Episode 2: Corporate career to collage artist with Lela Cocoros Goldstein
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with communications consultant and collage artist Lela Cocoros Goldstein. They discuss why Lela moved from NYC to Denver for her corporate career, what drew Lela to collage as an artist, and Lela's advice for anyone trying to pursue their creative passion. Find Lela's creations on her Instagram and Facebook!
Resources:
An Art Revolution, Made with Scissors and Glue by Jason Farago, The New York Times.
“[My first grade art teacher] just looked down at me and said ‘Lela you’ll never be an artist’ which really stung, I think. But maybe it motivated me. I wound up going to film school and getting a fine arts degree and made a career out of it.”
Fun in the Sun (2019) by Lela Goldstein.
Shelter in Place (2020) by Lela Goldstein.
Transcript:
Betsy Bush (00:04):
After a successful business career as a corporate communications executive and consultant in the video telecom, and internet sectors, Lela Goldstein put full focus on her collage and mixed media [art] in 2018. Since then, she has sold several pieces and has exhibited in Arizona, California, and New York. Her artwork often incorporates vintage and originally designed papers, and much of it has a mid-century modern sensibility. A lifelong film enthusiast and vintage postcard collector, Lela holds a BFA degree in film and television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the graduate work in museum studies at the Johns Hopkins University. She resides in Scottsdale, Arizona. Lela, it is so great to have you here. Thanks for joining us on The Latest Version.
Lela Goldstein (01:16):
Thank you. Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Betsy Bush (01:20):
Oh, that's great. And you know full disclosure, we're college roommates at NYU. You were more film. I was more television and radio, but I always knew you as Lela Cocoros. I was Betsy Hills. Now I'm Betsy Bush. Now you're Leila Goldstein, but you also have a dual identity in your corporate career as Lela Cocoros keeping your maiden name.
Betsy Bush (01:52):
And it was funny going back and forth about what do we call each other, right?
Lela Goldstein (01:57):
Yes. Yes. It can get very confusing.
Betsy Bush (01:59):
Yes. And it's something men never have to worry about, right?
Lela Goldstein (02:05):
No, no. And, uh, yeah, when I got married, I changed my name to legally to Goldstein, but my career was taking off and I was known as Lela Cocoros. And so throughout my very long career, you know, 30 plus years, known to a lot of people, as Lela Cocoros, which is hard to spell, hard to pronounce. So when I switched over to my art side of my life, I decided to present myself as Lela Goldstein, which is a lot easier for people to kind of understand and spell and all that.
Betsy Bush (02:47):
It's also kind of an interesting way of being the latest version of yourself, right? It's kind of pivoting from corporate to your new artistic, you know, whatever this is that you are now doing,
Lela Goldstein (03:04):
My pursuit.
Betsy Bush (03:04):
Your pursuit. That's right. And honestly, the word hobby does not appear on this podcast. You know, we're not building model airplanes in the basement. These are serious pursuits that we take seriously, wherever it may go.
Betsy Bush (03:24):
Tell me a little bit about your corporate career, because I was very impressed that you were so much a part of, or your career took you almost from the beginning of the cable television, from the beginnings of that industry to, you know, wherever it goes next. But you were actually interviewed in an oral history project.
Lela Goldstein (03:57):
Yes. Yes. We're that old, right?
Betsy Bush (04:02):
But yeah it was funny to hear, your interviewers say that when you started out, CNN was only a couple of years old, which is, which is kind of astonishing, right?
Lela Goldstein (04:16):
Yes, it is. I mean, if you remember back then when we were in college that was really when a lot of the cable networks started around that time. ESPN started in '79 and CNN started in '80 and of course MTV started in 1981. So there was really an explosion of ad supported satellite delivered programming. And actually in the cable industry, the cable industry actually started in the 1940s. It was a way to deliver broadcast signals to remote areas or even cities where there are, you know, tall buildings and broadcast signals couldn't cross through. So actually, I started right at the time of the explosion of programming.Sso when you say cable TV, now, that's pretty much what people think about. So it was a very exciting time and [an] explosion of growth, which really was exciting to be part of.
