We recently connected with Theresa Christensen and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Theresa with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I get my work ethic from my parents. My mother is an immigrant, and my father was born in Brooklyn and raised out on Long Island. They both left home soon after high school and met while serving in the US Air Force while stationed in Alaska. They left home to make a better life for themselves. They married in 1976, had my brother, and then had me shortly after buying their first home in North Babylon, NY. My father worked for the Long Island Railroad as an electrician, and my mother worked for the United States Postal Service. Both worked long hours, working a different schedule from each other so that they could care for me and my brother, Chuck. They taught us early on how important it is to work hard for the things that you want in life. I had a paper route by the time I was 12 years old, and at 15 I got a job in a diner working as a hostess. It always felt good to have responsibilities and make my own money, even at such a young age.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been an artist all of my life. My mother tells me that I taught myself to draw before I could walk. At 17, I went to college to study Fine Arts, graduating from SUNY New Paltz with a Bachelors in Visual Arts. After college, I worked for one of the largest Advertising Agencies in the world, J. Walter Thompson. I worked in Production, trying to work my way into the Creative department. However, after 9/11, I made the decision to leave the city and go back to Long Island. I wanted to focus more on fine art, not commercial art. There was not a big fine art scene on Long Island in the early 2000’s, so I decided I’d try to curate some shows on my own, asking bars and restaurants if they would consider hanging my artwork and allow me to sell it there. Those shows were successful, so I started curating group shows with some of my fellow art school graduates. Eventually I started to branch out and show my work in galleries, and by 2013 I became a full time working artist. Over the next decade, I had two children, and my art started to slow down. After the covid pandemic, I became very focused on my overall health, and became a certified personal trainer. I’ve held my role as a fitness instructor and personal trainer at Fitness Incentive in Babylon, NY for almost five years now. I continued to create art on the side. I didn’t have much time to create my own collection, and I had been approached about doing a large scale mural job at Mary Carroll’s Irish Pub, also in Babylon. I worked for years on what would be become a series of six murals called, “Guinness: The Journey.”
In 2024, the owner of Mary Carroll’s Irish Pub, Conor Hartnett, approached me about an opportunity to open an art gallery next door to the pub after the existing business there had up and left with no notice. Conor and I opened The Christensen Gallery in June of 2024. I find that our gallery is unique, not only because it is the first and only Fine Art Gallery in the Babylon area, but because I am an artist first and foremost. As a curator and gallery owner, I am always thinking from the perspective of the artist. It is very common in the art world to feel taken advantage of. I never want my artists to feel that way. I put 100% into working for the artists that I represent each month. I want us both to be successful at the end of the day.
I try to bring a different vibe to the gallery every month. I like people to feel like they are visiting a different space with each new show that we have. We rotate exhibitions every 3-4 weeks. We have showcased a wide range of artists, from ocean photographer Alex Walsh, to 96 year old master oil painter Jack Faragasso, to Agnostic Front’s bass player Mike Gallo, whose graffiti and NYC street art inspired work was one of the most successful shows we had here. We are currently hosting a collaborative group exhibition of painted skate decks, co-curated by the founder of Chapman Skateboards, Gregg Chapman. The artists involved consist of well established artists and popular professional skateboarders as well. Many cross over both genres, like Steve Caballero, Zered Bassett, Eli Reed, and Jahmal Williams, I like to really mix up the variety and type of work that we show here.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1 – Always be yourself, not a version of you that you expect others will like. Being genuine will allow your passion to shine through in your work, and eventually you will attract the right tribe and client base.
2 – Never stop learning. Even 25 years after graduating from art school, I will never pass up an opportunity to learn from another artist…whether it’s just taking time to listen to their advice, watch a video, or take a workshop.
3 – Find like-minded people and push each other to grow. In both my personal training career and art career, I find that working as a team only makes you stronger. Find other professionals who share the same passion and wish to keep growing. Lift each other up and move forward together.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
I would hold the people in my life that are dearest to me, very close every day. I would spend as much time as I could with my husband Kurt, our children, our families, and our friends. I would try to slow down, and say “no” more often to appointments and obligations, and “yes” to more social invitations. At the end of the day, no matter how far along you are professionally, the people in our lives and the love we share is the real measure of success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thechristensengallery.com
- Instagram: @thechristensengallery
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thechristensengallery
- Twitter: @thechristensengallery
Image Credits
Theresa Christensen
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