:00:41.14] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. I am excited that I was elected this summer to be on the board of the Museum Council of Greater Philadelphia, which is exciting. That’s something I think I teased. I think I was applying last time we talked. I was like, I want to do this, but I don’t have it secured yet because I don’t know what’s going to happen. My role is the programming chair on that board.
[00:01:08.10]
Museum Council is a professional networking group for museum and arts and culture professionals. In the programming chair capacity, we plan different events. Some are really social-based, like member meetups at Queen & Rook Café or a bowling alley or something. Then others are more professional development-based.
[00:01:31.01]
We try and do behind-the-scenes tours in places, getting a tour with the curator of the exhibit, so we can talk a little bit more about the development of it and some of these deeper diving questions that museum professionals care about, but the general public doesn’t really want to dive into, so getting in those kinds of spaces, and also networking is a huge part of it of people being able to meet new people and also check in with their friends at other museums that they don’t get to see very often.
[00:02:09.09]
One of my goals as the programming chair for this is I really want to go to more places that are on people’s bucket lists. We all have places in Philadelphia, I feel, that we’ve heard about, but we’ve never gotten the chance to actually go to. You’re like, That place sounds cool, but I’ve never actually gone there. Those are some of the smaller spaces or historic houses or smaller organizations.
[00:02:32.19]
We’ve all gone to the PMA or things like that, but trying to get people into these other spaces. Then that also brings more endorsement and awareness to these smaller organizations to be able to bring a different audience in like that. Our first program, we have a trip this weekend. We’re going to Doylestown to go to the Missioner Museum and the Mercer Museum because they’re both across the street from each other, and they’re right by the Doylestown SEPTA Station.
[00:03:04.06] – Adrienne Beckham
Okay. Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, congratulations.
[00:03:10.11] – Bailey Gamberg
Thank you.
[00:03:11.09] – Adrienne Beckham
Because I know we had started talking about wanting to do this and the fact that you’re actually on a board, that is incredible. And so now I have so many questions about your experience joining that board and what that onboarding process has felt like, and just the culture of the board you’re in now. How has it maybe met your expectations or countered your expectations?
[00:03:45.13] – Bailey Gamberg
We’ve had one board meeting so far, which was virtual. We have an in-person board meeting for the first time next week, actually, so I think that’s going to be a different opportunity for me to feel the space and stuff. I definitely feel like it’s more because it is a nonprofit that’s a networking group. Yes, we have a board, but it’s not a crazy formalized board. It might be for an art museum or an institution that has a physical space and has a building.
[00:04:19.12]
I also feel like the board is not intimidating to me because it feels like it’s all people that are my peers. Some people are on the board or people who I’ve known before in the field already. There’s a lot of people I don’t know, but I feel that they’re obviously in different institutions and different departments within their orgs, but I feel like we’re on the same playing field versus sometimes in other situations with boards, I think you can feel like they’re very on a different level than you are, and maybe a different socioeconomic status or different job title status, different education status, but I feel more comfortable with this board because I feel like they’re in similar places as I am in my career, even if we have different, obviously, lived perspectives and experiences and backgrounds.
[00:05:13.14] – Adrienne Beckham
Right. Yeah. I feel like having that comfort is so important, especially joining something for the first time and being able to feel like you can contribute fully. Having that sense of even, like you mentioned, of course, your lived experience is different just by the nature of being different humans in a space. But having a sense of feeling like there is some level of connection that you can forge with your fellow members, I think is huge and will make a huge impact. I think that’s a lot of why we’re talking about disability representation in this space and how that is important for the sake of being able to open up that sense of like, Okay, I belong here, and therefore I can contribute my ideas fully.
[00:06:15.12] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. I think I definitely… So the person who was in the role before me, our terms are for 2 years, but you can do it two times in a row. So you can do a four-year term before you have to roll on to another position in the board if you want to stay on. The person before me did it for 4 years, and she is older than me and has more work experience than me and is someone I viewed as a mentor. I definitely felt just a little intimidated being the new person who is not… I’ve been on the committee for a while and helped plan these programs, so I’m not completely new to the process, but still being like, “Oh, I’m the fresh face coming in,” and everyone no one was very used to the other person.