Betsy Bush (05:23):
It was also the sort of thing, you know, describing those early days it almost sounded like you had real pioneer types, real entrepreneurial types.
Lela Goldstein (05:33):
Very much. Yeah.
Betsy Bush (05:36):
I wouldn't say, you know, maybe there's some analogy to the internet age then, but they had a very different, you know, the guys, the early, the early figures and cable were, kind of older but pioneering types.
Lela Goldstein (05:59):
They were, they were mainly guys with some women, actually. The company that I worked for TCI which was eventually bought by AT&T and then was bought again by Comcast, actually started with a couple named Bob and Betsy Magnus. They were from Oklahoma and they actually, started the company in their kitchen by buying, , cable systems in the 1950s. And Betsy Magnus actually did all the books and everything from the kitchen table. So she was really part of that beginning. But a lot of them were World War II veterans. A lot of them were engineers. Some of them were in TV repair shops and they built this incredible industry, which ultimately did lead to the internet. And it, I mean, it led to the commercial distribution of residential high-speed internet. So I was part of that as well. We launched a company called At Home back in the early nineties. And you know, from there, you know, all kinds of stuff has happened.
Betsy Bush (07:18):
That's kind of amazing, right?That the technology over which we are talking to each other today, you know,
Lela Goldstein (07:26):
You can trace those roots back to the cable industry, yep. Absolutely. Broadband, you know, technology really made it possible.
Betsy Bush (07:37):
And your role was, you were a corporate communicator who had very good writing skills.
Lela Goldstein (07:44):
Right, right. I, yeah, that's how I really rose up through the ranks. TCI at the time with the largest cable company. Laughably, it was, you know, today because of, how big Comcast is. But at the time it was the, you know, the largest of the cable operating companies and they were based based in Denver, Colorado. So I took off. My first job in cable was in New York City for a trade association called the Cable Advertising Bureau, which could get advertisers to take a really good look at national cable networks as an advertising medium, which back then was also a challenge. It's hard to believe now -- targeted advertising was not something that broadcast, you know, with a broadcast mindse people were really even contemplating. And now it's, I mean, now it's micro-targeting, right?
Lela Goldstein (08:48):
But I wanted to get out of New York and Denver was at the time where there were a lot of cable companies headquartered. And so I took off without a job and wound up at TCI and stayed there for 15 years with a brief detour back to New York for a job at NBC corporate, as their VP of corporate communications in 1997. But I got , an offer I couldn't refuse to go back to TCI at the time that they were getting ready to sell the company. And because I had been there for 12 years and I had known a lot of the players and a lot of the dynamics of the company, they made me a really great offer to return, even though I really did enjoy my brief stint at NBC, at 30 Rock, with a really nice office on the 12th floor, overlooking the observation deck sign and the Radio City Music Hall -- you know, the kind of corner there. Anyway, it was worth going back. And my son at the time was, turning eight years old. My husband, decided he wanted to become a teacher after we came back. So it gave him a new chance, a chance to do something different that he always wanted to do. So it worked out really well.
Betsy Bush (10:14):
Oh, fantastic. And you eventually started your own consulting company with another partner from that same...era. And you ran that successfully for 10 years. And then when the moment came, when you thought now's a good time to exit and, and you did that and moved to Scottsdale. So how do you become interested in collage? And let me just say, I encourage everyone to check out Lela's Facebook page -- Artworks, by Lela page. And also onthelatestversion podcast.com website, we will also have pictures of Lela's artwork, which is really just so wonderful and creative. And when I hear about your corporate career, the writing and creative ideas -- how does that translate to visual, artistic success? How did that happen?
Lela Goldstein (11:25):
Well, I'm just really, I feel like I'm just getting started. My career and then, you know, being a mom and the whole family, um, you know, dynamic made it really challenging to even think about doing anything else. And so for many years, you know, having been in film school and really being trained through that whole storytelling element, I really had an interest in the visual, I'm still a really huge film buff. Um and so physically, you know, just getting more involved in the visual arts, just as a spectator, right? And I always had a love for museums, which is why I did some work the John Hopkins program, which I unfortunately couldn't finish because I started another job, in a digital marketing company and that was around, you know, 2013.
