We are thrilled to honor these innovators and risk-takers who embody the spirit of entrepreneurship and bring the same extraordinary creativity to the office as they do to the studio. By experimenting and challenging conventional wisdom, these four winners have developed new approaches to age-old challenges in the arts field that can serve as models and inspiration for artists everywhere.
The Laundromat Project brings socially relevant and socially engaged art, artists, and arts programming into laundromats and other everyday spaces. By amplifying the creativity that already exists within communities, they build community networks and help solve local challenges. The Laundromat Project envisions a world in which artists are understood as valuable assets in every community and everyday people know the power of their own creative capacity. The Laundromat Project is particularly committed to long-term and sustained investment in communities of color as well as those living on modest incomes. The Laundromat Project supports artists who want to better leverage their creative practice to be agents for change in their own neighborhoods through Create Change: a series of inter-connected programs, including residencies, commissions, and a professional development training program for artists interested in deepening their community-based creative practice. They have almost 80 artist alumni across NYC. The Laundromat Project also offers community arts education programs for all ages. Through their recent 10-day People-Powered Challenge, The LP raised over $27,000 from more than 500 donors across the city and beyond
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring arts entrepreneurs?
“Find a band of merry supporters among your peers. Meet, drink, exchange advice, and support one another on your professional journeys. I’ve learned so much from my ‘ED Club’.”
In 2010, On the Boards theater launched OntheBoards.tv, a website that delivers full-length, high quality contemporary performance films to your TV, desktop or mobile device. They are one of the first contemporary performance organizations to begin filming works by top caliber artists with multiple high-definition cameras, collaboratively editing the films with the artists, and delivering feature-length performance films to audiences around the globe. Fans of contemporary performance have better access to artists they want to see regardless of where they live and their busy schedules, at affordable prices. With a equitable revenue sharing model, participating OntheBoards.tv artists get 50% each time someone purchases their performance film. For arts enthusiasts, there are no more barriers for viewing contemporary performance, allowing a viewer to watch at any time, and from any place, for as low as $5.
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring arts entrepreneurs?
“Sometimes dusting off old ideas leads to innovative new ones. We were inspired when creating OtB.tv by the fact that the Metropolitan Opera originally broadcast performances to movie theaters in the 50’s. New trends in artistic practice, place-making, experience design and social justice offer similar potential for reinterpretation.”
Groupmuse is a website where anyone can sign up to host, perform, and attend “groupmuses”: half party, half chamber music concerts, in homes around the world. Once a user is signed up on the site, they are free to host, attend, and bid to perform at groupmuses. Each user is screened by the Groupmuse team for security and to make sure hosts and musicians know how groupmuses work. The musical programs are always 45 minutes or less, with one intermission, and at least half being “traditional” classical music (pre-1950s, tonal, and Western). A donation bowl is passed around at every groupmuse and that money goes directly to the performers. Groupmuses tend to take place in homes and in the evening, but groupmusers are free to choose other times and places, like workplaces or bars. With an almost non-existent budget, Groupmuse currently averages about 10–20 shows a week and has expanded to 15 cities around the world.
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring arts entrepreneurs?
“Talk the language of society. Don’t assume that people already care about what you fight for. If they did, you wouldn’t be necessary. Find reasons to make them care. For example: Let’s stop talking about how classical music needs saving. That is entirely irrelevant to the people who don’t care about classical music, which is most people. Let’s talk about the ways in which our society needs saving and how we can make classical music its knight in shining armor. What does it look like when classical music wears shining armor?”
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring arts entrepreneurs? “If you’re looking to take the step toward making your art your business, you better stay clear on that and treat it like a business. Use it as a mantra, use it as a criteria for decision making. You’ve already invested your life in your art or your idea. Now you need to invest that much and more in your business, and you have to do it on a timeline. However great your art or idea, it is not a business until someone else wants to get in on it. Business is about giving the people what they want. If you are not always mindful of what they want, always, your business will fail. We’re not talking about selling out, here! All of this is said with the presumption that you’ll stay true to your art. “
The winners of the Arts Entrepreneurship Awards will be honored with a specially commissioned award created by emerging designer Jillian Rose and receive lifetime membership to Fractured Atlas, which provides artists with access to affordable insurance, fiscal sponsorship, professional development resources, discounted business vendor services, and other critical tools for building successful careers and organizations.