 Okay, great. Thank you for joining us. I'm Abby Solomon, I'm the program manager cultivator. So we are a, or we're working towards having an innovation center and a support organization here in Randolph, also a community workspace. So as we're working on getting the location, we're putting on some of these kind of business support events. So that is what we're doing today. So join us, we have Sue Shelback. She's an artist. She also worked at Wild Apples, which is a business that connects artists with commercial producers. And you can explain that better than me. Amy Cunningham, from the Vermont Arts Council. Jess Wolferson from White River Craft Center and Chloe Powell from Chandler. And then we have Mark Resolvo, who's our town, town of Randolph Economic Development Director, and he's also a work artist. And he's been a fighter conversation today. And we're going to have a lot of time to talk and address questions for you guys too. So go ahead, Mark. Yeah, I'm here too. I do a lot of business advising and more technical side of things. So that's my role here today too. Well, Abby is a great source for finding out how to get money. Yeah, that's great. There are a few people here tonight that will prove that subject, but it's actually fun to have a small group because we're free to ask questions. I think as artists we're filled with lots of empathy, but it's also hard sometimes to talk in a large group. So it might be nice for us if maybe each of you could spend just 30 seconds and say who you are. And so we can all know each other before we get started. But that'd be okay. And we can start with you. Hi, I'm Sage Kouhavi. I live here in Randolph. I'm an artist. I have my own business from about 1996 through 2020. Making jewelry, making sculpture, teaching, jewelry making, maker space. Actually, several maker spaces over the years. And I guess since I moved to Randolph I haven't been too active. I certainly don't see myself going back into making jewelry full-time professionally. But I wanted to kind of see what was available. I went back to probably status, which is like where my heart is. And also just unofficially, Abby knows me because I work at the Vermont Law School in the small business clinic. Oh, nice. So we, you know, small businesses with their legal needs. So I don't want to put that, that's not really your down. I'm not representing tonight. But if everyone's interested they can talk to you about that anyway. It won't be a workshop in Vermont Law. So we've been doing a series. So welcome. My name is Mark. We're just sort of going around and doing a briefing production of ourselves. Okay, I'm John Holt and I'm an old painter. I've been in Vermont for about 10 years. I moved in Colorado. So a lot of my contacts and sales and teaching is out in California or in Colorado. But I do teach here at Ava and exhibit. I haven't exhibited up at the Norwich Library oil paintings. Oh, what did I do with my card? So that's my work. I'm in the artistry exhibit too. The Mudd. That's it. I mean, I'm probably longer than anybody here. It's over 50 years of business. My name is Susan Pormick. I'm relatively new to Vermont and to Randolph. I've been here about six months. I'm an abstract artist. I'm from entirely from New York. I'm a white river fax editor, studio artist. And I work primarily with all of my work as abstraction. But I work with fan objects and paints, all medium. I don't know what else to say about this. Oh, I just curated a show at 15 Northman Gallery of International Women's Day with nine other female artists from Randolph. So she checked it out. Nice to be here. And you have a piece downstairs. Two pieces, right? Oh, one of the pieces. Yes, I do. Thank you. I am Davis McGraw. And I am here with Mara. I'm that individual artist. Yeah, my name is Mara Hirishi. I was invited by Sue. I work at Wild Level, which is an art licensing agency, and used to be colleagues. And I've never explored the freelance world or anything like that. But I feel like, you know, my nine to five is, Sarah also worked at Wild Level. My nine to five is like the art industry. But as an individual artist, I never really explored, like, selling my own work or the gallery. I'm Sarah Adams. I am a scrapper. And I used to work as a designer and artist at Wild Level. And now I do license art for Wild Level. So freelance is like an artwork for some other companies that like to figure out how to do freelance art. You can get myself out there, because I kind of heard it just go out. Don't. I'm Katrina Wagner. I own Graphic Beans, which is a website design company. And on the side, I do some needle felting work. So that's kind of the hobby side thing that I do. And yeah, that's about it. I'm Robin Palmer. I'm just a citizen. I saw a post-it and it sounded interesting. I dabble in a few things, but I'm not trying to start in art. Is this, does that seem like an interesting discussion, if that's OK? Of course. Well. We're just doing a 30-second intro of what you're, you know, perfect. I love to be a full-time artist, but I'm not today. I have another job as a marketer, actually. But I love to paint alongside mostly aviation is my news. Nice to meet you guys. I'm Porta Gailey. I'm his wife. I'm here for moral support. So we have two supportive partners here. And that's wonderful. So I'll just say briefly, I studied performing arts in college. I grew up in a very poor neighborhood. I went to, we ended up moving to high school in a busier place. As soon as I graduated, well, when I was in high school, I started performing. And I got the lead in Fither on the Roof. So I got to play Tavia. And so I was hooked on acting. And so I moved out to California. And I auditioned for the American Academy of Humanities Arts out in LA. And I got accepted. So I went through their program. And you guys can come on right in, actually. We're just doing some quick spiel on our stories, individual stories. These are the panel members. And I will be moderating. So just to have a sense of who's who. So anyways, I was out in California. This was in the early 1990s. And I so enjoyed learning. And I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here. And I've heard so much about the voice learning technique and how, and studying so much about the technique of acting. But I also got, my roommate was Adam Scott. That's my name story. Rob was a year ahead of us. So he was always on campus. His long hair, crazy guy. Anyways, so I love the training. But when I finished, I was so in my head about technique. She's like, oh my god, what technique do I use? What theory do I use? And I really felt, I really just felt overwhelmed by it. I moved to New York and I ended up auditioning for a role at Investment Bank and kind of became a trader for 20 years on Wall Street and raised the family. And it wasn't until we moved up here after 9-11, it wasn't until the pandemic when like all my creative muscles and semi-atrophy, I started painting in the basement and like next thing I know, it all came out. It was so beautiful. And I started painting like every single day and I ended up painting hundreds of paintings and I convinced the people to show my work and I started sending it to reviews and like I just fell in love with it again. I got connected to myself. I was able to sort of remind myself the joy of what art does for us. It centered, it centered me, it made me a better father, a better husband. So, and I was working for, I was a senior advisor for a large firm up here and I ended up leaving and joining the town as the Economic Development Director because it was mission-driven work. It sort of was the next phase of my life that I wanted to go in that made more sense because different things mattered for me and so that's kind of, that's my story. We