Lela Goldstein (12:26):
But I really have always loved the visual, you know, photographs, um, paper ephemera. It has always been interesting to me. I've been a postcard collector since I was five years old. And so all these postcards [are] primarily from [the] '50, '60, '70s timeframe. you know, road trip images and, you know, the giant rabbits and jackalopes and all that kind of stuff. I've always had an interest in pictures and colors and visual elements. And I really didn't see myself after film school as going into being a filmmaker. That just wasn't what I realized was really my interests, my passion on the making side. Right. So when I had finally had the time to really think about it, I took out some of my old postcards and started to play with them. And you know, I had done some collages when I was growing up too. I had taken a lot of women's magazines and the ads for, you know, Cascade detergent and you know, whatever it is, the products that you see on a grocery shelf. And I cut them all out and put them on a box and, you know, kind of varnish it or whatever. So I've always had this instinct to do that type of thing. I'm not a very good drawer, I don't draw very well.
Betsy Bush (14:00):
I was going to ask if that was, you know, also something in your toolbox of skills.
Lela Goldstein (14:06):
Not really. It really isn't. But I think I know how to put pieces together. And there's been a lot of talk in the collage world because there are a lot of Facebook groups and there's a wonderful magazine called Kolaj -- K O L A J -- coming out of Canada that is very academic in their approach to talking about the art of collage. Some incredible work is being done. But it is kind of like ,you know, "this is what we did in kindergarten" kind of thing and so the respect isn't quite there at this point, although it's getting a lot better. That New York Times article recently about collage from the 1920s, --Greece and some of the Picasso's and Brockton, --and that type of thing starts to, you know, create dialogue about this as an art form.
Betsy Bush (15:12):
Right, wasn't that interesting? And I will try to get a link to that article onto my website cause that was so cool -- the beginnings of collage, where the Cubist artists were starting to instead of painting in a headline from a newspaper, you know, of Le Monde or something that someone might be reading at a table, they just stripped in the actual newspaper or a part of a page from a novel. And what I thought was interesting about that article was they could identify the newspaper and the books that those collages came from. And they were kind of downmarket, kind of seedy, where we would think of was, you know, kind of a
Lela Goldstein (16:03):
Pulp novels --
Betsy Bush (16:07):
Novels and, you know, not exactly high-toned fair, you know, and there was just all these newspapers, like 70 daily newspapers were being printed in Paris at the turn of the century. So there was just all of this ephemeral media -- the news media, and magazines, and things like that. And I really identify with a lot of, with one of your collages in particular, where you do cut out, a model kitchen from the fifties or sixties and, and put in, and those kinds of advertising, logos or characters or things like that that were so much a part of, you know, mid century life. That media was always that printed media was always there.
Lela Goldstein (17:00):
Yes, I'm always on the lookout for old magazines and primarily like home magazines and women's magazines and things like that. I mean, you know, a lot of people keep the Life and Look magazines and that kind of a newsy ones, but the National Geographics of course, but the ones that I really enjoy are the ones about, you know, the kitchen of the future, the recipes. And so I've collected a lot of books and magazines and you know, readers from the 1950s and sixties and old booksfrom the fifties and things like that. I haven't really used a whole lot of them at this point, you know, it's almost hard to, you know, go out and, you know, take scissors and cut into them. But I'm trying to free myself to think that, you know, if it's on a shelf, right, my postcards, if they're just in a box, nobody's really going to see them. So there aren't certain postcards that from friends and things like that, that I won't cut up, but, you know, I went to a postcard show and this guy had a bunch of postcards that he sold me for $20. It's like this huge box. So I have a lot oa lot of material to work with. Let me just put it that way. And I try to be as organized as I can to, you know, file it the right way.
Betsy Bush (18:23):
Well, you know,, speaking of postcards, you have that wonderful banner collage on your Facebook page of the motel signs and the swimming pools and that kind of low-slung, modern architecture, you know,all the road trip, you know, motels.
Lela Goldstein (18:48):
All those motels that a lot of them are gone now, but some of them have been restored into their mid century glory. I know there was one on Long Island. I think that, if they renovated it to be, you know, a much , you know, higher quality version of the,you know, the old, kidney shaped pool.
