Artist or Cultural Entrepreneur?
Thursday, October 9, 2008, 8:30-10pm
Chez Bushwick
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WALK UPS ARE WELCOME on a first-come-first-served basis...so please join us!
In any economy, being a professional artist really means that you are on a path to one of three possibilities: (1) get hired by an established artist or company, (2) be a pickup artist (i.e. self-employed freelancer), or (3) start your own company. In all of these cases, you are an entrepreneur with an emerging micro-enterprise – your art. And as the term entrepreneur implies, you have to be willing to take full risk and reward for your new enterprise. However, it seems that we often shy away from taking our work as seriously as we could to optimize our success. Instead of thinking of it as “selling out”, is there a way to buy in? Can we learn to get organized, plan our businesses, and think about our growth, audiences, finances and work as the entrepreneurial enterprises that they are? Are there tools we can learn to use that might guarantee a higher probability of success, sustainability and aesthetic risk taking? Is there a way to be both pragmatic and artistic?
Join The Field and Chez Bushwick in a lively discussion with working artists and social/cultural entrepreneurs about entrepreneurship, and how you can appropriate these skills and ideas for your own business. Learn about The Field’s Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA) project and how you can apply to participate in ERPA.
Moderated by Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Artistic Director, Emerging Artists, 3LD Art & Technology Center and Founder, The Lost Notebook
Panelists:
• Ryan Fix, Founder, The Pure Project
• Lara Galinsky, Vice President of Strategy, Echoing Green
• Jmy Leary, Dance Artist
Biographies:
Ryan Fix moved to NYC in 1998 with a small bag and $700 cash. He lived on a sofa. Fix started his career on wall street working on a trading floor and subsequently moved into real estate development. While excelling at both, he desired something more fulfilling. With a growing awareness of the global imperative for sustainable development and a deepening passion for creative practice, Fix developed `the pure project,´ an idea incubator and creative consulting collective which blends creative practice, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable initiatives.
Lara Galinsky is the Vice President of Strategy at Echoing Green. Lara's portfolio consists of marketing and communications, evaluation, thought leadership, alliances, strategic planning, and internal capacity building. She also co-authored Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact (2006). Most recently, Lara Galinsky worked as the director of National Programs at Do Something, Inc., working with over 20,000 educators to inspire 4 million young people to get involved in their communities and develop vital leadership skills. Before that, Lara launched the BRICK Award, which annually honors and funds the most outstanding young community leader. Lara graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University and has completed executive programs at Columbia University business School and Georgetown University's School of Public Policy. She serves as a board member for the Nonprofit Workforce Coalition and the Fast Forward Fund and board chair of StartingBloc. She recently graduated from Coro's Leadership New York program and is attempting a second book for Echoing Green.
Jmy/JM/Jm/Jbird/Jamm Leary b. 1979, San Francisco, CA. She is now a dancer for luciana achugar, Nancy Meehan Dance Co., Dance by Neil Greenberg, Walter Dunderville, Biba Bell, Felicia Ballos, and The Stanley Love Performance Group and has previously been a dancer for Mel Wong Dance Company, Merce Cunningham 2nd Company, and Nancy Garcia. Her design company Icon has costumed the work of Anna Sperber, John Jasperse, luciana achugar, and RoseAnne Spradlin. She produces AUNTS events, a punk-rock presenting and social infastructure for dance. With Biba Bell, Felicia Ballos and Robert McNeill she is the performing group MGM Grand that tours throughout the USA kinda like a band.
www.moderngaragemovement.com
www.myspace.com/aunts
Morgan von Prelle Pecelli has been a curator, producer, anthropologist and performing artist in New York City and internationally since 1999. She is Artistic Director for Emerging Artists at 3LD Art & Technology Center (www.3ldnyc.org). She is the Founder of the Lost Notebook, an arts initiative dedicated to discovering new ways of making compositional theater economically sustainable (www.lostnotebook.org). She is on the Board of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater where she was the Managing and Programming Director from 2004 – 2006 and started the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator (www.ontological.com). She is completing her PhD in Anthropology at Columbia University.
Location: Chez Bushwick, 304 Boerum Street, #11, Brooklyn (Bushwick)
Subway Directions: Take the L train to Morgan Avenue, from Manhattan exit the back of the train, turn left outside the station, turn left onto Boerum Street to #304 Boerum. Chez Bushwick is roughly less than 80 steps from the subway station.
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