Brooklyn artist Richard Amoah at work carving wooden figures; Photo by Daisy Rosenblum
NYFA presents information in various formats, but many artists benefit from assistance in making sense of it all and developing their entrepreneurial skills. To help artists master the information necessary to succeed, NYFA developed its artist education programs, beginning with a commission in 2002 from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation to create a model for a career-building seminar course for M.F.A. students. Six selected Master of Fine Arts programs from across the country participated in the pilot program in 2003-04. NYFA adapted this curriculum as the basis of its first Full-Time Artist: Business of Art Conference in June 2004. This and a subsequent workshop sold out and were met with universal praise.
The craft and traditional artists and artisans living and working in New York were a population with which NYFA had had limited contact, even though NYFA has long offered fellowships in crafts and folk and traditional arts is a category served by NYFA Source. An Arts & Enterprise initiative at Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation provided the impetus for NYFA to bring its research capabilities and history of supporting artists to learn about this community.
The crafts project, called New York Creates, is modeled on the successful HandMade in America, which links and makes accessible the work of crafts people throughout North Carolina. NYFA is collaborating on this effort with a steering committee composed of the Municipal Art Society, New York City Arts Coalition, and the Consortium for Worker Education. An advisory committee of more than 30 provides additional guidance. Some 700 artists and artisans from 15 different craft media and 51 countries of origin completed the initial survey, which was offered in a variety of languages. Concentrated outreach efforts in numerous immigrant communities were undertaken to ensure that the diversity and richness of craft and traditional arts wer represented in this research.
The long-term vision of New York Creates is to invest in permanent solutions for craft artists and in local urban regeneration by celebrating the diversity and creativity in New York’s boroughs, the power of online networking, and the cultural and commercial diversity of New York City.
In communicating with artists over the past decade, NYFA has also seen the need to organize meetings and head up initiatives that were particularly targeted toward increasing participation of a diverse group of artists seeking and receiving assistance through NYFA – particularly by increasing the communication with artists of color and rural artists throughout New York State.
To that end, NYFA has organized and or participated in many community meetings and conferences, including working with Studio 42, Harlem Arts Alliance, Brooklyn Public Library, Longwood Art Gallery and Hostos Community College, The African-American Jazz Caucus and Conference, Queens Cultural Forum, Queens Council on the Arts, National Conference of Artists, Alliance of African American Artists & Art Forms, Arts Workshops in Syracuse, and many other gatherings attended by many artists from a variety of ethnic, racial, and regional backgrounds.
In an imperfect economy, artists must be able to access superior information. Judging by the comments of artists themselves, the high volume of web users on NYFA Interactive – the online home of NYFA Source and NYFA Current – the increases in paid subscriptions to NYFA Quarterly, and the consistently full-capacity attendance at all of the workshops, seminars, and community meetings organized by Information & Research department every year, and through consistent communication with artists in all disciplines, NYFA has more than accomplished the goal it set out for itself two years ago. We serve thousands more artists and are recognized as the nation’s leader in this area.
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