[00:07:02.21]
Just that transition has been… I don’t want to say it’s been difficult, but it’s just been on my mind. I don’t think there’s been anyone expressively making me feel new or making me feel like my ideas don’t have a space, but it’s an internal thing that you’re trying to navigate. And as someone with anxiety, that’s always just another layer in your brain that you’re thinking about, even though no one’s pushing that on you.
[00:07:30.23] – Adrienne Beckham
No, I feel that. I feel that so strongly. It is amazing just how powerful your brain can be in terms of making your brain gain an experience in terms of how you feel about it, regardless of what’s actually going around in the external stimuli. Wow. Okay, hold on. I’m so high that you actually are on a board. This is just a really cool experience to just get to share in with you.
[00:08:10.06] – Bailey Gamberg
Thank you. I’m excited, too.
[00:08:13.12] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Especially just as… I think when we think about disability leadership, it is like, I don’t know, you don’t necessarily hear about the wins all the time for people. And so it’s nice to be able to share in a win. Obviously, it’s not my win, it’s your win. But just to be able to experience witnessing your joy at something and joining your boards. It’s a beautiful thing.
[00:08:54.13] – Bailey Gamberg
Thank you. I think it’s a great stepping stone. I feel like of all the boards to get first involved in, this would be my top pick because of the things that make me comfortable about being with peers and some people I know and things like that, compared to, I feel like it could have… If it was a different board, maybe I would have a lot more intimidating of an experience. So it’s a good first baby step into-
[00:09:21.07] – Adrienne Beckham
Right.
[00:09:22.12] – Bailey Gamberg
Navigating board world.
[00:09:24.17] – Adrienne Beckham
Yes, indeed. But you do see yourself moving on to other boards after this?
[00:09:30.21] – Bailey Gamberg
Potentially, yeah. I don’t have any particular in mind, but I definitely see this as a resume building experience for me to be able to take into future things. And maybe I’ll want to stay on this board and do another roll Well, too.
[00:09:46.02] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Okay. Well, segueing into some of our other questions now, especially since now you have this new perspective of being the program chair and beginning to become more familiar with the board of directors structure. My second question for you on my list is, Do you think a board of directors is needed for an arts organization?
[00:10:24.20] – Bailey Gamberg
I feel like I say yes and no to this. When I was thinking… When you think about it, I feel like, and I think we talked about this somewhat in our last interview, too, how I feel like board of directors have, in some institutions, a financial obligation. Obviously, if that is a way that your organization runs, that you depend upon specific donations and pulling from your board of directors, then if you want to get rid of that board of directors, that’s something that has to be made up monetarily, in some other capacity. You couldn’t be like, “Oh, we don’t want a board of directors anymore.” And then you’re like 100K in the hole because they were giving money to you pretty regularly.
[00:11:11.18]
But I feel like an effective board of directors for an arts organization should be more of a community advisory type of group. I think it’s needed for an arts organization to have those multiple perspectives coming in having different lived experiences from community members coming in. But if you have this dependent that to be a board member, you have to give, 10K a year or whatever to the organization, that obviously severely limits the different perspectives that you can have in a space like that.
[00:11:50.15]
I think that those two types of boards need to be distinguished as different types of boards, almost. I think arts organizations should shift more towards the community advisory perspective of a board versus the monetary obligations.
[00:12:10.14] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that’s definitely a great distinction to make this division between a board that is in service of the community rather than in service of maybe the more financial or even organizational, like procedural structures of the organization. Like you said, there definitely needs to be an understanding of what the board is doing so that if they shift, you can make the full shifts in the organization needed to support that change. But yeah, personally, I feel like I agree with you. I think the community aspect of a board of directors is a huge one that deserves more attention in bringing that to the forefront of what a board can do for an organization, particularly in the arts.
[00:13:16.21] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. I feel like it’s obviously easier if you’re a newer art organization to try and implement something like this versus places that have had board of directors for decades and decades. I don’t know. There’s feelings of ownership involved with how much money you give into places. There’s places that have families that are generations tied to these art institutions that these families feel like they have given so much money that they deserve a place at the table to say what organization is going to do moving forward, content-wise or employee-wise or whatever those approvals processes are. I think it can be really hard to disentangle yourself from that without ruining relationships. I think that’s why the bigger organizations aren’t shifting to that style.
[00:14:09.22] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah.