had a little bit of this other stuff, but I think that's, so the, let's let these folks come in and sit down. Hi. Hi. To a brand-new artist who'd like to introduce yourself. I'm Sherri Landy. I live here in Randolph. What kind of information were you looking for? Just your 30-centage feel as we are. I am an artist in my free time, not professionally, I work as an art teacher, professionally. And I like to use a wide variety of materials because I'm 40s. I'm Kirsten Quick. I'm sort of retired artist, not retired from art, but retired. I'm trying to do art and I'm trying to make money off of it which is extremely difficult if you're not really good at marketing yourself, doing the photos and the emails and all the stuff. So that's why I'm here. Excellent. Did we miss somebody else? I stopped then, yes. My name's Lauren. I'm important. This is Eddie. How are you? I'm good. I was a graphic designer, graduated with a degree in graphic design and fell into fine art in the cheeks on the marketing end of soon and from there, did jewelry for all. I got an internship at the auction house as a jewel working in the jewelry department. So I took those skills and kind of combined them and moved to Burlington, Vermont and worked for an estate jeweler. Doing that photography got them established a long standing jewel or I didn't have a digital presence so I kind of mashed some skills together. From there actually I worked with Sue, one of our speakers tonight at Wild Apple. So I was working at an art publishing and licensing on the sales side. Awesome, welcome. Thanks. Well all right, well this is a wonderful group. There's one more. I'm Daisy, I have an IZU educational native plant and pollinator. Awesome. So we have a lot of artists in our community and oftentimes you see there's two types of artists that I've found here. We have the one that's so deeply involved in their work that they can't be bothered with this aspect of the business. Trying to figure out how to market their work, how to create an artist statement, how to create a website, how to try to find a group of friends and supporters that will support their work. It's just something that's too overwhelming to them because they're so focused on their work and sometimes they feel like, well I'll sign out if I get involved in capitalism it's a sell out. So there's this rift or divide between some artists and other artists in our community have figured out a way to do really well on social media. They've figured out a way to build a website. They've figured out a way to really tap into a social network. And what I find is, someone like Tyler for instance does a really good job with his social network presence. He's got an Instagram account. He shares fun stories about his work. He shares when he has different locations. But what I'm finding is it's, even though we have a thriving artistic community in Randolph, it's always a question of what's how, like it's almost not really viable, right? We've got a ton of businesses that promote art, sell art, we have five galleries in our town. So we've got a ton of work that's being presented. Chandler is incredibly supportive of the artist community. The gallery downstairs is a huge draw. Not just in Randolph, but we are really the epicenter of the cultural community in central Vermont. But what I'd like to talk about now with the help of the panel members is what are some things that you've done that you've seen ways to help artists that are struggling and feel free to talk about your stories and some of the things that you might be looking for? Definitely. That's right. I can start though. I'm not working in the arts regularly, but I come from Community Capital Vermont, which is a mission non-profit micro lender focused on businesses that can't get funding for many reasons. Not having collateral is the primary reason for that, or just needing something very small. So working with artists at that capacity, we had often inquiries from artists that needed $2,000, would get them through. They do robust craft fairs in the summer, which cost a lot of front because of the investment to register, but then they were making their money during the summer. So I think in the finance room, I know it's weird. I do, my mom is an artist. She was an art teacher forever and entirely and is a potter and does craft fairs and I grew up in them. So I have that knowledge, but a lot of financial people don't understand how artists work and what they need to be able to be successful. So I think that that is something that can promote and help is just understanding how creatives operate their business and that it is a business, but that's the other piece that's very important. Could you repeat the name of your? Okay, so I am representing, now I work for Cultivator, which is, we're working towards Innovation Hub and Community Workspace here in town. I'm the program manager for that, but I worked for Community Capital Vermont and that was the funder and then I worked with, yep. Did you have a question? I kind of a build on, it's sort of like, there's the reality of like when you're a potter, for example, you're probably building up your stock during certain parts of the year, so you're in the red and then you're selling your stock at other parts of the year and when communicating that to the state organizations who are managing healthcare and other things like that, they want to know how much you make each one. And I'm like, well, I'm okay in the red now through the middle of the year and then it'll start to go up. So what do I do? I have healthcare for half a year and then a totally different program for the second half of the year. I don't know how to, I give them my average. I think an erroneous number for every month, but it's the average and it's the best of God, but I don't know how. It's so tricky. I feel like in our sector, there's a lot of similarities with the agriculture sector that it's that kind of ebb and flow and the harvest comes, but you gotta put in the money before that. So I guess I don't have an answer to you beyond averaging like you're doing is probably the right thing to do, but I think one of the things that I wanted to mention was just the idea of the other sectors that we have similarities with and that we can learn from. And I think when I think about the work of creatives kind of making their way through and the slog of running that kind of business, I think a lot about farmers and that kind of similar. And I know a lot of farmers who are artists too. So there's a lot of similarities. Yeah, we've had a few businesses in town that had to come up with creative ways to create sort of pro forma numbers into the future, what they might do to get a loan, for instance, or to have a credit line to cover those down periods. And we found with a good story and some good references, it's been pretty helpful for several artists in the communities to get those loans. Or even if they don't need it in the moment if things are doing good, but it's sort of, it's there in the background is something that can be done. That's one option that we've seen has been somewhat helpful for some of our businesses. Yeah, when I was presenting artistic businesses to our loan committees, we'd compare them to Maple and that would just somehow, people totally understand that. Yeah. And- Whereas I don't know what you think you're pulling a yarn on. No. No. The Maple trees only do this. It's just sitting down there. Yeah. They're like, oh. I can't say that. I can't say that. Any other questions on this topic? I have a question. How have, who can comment or has any thoughts on making that shift from working full-time to starting to let that go, becoming an artist where you're starting to depend on that, building the confidence level to make