Kelsey Issel, Founder + Principal Producer
Photo by Andrew Owen
Opie Project (space) was founded by artist and culture worker, Kelsey Issel. It is named after the Greek Muse of harmony and epic poetry (and her great aunt), Calliope, who is called on to inspire the arts, sciences and storytelling.
Issel understands (space) as something practiced rather than possessed, supporting artists as they shape their own conditions of making.
The firm that has stewarded more than $20 million for cross-sector, artist-centered programs, collections, and cultural initiatives in partnership with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Coca Cola and the Sustainable Brand Summit. Issel is also the co-founder of She Bends Neon Studios with artist and educator Meryl Pataky, through which they have curated exhibitions at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, and the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, and presented on neon’s preservation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Glass Art Society, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the American Craft Council. Since 2019, Issel has stewarded arts and culture funding for the Svane Family Foundation and is the 2026/2027 Antigravity Artist in Residence at Corning Museum of Glass and Rockwell Museum. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Craft and Design San Francisco and Rockwill Museum in Corning, NY. Her writing has been published in American Craft Forum, with a forthcoming contribution to a chapter by Meryl Pataky in a craft education volume by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2027.
e: kelsey@opieps.com