[00:14:10.05] – Bailey Gamberg
The smaller organizations are.
[00:14:12.20] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, that’s a really good point to this sense of ownership when it comes to those financial backers and what that means in terms of what you’re able to do in an organization and navigating that delicate balance. I think we see that in a lot of the work that we do, even at ArtReach, is that balance and wanting to push forward and make progress in an area like disability and accessibility, while also countering with the realities of what stakeholders might be more interested in. Yeah, that plays out, I think, in every single organization in this country.
[00:15:13.06] – Bailey Gamberg
Definitely.
[00:15:14.08] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Segueing into another question that I have on the list. I’m curious, as I’ve learned more about boards in this job and on this podcast, a phrase that’s come up a lot is Robert’s Rules of Order. I was curious if you had heard of Robert’s Rules of Order, and if you have, if you have any opinions on Robert’s Rules of Order. If you haven’t, just what’s your familiarity?
[00:15:58.19] – Bailey Gamberg
I became familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order in undergrad because I went to University in Nevada, Reno for undergrad. And like many campuses, there’s a student government part of it. There’s a student Senate, and each of the different colleges, the science colleges, the arts, business, can elect a student representative, and it’s a little part-time job. But anyways, we would run this little Senate and passed legislation about the college and different things, and so that was all Robert’s Rules of Order.
[00:16:34.02]
But I was lucky because I was in a position where there was 10 other new people coming in. There were some people who had done it before and then new folks, and so we had a whole training session on it. They sat us down and were like, We’re for an hour going to go through and here’s your packet, and I got all these resources and stuff on it and then practice it a lot because I was going to these meetings every week as part of my college campus job, so I was integrated really well, I think, into it and that’s why I feel so comfortable with it currently.
[00:17:07.23]
But I don’t think that… That’s not a resource that a lot of people have. And I’ve learned that that’s something that I was lucky to experience to be sat down and have. Here’s the Roberts rules, stuff. Because other people who join boards don’t really get that. You have to research it and figure it out on your own, and I’ve definitely seen people come into the meeting and be like, “Wait, what is this? What is happening?”
[00:17:31.19]
Now I see it as a very, I don’t know, an unnecessary structure that I feel like is very isolating for people, and it feels very I don’t know. It’s an elitist thing that if you haven’t learned about it before, how come you didn’t know about this a thing? Then the fact that I feel there’s a lack of preparation for people going into meetings with this.
[00:17:58.23]
There’s a gap there that I see. If you’re having this expectation of everyone in the meeting needs to know the way this meeting is going to run, then there needs to be more resources and preparation to show people that. Because you can’t expect people to know what to do and to second and to vote the eyes and things like that.
[00:18:21.03]
It’s not that it’s… You can go into such detail with it, too, which is wild. There’s these fat books that are like, Here are the Robert’s Rules of Order, and it can go crazy. I just know the basics. But I know that you can call a motion, you can second the motion, the eyes and nose, and I know what quorum is, and that’s about it.
[00:18:41.04] – Adrienne Beckham
No, that’s the thing that surprised me about it, too, is I heard it, and then I started doing research on what they were and then finding out, “Oh, there are books on this. This is a whole thing.”
[00:18:55.11] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. There’s whole Robert’s Rules like nerds, that were carrying the books and stuff with them.
[00:19:01.19] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. You bring up this really good point of just if you have never been exposed to that, that can be an overwhelming thing to have to step into and suddenly learn on top of everything else that you need to learn when you join a board. If you’re not someone that has access to maybe some of those opportunities to learn these things, where do you learn them if you’re not being prepared in the actual board space itself.
[00:19:42.10] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah, exactly. No, the only experience I’ve had with being given a resource was in that student university setting. Because every year, they had to teach new people, so they just developed their own little system for it, and that’s what worked for everybody. But I don’t know. I feel like the very core of Robert’s Rules of Order to me is just respect and taking time to make sure everyone gets to speak. I feel like it’s the goal of it is making sure to have… Of holding your hand out to be taking turn when spoken to. And then obviously the voting, the ayes and the nays to create a small democratic process of moving the decision forward. I feel like those are things that you can do without being like, oh, here’s the strict Robert’s rules that you may have never heard of. I feel like you could start the meeting with just being like, we want to make sure that we have space for others. If you have something to add, you can raise your hand, and we’ll take turns just to make sure that everyone has adequate time to share their thoughts because we only have an hour and there’s 20 of us or whatever it is.
