Creating Arts Entrepreneurs

 

Texas Tech's Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts is focusing new attention on arts entrepreneurship. Artists and performers have always been entrepreneurs, whether they realize it or not. Once a work of art or a performance is created, every artist must think about how to get the work before an audience. While the college has always touched on activities that focus on the business side of the arts, a new emphasis is taking shape. The new Faculty Working Group on Arts Entrepreneurship has been formed to determine how best to define and teach Texas Tech arts entrepreneurship.

The working group is co-chaired by Linda Donahue, associate professor and associate director of the arts administration program in the School of Theatre & Dance, and Chris Smith, professor and chair of musicology in the School of Music. Eureka Magazine asked Donahue and Smith to share their thoughts on arts entrepreneurship and its place at Texas Tech.

Eureka: What do you hope comes from the faculty working group?

Linda Donahue: A realized plan for introducing arts entrepreneurship to our students. Adding extra courses is tricky because each major across our college has an existing curriculum with little-to-no room for more classes. I believe the best way to include entrepreneurship might happen within existing courses. For instance, preparing a resume might be appropriate in acting, design, arts administration or playwriting classes. Final projects for each class might address some aspect of entrepreneurship, as appropriate for the class and major.

Chris Smith: The Faculty Working Group (FWG) has already completed the first half of an expansive two-stage process; namely, 1.: to elicit from the faculty and then finalize an internal and shared "working definition" of what arts entrepreneurship means, why it matters and how we see our current and future pedagogical activities enhancing and enriching students according to this working definition. Stage 2, which has just begun, focuses on compiling a year-long action plan by which the college can institute an Arts-Entrepreneurship designation, similar to the university's current Service Learning designation, to relevant classes which meet concrete parameters for teaching and learning entrepreneurship. This A-E Designation will appear on students' transcripts and can feed directly into the undergraduate Certificate in Community Arts Entrepreneurship, which is already in existence and graduating students,) and the graduate programs in arts administration. We expect that the inaugural AE-Designated courses will be enrolling in fall 2017.

Eureka: How do you define entrepreneurship in the arts?

LD: The process artists use to find a place for their art in their communities. Arts entrepreneurship is different from entrepreneurship in the business world where the outcome may be primarily concentrated on product and profit. Artists hope to move society while performing their art and affecting change.

CS: The FWG, working closely across all the units and with input from all interested faculty, describes arts entrepreneurship on our campus as: "centered upon the fostering of creative partnerships and 'Imagineering' between artists, audiences, communities, businesses, teachers and students [with work grounded in] in creative activity and pedagogical efficacy...cultivat(ing) environments that inspire and enable young artists to 'dream big' and to discover wider horizons of activity and impact...(with the goal to) support the arts as an essential value in human experience."

Eureka: How is the entrepreneurship taught in the arts different than the entrepreneurship taught in business schools?

CS: To quote the FWG again, "While business entrepreneurship's metric is enhanced profit and increased business, our goals have a further reach. We believe that artists can learn the skills necessary to become self-directed business owners, both self-employed and instrumental in mission-driven industries, while recognizing the positive impact of the arts upon human society."

Eureka: Why is it important to teach entrepreneurship to students in the creative arts?

CS: In the 21st century, the decentralization of arts organizations and the radical recalibration of private, public and federal support for the arts, along with a vastly-increased definition of what "the arts" can encompass, make it essential for both arts-makers and arts-advocates to think creatively, constructively and pragmatically, in order to develop new audiences, community interfaces and funding models. As the college's FWG's statement puts it, "To function as an arts entrepreneur calls upon the same skill sets as does any other creative art-making activity: the practices of pattern-recognition; imaginative problem-solving; critical thinking, hypothesis and synthesis in both artistic and entrepreneurial arenas."

LD: Students in the arts generally focus on the making of art but with little thought about their plans after leaving the university. Familiarity with arts entrepreneurship practices benefit the student in the sometimes difficult transition to an artistic life outside of school. Additionally, we have the opportunity to introduce our students to the value and necessity of art on a local, national and global scale.

Eureka: Your best advice to you artists, actors and dancers about the business of their art?

CS: Learn skills, especially in written and verbal expression. Inform yourself (think locally, act globally). Develop partnerships with potential funders; develop allies with fellow artists and advocates. Seek to be a good partner and to share insight and effort with others. Learn non-profit legal practices. Take courses in tax-management, personnel management and computer skills. Donate time which develops partners and allies. The great studio guitarist Tommy Tedesco said, "Don't take the gig [e.g.., task, chore, performance, service duty] unless you learn something, earn something or have fun. Preferably at least two of these at least."

LD: Think about the business side of art NOW!  Determine WHY you do your art and HOW you want to share it with others. Make a plan, and start your journey while you are still in school and have a faculty support system to mentor you. Seek arts volunteer opportunities in order to decide how and where you might want to perform your art. And, network, network, network with other artists and community members.  Attend conferences.  Do an internship, either locally or outside of your community. In other words, spend time outside the studio or rehearsal hall, meeting people and considering your plan for a life in art.