that jump in ways in which some of you might have done that in the past and can share a little bit about that process. Maybe there was some fear associated with it. Maybe there was, maybe you sort of made the jump and then you pulled back. So I'd really love to hear some of those stories and maybe you could- Yeah, I can speak to that for sure. I've been on my own as working for myself for the last year. I've been working for over 20 years in our publishing company. There were some changes in the company and I was laid off. I'll be transparent about that, which was shocking at first, but turned out to be a silver lining of sorts because I was ready to make a leap. I just didn't have the faith in myself to do it on my own. And the last year has been super instructive for me as far as testing my own abilities to believe in myself. And I'm even to see how I could structure a creative life and create a workplace for myself. I think the first thing was going from having colleagues that I talk to every day. And some of them were here and I'm still very, I've talked to them for a lot of days anyway. We still connect with each other and are still very much connected as friends. But going from having no colleagues to having, from having tons of colleagues to having no colleagues was a real shift. So I had to get out of the house and I went to Southampton, which is near me, and hanging out in the coffee shop there and it's nice to meet you Tyler. Oh nice to meet you. Tyler's promoted my work out of the first branch, which was wonderful. I've been showing my work there even before I left Wild Apple, but I think like there's a bend diagram you need to draw for yourself when you're thinking about going out on your own. It's like, what are your skills? Like what are you good at? What are you passionate about? And where can you sell any of that? So what are the crossovers of those three things? And you're often you find in that little crossover space that what you need to know in order to move forward. And in my case I had, I was a painter and I am a painter, but I'm also a photographer. So do branding and design work as well. So I had a lot of pieces of things that I could do and I found by diversifying things I could offer, I've made a really nice little creative work for myself. And there's a lot of variety to it, which I really like. There were some weeks where everybody I worked for wants something from me. How am I gonna do it? And sometimes I find the thing that suffers is the painting, because that's the thing I need to make myself do. And so that's a continued struggle and I wish I had the answer for that. But you know when you have someone calling you and you need something by the name of their own name, thank you. And I just have to get out of the way. It's a, you can do that first. So that's the thing I'm feeling like in this year two of this experiment, which I feel is really exciting and working out, I need to make more time for that, that painting part. And I find when I have the trust in myself, when I do the work and when I make the leap and put it out there either on social media or on my website or elsewhere, I do tend to sell my work. And I just have to be brave enough to show it. And sometimes that's for an introvert like me. So I'm getting on your comfort zone and sometimes it's the best thing you can do in order to get some exposure and also makes it sales. And none of us would. Well, I mean some people actually love selling their work. I think I know a few artist friends who are really great at it. I wish I could channel them a little more so I've learned from them, just watching them. If you have friends who are good at it, watch what they do and learn. And I would say building on that, the one thing I was talking to Susan earlier about the panel and I was like, oh, what are some key things that I think about. So at the Craft Center, we have about 10 private studios and we have, give or take, we have a few shared studios. And we have about 18 studio artists that are in our mix. And we have a few other things going on, exhibition space, regular programming for different ages. But with our studio community, I normally engage with people when they're ready to take a step to invest in themselves, invest in their artwork, their practice and have that sanctioned space so that they can create. Which is a really exciting thing to witness. And so much of the excitement and the energy that they bring is not just about the new chapter that they're about to embark on or really further. Sometimes they've had a home studio. But it's also the eagerness to be part of a creative community. And I think everyone here that's in the room is taking this upward to network and learn more and kind of build out your information about kind of what, how do you navigate this? So one thing that I kept coming back to this thing about the panel was very much just the significance of just the networking. I hate the term networking, but it is so necessary. Yeah, it's a good idea, yeah. I also come from like a startup world where networking has a nice, yeah, it is building community. And so much of what we're building at the Craft Center is very much that. Is trying to embrace the creative community both that's already contained within our walls but then extended beyond that. Because it's a very challenging thing to navigate. And it is, like you're saying, is so diverse. Like the definition of a professional artist varies for every artist, depending on what your medium is, what your interest is. Like do you want, I mean, the traditional mold that I think we think of a professional artist that eventually will be like on the walls of Momar that might not the reality of like, you know, it's how do you fulfill your own passions, your own desire and make a living from it or at least continue that fulfillment so you're able to have a creative engagement with the world. So what you were saying Sue is very much what I witnessed and kind of seen in my career and also at the Craft Center. People just, you know, taking jobs that are, that pay bills, kind of touch on that creative sense but also like remain firm in their commitment to themselves in their practice and kind of lean into their community, to their network, to seeing how they can expand that to build out the skills and understanding of what else is needed to further themselves. And then yeah, like realizing that you are a business, like if you do want to move more squarely into a sense of being an artist who's able to just create and sell, like original works for example, like really, I mean, in any sense really, just kind of equipping yourself with knowledge of what it is to run a small business, like learning how to market or learning people that know how or meeting people that know how and being able to just identify like the many different buckets that you need to fill in order to have a well-rounded approach is daunting. But again, if you have conversations and like share that excitement and energy and interest with others, things kind of snowball and go from there. So yeah. And there are so many great tools available to us now. I mean, we do kind of need to know how to take a good photograph, but there's the tools available with me that help us enhance our photographs we're taking if we're not a professional photographer. There are sites that help us set up shops that can make us pull our hair out but can also, they have a lot of help desks that they can, you can do it. I mean, it is kind of amazing. And if you can't do it, there are people all over the state that are ready now to do it. This goes back to building a community of support. They say it takes a village to raise a child. I think it takes a village to support artists. And the more vulnerable