[00:20:53.03]
At the end, we’re going to make a decision on whether we want to do this or not. Vote yes or vote no. Raise your hand. They’re not hard concepts to work around, but it’s making them sound more intimidating by putting this name in this book around it. I think you can have a meeting just as effectively without it, as long as you start your meeting off with what your expectations are for people. It’s just good grounding anyway. It’s something you should do in your agenda making, regardless if you’re having a solid, we need to get things done meeting.
[00:21:27.13] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, absolutely. I think there are… Especially, too, as you’re building a space of community anywhere, but especially on a board, because a board is its own community. There’s, and this is something that Art-Reach has talked about, too, of having a sense of just shared common goals and commonality that you can create as a group together rather than to something that’s maybe prescribed. Here’s this giant book called Robert’s Rules of Order. This is what it is, and that’s that. We don’t think about it ever again, and you must adhere to this strict way of being.
[00:22:20.15] – Bailey Gamberg
Right. Versus learning to get to know each other more and being like, we want to create space for each other to speak and share in this meeting.
[00:22:30.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Establishing that sense of just trust with one another of like, yeah, this is what we are doing because we want to respect the people around us. Well, that’s really cool. I’m glad that you had that experience as a student because I was genuinely curious. Did I just not know-
[00:23:00.23] – Bailey Gamberg
Right, did I skip class that day?
[00:23:03.02] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Did I miss the Robert’s Rules course I was supposed to take in life? I don’t know. Yeah. So it’s really interesting to see how people have encountered Robert’s Rules.
[00:23:20.07] – Bailey Gamberg
I don’t know the root of it, but I feel like in the early 1800s or something, all these white men were just screaming at each other over the table, and they were like, okay, we need to do something to have a productive meeting. And they made these rules. And does that still say it today? Who’s to say?
[00:23:39.22] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. I did a little bit of an obsessive deep dive about how we got these rules.
[00:23:51.16] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah, like this is Robert.
[00:23:53.09] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Well, actually, I learned this from a podcast episode from another podcast that I’ll have to share, that they did on the person who wrote Robert’s Rules. His name is Henry Martin Robert. He was an engineer for the US military in the army back in the 1800s, around the civil rights, civil war era. And it was… Yeah, he led a meeting once and it went so off the rails. He ended up being like, let me learn about parliamentary law and create this new handbook for running meetings.
[00:24:43.16] – Bailey Gamberg
Honestly, that’s neurodivergent of him. For someone to go to a meeting and being like, that was too crazy. I need to make this very set and have a method for doing this.
[00:24:56.04] – Adrienne Beckham
You might be on that. I cannot speak for Henry Martin Robert, and I’m sure other historians and biographers maybe have some further insight into that, but you’re not wrong.
[00:25:14.01] – Bailey Gamberg
Just an observation.
[00:25:15.18] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, just an observation from the modern day of reflecting back. Okay, so moving into another question more broadly about leadership, and particularly this idea of privilege and power. I’m curious in your experience, given your ability to have some sense of power in maybe the positions and spaces that you might have been in or not, how have you approached the idea of transferring power to those around you, maybe people who don’t have as much power and sway in a particular space that you might be in?
[00:26:16.12] – Bailey Gamberg
I feel like I’m entering a space where I’m starting to have power. Being on the programming chair board, I feel like, is one of the first roles I’m like, oh, I actually am in charge of some things and have agency. Versus I’m still an emerging museum professional in my workspace, so I don’t feel like I have a lot of power in my workplace. But I think ways of transferring power is about creating space for people and creating room for listening is one way to be able to create space to bring more people to the table, and whether that’s in trying to diversify who is on your board or even just bringing more… You don’t have to have… Not everyone wants to be on a board. Not everybody wants to volunteer their time and do that. But maybe they want to come once and talk about a certain experience or focus on this specific event that they care about. And so bringing people to your board meetings to speak as guests and being able to share perspective, I think, is a way to transfer some power and create space.
