Con Edison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter, Issue No. 51
Special Report: NYFA Profitable Artist Boot Camp in Dublin
This month’s Immigrant Artist newsletter focuses on a special event that continued NYFA’s work fostering communities abroad through our first professional development program in Dublin, Ireland. The Profitable Artists Boot Camp was presented in collaboration with the Centre for Creative Practices (CFCP), the only arts centre in Ireland dedicated to connecting, integrating, and promoting immigrant, experimental, and emerging artists to the local arts scene and audiences.
CFCP was founded in 2009 by Monika Sapielak, originally from Poland, and Ian Oliver, originally from the United Kingdom. The center provides a prolific, lively and diverse program of multidisciplinary activities featuring artists from all over the world, alongside workshops and programs such as the Profitable Artist Boot Camp. To find out more about the Center and its activities, please click here.
Fifty artists – from all artistic disciplines and a broad range of backgrounds – participated in this intensive four day session that took place October 10 – 14. The purpose of the seminar was to teach the principles of entrepreneurship in the arts, with the curriculum based on NYFA’s widely-used book, “The Profitable Artist.” That included strategic planning in the arts, basic financial and budgeting techniques, fundraising, legal issues for artists, marketing, and candid discussions about surviving in today’s art marketplace. These topics were adapted to fit the unique needs of artists in Dublin and the surrounding regions that included Belfast, with local experts invited to present on certain core topics. The final session was open to the public and Emer Costello, Dublin’s Member of European Parliament, spoke about her interest in artists as entrepreneurs. As NYFA found in our Guatemala Boot Camp, the challenges artists face are universal, from finding financial support to create their projects to discovering opportunities to managing the balance between work and the creative practice.
Sessions took place at the Royal Hibernian Academy as well as at the Center, and final celebrations included an impromtu jazz collective, which also featured NYFA program officer Peter Cobb. The community fostered during the four days has continued supporting each other online. A core group is meeting monthly to focus on implementing their goals and entrepreneurial plans. They are strategizing how to include participants outside of the city virtually, and tapping the skills within the group with artists presenting on websites and project management. The first post-program meeting took place at CFCP, which is arranging follow up workshops to provide more in-depth information with topics such as crowd source fundraising for artists’ projects. Participants spoke about their experience in the program, finding it “inspiring and incredibly thought provoking,” “a means and mode of focusing on essential aspects of surviving as an artist,” and “an intensive journey of enrichment, encouragement and empowerment on all levels.”
Future Boot Camp programs for artists will be included in the IAP Newsletter so stay tuned if you are interested in learning more about sustaining your practice. For free podcast seminars on topics mentioned in this article, please click here. To learn more about the Profitable Artist curriculum and buy “The Profitable Artist," click here. The book is available for purchase through NYFA ($20).
