Arts Entrepreneurship

Artists and performers have been entrepreneurs since ever, but some have been more successful than others. Think Michelangelo or Da Vinci, two Renaissance artists who produced magnificent commercial work. Without their patrons, we might never know of their works of art.

Many artists shy away from commercial thinking, considering themselves to be concerned with creation, not commerce. Hence the image of the poet starving in the garret. Is it better to starve than compromise? The famous picture is of Thomas Chatterton, by the way.

I met a local potter who produces beautiful work and is commercial, with no compromise in either department. He and his wife/fellow potter went to art school after other careers and not only learned their craft, but were happy to do take obligatory courses on commerce, too.

The Creative Economy

Entrepreneurship is itself a creative activity. Commercial success in the arts is ever more important to enable cultural life to survive. The Creative Economy encompasses creative enterprises—both commercial and nonprofit—and individuals that together provide a significant contribution to local and regional economies by creating and distributing cultural goods and services and through taxes, on them and the activity they generate.

We are talking about:

• creative artists and craftspeople, such as painters, writers, potters...
• performing artists, such as dancers, actors, musicians...
• arts enterprises (for-profit and non-profit), such as orchestras, galleries, theaters...

Some arts enterprises are also social enterprises. The social entrepreneur looks to make a social contribution, which can as much be through the arts as through, say, the alleviation of poverty or setting up an inner city boxing club to keep delinquency-prone kids off the street.

Bringing entrepreneurial skills to the arts—whether plastic, performance, visual, language, or physical—requires a special kind of business sensitivity. A similar sensitivity has to be shown by industry and regional local government towards the unique and mutually beneficial opportunity that the creative economy offers.

PPP and CCC

Business will only survive when it meets the needs of the triple bottom line—Profits, People and the Planet. Business is itself learning how to move from solely maximizing shareholder return, to the fulfillment of its wider responsibilities to all its publics.

Culture also has to meet needs of its own triple bottom line—Creativity, Competence and Community, or it too, withers. Culture is faced with learning how to move from total reliance on the quality of its art to be more than an end in itself. It needs to orchestrate all three.

Creativity

Creativity is the life blood of the arts, just as profit is the life blood of business. Creativity, though is not just in the art or craft itself, but applies to the way in which it is communicated and made available for others to enjoy. The advantage that artists and craftspeople have is that creativity 'goes with the territory'. Once they appreciate that they can apply the same creative energy to making their work available to others, they can very often come up with innovative ways of commercializing.

A wonderful example is he Music Paradigm that uses a symphony orchestra as a metaphor for any dynamic organization, particularly one dealing with a period of exceptional challenge or change: a merger, a restructuring, new leadership, change initiatives, stretch performance goals, and many more. During a Music Paradigm session, the executives are seated among members of a live, professional orchestra. From the first moments, it is clear that something has changed—that the meeting paradigm has shifted in an important and interesting way. The conductor leads the musicians through a series of carefully crafted exercises that help illustrate key qualities, reactions, and practices of high performing business teams—strategically designed to be in line with the needs and challenges of the executives and their organizations.

Competence

Each branch of the arts practices entrepreneurial skills to a lesser or greater extent. The practice of the skills of entrepreneurship may be conducted with or without intent. The first step is to take stock of where the individual or organization lies on the grid of competence below.

The entrepreneurial competences needed in the arts are:

1. accessing the impulsion to express the art;
2. articulating a sense of purpose and clarity of vision;
3. identifying the steps and resources necessary for getting there;
4. qualifying and quantifying the audience who will enjoy the results;
5. knowing what the people who pay you will want from the transaction;
6. understanding how the audience/clients will access the work;
7. having an idea of other people needed for the project to succeed;
8. planning the process of creation and delivery;
9. setting up milestones to monitor progress;
10. defining financial needs and goals.

In short, they are the functional competences in

• planning and organizing;
• marketing and selling;
• finance and administration.

There is another competence, special to arts organizations (as opposed to artists as individuals): managing the interface and role definition between Boards (generally unpaid volunteers) and paid executive staff. My experience as Vice-Chairman of a community radio station was painful until we worked out clarity. This dynamic is quite unlike a 'normal' business, since there are mutual expectations clashing and very frequently management is muddled.

Community

In arts entrepreneurship the question of community is a key consideration, whether it concerns an individual artist, a group of artists or an arts organization. No community, no art.

Interaction is inevitable in the arts. Does art exist if it remains unseen or unheard? The arts entrepreneur is well aware of the need for mutual support and collaboration. Examples include:

• the arts and community building (see Americans for the Arts)
• healing through the arts
• the arts and activism
• community arts and education
• restoration and understanding by the arts
• the arts as collaboration
• arts-based civic engagement
• social and public arts
• the arts in medicine and aging
• arts and community partnerships.

An excellent resource is the Community Arts Network, a portal to the field of community arts and supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, providing both intellectual nourishment and social benefit, and that community-based arts provide significant value both to communities and artists. The Center for Creative Community Development serves as a national focal point for research, education and training on the role of the arts in community re-development. The Center for the Study of Art & Community is an association of creative leaders from business, government and the arts who have succeeded in building bridges between the arts and a wide range of community, public and private sector interests. Creative Capital is a national nonprofit organization that supports artists pursuing adventurous and imaginative work in the performing and visual arts, film/video, innovative literature, and emerging fields.

Entrepreneur The Arts Blog is an excellent place to start. The authors say, "We tap into the power of creative artistry to innovate lives, bottom lines, and the communities we live in. We serve artists, corporations, universities and government." The creative economy is a powerful and positive global force. Together, artists, cultural nonprofits, and creative businesses produce and distribute cultural goods and services that impact the economy by generating jobs, revenue, and quality of life. You may well want to take a look at the website of the New England Foundation for the Arts that focuses on the creative economy.

For an inspiring view of what the arts can offer leadership, take a look at The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander (she is an artist and he is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic).

WorkSavvy is available to help individuals and organizations to realize their goals in the creative economy. Contact us at info@startup-savvy.com.

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