[00:27:35.15]
Then, I think just being able to listen to others’ projects. I feel like the ways that I would have increased my power in the workspace is being heard, is feeling like my ideas are heard and listened to and getting those up to the table. In most of the full-time roles I’ve been at museums, I have had little to no interaction with the board of directors. And that’s because maybe I’m so low job. I’m not in an executive director position or anything like that. But I think that boards could help transfer power by being more open to the organizations that they’re at and not just only meeting with the top-level directors that are supposed to meet with them.
[00:28:28.03]
I don’t think there’s a lot of trickle-down transparency there in what the board members are doing or what they’re talking about. We sometimes get in an all staff meeting later, the executive director will give the report on what the board meeting report was like. It’s just in that sense, but there’s never any actual interaction with the board. I think that making the board more open to the organization in that sense could help increase some of those things of creating space and listening that I think can help transfer power.
[00:29:02.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, thank you for that. The demystification of the board space, I think-
[00:29:11.20] – Bailey Gamberg
That’s a good word.
[00:29:13.03] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. I think when you’re not in that higher level space, it’s just this mythical creature, almost, of this board is there, and they’re in charge, but you aren’t entirely sure how.
[00:29:33.10] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah.
[00:29:34.15] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Opening that space up, I think, does, like you said, just really just bring more power to people. It goes back to that just old adage of knowledge is power. When you know something, you’re able to do something with it.
[00:30:01.01] – Bailey Gamberg
I wish that you could attend board meetings as not a board member, just listen in. I get that there’s not enough time to have everybody speak who wants to come. I get that a board meeting has to fit those agenda items, that they need to approve things, and they have action items. But I wish that there was an invitation. And so many of these meetings are hybrid now or on Zoom entirely, that you could just easily send the link and have your employees sit on mute and listen in and have a better understanding of that demystification of what the board is doing, what are their meetings actually like, what are they actually talking about, what are they actually saying?
[00:30:41.14] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, absolutely. Also, just offering that up and then inviting it to, making it something that doesn’t feel uncomfortable as an employee to actually partake in. Because I think it’s one thing to open a space, and it’s another thing to make it feel like you’re meant to be there.
[00:31:05.19] – Bailey Gamberg
Bro, 100%.
[00:31:07.18] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Thank you so much for that answer. Another question that I have, segueing on, is more about you personally and the personal causes that you have. How have you found ways to support those personal causes and goals, maybe within the work you do, both at your organization and now stepping into a leadership role?
[00:31:51.16] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah, I feel… And that’s so tough in our field, personal causes and your workspace and what your organization is doing. I think about all the time in the campaign, museums are not neutral. I have one of those stickers on my water bottle. And how even that is sometimes people are very like, no, museums are supposed to be neutral. Museums are supposed to be this non-biased space. It’s like, well, if we’re sharing narratives and sharing knowledge or art or experiences, it can’t be neutral. There is no neutral. I think for me, I feel like access is one of the main things that is a personal value to me that I’m able to try and implement in my work. I’m grateful that Brandywine, I’m able to work on some accessibility programs like tools, like large print guides and other things for people. But there is definitely more that I would like to push for, both time-wise and money-wise, are obviously obstacles to that.
[00:33:12.16]
But that’s something I definitely try to bring up often and push for, and that’s something I want to do in the museum council space as well.
[00:33:23.18] – Adrienne Beckham
The idea of neutrality in the art space, I think, is such a curious one. In my mind, frankly, I’m like, art is inherently not neutral because, like you mentioned, we’re sharing these perspectives of artists from lived experience. In that vein, how do you stay neutral when the purpose of art is to evoke something within someone?
[00:34:15.12] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. To me, art is feelings. When you’re creating art, you’re feeling. When you’re looking at art, you’re feeling. When you’re in an art space, you’re feeling different things, and that is different for all of those individuals. But for me, you’re feeling something, and feelings aren’t neutral, except for, I guess, the one feeling of impassiveness. But most of the time, your feelings aren’t neutral, unless you’re truly like, I don’t care. So, yeah, in all of those scenarios, then art can’t be neutral because it’s making you feel something in some type of way. Even if you hate it, it’s making you feel something or if you’re disgusted by it, it’s not neutrality.
[00:35:00.23] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. And it’s like, how do you navigate housing all of those experiences within the context of a museum? What are you choosing to make space for and what are you choosing not to make space for?