you are within that village, the more authentic you are. And the more willing people are to support you, the artists that I see that come on that share their ups and downs, that share the days when they feel like complete fraud, when they should share the days of feeling that little voice inside their head just constantly holding them back, talking to their community about those anxieties and stuff has really been helpful. And those are the ones that are actually making it through those levels of resistance, those creative uterines that prevent you from taking the risk of putting a submission in, setting yourself up for rejection, which is such a big component of being an artist when you start putting yourself out there, learning how to accept that constant. We like your work, but we're not gonna use it in this experience or when you apply for a grant, it can be such a, we prostrate ourselves on the floor for hours to submit for a grant for $500. And it can be so unroofing when you get a rejection from that. We have to do it. It's part of the process. And you keep going out there doing it. So the commentary on having a community that can support you is, I think it's, it's also that balance between understanding what social media is and what it isn't. And do you get the type of satisfaction having communication with people on social media that you get when you're actually live in a community with people? And so it's a different type of satisfaction. You need it, right? It's a necessary evil to be on social media and to show your work. But it can also, it can also have, I don't know how you guys have experienced that, but it can have kind of a negative implications, right? You kind of feel crummy. You put something up there and you're just like, oh man, are people gonna like it or are they gonna have to comment on it? I mean, how you guys done with social media has been helpful and does anyone care share their story? I'll say that as a consumer of social media, that following artists on Instagram, in my opinion, is the highest investment use of social media. I'm done with Facebook, but it's been so illuminating for me to follow artists I know and who are in the state and also just find people all over the world and see it like that as a consumer of social media. Seeing that insight into someone's creative practice and in the studio, I think it's like awesome and eye-opening and despite the rest of the dumpster fire that social media can be, I'm really enjoying that. So thank you for artists who are putting yourselves out there on Instagram. And it's a way to actually get people to look on other things that offer further deeper information about who you are. They check you out, they go online, they go to Google, they see your name, if you have a website, they go to your website. Next thing you know, you've actually built, at least in theory, hopefully a real, you're starting to build a real relationship with a potential buyer or somebody that just, you spoke into another person about your work and I found that's been helpful with posts that I do when someone goes to my website and then sends me a link or a note on my website or drawings in my newsletter. I'm like, okay, I can keep doing this. That's better. It can be open studio without the pain of having to actually do it. Yeah. Yeah. Open studio is great. Well, I was just saying that I find it as somebody who's not really adept at posting on Instagram, although I have done it. And I'm not very good at taking the photographs but I try to do it. I find it, it's like the world of artists showing their work and it's like thousands of people competing for the same attention. And I feel like, what is the point of me struggling doing this? Because, you know, like no one goes to my Squarespace website. I don't even know how to update it. Obviously I need to tap some resources. But at the same time, it just seems like there's thousands and thousands and thousands of artists there. And who gets the attention are the ones that spend every day on Instagram and posts every day. And I'm just, I'm not interested in doing that. It's just not what my attention really wants to do. So it's like, what's the point of using it? I have a question. How many people have email lists? Like an email following, like send out a newsletter or a quarterly or a weekly. Do you find those are successful? That's something I haven't done yet, but. Yeah, I follow. So for anybody that is on Instagram, there's a great person who's an artist specific to consult and her name's Tiny Buck Low Consulting. I get no endorsements. I don't pay for services, but I follow her and engage with her. And she gives me great advice and great stats. And as a professional marketer outside the artist world, email is still like the preferred way even for every generation to think of from our kids to men above because it's right to your inbox. And you can tailor it, you know, now these things are so advanced. I don't kind of think you were at AI. But you can tailor it. So you sent me one that says, hi, Tyler. You know, I'm like, oh, okay. You know what I'm thinking of my name. So I'm kind of curious. I do like their stuff when they come. I have a studio sale going on. So there are stats out there. She's a good one to follow because she just puts it right to your Instagram feed. But it's still a preferred way. It's the most trusted way to communicate because it's still coming to your inbox with your name where so much of social media on pro social media or selling anything, especially art. But it's still a little impersonal, right? I can't talk to all my followers that I have. Hey, you, hey, you, hey, you, this is for you. Just can they relate to it as they're scrolling through an email is still the most personal connection you can make. So it's painful to grow an email list, frankly. And it's a slog. I mean, it's not, it doesn't take a lot of effort but there's easy ways to create what's a landing page. So when someone goes to your Instagram profile and says, hey, sign up for 20% off. They can go to this page, put their name in, boom, you got their email now. So there's a ton of resources out there for stuff like that. And I'm happy to show anybody how to do that. Some are free, some are not free, but not expensive. So it is a great way to find people and to get them in the loop. And if someone signs up, like all of you guys probably don't sign up for emails, you don't want, you know, you're signing up for either a discount or you're really interested in the product. How do you navigate around firewalls? Like even when I found, even when I put someone on my email list, sometimes they don't open it. And I know they would open it because they had a great conversation but yet there's a firewall. How do you get around that? Yeah, I mean, email generally are becoming more and more sophisticated. You know, blocking what you don't want to see. So ideally, you know, you're telling people, they keep an eye out, look out for spam. Don't send things that, there's all these rules. You can do cool things like what not to do when you email, that email's already built around. If you put certain characters in the subject line, if you use certain words that seem too gimmicky or too salesy, those might get pushed to like somebody's promotion folder or spam folder. So you're gonna have some of that and that's the importance of building up a pretty good. Once they've opened your email once though, is it, do you now have an open communication to send quarterly and it'll go to their regular email box? Yeah, that's the best case scenario. So the vast majority are gonna, if you send a proper email, the vast majority are gonna make it to their inbox. If it doesn't for some reason and they open to their promotion folders and