Betsy Bush (19:17):
And the signage has that Astro look to it, you know, the Starbursts and things like that before the chains came along and kind of swept aside all of those independently owned kinds of businesses. But that's just a wonderful piece. And I encourage anyone who's listening to go, go check out Artrtworks by Lela on Facebook cause it's such a great it's just a wonderful collage. So how do you develop your craft? I mean, you've talked about other resources, you know, do you, are there workshops out there? Do you take lessons? Are there internet resources that you use?
Lela Goldstein (20:04):
Yes, yes and yes. I had not taken an art class since junior high school, I think. Unless you count, like, the photography classes we took at NYU. When I moved here to Scottsdale, when we moved here in 2017, I started looking out for classes and things like that. And I wound up taking several classes, different types of classes and I was really exploring at that point. I wasn't really sure what my, you know, kind of area of focus was going to be, other than I knew that collage was going to be probably at the center of it. So I took a collage class. I took a, kind of a mixed media, abstract layering type class.
Lela Goldstein (21:03):
And I've taken a few other classes. I tried oil painting, but that was really not my thing. But I also took a cold wax oil painting class where it's not just about the cold wax and oil, but it's also about integrating papers into your work and things like that. And those were the ones that I really enjoyed the most. And I'm currently taking an internet class from a person who has a website called collage.biz. And she's a collagist, I think she's based in Dallas and she's got several classes,, you know that encourage you to, you know, just do like a collage a day or things like that...but I'm not taking that, those classes at this point.
Lela Goldstein (21:58):
I'm taking a class that she has that's about the business, about, you know, branding your collage business and ways in which you can get the word out and that type of thing. And that's a lot of what I've known all my life and my cable life and in my business time. And I'm still doing some consulting for... I've got a Silicon valley client, technology clients. And I'm also working on a book for somebody I'm project managing a book for one of the companies that was big in the cable industry back in the late 1990s and into the 2000s. So I'd like to keep, you know, kind of both my, both hands in a different path. It's kind of fun.
Betsy Bush (22:46):
You're very busy. You must have -- do you have a studio? Do you have an area set aside that is only for collage...
Lela Goldstein (22:57):
I do. The kitchen, which is not a big, you know, we've downsized considerably. So I have a high, low table that's, I think...It's about 24 inch, 24 or 36 inches square. And I cover, you know, the floor with, you know, a drop cloth or plastic or whatever. And that's where I do most of my cutting and pasting. And,I actually I do a lot of my cutting upstairs. I've got a desk for my business and a desk for my art over on the other side of the room and I do a lot of cutting, you know, and just organizing up here, and downstairs I'll bring what I need and then create some papers as well. I do some papers that I, I paint and use stencils and things like that.
Betsy Bush (23:52):
Oh interesting.
Lela Goldstein (23:55):
So, and those are the skills that I kind of learned along the way that I didn't even think about back when I was saying "hey, you know, I'd like to try this."
Betsy Bush (24:03):
So you cut upstairs and you pasted downstairs. Do you have a little trail of paper scraps?
Lela Goldstein (24:12):
I have been known to have that trail, yes. When I keep a big paper recycled bag up upstairs and downstairs. So hopefully it's not too messy, but you've improvised. You find ways to do it. I know an artist who has a closet that he's turned into his studio, you know. And certainly people in New York I think are used to small spaces.
Betsy Bush (24:42):
Right... I don't know if anyone has an extra closet, but turning an extra, turning a closet into a workspace by putting a desk, you know, in there and then you have shelving and stuff like that. And then you can close the door hopefully, and, you know, make it go away for a little bit.
Lela Goldstein (25:00):
But I have a lot of my stuff in a closet right here where if you open and you can see the boxes in the back -- I've got a stack of boxes, which all have other boxes that have images in them or just plain, you know, all different colored papers and postcards. Posrcards are heavier so I kind of keep them safe. It's not a safe, but separate from... I kind of keep separate postcards, you know, because they're not as, um, pliable as the paper. I like to have an even texture going. So if I do postcards, I do postcards or, you know, heavier paper and the lighter paper, the magazine papers and things like that. I just finished something where I used magazine papers as my background, and then use, you know, kind of the papers that I created and collected for the main image.