[00:35:17.17] – Bailey Gamberg
Absolutely. I feel like I’ve been struggling with in the sense of pushing for the personal cause of increasing access is a lot of this aesthetics versus accessibility and those going head-to-head and the aesthetics winning out, I feel has been on my mind a lot lately in the museum field.
[00:35:46.12] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, definitely. I think leadership plays a huge, huge role in how that happens. Again, it ties to some of what we were talking about earlier. How beholden are you to the stakeholders in your museum and stuff, and how much pressure is there to maybe lean into aesthetic because that’s what they want. In that vein, having a really clear sense of who your leadership is, is important because they’re the ones that navigate that experience of when do we push back, and when do we not?
[00:36:37.13] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. I went that that’s hard to gauge in the interview process and stuff. You can feel people push back. In an interview, you talk about it, and you’re like, how do you know what is your relationship with the board? And things like that. People can be like, oh, we love new ideas, and we love doing fun and new things and exciting stuff. And then you actually get in your role, and you’re like, wait. That was just the sparkly little-
[00:37:07.23] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. It’s like the thing they’re dangling in front of you. And it’s hard, too, because I think with creative spaces, especially, I feel like you’ll encounter a lot of people that at their core inside, they do genuinely believe that when they’re saying they really want to push for moving in a progressive direction, but then the reality of the day-to-day sets in, and it’s not as easy to really advocate for that in that space. Like you said, it’s hard to figure out where an organization truly stands in that fight.
[00:38:00.08] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah. I always think about the day-to-day gets overwhelming for people, and it just gets pushed back. I’ve been told a lot of I have ideas or different things, and it’s like, oh, that’s too much work right now. That’s too much. Then we’ll just bite off more than we can chew. I’ve been like, I’m willing to do the work. I’m the one standing here and saying that I’ll put the time and the energy into it. Obviously, I can’t pull money out of thin air for the organization, but I can always… Not always, but given other projects, I can prioritize and dedicate time and energy to this if that’s what you need. And sometimes that just gets brushed over, and it’s frustrating.
[00:38:40.01] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, definitely. That segues into the next question that I had, as you mentioned, I can prioritize within time and capacity. But I think, particularly when you’re doing work that’s really close to you, just maybe ideologically or personally, however, it can be hard to step away and really prioritize your own self and your own boundaries. So I’m curious, as you’re stepping into more leadership roles now, how are you navigating, prioritizing your rest, your accommodations, the things that you need to fully show up for the causes you support?
[00:39:45.06] – Bailey Gamberg
This is something I feel I’ve been really battling with lately. I’ve definitely been struggling with feeling burnt out a little bit lately, and how do I fix that for myself? For me, right now, part of it is… I’m in the process of trying to explore other mental health diagnosis for me. I have diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder, but I also feel like I could be on the ADHD or autism spectrum, and I’m not sure what that looks like.
[00:40:18.12]
I’m currently going to therapy and trying to figure out what that may be because I feel like that will help me get on a better course of taking care of myself if I better understand what layers are going on in my brain. That’s a step that I’m taking for me is to go to therapy more and then also try and unpack some of that, and if I have a diagnosis, figure out what that means.
[00:40:44.10]
Then I’ve also been taking rest as… When you’re working in the arts and culture spaces, it’s tough because you like art outside of work, obviously. I don’t go to work at an art museum, and then I’m like, “I never want to see an art show kind of a thing.” I feel like I used to spend… When I first moved to the city, I was like, “I want to see all these museums and galleries.” I go to work in museums, and then on the weekend, I go visit another museum. Just because I’m a big art nerd.
[00:41:17.12]
I realized that that wasn’t necessarily the most healthy thing for me, and that I actually needed… Even though I considered visiting museums and art spaces a hobby of mine, and it still is, I need to take that a sec back. In another way, also try in my work, try to integrate when you’re in the workplace, why don’t we go take a trip and visit this other art organization and meet people there and connect with them and see if we can collaborate on something.
[00:41:47.09]
That also is fulfilling this need to see the art in Philly and see what these other spaces are doing. Once I figured out that distinction, I was like, “Okay, I need to do this less on the weekends on vacations and try and integrate it into other ways in my life so that my rest time can really be just me at home on the couch instead of feeling like I need to go see this exhibit.”
