Since 1971, we’ve welcomed 52 Grammy winners to perform in our small town—including Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Ray Charles, Carole King, and Brandi Carlile.  We’ve featured 800 artists, 91 of whom were Guggenheim Fellows and 11 whom were MacArthur Genius Award winners.

What SVMoA is most proud of is its commitment to arts education: we’ve given more than $1 million in arts scholarships to 638 local students and 75 teachers.

As the only American Alliance of Museums accredited museum within a hundred-mile radius (and one of 5 institutions in Idaho), SVMoA has a responsibility to reach as broad of an audience as possible—from retirees to teachers, to young entrepreneurs, to the seasonal work force, to immigrant families to students.

More than 24% of Blaine County’s population has roots primarily in Mexico and Peru. The valley’s Spanish-speaking population is a significant part of the local labor, school and church populations, but few local organizations provide Spanish-language or bilingual cultural events.

“While SVMoA has a longstanding presence in all of the valley’s schools, a goal for the coming years is to develop programs that serve a broader swath of the adult community, including the Spanish-speaking community,” said SVMoA Artistic Director Kristin Poole. “We’re committed to serving the whole of our community while nurturing ways to better see and understand one another and our shared experience.”

Intent on building projects with the community rather than for them, SVMoA staff have been working with a small group of leaders in the Latinx community. Together they have developed a year-long multi-disciplinary project on Día de los Muertos to bring people together in shared celebration of traditions.

“The project will engage Spanish and English-speaking audiences in making, learning about, and celebrating this important and diverse holiday while cultivating an understanding of its meaning and nurturing respect for traditions that are familiar to some and new to others,” continued Poole. “Because our audience looks to SVMoA to provide meaningful context around the ideas we are examining, we’ll bring scholars and authors to the valley who can elucidate the how, why, and history behind these traditions. We’re so excited to see these projects and partnerships come to life over the next 10 years.”

During celebrations of the Mexican holiday El Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a reunion that includes food, drink, prayer, and parades. As part of the festivities, families and communities come together to create altars or ofrendas to honor the deceased. Traditional ofrendas are rich with symbolism and often include photographs, candles, food items favored by the deceased, and personal mementos.  They are both an offering and a place of gathering.

SVMoA’s Día de los Muertos project will take place over the course of one year starting with an event on October 30, 2021. SVMoA will invite organizations and individuals to create altars honoring a specific individual of their choosing or a well-known Mexican artist. An expanded multi-day celebration in October 2022 will feature the creation of six public altars, including one by a commissioned artist.  Both events will welcome the whole community and include food and music.  Lectures by Mexican scholars and authors will lead up to the 2022 celebration, including internationally celebrated author Sandra Cisneros.

“As we celebrate our 50^th year it has been a great honor to look back and find those touchstones that have been through-lines for the organization: the commitment to education, the desire to be responsive to the community as it grows and evolves, the deeply felt belief that the exploration of ideas through the arts allows us to understand ourselves and our world better,” said Poole. “As we look forward, we will carry this tradition of enriching the Wood River community.”

SVMoA looks to this quote by Holland Cotter on what it means to be a 21^st century museum: “The new museum won’t be defined by architectural glamour or by a market-vetted collection, though it may have these. Structurally porous and perpetually in progress, it will be defined by its own role as a shaper of values, and by the broad audience it attracts.”

As SVMoA looks forward to the next 50 years, it will be a 21^st century museum for this community—a hub for activity and debate where programs are not restricted to the space of the museum and partnerships with other local nonprofits can result in a fuller exploration of ideas that matter to the people who live here.

“We want to listen to each other and also welcome and encourage perspectives that are new or different—provide a window into cultures, peoples, ideas that are not typically represented in this rural mountain town,” explained Poole. “We hope to be a museum that is of, by, and for its community.”

Author Bio: Kristin Poole has served as Artistic Director at SVMoA since 1997 where she leads programming for the accredited Museum. Kris focuses on The Museum’s multidisciplinary approach and explores relevant topics through visual art exhibitions, humanities lectures, seminars, music, film and theatre performances. A curator and art historian, Poole also develops exhibitions and lectures and writes on topics related to modernism, American Craft and contemporary art. She has served as a member of the Ketchum Arts Commission and is past Board president and current Board member of Visit Sun Valley. In 2018 she received the 2018 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in recognition of her contributions to arts and culture in the state of Idaho. Kris holds an MA in Modern Art History from the University of Chicago and a BA in Studio Art and English from Denison University.

About Sun Valley Museum of Art

Nonprofit Sun Valley Museum of Art (SVMoA), formerly Sun Valley Center for the Arts, has nurtured curiosity, sparked conversation and engaged the Blaine County community since 1971. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, SVMoA reaches an annual audience of 40,000 with its mission to enrich the community through transformative arts and education experiences. SVMoA’s diverse programming includes visual arts exhibitions, lectures, concerts, classes, performances, play readings and BIG IDEA multidisciplinary projects. SVMoA enhances K–12 arts education in local schools with elementary school theatre education, student exhibition tours, professional artist residencies, arts-based classroom enrichment projects, and student and teacher scholarships. To learn more about Sun Valley Museum of Art, explore upcoming events, become a member, or get involved, visit svmoa.org.

