NW MI Arts & Culture Network

Stephanie Coate has several year’s experience with project, exhibition, and business management across the creative, licensing, non-profit, and start-up industries. During her early years of independence, Stephanie lived in Chicago where she studied Art, Entertainment, Media Management at Columbia College, and managed the ‘Fine Art’, ‘Couture & Luxury Accessories’, and ‘European Furniture and Decorative Arts’ exhibitions for the Midwest’s largest auction house.

Throughout her career, Stephanie has administered project management and creative entrepreneurship models to build successful and reputable companies and projects. Special projects vary from creating a nation-wide online art marketplace, initiating Chicago’s largest city-wide art exhibition, developing new residency opportunities, and implementing Company-Wide Standard Operating Procedures and Policies. These collaborative projects were built with incredible teams and went on to participate within competitive start-up accelerator programs, such as TechStars, and the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge. Additionally, some of these programs went through the application process and received funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, the MacArthur Fund of Arts and Culture, and more. Stephanie’s area of focus has allowed her to speak on the subjects “Business of Art”, “Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Urban Studies,” and ‘Funding your Arts Business” at The Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, Union League Club, and others.

Since moving to Traverse City in 2019 Stephanie has worked with a diverse group of start-ups as a community manager at technology incubator, 20Fathoms, and developed operations-based projects within the economic development sector for The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. She is working on becoming an artist in her own right. Melting natural pigments, homemade inks from forged items of nature, and collected water from the Great Lakes, she hopes to capture the feeling of the great lakes, its constant change, and its effects on everything around us.