they open it, then it's likely gonna go to their inbox. It really depends on your email, Gmail or Apple email, what those settings are. But those are good news for us is that those are becoming more sophisticated and blocking out the stuff you don't want. So you just gotta make sure that your emails, and again, that's gonna be, send out thousands of emails at my regular job and we know some percentage isn't gonna make it and there's not that many. So it's a numbers game too. The more we move there, obviously. Are you sending it as a newsletter, like your mail change? Yeah, through Squarespace. Cause those will always go to a promotion folder if you send it as a real email, VCC, if your list isn't so huge. Yep. When I do emails outside of newsletters, I'll often VCC and write a more personal, hey, friends, like you can have friends, lots of friends and acquaintances that might be interested in that. So does everyone understand what she's saying? That process is a helpful way to go. How many people can you get on a VCC? I don't, I, over a hundred. Yeah, I don't know. You want to make sure she's dished us about it because they'll, if you're doing a ton of it, then you get caught in it. Yeah. More likely to get filtered. Yeah, I would do more than a hundred. Uh-huh, okay. You can also ask for the recipient to add you to their contact list or their address list and that will help keep you out of it. Oh, good. Standoffs. But it might not keep you out of the promotion tab the way Gmail and, yeah, I was the worst. Yeah. I've inherited the Chandler email from the previous 10 directors, so my promotion tab is very long and some very important emails actually come in through there. So I come to this with more, more recent experience supporting musicians in access and grants and gigs, worked putting together events and also working as an agent and just listening to everyone's conversation. I'm just thinking that no one is probably has the budget to have an agent, but I wonder if there's anyone that works like representing a whole bunch of artists as in helping them connect with the galleries and the people that, is that that parent? The work that while Rappelt and Maura can speak to it, she's working there still, but that was for representing artists for commercial licensing. And I'm still a signed artist there and I have passive income coming to me from work. I'm doing it anyway, so I send it through Maura and say, do you want to have it? And I send digital files that I have to have as high resolution, good quality files. So as an artist, you kind of need to learn your scan or photograph your work in a good quality way when you do that. But it is a great way to have some income coming in that I make $5,000 to $10,000 a year from, more than the income. For work I did five years ago sometimes from three years ago or two years ago. And so it's a nice, it's a nice model. It doesn't work for everybody because it's, you're making artwork that needs to work in a commercial world. And so what you might be wanting to paint and what works well in that commercial world might not match or they might match perfectly. So there are all kinds of different agencies. Wild Apple is one of them. There are quite a few in Vermont or many throughout the world. You can just look up licensing agencies for artists online and you'll find all kinds of lists and all kinds of orders with all kinds of things. There's a research you need to do to decide what's a fit for you. But for me it's certainly something I want to keep doing because it's a nice side income that I can kind of come on. But once, at least quarterly, I'm going to be getting a check and sometimes I get the monthly, depending on the rotation of the company that I've had a license with. So it's licensing for everything from your artwork onto prints and posters that are sold in all kinds of venues as prints. And then the rest was all the different home decor products that artwork goes on. Everything from shallow curtains to bedding to dishes, things for the table, blankets, fabric, all these stuff. And then there's the putting your own work onto those types of things. There are sites all over, screenflowers, one of them that you can put your own artwork onto, fabric yourself. You can do it in such a way that you can have it sold from your store so people can order it and have it sent to them from screenflowers so you're not even in the middle of it. You don't have to buy it and have it on hand. There's ways to do that. There are also many sites in which you can have your artwork on products and sell it from your own store. Again, that place will fulfill it for you, but you can sell your art onto lungs and t-shirts and tote bags and cards and all that kind of stuff. There are a lot of ways that you as an artist can put your art onto products. There's a little research involved, it's not all of it, it's the quality you want. So it's a little bit of gambling some of the time. How do artists know if they're not necessarily hearing back in their first year in terms of setting realistic expectations of what success looks like? You send emails out, you don't get a response. You set up an account for something and you don't get a great deal of response. It's sort of like a business downtown and they open. I try to let everybody know, don't have an expectation of making money in your first year. Otherwise, you'll probably fail in the first nine months or something and when they do fail, it's always upsetting to me. But I think with artists, because we're so vulnerable, we put so much on the line and we put ourselves out there in so many different ways. How do you guys set, you folks set expectations or to set a realistic mindset for yourself for success when you're in, you have the down times and you're not selling anything? I'm not speaking from personal experience but just taking back what Abby was saying around empowering artists to embrace that role as being a small business person and what you were saying about kind of getting clear on what your own professional and personal goals are. I would say you have to call it a business plan to make you feel weird. But start with the plan, knowing like everyone has said that your personal goals, your creative practice goals, your professional business goals are gonna be different than everybody else's. So getting really clear on what the goals are and starting with that business plan, even if you don't call it a business plan. I think that there are so many resources available for the small business world. And I think part of what we're trying to do at the Arts Council is making sure that arts organizations and artists know when things go out for small businesses, and this was so apparent during the pandemic, small business administration was the one that rolled out PPP, right? They rolled out all of these waves of COVID relief and it took like a lot of communications, a lot of time to say, hey, that's you. Hey, not a profit arts organization, that's you. Small business administration, they're here to help you. And the Vermont Small Business Development Center and the Center for Women and Enterprise, like there are federal dollars that are in this state that are funding all manner of like wonderful resource organizations, including our regional economic development commissions, the Vermont Law School's small business development center. Like you belong in those places, I guess it's kind of part of that kind of encouragement around embracing and seeing yourself as a small business person. That's not a direct answer to your question. But it's a great answer. What's awesome about what we have in Randolph and what we're building is part of the new Randolph Innovation Hub is actually about helping find ways to sit through programs