Betsy Bush (26:04):
So, and I'm wondering maybe you already answered this, but what role do you see this playing in your life? Is it something you want to develop into more of a...is it something you do to relax or is it something you're really hoping to expand and become, you know...I don't know, something bigger than that.
Lela Goldstein (26:31):
You know, I'm gonna see what happens. I don't need to make this a business, a big business and I'm not sure really what I want to do. So I'm playing around with it. I'm learning a lot, which is good. And, you know, I just enjoyed...I find it great therapy, especially during a COVID crisis. It was really wonderful to just have a chance to look at, you know, what I've got and start to think about. I got a journal where I keep ideas,and do some experimentation on, you know, what is the medium look like on this type of paper and that type of thing. So there's always something. And certainly for me starting so late there's so much to learn that I'm not really sure how this is going to evolve over time in terms of taking over my life or whatever.
Betsy Bush (27:32):
But it is certainly a big part of my life now, a big part, and I try to,, you know, hone it and practice it, if I can, if not every day, then, you know, every few days. And I, I'm very good at taking one hat off and putting the other hat on. I've been doing that for a long time in different, you know, because of family, because of, you know, elder parents, you know, the whole thing where you say, okay, this has to be my priority now, you know, the rest of it has to be, you know, kind of side or not as focused on that part of my life. So, you know, it comes fairly easily to me to say, okay, I've done my work for the day for the clients that I have. Uh, I can't go any further on this project. I'm going to go downstairs and, you know, create something.
Betsy Bush (28:33):
You know, one of the posts on your Facebook page mentioned that, I don't know, your first grade teacher at some moment said to you "Lela, you'll never be an artist." And that may be, that was something you'd carry around with you.
Lela Goldstein (28:49):
It certainly was. Yep. Yep. Ms. D'Monda, who, you know, was actually, she liked me a lot and I wound up being the narrator of the school play because I could recite and memorize better than I can now. I didn't get to dress up in a costume or, or be a onstage other than standing there in my little dress, you know. It was kind of telling the story. So that was the beginning of my career, I guess. Uh, but we were doing a Christmas project holiday, you know, construction, paper and glue and the cotton balls that, you know, you're supposed to paste onto the construction paper to make a snowman. And of course the glue and the paste and, you know, got on my hands. And then I touched a cotton ball and it just got all over my hands. And she just looked down at me and said, "Lela,you'll never be an artist" which really stung, I think, you know. But it maybe motivated me. I don't know.
Lela Goldstein (30:02):
I mean, I wound up going to film school and getting a fine arts degree and, you know, and made a career out of it, which, I don't know if you can do that as easily these days, you know, it's almost like you have to have the BA the educational background to fit into the business world. But I was lucky enough to take all of that and apply it to a company that was really open to being you know, having a different perspective, which was really fun.
Betsy Bush (30:38):
Which is all about also creative thinking, bringing a lot of your outside knowledge to a field and being creative with what you, with what you already know.
Lela Goldstein (30:55):
Yes, yes. Innovation is really, you know, people throw that term around a lot, but it really is very valuable to a company and to a business. So, what I didn't have in the MBA department I brought to, you know, the storytelling and whole, the culture, and, and the relationship building and all of that, uh, was really kind of where was stationing myself, you know, as I kind of grew into my, my career.
Betsy Bush (31:33):
When you think about the pivot you've made from your corporate career to being a collagist, what three pieces of advice do you have to women who are also thinking not necessarily of being a collage artist, but to making that kind of a pivot?
Lela Goldstein (31:58):
I think first of all, you have to listen to that inner voice and you have to commit to doing what you really want to do even if it's just part-time or, you know, as an vocation, and you need to do it. You need to commit to having some time to focus on it. Secondly, I say, you've got to do the research and that also the education part of it -- find out through research what aspects of whatever you're going to do [that] you like most, what you don't like as much you know,. Read everything, listen to podcasts to identify experts in the field, learn as much as you can and keep learning because, you know, there's so much out there and the more you can, you know, you don't have to master the digital media, social media podcasts, et cetera, but you need to be comfortable enough in that world, I think, to take advantage of all that it can offer, online courses and things like that. And some people really aren't very. I think most more people now are getting savvy to it and I'm really talking more about the people who aren't, who weren't born into this.