[00:42:13.03]
That’s part of it too is seeing when rotating exhibits, the pressure being like, “Oh, this thing is only open from September to January or something.” I’ve started letting that brush off. It’s okay if I don’t see every dope exhibit at this one or whatever. I can miss this one. It’s okay. There’s going to be more of this artist being displayed in New York and other places and things like that. Taking some of the pressure off there I think has been helpful for me.
[00:42:43.22] – Adrienne Beckham
Definitely. The experience of just being like, “Oh, but I’ve been staring at art all this time, and also I want to do it some more.” I feel that. I know in other instances in my life when I was working in… This is such a sidebar. I used to do music blogging and stuff. The experience of I love music, so I just want to listen to music all the time, but also then navigating the music I have to listen to for the thing I’m writing and then just the music I want to listen to. Then all of a sudden I realized I’ve been listening to music for 24 hours straight, and I haven’t heard myself think.
[00:43:39.06] – Bailey Gamberg
You’re like, “Wait, I’m overstimulated.”
[00:43:42.09] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. I was like, “Oh, okay. Let’s take a second to just sit in an empty room.”
[00:43:50.06] – Bailey Gamberg
That’s where it comes in, and you’re always told you should work in your passion. You should do the job that is in something you’re passionate about and something that you really love and care about, which is true and good, and I do feel that way. But then you have to learn to distinguish this thing I love and care about is in my work and also my personal life.
[00:44:13.03] – Adrienne Beckham
Absolutely. I think it’s the thing that I think leadership, one needs to hear it a lot, but also I feel like that needs to be in some ways the culture of the organization to being able to share that out and make that a priority for your employees, too. Just finding ways to communicate that to them and also give them opportunities to meaningfully flood, I think is important.
[00:44:51.21]
My next few questions that I have are like, I view them as like main thesis questions of this show because they’re not bigger or more broad ones about disability leadership. The first one is just really broadly, what does disability leadership mean to you?
[00:45:22.16] – Bailey Gamberg
At its most basis is seeing people with disabilities in leadership spaces, in being spaces where it’s their place at the table. They’re not invited as a special guest at the table to come and talk, that you are at the table, and that you’re in a role where you’re being looked towards for advice or for creation of content or for what your opinion and experience is.
[00:46:05.05]
I think, to me, disability leadership is also about carving what that leadership capacity means for you and about creating space for yourself in a leadership role and being able to share your needs and what you need in those accommodations and creating that space for yourself.
[00:46:40.18] – Adrienne Beckham
I love that. Carving out what that means to you is huge because disability is so personal too. Everyone is approaching their own lived experience from a different lens. Then that then in turn altars and changes the way you approach leadership.
[00:47:11.12] – Bailey Gamberg
Leadership is great in the sense of we like being looked up to and seen as someone who has something to share and someone who has wisdom and knowledge. But leadership also comes with expectations too. Leadership comes with whether that’s time expectations or project expectations and work expectations that you have.
[00:47:38.12]
I feel like that can sometimes feel like a cage around leadership. That’s what I guess I mean about in disability leadership, I don’t want that cage to exist. To have more of being able to make what that role is for you.
[00:47:55.20] – Adrienne Beckham
Thank you. That is great. My next question, as you step into more leadership roles and even just in your work day to day, do you feel like you are able to affect meaningful change for the disability community in your role?
[00:48:21.13] – Bailey Gamberg
I think a little bit. I wish way more. I feel like in my role, because I work on accessibility programs, that’s the way that I see meaningful change. I get to talk to the families that come to my programs and see how much it means to them to have a space created for their families in the museum. Or I got this amazing email the other week from a program for sensory… We do sensory friendly programs.
[00:48:57.23]
One father brought his son, and it was his first time. He wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but his son now is paying attention to art in the world. He did all these different hands-on activities and different things and explored the art at the museum. Now he goes to his doctor’s appointments, and he’s looking at the art on the wall, on the waiting room.
[00:49:17.18]
The father was like, “My son has never done this before.” It’s just unlocked this whole new world for him seeing art in spaces. That was super impactful for me. That was moment where I was like, “Okay, my programs are providing a new experience for somebody or a positive or relaxing experience for somebody in this space.”