and classes about building a business plan, about establishing realistic goals and expectations and actually guiding you through the entire process. So don't hesitate to reach out and harass, I mean, because this is exactly what the hub is about and it's just in its infancy, but it's strong. It's funded, they're going to be here for a long time. So you're really the very first people in our community that have access to these programs that haven't been in existence ever. And so Abby realizes the artistic community that we have aiming and speaking about how important it is to reach out and communicate with a community and build a network in conjunction with what you're doing socially. Everyone is speaking sort of a very similar tone and what we're really excited to say is that we have some structure in place that's gonna be helpful for artists. We just have to make sure we get the word out. We have to make sure that we're able to connect the dots in terms of what resources are available for the community. And we're sort of stumbling into this. Abby's working into this where the innovation hubs that have been established regionally have been primarily designed for technology companies. So they're realizing now in rural America what technology is is a little different or we're not necessarily entrepreneurs with a tech gadget or widget that we're gonna go take to market and go to a venture capital firm and fund it and all that. No, that's not what we're doing. It's different. And so Abby and her team, they've started to sort of re-establish what it means to be part of an innovation hub and they're using terms like tech enabled. So what does that mean? Well, you build a website and you sell your art online. Well, that's a tech enabled business. Anything that ties you even remotely into technology means you're a tech enabled business which means our innovation hub is available to support you. Even if that means making connections, some sort of wraparound services to provide guidance while you're still in the infancy, while you're doing your business development, while you're nervous, while you're feeling unsure and you're second guessing yourself, the only way that I think artists are going to get through that and make it to a level where the art as a business is going to potentially work is to get through that first 12 to 18 months and have the strongest plan in place to be able to go and hit to the next level. And whatever that next level is, it doesn't mean you're gonna go to MoMA. It doesn't mean that you're gonna make $100,000 a year selling art but say you're able to sell. Whatever it is your goal is, if you achieve those reasonable realistic goals, you're gonna feel really good and that's where confidence is derived as an artist. It's derived from you building and creating your work and being satisfied with it and it's derived from the affirmation that you get in the community from people who see your work and appreciate it and embrace it and it's a balance where it feeds on itself but there's a process involved and it's a really uncomfortable process and I see a lot of artists that aren't willing to make that step. I just wanna clarify, this is called the hub or the Innovation Hub, is the name of it? It's Cultivator, is the name of it. Yeah, that's the name of it. Yes, we don't have a location yet but we're working on that. Yeah. Are you finished with Mark, because I have two follow-ups on that. The first is the uncomfortable piece that we're kinda talking about is that if you wanna have an art business, you have to look at yourself as a business. It's unfortunate, but it's true. You need to understand finances. You need to understand what you are federally obligated to be filing for taxes. If you have employees, you need to understand those pieces and it doesn't matter what you're doing in a small business. You wanna be doing the thing, like if you have a retail store or you're a cook, like you wanna be doing that. Unfortunately, if you wanna run business, you have to do all this. So there's tons of resources that can help you get there. So you've mentioned the small business, SBDC, they actually have regional advisors and then they have industry-focused advisors. So they have an advisor that's particularly for creatives. And so she knows how creative businesses work, which is an asset there. And there's also a ton of creative businesses. Yeah, it's for a lot, so yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. But so they have all those tools to do business planning, to help you with finances. They did tons of work during COVID with the grants and everything like that. So, and everything they offer is free. I mean, that's the other thing. Like you still have to do the work, but it's there. But then knowing your limitations. So if doing your accounting is just, like, yes, technically you could do it, but you don't wanna do it. You do have to find a way to pay for it, but have someone else to do it. If you don't wanna do your online marketing, which I'm first doing now for Cultivator, and I hate it, and it takes a long time, of course. And I would love, I have no budget for it, but it would be great, and it would take tons of, it would take, it would free up tons of my time to be able to put that on someone else's shoulder. Like, just do that, it's okay. I'm so glad you could get up, Abby, because that's part of something that stops me so much. It's like, I'm just not computer-minded. I'm not, I'm not business-minded. I'm not, I'm creative, and I make art. And I'm not asking these people who are great at bookkeeping and all that stuff to make the art, and yet a lot of today, it's like everybody's expected to be able to do everything. You're expected to go online and figure it out yourself. And I can't express the frustration and how much I hate doing that stuff. And it stops me quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. I will say they're, like what we're saying here, and Abby, I'll start jumping, but there are also so many tools because people hate it. And so they're like, hey, it's fun. Yeah, there are tools where you can just allocate, you know, an hour, one day a week, and just be able to knock out like a schedule where you're able to keep a regular presence on Instagram, wherever it might be, but not have to daily just think about it. And something that, so we're all in Randall for the Center for Vermont area. And at the crafts that are something that we're not making any promises, and Abby and I have also been talking about some exciting ideas, but I really do want to have, a lot of our artists have conversations that are just like this, you know? It's like, well, what are you doing for taxis? Or like, I don't know, how do you get a portfolio together? What website classes do you have that's free or easy enough to use? And I would like to get a series going where we're just able to have casual conversations. Maybe an expert comes in and is able to kind of, you know, lead a conversation or share resources, but I think it's kind of a natural need and natural step forward with this conversation. I am just like, not that we have to go around and talk about it, but I am super interested in kind of what are the individual challenges that everyone faces, because it is so nuanced what everyone is doing. But anyway, I just wanted to put that out there that I would be, like with my platform at The Crafts, and I would be happy to like, idea on how to continue this conversation with different categories, I've kind of been taking note of that. And also something I wanted to mention as we've been talking about things. I mean, we are a small state. I have found that if you just make an introduction of yourself to various entities, people are more than happy to help. So I