The Artful Coach

The Artful Coach - Supporting Creative Professionals

Coaching and Mentoring are effective ways of supporting the creative professional in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential particularly supporting them in creative projects.

The coach brings the creative professional a custom-tailored set of tools, within a trustful space that gives agency at each step of goal development. Coaching improves outcomes, and it saves time and creates time where it is better needed. Coaching is delivered in person or on ‍Zoom in 50-minute session (80 min for teams). Les brings specialized training from University of London and is a graduate of the New York University Coach Training Program. He is professionally credentialed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

What a 50-minute session looks like

Each session between Les and the client examines what the client seeks to accomplish in the session and what these outcomes would look like. Throughout the session both coach and client collaborate to ideate goals and ways forward.

1. The Coach opens the session and confirms what the Client (artist, art professional) seeks to accomplish in session. The client defines measures of success.

2. Coach and creative professional explore the client reality (raising awareness of the situation)

3. Coach and Client Explore Options and Possibilities

4. Together Coach and Client examine expressed possibilities from which to choose

5. Both work together to identify with Client ways forward

6. Coach partners with Client to review and close the session: reflect on progress in the session and acknowledge any successes. Client reflects on what they are learning and how they will use it. And to measure their progress against objectives set at top of session.

All conversations focus on what the client seeks to achieve in the session. In contrast to mentoring, advising and supervision, coaching is client-centered and focuses on the client’s session objective. As a professionally trained coach, Les uses standardized coaching methodologies used by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

About Les

Les has mentored and coached creative professionals since 2005. Based in New York, he has served artists at Cue Art Foundation, entrepreneurs and leaders at Columbia University, museum professionals at Yale University Museums, PhDs at University of Melbourne and College Art Association Conferences and as a Mentor at New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA).

While on the Columbia Visiting Scholar and Scientist Program, Les examined the future of museums as visiting scholar in the Department of Art History and Archeology. Les is a member of the American Alliance of Art Museums and served on the College Arts Association International Committee and CAA Museum Committee. He is Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute London, the Royal Geographical Society London and the Royal Asiatic Society. Les began curating in 1994 in London and served on the curatorial team that produced the first Taipei International Biennial “Sites of Desire” in Taiwan. He has produced exhibitions in Japan, South Korea, France, Singapore, Mongolia, and China. Recipient of the 2022 Fulbright-Nehru Professional and Academic Excellence Award, he posted as Senior Scholar on Art and Performance at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in New Delhi. Also recipient of Fulbright-Hays US Public Diplomacy Awards for China and Mongolia, He has lectured on the future of curating at the Bard College Program in St Petersburg.

Les serves on the Editorial Board for ProjectAnywhere, a peer-reviewed art journal at University of Melbourne, Australia dedicated to site specific art. Contributing art criticism since 1997, his articles have featured in Art in America, Flash Art, Chithravathi Magazine, Kerala, Springer and the Journal For Artistic Research (JAR). A research scholar at the Columbia University Department of Art History and Archeology, he was invited to research the future of museums and presented on museums at Museum 2050, a conference at the Long Museum, Shanghai. A long time member of the College Arts Association (CAA) in New York, Dr Joynes serves on the CAA Museum Committee. He is founder of Museum.coach a platform for building diverse and inclusive leadership in museums. In 2019, he initiated coaching at the Yale Museum of British Art at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He serves as a Visiting Professor of Art and Art History at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Arts at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal and as a curriculum advisor at Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai and is Professor of Record for Art and Art History at Renmin University Beijing. He has conducted museum research for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, University of Cambridge, Teachers College, Peking University Institute of Cultural Industries, University of California Santa Barbara, University of the Arts London (UAL), University of Coventry, and the Bard-Smolny Program in St Petersburg.

He completed his BA Fine Art From Central St Martins College of Art, MA Fine Art from Goldsmiths, London, Masters in Fine Art from Musashino Art University, Japan, PhD from the School of Art, Environment and Technology, at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, Post-Doctorate at University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, and M.Sc from Boston University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. Also working in new media, Dr. Joynes is a member of the US Department of State American Arts Incubator Arts & Technology Network.