After Art School: Professional Development Training in Nonprofit Organizations

ABSTRACT

In the last fifteen years, the nonprofit community has witnessed a rise in professional development programs for artists. These programs are designed to help artists navigate their increasingly entrepreneurial, or self-directed, careers. Many participants are arts graduates seeking training they did not receive from academic institutions. This research investigates the professional development initiatives of four NYC-based arts organizations by asking how they view their services in relation to art schools and why they offer particular training. Arguing that nonprofits supplement art schools' curricula by playing an essential role in artists' education and career development, this article ultimately discusses opportunities for collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• Art schools
• artist careers
• artist services
• arts alumni
• arts entrepreneurship
• nonprofits
• professional development

Acknowledgments

My sincerest thanks to all of those who have helped make this study possible, namely the arts administrators who generously donated time from their busy schedules to conduct an interview: Alyson Pou, Kay Takeda, Felicity Hogan, Adam Huttler, Heather Pontonio, Holly Sidford, Sally Gaskill, Jackie Battenfield, and Ruby Lerner. These individuals provided great insight into professional development training and the state of higher arts education. I am also particularly grateful to my research advisors, Emma Balazs and Gemma Mangione, for their advisement and support. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the artist service organizations that have emerged to empower individual artists. Their work underscores the invaluable role of creative practitioners.

Notes

1. Each interpretation of arts entrepreneurship is often used interchangeably, generating some confusion and ambiguity in the field. Moreover, the distinction between arts entrepreneurship and professional development is often unclear. While both academics and practitioners play crucial roles in artists' school-to-work transition, they often use different terms to refer to this type of practical, arts business training. Academic literature typically characterizes it as arts entrepreneurship, while those affiliated with nonprofit organizations ordinarily use the term “professional development” or “professional practices.” While much applicable literature on arts entrepreneurship is available through scholarly journals, sources on professional development are typically shared through non-peer reviewed sources. As this article is concerned with each, the literature reviews privileges both types of reference material. See Methodology for how this study will delineate the distinction between arts entrepreneurship and professional development in its findings.

2. None of these criteria by any means signify a value judgment, or are meant to imply that the organizations chosen for this study offer superior programming. While attempting to measure the relative effectiveness of professional development programs could very well prove to be a valuable endeavor, it is not the purpose of this study and remains out of the scope of this research.

3. Interviewees contended that while all artists must utilize self-guiding principles to navigate their careers (corresponding with Bridgstock's definitions 2 and 3), not all artists start a formal business (Bridgstock definition 1). Thus, much of the professional development training conducted at these organizations teaches artists how to develop business skills that guide their careers without necessarily facilitating venture creation.

4. Holly Sidford is the chair of Fractured Atlas' Board of Directors; Jackie Battenfield lectures nationally for the Creative Capital Foundation; and Ruby Lerner is the Founder and former Executive Director of Creative Capital. In her role at the Tremaine Foundation, Heather Pontonio manages the Marketplace Empowerment for Artists (MEA) program, which has distributed grants to both Creative Capital and New York Foundation for the Arts.

5. Sidford was also a key researcher of the Urban Institute's Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structures for U.S. Artists in 2003, as well as its updated report, Creativity Connects: Trends and Conditions Affecting US Artists in 2016, both of which were foundational to this research.

6. LMCC was not able to estimate a figure (Takeda 2016), but based on the data from similar arts organizations, they likely also serve a considerable percentage of arts graduates.

7. The categories listed were derived from the organizations' websites and interviews with the arts administrators, and represent the organizations' own word choice and/or phrasing. Represented topics do not necessarily cover the total history of professional development programming since inception of the program, but can be understood as a snapshot of offerings listed on the organizations' websites as of the summer of 2016.

8. Namely, Fiscal Sponsorship, Insurance, SpaceFinder, and Artful.ly, an online platform for managing ticket sales, donations, and contacts (Fractured Atlas 2016).

9. Pontonio cited both Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and School of the Arts Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in particular.