know that at the Arts Council, with any grant that comes up, you guys are so great about saying like, reach out, be in touch if you have any questions. And I haven't yet done that, but I know it's a resource and it's available. Yeah, and so with Small Business Association, I, one of my friends who has a creative business, he's been, you know, we've been talking a lot about subjects like this and kind of different struggles that we face. And I'm a non-profit, he's a for-profit, but I reached out just to be like, what resources do you have for the state? And I learned about, you're saying about, there's a lot of consultants that they just put you together, they put you with them for free, and it's just like all this wealth of resources that it's not in my sector. You don't think of it as being applicable to you. Right, yeah, but it was tremendous. And yeah, I just know if you start scratching at the surface, you kind of have an inkling of what your need might be or areas that you don't even want to delve into, like social media. If you start like scratching at the surface and asking around or just reaching out to, you know, people who are running different entities that kind of manage that thing, it can be very fruitful. So I would encourage that. I'll mention specifically on our website, we have this area called the Knowledge Center and my colleague, Dominique Gustin, who's our Artist Service. Can you tell us that website, sir? Yes. So it's the Vermont Arts Council website. And so there's a section of the website called the Knowledge Center, and it's broken out into resources for artists and arts organizations. And my colleague, Dominique Gustin, is our Artist Services Manager and a working artist. And she is quite diligent about updating those resources and those links for artists. So it's some of the things we've mentioned around like social media tips or financial management tips. There's some good links there. It might be a good starting point to start browsing. Another resource which I'm more familiar with for musicians, but I just checked it out to confirm that there are graphic designers and artists listed on the website called Creative Grounds, which is managed by the New England Foundation for the Arts. And it's a platform where artists and organizations that hire artists can have profiles. And if you're looking for a landscape artist, you might Google that and find Sue. And it is in the major grant that NIFA has for hiring artists, a requirement is that them they have a profile. It's meant to be like this comprehensive directory of the creative economy for all of New England. It's awesome. I agree. It's awesome. And it has a scoring mechanism built in it. So it tells you how good your site is becoming. And they have an objective of getting up over 20, which means like you've built a really quality site for yourself on this book. If you don't want to make a webpage, it's also a precursor to establishing a webpage because you can put all your links on there. You can highlight some of your current work. It's called creativegrounds.org. Yeah. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, so each state arts agency is kind of like the administrator for the different states. So you can, if you look at arts directory, it goes straight to creative ground. Yeah, you can put up to 10 different links to different works you have going. You can do a ton of different things. It's really good. And like I said, you may not be able to identify exactly how much activity is happening on it, but it's out there. It's something that you've done. You put it out there. And what Chloe spends a great deal of time, when she comes to the board and she talks about artists that she's securing for shows here, we run a really tight ship. Our budget is almost a million dollars a year. There's always a gap. And we're trying to, it's stressful to figure it all out. See, she's having a reaction now, I figure. So she's often come back with, oh, I got a $2,000 brand relief for this artist to pay the artist. Chloe is known in the community. I don't know if you're familiar with Feast and Field. Well, it's Chloe. She's the one that was hers. She pays the artists that perform here really well. She respects them. She supports them. So she is an excellent contact in the community because, like I said, when she negotiates with the artist, she figures out creative ways to get them money. And one of the ways she does that is through this creative ground. I can never remember the name of it. It's also a place where you can search for galleries. So there's institutions there, too. Exactly. It's a perfect combination of people that can help and support you. And it's a community of artists that are in a similar position to you. I mean, I looked at it a number of times whenever I'm looking for new teaching artists or potential people to exhibit. Yeah, so it's a tremendous resource. So we've been talking a lot about how to get art on digital platforms, but having a gallery downstairs that has some really great shows that get really good responses but don't have a lot of sales. I'm curious how, as a position of being a space that hosts artists, how what resource there might be to get the right people to us, because as much as people love the shows, I'd like to comment about that. I think one of the issues that I get from curating some of the shows and talking to people that submit and hang their work is nobody has any idea how to price their work. It's like, here, here, here, and here all over the place. So it's kind of like a baseline of what you can expect when you go in to see how much things are going to cost. And I think that's probably usual. It's just that if you want to have a show where you think people are going to buy a lot of work, then you've got to have an expectation from the people who are going to view that show of what they can spend. Once in a while, we'll sell something really high end and then nothing else, one thing or two things. And then sometimes we'll sell the things that are on the lower end because they're on the lower end and that's what people at random can afford. That is socioeconomic pain in our blue car community. So the pricing of the art oftentimes will determine whether it sells. And it's interesting because my wife works at Dartmouth and she was very helpful to me when I was first starting to sell my work about how to price it. And oftentimes people will come up to me and say, why do you price your stuff for the cheap? I'm like, well, $400, $200, that sort of thing. I've got a piece over at one of the galleries now it's a five by seven piece, it's like $500. I got the canvas for free, I priced it in the time that I put into it on an hourly basis. And when I sell more art, I feel like then I can start raising my prices accordingly a little bit. But I give myself an hourly wage when I do my work. I price it that way, I price in the costs associated with the material and then I see what happens. And then if I'm selling work, great, if I'm not, it's not an attack on my ego by lowering the prices. You lower the prices, you find where the market is for your work. And what I wanted to ask was, man, you worked at Ava, you've done a lot of sales at Ava. You know, I'm so hard of hearing that time for me. Is it hard? Okay, then I won't. I can answer a question. Well, I was curious about pricing your work and with your experience at Ava, what over your multiple decades of art, how you came to price your work. Okay, you know, a long time ago, I decided I wanted to be a community artist. I wanted to be, you know, a part of the community. I sell a lot of my own work. I'm always ready to sell. I've actually sold paintings on airplanes to the people that I have all got this story. So my prices, I'm not