The Continuing Adventures of Clair Vogel
“At Creative Art Works, we’re teaching artistic skills, which are important on their own, but we’re also teaching life skills. We’re creating a foundation of skills, expertise, and understanding of the workforce to prepare young people to create a path for their own lives. We tell donors that when they support CAW, they are supporting future leaders, future artists, future professionals, future community members, and that’s very inspirational and aspirational, so people want to be part of our mission.”
CAW Development Manger Clair Vogel
Clair Vogel has led an adventurous life. Born in Bangkok, Thailand, she spent her early childhood in Vientiane, Laos, and Vienna, Austria. Clair attended the College of William and Mary, where she majored in linguistics and minored in music with a focus on ethnomusicology and vocal performance. She worked for International Arts and Artists and the Kirov Academy of Ballet, both in Washington D.C., before making a leap of faith to New York City, where she landed as a member of the Development team at the dance nonprofit Gibney. Clair joined Creative Art Works in late 2022 as Development Manager with a focus on institutional giving.
We sat down with Clair to talk about her role at CAW, her impressive and often surprising background in the performing arts, and the power of choosing change over the fear of the unknown.
Clair in performing at The Slipper Room in the East Village, 2023. Photo copyright Ryan Shinji Murray
CAW
One of the things we take pride in here at CAW is that all our staff continues to maintain an artistic practice outside of work. You have a background in vocal performance, but since you moved to New York, you’ve been focused on circus arts. Tell us about that?
Clair Vogel
I took my first aerial arts class eight years ago, sort of on a whim, and it very quickly took over all of my time and money, because it felt very expressive. There's still a musical element, especially in performance. I started slowly teaching intro classes on silks, trapeze, and aerial hoop, and then taking on level one classes, and level two classes until I wasteaching four to six classes a week on top of training another six to 10 hours a week. I am not in the air that much these days because I'm not teaching anymore.
CAW
What's on your playlist when you're performing or practicing?
Clair Vogel
When I'm practicing, it's just sort of whatever I'm in the mood for that day, so it can be pretty broad. In choosing performance songs, I tend to be overdramatic, because I am not a super expressive person in my day-to-day life. I think that in performance I find an outlet for all these big emotions that I don't really put out there that much when interacting with other people.
CLAIR’S PERFORMANCE PLAYLIST
CAW
Let's talk a little bit about what you do here at Creative Art Works.
Clair Vogel
My title is Development Manager, and development in nonprofit speak means fundraising. So my area of greater expertise, I guess also my comfort zone, is in institutional fundraising, which does involve communication and interpersonal relationships. In terms of what I do most days that translates to a lot of grant writing, writing proposals, filling out applications, and searching for new funding opportunities.
CAW
You're very good at asking for support, which requires a bit of audacity. How did you acquire that skill?
Clair with student and CAW Teaching Artist Ryan Davis at a family engagement event at PS 155 in Harlem
Clair Vogel
With institutional fundraising, and grant writing and proposals, there's already an avenue. Foundations, government funders, and corporate funders, they have giving wings because they want to provide support. That's what they're designed for. So it's just really more of a matter of showing them that you're the organization that deserves that money and doing the work that they want to fund. With grant writing, especially if they give you a lot of flexibility in the application, what you're basically writing is a story on why your work is important, why it matters, and why you think your nonprofit and the potential funder are really on the same page.
CAW
How did you get into this line of work?
Clair Vogel
I didn't necessarily think I was built for fundraising when I started. It took somebody else to say, “I think you could do this job.” I was very inexperienced going into my first job with a nonprofit, in Washington, D.C. My boss there was very much a mentor. I know this sounds cheesy, but he saw potential in me. He thought I was smart and he thought I was a good writer, and he thought I would do well in the role. And then when I moved to New York, I actually interviewed for an executive assistant position, but the CEO said, "You're a strong writer and you speak very clearly. Are you interested in development?"
CAW
What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment at CAW so far?
Clair Vogel
It’s not quite so specific, but I feel like I came in and was able to bring fresh perspective to how we were talking about ourselves to funders, and bring in some new foundations and supporters by making a case to them for why we are worth it.
CAW
Where does your writing background come from?
Recommended reading
Clair Vogel
It’s mostly just from being a big reader. Two of my favorite books are The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, and Middlemarch by George Eliot. But I also like some more genre stuff. One of my favorite books is Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. I just finished a book called If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, by Noor Naga, which is a dual narrative between somebody who was born and raised in Egypt and lived through the Egyptian Revolution and an Egyptian-American woman who returns to Cairo.
CAW
What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment so far in life in general?
Clair Vogel
I think that something that I am proud of in life in general is that at times when I felt stuck or uninspired in what I was doing, I've been pretty good at pursuing new avenues and not being afraid to change my circumstances in terms of choosing change instead of fear of the unknown. For example, I didn't have a job lined up when I decided to move to New York. I just decided I was moving by a certain date come hell or high water. I did have a job lined up by the time I moved, so it worked out.