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What makes a successful artist? An art career is not made just by talent or knowledge. Artists have to put in the work and practice to perfect their craft over time, and the same is true of their entrepreneurial development. The right tools for success are something that everyone is looking for, but few find.

The problem is that in the art world, stories of the road to success can often be vague and can gloss over the important details artists need. An absence of business training and a lack of supportive professional networks can leave artists relying on the hope of being discovered: but a more empowering model is that artists thrive when the plan for their career is back in their own hands. When they are armed with entrepreneurial skills and specific information, artists can make informed decisions about their professional trajectory and meet their art-industry collaborators as peers.

The Clark Hulings Fund (CHF) is a nonprofit organization built to help artists learn business skills and become more effective entrepreneurs—and to encourage open dialogue and transparency in the art industry as a whole. With the central purpose of “turning working artists into thriving artists,” they have made these events available to support art communities across the country, and have made learning content accessible online as well. Their ongoing series of Art-Business Conferences includes two more “boots on the ground” events in 2019.

Earlier this year at the Washington DC Metro-Area Art-Business Conference, artist Pamela Gordimer said: “It was a wonderful event and pivotal point for my art business. I cannot thank you enough! After being through the amazing weekend of valuable information provided by the CHF group, I’ve been so inspired to move forward and push my art business to a new level.”

CHF’s next conference is in art community haven, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It will be a three-day event September 16, 17, and 18, 2019 at the Santa Fe Convention Center. The first two days of the conference will be business training for artists and artisans, jam-packed with presentations and top-of-the-line breakout sessions. Central topics include setting a viable business objective and action plan, honing a brand story, pricing, sales strategies, and building a dynamic peer network. A Thriving Art Exchange (TAE) event on the final day of the conference will bring artists together with art industry leaders and influencers, government and business owners, and collectors and other stakeholders for a day of productive discussion designed to foster collaboration—and to work towards building a productive art industry in which all of its members can thrive. The conference is presented by CHF in partnership with the Santa Fe Arts Commission.

Conference leaders include Elizabeth Hulings—executive director of the Clark Hulings Fund. “Art is not a charity,” says Hulings, “and artists should not be expected to work just for ‘exposure,’ or to starve for the ‘privilege’ of doing their jobs.” Artists are expected to play within a set of rules that shift regularly and without warning. Entrepreneurial training equips artists to respond, to take advantage of shifts, to seize the moment effectively and make the most of opportunities in the changing art market.

A second fall conference is also happening this year, taking place in Virginia November 7–9, 2019. The event features the same art-business training and industry dialogue components as Santa Fe, but in reverse order. It starts off with a Thriving Art Exchange at the beautiful Belmont Estate, featuring brainstorming with working artists and other key industry community members, including locals, college, and nonprofit arts administrators, collectors, gallerists, retailers, and more. Join in this interactive process as we work toward shared goals, values, strategies, and action plans. The second two days are specifically for artists and artisans, honing-in on state-of-the-art entrepreneurial strategy and taking place at the University of Mary Washington Stafford Campus. Additional partners include Stafford County Virginia Department of Economic Development and Tourism, and the Fredericksburg Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

The Santa Fe and Virginia gatherings are the latest learning events spearheaded by CHF, who has led multiple Art-Business Conferences in previous years and is making a measurable impact on artists’ success. The program emphasizes thriving both as individual entrepreneurs and as members of a community. Part of the time is spent in small-group discussions, allowing artists to learn from and share information with each other—an eye-opening and valuable experience for many. Artist Erin Bassett, who participated in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida conference this winter said: “I found the information extremely useful and the instructors very knowledgeable. I made goals in the conference that I have started to take action on. The connections I made with the other students, instructors and special guests were also a benefit.”

Both events will additionally be led by CHF Accelerator Facilitators Carolyn Edlund and Daniel DiGriz—with Thriving Art Exchange (TAE) discussions moderated by CEO of Change Events, Shem Cohen. Artists can register for the art-business training at the Santa Fe Conference using coupon code SFREGISTEREARLY in the shopping cart to save $500 until July 31st, with savings the earlier you register until September 13th. For the Virginia Conference, use coupon code VAREGISTEREARLY in the shopping cart to save $500 on registration until September 8th, with continuing reduced rates until November 5th. Art community professionals can register for the TAE discussions for Virginia and Santa Fe by selecting the “Industry Badge” on the same registration page.

The Art-Business Conference helps artists hone their business into a fine art. As a facilitator of positive, professional dialogue within the art industry, CHF is supporting a healthy ecology to support the interests of all of its stakeholders. With multiple days in Santa Fe and Virginia, it’s easier than ever to meet your art community in person and build a supportive group with your professional peers.

The post Teaching the Art of Art-Business appeared first on Art Business News.