Betsy Bush (33:27):
Who aren't the digital natives, right?
Lela Goldstein (33:31):
Not digital natives but kind of the digital adapters. Having been on both sides of it, you know, it can be a little daunting, but, you know, I think it just offers so much to people, and just to be able to pursue all the opportunities that are there in whatever area you're studying. And third, I'd say, you know, keep at it, don't be afraid of failure. You know, you just have to get right back on the horse. Right, right. I've thrown away peices where I was like I don't know what I was thinking, or I wasn't thinking, or whatever, they just don't work. And you just keep going, you just keep getting back to things and you hone your talent that way, Practice, practice, practice. So it, you know, and it does pay off. I think I've become a lot happier just having this in my life. It's been really, therapeutic. So even if I didn't sell anything or nobody really thought much of it, it would be something that I personally would continue doing, just because it made me happy.
Betsy Bush (34:52):
You know, it looks like so much fun. And when I think about gee, how nice it would be to sit down with some scissors and some glue and some paper, and just have fun with it, because I think sometimes you get to a point where I can't do that. That's what kids do, and all of us need to make space in our brains for some fun like that.
Lela Goldstein (35:15):
Exactly. Exactly. And, you'd be amazed at what you come up with when you're just playing. You know, and you can do certain exercises. There are books out there where they, you know, challenge you to do , you know, only use two colors or just use black and white, or you do one a day in a small space, or you do it on a grid and you can really kind of exercise your brain ...kind of your right brain, if you need a little exercise in that space. So it's a lot of fun. And as I said, it really is, it really can be fine art. Some of the pieces that I've seen are just amazing.
Betsy Bush (36:04):
Wow. Do you have a particular online resource that you would recommend to anyone?
Lela Goldstein (36:12):
I think people could check out KOLAJ magazine --K O L A J--, I don't have the actual site URL, but you know, it'll kind of open your mind to some really interesting, work. And then I often go to a lot of, websites of museums all over the country. Everything from the neon museum in Las Vegas, which I've been to a few times, which is amazing mid-century modern, right? It's neon, it's a fabulous museum. Most of it's outdoors, to, you know, to the museum of modern art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and,you know, just all kinds of different museums ---because museums are storytellers. And so even though they might not have collages, I look at art a lot and get a lot of inspiration -- the color combinations, you know, a little bit of content, but mainly just how something is put together, how something looks. So, you know, it's endless.
Betsy Bush (37:33):
Wow, wow. This has been an amazing conversation, Lela. I truly, this has been absolutely inspiring! And, and I'm ready to, you know, go home and get out my scissors and, and a stack of old magazines. It just sounds like fun. And I think in a time like we're in now where there's just so much stress and anxiety and loneliness and whatever and collage is also, it's so accessible, right?
Lela Goldstein (38:12):
Exactly. Scissors and glue and paper is all you need , to get started. And then, you know, from there you can... I use different substrates and I use different kinds of glues and mediums and things like that that you get, as you know, and again, starting this whole thing before I took a class, I didn't really know a whole lot about any of it because it was something that I hadn't, you know, when I was a kid doing it with the box, you know, I took a Duraflame box and, you know, covered it with magazine things, and I just had Elmer's glue or whatever. I had rubber cement, I think. It doesn't take much to do it, and to do -- at least get started and try. And even if it's just to relax. I wholeheartedly recommend it
Betsy Bush (39:05):
Put on some favorite music and snip away, right?
Lela Goldstein (39:09):
In fact, I've done a couple of collages inspired by music. You know, some of my favorite songs and I've only done a couple, but I'd like to do more of them just, and again, I'm not necessarily saying, Hey, you know, buy this or whatever, but I'm just doing it because I love it.
Betsy Bush (39:30):
Fantastic. Really inspiring Lela -- thank you so much for joining us on The Latest Version!
Shelter in Place (2020) by Lela Goldstein