Tuesday, September 30, 2008

No more Grants and Grandma?

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No more Grants and Grandma?
ERPA Invention Session #2
Tuesday, September 30, 2008, 11:30am-1pm
Joe’s Pub

Moderated by Jonah Bokaer

Panelists:
Catherine Barnett, Vice President, Project Enterprise
Chris Elam, Artistic Director, Misnomer Dance Theater
Heather Rees, NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund
Esther Robinson, Filmmaker and Founder, ArtHome; former Director of Film/Video & Performing Arts for the Creative Capital Foundation

If the majority of New York's ambitious performing artists will never attain financial stability from grants and individual donations, what are some other ways we can build financial stability? What are microfinance, venture capitalism, entrepreneurship, patient capital and investment funds? What do these things mean and how can we successfully modify them to meet our singular needs? Hear from experts in these fields and learn how you can appropriate their solutions for your art-making.

Artists are entrepreneurs by our very nature. We are nimble and rigorous risk-takers. We are running businesses, asking for "investors", delivering amazing ROIs (returns on investments!), raising capital, and leveraging resources. Traditional philanthropy is often demoralizing and puts us 8 rungs down on the ladder looking up and begging. And the demand for grants and "grandma" (i.e. individual patrons) way way way outpaces the supply. So what then? Alternative models can perhaps let us be in the driver's seat or on an even playing field. Partner, engage, collaborate, demand, up the ante, know your "product", know your constituents, clarify your goals and your vision, ask for help and then offer to help another. Get to know your neighbors (to paraphrase Esther Robinson!) Make your work and make it noisy.

Friday, September 26, 2008

WaMu Wall Street Washout

Lemons out of lemonade? The crisis on Wall Street seems like a bottomless pit of failure and chaos. In spite of this, I am more and more amazed by New York artists’ incredible optimism about the great things that can happen in this curious time. It is, perhaps, a vital time for the realignment of our priorities on many fronts, and an opportunity for powerful artistic statements to be proclaimed. Empty office spaces downtown? Can we make a show there? Significant drops in funding and ticket sales? Do your show in a pedicab on Broadway for the tourists. We are nimble and creative and we know how to make things happen. We’ve done it all of our lives. I don’t at all romanticize the “survival of the fittest” or “we must suffer to make great art” ideas, but I do see the vast possibilities in this time for delicious, complex, and thirst-quenching lemonade to be made.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Starving Artist: Fact or Fiction: Non-Profit Doesn’t = No Money

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Starving Artist: Fact or Fiction: Non-Profit Doesn’t = No Money
ERPA Invention Session #1
Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 7:30-9:30pm
Galapagos Art Space

Moderated by Sara Juli, Performance Artist, Director of Development at Dance Theater Workshop

Panelists:
Robert Elmes, Director, Galapagos Art Space
Amanda Clayman, Financial Wellness Program, The Actors Fund
Chris Ajemian, Artist, Entrepreneur
Brian Newman, CEO, Tribeca Film Institute

What makes us think that we're a 'sell out' if we make money from our art? Why do we seem to believe that we must suffer to make great art, yet we pine away for the seemingly Utopian government sponsored art cultures of Berlin and Brussels? Is there something inherently hierarchical and damaging in the 'gift economy' that the arts and philanthropy work in? The non-profit model that most artists use may not be the best model for our work, yet we gravitate to it like lemmings. What about being for-profit or for-benefit? What do those things even mean? What about LLCs and L3Cs and what about a blend model?

This program is presented by The Field as part of the ERPA program. View panelist bios and learn more.