A Conversation with Paula Baldoni
Executive Director of Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation and Director of River House Arts in Toledo
Q: Could you tell us about your journey in the art world and how you came to found River House Arts Gallery in Toledo?
Paula: [My husband and I] moved back to the Midwest about 20 years ago, and River House Arts became a venue that I didn't see in our community. So I just stepped into the void, basically, to serve artists that were living and working here but weren't showing here. That's how we started, really just to raise the visibility of artists in this area.
Q: How long has River House Arts been operating now?
Paula: We're into 16 years now.
Q: Your background before opening the gallery is quite interesting. Could you share more about that?
Paula: I come from a mental health background, nonprofit mental health, working with struggling populations. I went to Harvard Divinity School, which is all about culture. There's a through line there from researching and studying Western culture through religion. That certainly provided a foundation for understanding artistic expression.
When I was thinking about going to school, I thought I was going to go into social work. Back then, social work used to be focused on disrupting systems. How do you change inequity in our culture? How do you change the systems? Then those schools started turning away from that and really started churning out the therapist-social worker. That was the point when I was thinking, "I don't want to be a therapist. I'm looking at systemic changes."
At that time, there was a lot going on in the churches. We had the right wing emerging, and then we had these ultra-liberal, progressive folks in Latin America making societal upheavals. That really fascinated me—how religion can be used to change our world for good or bad. I was looking at it objectively. After I finished school, I went into public service, and I spent 20-25 years in the nonprofit sector before transitioning to gallery work.
Q: How did you first meet Bobby Anspach?
Video: Paula Baldoni at Bobby Anspach: The Beautiful Nothing, a collaborative exhibition with SPRING/BREAK Art Show and the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation in NYC from September 19 to November 10, 2024.
Paula: I met Bobby through Jane (Bobby’s mother). I went to a friend's house, and Jane was there. I knew her; she had visited the gallery with a group of collectors and had been very positive. She was talking about Bobby and said, "My son is an artist." I kind of rolled my eyes because I get that every day—"My son is an artist, my nephew is an artist, my sister's an artist. Can you look at their work?"
Jane never asked me that, but she mentioned, "He was just featured in Hyperallergic." And I said, "Well, that's kind of a big deal, Jane." So I looked, and I was really impressed with what I saw. Then she put us in touch. Bobby came to visit me, and I was intrigued with his work. He showed me his stop-motion film. We talked about his sculptures, and we arranged to have him show at SculptureX, a regional academic symposium we were putting together. SculptureX rotates around the region every couple of years and involves universities from all over the Great Lakes area.
Bobby was going to be one of our presenters, but he wasn't able to make it due to some mental health issues. By the time of his death, we had reconnected, and we were making plans to go to Miami, to show at NADA during Art Basel.
Q: How did you go from planning to show Bobby's work at NADA to becoming the Executive Director of his foundation?
Paula: At the time of Bobby's death, I reached out through social media, and then Bob and Jane (Bobby’s parents) connected with me about keeping the momentum behind Bobby’s work going.
After meeting with the family I came home and called New York-based art critic Saul Ostrow and asked if this was something he'd be interested in taking on as an intermittent director. Thankfully he said yes. I was on the board initially, and later transitioned to the director role. Saul did a great job and got us to where we needed to be.
Q: How would you amplify the mission of the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation?
Paula: I appreciate the mission of the foundation. I'm especially encouraged by the commitment to foster new voices of artists that have similar sensibilities to Bobby. They might not be working in the same genre or exactly the same kind of expanded media that he was doing, but they share his ideas about climate change, saving the world—I'm all about that.
A major part of our mission is also to really get Bobby's work out in front of as many people as possible, or getting as many people as possible into it. I think our future move to Manhattan is good, and hopefully we'll get the work out on the road in the not too distant future.
Q: What kind of artists are you hoping to support with the foundation?
Paula: What I love about Bobby's work, and what I hope it opens up to, is more artists working on a deeper level—not just topical, but what's underlying that. What's underlying our racism and hatred of each other, and why are we destroying the planet? I think Bobby's work gets at that.
Q: How do you balance preserving Bobby's legacy while also embracing new directions in art?
Paula: I don't think there's a conflict. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I think it all works together. We want to move forward. We're not looking back. We need to make progress. I think fresh voices are what this is all about.
Q: Your approach as a gallerist seems to align with your work at the Foundation. Could you speak to that philosophy?
Paula: Of course sales for the artists are a priority, but really it's about taking risks and showing the work that needs to be shown. It's exposing people to work that is important and that they might not otherwise see.
Q: What most excites you about the future of the Foundation?
Paula: I'm excited about getting this work out into the world, which is essentially what we had been working on for years before this. I really want to see Bobby's work get more attention and more people exposed to it. That's the whole deal.
