Hope Walls is a certified Arts Administrator (GMCC, 1996) with a passion for empowering creative arts-based businesses to excel, whether that requires being practical or ridiculous. With 20+ years of paid experience as an artist, writer, designer, business administrator, teacher, arts advocate, and all around hippy chick, Hope is excited to share with you her resources, expertise, and slightly cynical (but always fun) approach to business.
Her previous experience in the not-for-profit, institutional, and commercial sectors includes small-to-medium event coordination, market research, business plan and publicity/PR development, graphic design, facility management, arts/artist advocacy, and voracious volunteerism for various visual, performing arts events/facilities and fundraising organizations including North Country Fair, Theatre Network, The Canadian Cancer Society, and more.
In college, Hope conceptualized a self-sustaining business model for an artist cooperative. As her career became more about photography and less about painting, the business model was adapted to form the core of Edmonton's "The Photographer Studio." However, with no desire to commercialize the space, Hope sold her interest in the company as she felt the philosophy of a true coop could not be realized with her business partner's desire to expand to a profit-based model by using the space as a public rental facility. While The Photographer Studio continues to provide the community with a commercial rental studio, Hope has chosen to focus on shooting and teaching until it's time to downsize her life onto a bus and maybe one day resurrect her plans for a hippy-esque artist commune.
Hope Walls has several years of public speaking and teaching experience through both her own "Dirty Little Secrets" workshops and as an invited speaker/presenter for organizations such as the University of Alberta and the United Nations Association of Canada to round out her 30+ years of professional volunteerism, office and HR management, and bookkeeping experience. A passionate writer who once declined an offer to write a regular humourous political column with a local newspaper, she irregularly publishes grumpy articles and sarcastic rants on her blog offering an unconventional perspective on issues like licensing, safety, and price fixing within the photography industry.
In addition to her other pursuits, Hope works as a research administrator in academia and is currently a Sociology Major at the University of Alberta with a concentration in cults and pop culture.