A chat with Nisa Hayden explains why she has so many successful careers. It’s about people skills.
As an actor, freelance writer, gallery director, arts consultant and garden manager, Hayden’s ability to connect led to a wildly diverse employment history.
The Alaska native grew up in the East Bay and planned to become an attorney. A summons to jury duty at age 18 “turned me off the process,” she says, and prompted her to forego a partial college scholarship.
With both parents active in arts—her mother was a singer, dancer and comedian; her father an actor and photographer—Hayden turned to acting. She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Art and spent most of the 1980s in New York studying and working on stage, TV and voiceovers.
Because she “could never wait tables—I tried once and it was a disaster,” she supported herself as a freelance writer.
Returning to California to audition at theaters along the West Coast, she met her husband Don at The Show Below, a small theater on L Street. She’s been in town ever since.
Hayden’s acting career ended when her father, mother and brother became ill one after the other. For 12 years, she traveled to take care of her family members.
“Mentally, I just couldn’t do it,” Hayden says of performing during that time.
When a friend, artist Jeff Myers, asked if Hayden would help market a new local gallery run by Alex Bult, grandson of Wayne Thiebaud, Hayden embarked on another career path.
“I had covered visual arts a little bit as a freelancer in San Francisco and had always had an interest in it, though I’m not an artist myself in that capacity,” Hayden says. “I was interested in the business of running (galleries) and getting to know the artists in the community.”
She spent three years as director/curator of Alex Bult Gallery, then 18 months as head of Beatnik Studios. She directed Tim Collom Gallery for four years before it closed in 2020. Hayden continued to represent several Collom artists as a gallerist.
One day, Inside Publisher Cecily Hastings invited Hayden to manage the McKinley Rose Garden. (The garden was overseen by Friends of East Sacramento, a group Hastings co-founded as the organizing and fundraising arm of the McKinley Park Center, before the city resumed control in 2023.)
At McKinley, Hayden managed volunteers and gardeners who tended the park’s 1,200 rose bushes. The job “opened me up to meeting a lot of people” and left Hayden time to develop her arts consultancy, the Hayden Arts Agency.
“I’d rather have a small (number of clients) and depth,” Hayden says. “The art business is always challenging but it’s more so now. It’s very volatile. People are nervous (about buying art)—art is not food on the table.”
These days, Hayden scouts artists for Twisted Track Gallery, owned by 33rd Street Bistro founder Matt Haines on R Street. The gallery is co-curated by Hayden and Cynthia Lou, who ran Sparrow Gallery.
Thanks to the pair’s experience, they curate interesting shows with a focus on local talent. The gig supports Hayden’s favorite pastime: meeting new people.
“Now there’s a whole other group (of artists) I know,” she says.
For information, visit haydenartsagency.com.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskeyt@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
