Eley went on to earn an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University where she learned the importance of networking and collaboration. “I think it’s difficult to be a women-run business. I joined a non-profit, The Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD). We need each other.”
In addition, her experience as a culture writer for several publications, her work in public relations and education at the Morgan Library & Museum and for the Mayor's Art Commission of the City of New York, and her internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy all contributed to the vision she brings to her art dealership.
Eley’s parents also played an early and influential role. “As a child, I was surrounded by art. My mother is the sculptor, Carole Eisner. She is 86 and still productive. I’m also organized, like my father."
Currently, SEFA operates two galleries— on the Lower East Side in NYC and in Hudson in Upstate New York. COVID was a catalyst for SEFA Hudson. In the summer of 2020, Eley opened it as a “pandemic pop-up.”