Entrepreneur Jessica Porter has never led a quiet life. She’s a former lawyer and the founder of two companies: Porter Contemporary, an art gallery in New York City that she opened in 2006, and Porter Advisory, which offers legal services to artists and art businesses that she launched in 2003. When we featured her as part of our 1,000+ Stories project in April of 2013, she cited “balance and time” as her biggest challenge, joking, “I plan to invest heavily in cloning to address this issue.”
Her professional trajectory has changed since then — though her life remains as hectic as ever. Last month, she closed Porter Contemporary to focus her energy on Porter Advisory and take on a new role as executive director of the New York Artists Equity Association. “I have been bouncing off the walls with excitement,” she says about the shift.
Indeed, having the ability to design her life to her liking is paramount for Porter, who didn’t have that flexibility earlier on in her legal career. “It’s about freedom in your daily life,” she says. “It feels healthier, mentally and physically, to organize your life your way, instead of a schedule being dictated to you.”