[00:49:41.13]
That’s important to me. But through self-advocacy and through my roles as someone who’s neurodivergent in boards, I feel like I haven’t made change in that capacity yet. That’s something that I want to do, but I still feel so much imposter syndrome, and I still feel small in the big world of arts and museums and young and all those kinds of things.
[00:50:09.19]
That’s where I feel like the power… I don’t feel like I have a lot of power yet, and not that I want a lot of power, but I feel like if I want to be more of an advocate for the disability community, I need to have a little bit more say. Maybe that’s a confidence thing too, and putting your foot in the spaces.
[00:50:30.17] – Adrienne Beckham
But it’s a lot of different things. There’s what you can control on the internal and that confidence, but there is also navigating the external and the systemic everything that’s systemically designed about leadership and power. That is also a barrier to navigate question, challenge, stream to the void at.
[00:51:06.20]
It’s a combination of all those things. It’s interesting to step back and think about how all of that is influencing the ability to build more of those moments where you can say, “I’ve done something of meaning for the community that I support, the disability community.”
[00:51:42.00] – Bailey Gamberg
I guess I feel like another way is it took me a minute to get my museum on board for the Project 76, but we’re signed up for the January 2025 start. I feel like it’s one of the only people who really speaks loudly about accessibility in our organization. I’m excited to have that start so that more people are thinking about it because you will be interviewing and talking to other staff and things like that. I hope it just plants the seed in more people’s brains that this is something we need to be thinking about and talking about.
[00:52:15.14] – Adrienne Beckham
Absolutely. That is what all of us here at Art-Reach are hoping for. It’s like this can just keep happening at every single organization in our city. Maybe we’ll actually be able to make something happen.
[00:52:31.16] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah, right? No. I was like, “It’s free. Come on.”
[00:52:34.18] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, right. It’s free. You don’t have to pay anything.
[00:52:38.06] – Bailey Gamberg
They’re grant-funded. They have a great grant. Let’s go.
[00:52:41.05] – Adrienne Beckham
What is one question that you would want to ask of other people with disabilities who are currently serving on boards and have been in those roles as you are now just beginning your first journey into a leadership role?
[00:53:06.05] – Bailey Gamberg
I’ve had to pick one question, and this is what I like to ask a lot of people, and it’s a broad question, but what was your journey to getting here? If you had to pick one that’s the broadest that you’re going to get the most out of. But I love hearing… Because no one’s story… Well, some people. I feel like it’s rare that people’s stories are linear, that we’re like, “Oh, in high school, I wanted to do this, and then I got my degree, and I did this, and now I’m doing this exact thing I wanted to do as a child my whole life.”
[00:53:32.04]
We all end up on these paths that go to school somewhere different, or you find a different job opportunity or something, and we just make our way through the world. Those are stories I just find so fascinating about hearing how people ended up where they did. That also can, I don’t know, teach you things about being innovative and about being creative in spaces. It’s a way to learn from others about their life, their biggest life choices and decisions. Helps you get to know them, too.
[00:54:09.00] – Adrienne Beckham
Definitely. You can learn so much from somebody’s journey, definitely. Then the last question really quickly, I will ask is what advice would you give to people without disabilities who are serving on a board that has or wants to have people with disabilities on their board?
[00:54:38.05] – Bailey Gamberg
My advice would be is that you need to be collaborative with the disability spaces you want to engage. You can’t just walk up and be like, “Hey, someone from Services for the Blind, do you want to join our board right now, even though we’ve never spoken to you before, but we know we need someone with vision loss on our board?”
[00:55:10.09]
I think that you need to develop those relationships further, do programs with them, do other types of events or collaborations, and then make the ask being like, “Would any of your organization members be interested in volunteering and joining the board?” It’s about seeking out those connections you want to make, but not being… Don’t pounce too fast on what you’re seeking for because you need to gain people’s trust first and gain their respect.
[00:55:46.13] – Adrienne Beckham
Absolutely. Be holistic and authentic with your disability inclusion.
[00:55:55.04] – Bailey Gamberg
Yeah, rather than just a checkmark.
[00:55:59.01] – Adrienne Beckham
No one wants to be a checkmark. Well, that wraps up all of the questions that I had for you. I want to thank you so much for all of your insights, your energy, your time, everything that you’ve shared with me today in this space.
[00:56:22.03] – Bailey Gamberg
Thank you for creating a comfortable conversational space.
