Bio
Bailey Burns was raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and baptized by fire at a project-based high school. Drawn to the inner workings of development, she was always interested in the logistics: a grand idea, materials to be used, general requirements, dreaded deadlines, the ability to work well under pressure, and the solid presentation of it all. The execution of said project wasn’t quite as easy.
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This often resulted in speeding to the craft store with her mother ten minutes before closing on the eve of a diorama’s due date, and more than once watching her grandmother catch insects in her robe by porch light during the wee hours of the night. Numerous water cycle posters, historically accurate costumes, prized insect displays, captivating show and tells, applause-worthy book reports, and a single award-winning piece of fine art later, Bailey realized that sticking to one medium was going to be nearly impossible.
Having nearly failed a design course due to being just color blind enough to seem as if she’d shirked the responsibilities of her final project, she turned towards language arts in high school. Drafting prose that was eventually published, tutoring her classmates, starting a poetry club, and finishing the required college course credits before graduating, she decided to major in English.
It was during her time as a student at the College of Charleston that she finally went back to trying to find her artistic medium of choice. Taking art history, theatre, film, drawing, sculpting, painting, and countless other fine art classes to no avail, she discovered the school’s Arts Management department - one of the few programs in the Southeast for undergrad students. She immediately fell in love with her mentor, Jeannette Guinn, and classes such as “Legal Aspects of the Entertainment Industry,” “Understanding Creativity,” “Intro to the Music Industry,” and “Fund Raising and Grant Writing for the Arts.” Upon completion of these classes, she realized she could be a part of the art world without being an artist.
She has since interned with Chucktown Music Group and the City of North Charleston’s Cultural Arts Department to help produce the Emmy Award winning show, Live at the Charleston Music Hall, and to put on their annual arts festival, respectively, as well as the Upstate’s own Future Chord. She has written pieces for CisternYard Radio in Charleston, IonGreenville, and Fête Greenville, in addition to managing three live music venues. She has resorted to learning all she can about the worlds of curation, arts and event management, criticism, and production, in order to make sure art is easily accessible, readily available, and a force that brings our communities together, through the mediums she so greatly wishes to generate. “Those who can’t do, teach—those that can how to make money doing it."