Meet Priscilla Otani

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Priscilla Otani. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Priscilla below.

Priscilla, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

By randomly signing up for a psych class as a college freshman, then deciding I wanted to major in this field, and understanding how behaviors and attitudes can influence relationships. I went on to study classical Japanese literature in grad school but decided not to get into academia after my MA. My graduate studies taught me academic discipline and honed a curious mind, both factors that came to use in my career. The job I fell into was Human Resources. My psych background was very useful in this field and HR fit my innate curiosity and desire to learn new things. I advanced through leadership roles in an interesting corporate career. My last corporate job was VP of Global Compliance, in which I had 120 employees around the world monitoring human rights in factories and working with vendors to create innovative programs to improve working conditions. My corporate jobs gave me leadership opportunities and from that experience, I developed confidence in my ability to lead and to mentor people. At 49 I retired and became fully immersed in a creative life of writing and art-making. I believe none of this would have been possible without moving to the United States and choosing my fields of study. Growing up in Kobe, Japan, I was introverted, bookish, lost in my own creative bubble, and bullied by parents and classmates. I had few friends. Never would you have penned me as confident or having much self-esteem back then.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I lead a multifaceted life in the arts. It incorporates what I learned in my university studies, the work I did in my corporate life, and my desire to live a creative life. Today, my professional life is divided among three things: owner of Arc Studios & Gallery, a multi-use art gallery, art business and group studios; board member of Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art (NCWCA), a feminist arts organization; and full-time artist. As a gallery owner in partnership with my spouse, I have a hand in deciding what kind exhibitions I want to organization, what types of artists and artwork I want to include, and what events I want to host. I am delighted (and somewhat in disbelief) that I have been able to recreate in NCWCA the kind of energetic, innovative, supportive, and nimble organization I fostered during my corporate career (except we do all of this as unpaid volunteers). It took a while to have a group of board members who are professional, creative, and accountable but we have it now. It’s probably one of the few boards that people ask to join and are encouraged to jump in with new ideas. My creative career is equally important. I have an annual goal towards creating a new body of work by October, in time for San Francisco Open Studios. Because of my networking with other curators and gallery owners, I have also been invited to exhibit my work throughout the Bay Area and United States. I have instigated guerrilla art through mail art and street art – both activities that engage not just artists but civil society. I have organized exhibitions in Mexico City, Shenyang China, and Seoul- all on a shoestring budget. At age 73, my goals are to learn something new every year, learn one new technology every year, and make new friends across all ages and cultures.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Three qualities: having a curious mind, having a sense of humor, and being open to unexpected opportunities. Advice for those early in their journey: learn something important/fun even from the most mundane of jobs/experiences, learn how to live with ambiguity, and don’t become resistant to change.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

By nature, I am introverted and feel most comfortable in creative pursuits that are isolating (writing, imagining, making art). If a path would have opened up for me to be a manga-ka, fashion designer, fiction writer, gallery-represented artist, or translator of Japanese literature, that would have been ideal. However, those career paths didn’t feel accessible to me. In my work life I had to invest in an effort to improve myself in areas that I had no confidence in such as managing and developing people, speaking up at meetings, developing and presenting strategic proposals to a company’s Board of Directors, advocating for myself, public speaking, managing employee performance, and learning how to make small talk at social events. These may come more naturally for some, but all were cringe-worthy and exhausting for me. Yet I believe I benefited from a career that forced me to face outward. I was fortunate to have a few managers along the way who pushed me to take on more responsibility, who supported my efforts to learn more deeply about my field, and who promoted me to positions of increasing responsibility. I made a lot of people management mistakes along the way, but I also learned how to manage people well and to lead global organizations. And I developed confidence in becoming more extroverted. Now I can balance the introvert and extrovert sides of my personality in the work I do in my gallery, nonprofit, and art career. To those I mentor, I strive to provide the same sort of support and encouragement I received in my own career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mrpotani.com
• Instagram: @mrpotani
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrpotani/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscilla-otani-378a30/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=D2-wDgAnFm2DNziZbp7xZw