in a mode of, I raise my prices, but very slowly. And I'm not trying to build a reputation like for New York or something. So I, you know, I do raise my prices. I'm very careful. I mean, I even wrote a book. It's Amazon Kindle, a book by John Hopkins on selling your work because artists can be as so much in the way of selling their own work. So you've got to be very careful how you talk about your work. You want this whole thing, you know, like, because I did it two years ago. I always keep my prices, you know, it's like 3.95 for my less expensive oils. And I always find a way to have a couple of those in my art show. So I feel like people can, like I can buy one of those, you know. Yeah. If you make a thousand widgets, you want to sell them. But the bigger work is much more expensive, up to $4,500. Wow. I've sold those in Vermont. You have to just expect them to sell. That's, you know. So there's a long tail on your work that's more expensive. It may sit for several years before it sells. Yeah, I really focus on, for example, of the mud show. You know, if I'm going to enter that, I'm going to enter a big one because it'll go over the fireplace. Everybody will notice it. In a group show, when you have, I mean, some of your little pieces will stand out. But not always. And so either, you know, go for Megan's blush or, and often the price really doesn't matter to the buyer. So I don't get into discounts and things like that. I think you've got to be really careful. People talk to each other and, you know. It can be just awkward, set the price and keep the price and know what your prices are. And when someone turns to me and says, oh, you know, I say, I sell my work and this one would be 3.95. And you know, you're just ready to say it. Yeah. You're not saying it. Not that it's been sitting in your basement for six years. What, this whole thing? Yeah. Don't undercut your galleries. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're doing a lot of work that you maybe don't want to do. So don't undercut them at your own, you know. It's all a part of that culture of like building a culture around valuing artistic work. And that's an important part of it, I feel like. But really cultivate your patrons and cultivate that patrons and understand they're going to be your best buyer. They're coming back all the time looking at your work and they're the most likely buyer for the second or fourth painting. Yeah. I will get a discount to them if they're buying two at a time or if they're buying, you know, two within a week or something. Yeah. But in general, they're not like in Brazil. They're just looking at my paintings, you know, like. I think that goes back to that empowering yourself and embracing that role of running your business and not that comfort level with money. Somebody like talking about money makes us all feel icky and usually the people who, when it's not talked about, it's the people who have the least who are most negatively impacted. So I think that's also part of a cultural thing. Like we all probably have to deal with individually but culturally talking about it. So all my work isn't good enough, that's the thing. Right. That's what you're trying to say. My work is a baggage. No, it's bad. It's bad person's work. Mine has to be cheaper for somebody to want to take it away. And that's a very personal thing to kind of get over. Yeah, absolutely. There's very technical ways that you could do comparisons, you know, the very traditional marketing checking what other people are selling comparable things for. But that doesn't translate as well into creative because you're putting so much work. So a good, like know your venue, I think, is more important than knowing your comps. So understanding if you're selling in a gallery in Woodstock, maybe you can bump your prices up and why not do that. But here you might be, know what your baseline would be and then like fluctuate from there, yeah. I think that's hard to tell a lot of different types of arts that show a place like this. Because there are people, they came downstairs, there's people who do a lot of work on what they do and people that only have a few pieces what they do. And so like I say, the price ranges get all over the place. And it's hard, like for expectations for people to come and see a show here, I think that's one of the issues why we don't sell a lot. I think that's another reason why it's important to expand out to a number of different venues to show your work. But I submitted 100 submissions last year to reviews and I was on the cover of one. I was in about eight different universities. I was at Carnegie Mellon. I was at the cover of just a bunch of little places and every one of them was an opportunity to get to know new people and add it to my network and my stuff is like weird shit, right? So some of the stuff that I have here is a little more normal. Some of the stuff I sell or I show in other places a little bit weirder. And then I start seeing the fringe outsider art community kind of build. I've got friends up in Montreal that are like there's a whole outsider art scene up here that's really interesting. And like I'm just getting kind of like the real tight knit community and I'm just starting to get in on it a little bit. This ties into the, it segues really well into what a community can do to strengthen the artist in the artist community. And organizations like what cultivators becoming, organizations like what you're doing, Jess, what Vermont Arts Council is doing. Vermont Arts Council has every year you're giving out millions of dollars in support to communities, to cultural centers like Chandler to individual artists. So there's always resources available but it brings us down to the thing where you have to actually reach out and be part of a community to get to know what's there. And like art, like things that what we're doing is so unique that it's always shifting and evolving. One of the things that we've had a challenge with at Chandler is before COVID hit, we had a vision and a strategy of where we were going. And then now, whoa, whoa, that's not it anymore. And we're still trying to figure it out. You know, our seed sales are 60% of what they were or less prior to the pandemic. We're trying to re-identify, reshape ourselves. And I think a number of the cultural institutions in the state are trying to figure out that. And if the cultural institutions are in that quagmire, the individual artists have to be in a similar place trying to figure out where you are in this digital world. What is digital art now? What is AI? What sort of influence is it having? You go online and you see art. It is so big and so intense and so, like all of your senses are getting stimulated with some of this work, right? Like sometimes when I go on social media or I go and I see some of this digital work, it makes me angry. Like how can somebody see what I'm doing is interesting after they've been so utterly stimulated online. But this brings us back to the community. It brings us back to the community supporting each other. It brings us back to having a smaller base to build off of, to sell your work, to get that affirmation that you need. It's not going to be as big as we perceived it to be in years past. I've kind of heard that before with respect even to farms. It's the story that sells it. You know, they go, I knew this couple when they started off, you visit their ducks every spring and they're baby sheep and all the rest of it. Like it's, there's very much a connection and a story. And I think you can, and I say story almost as in the sense of like a movie or a narrative or a novel, but like it does seem like there's a lot of human connection in a relationship. There's some found online, but it's often, you know, as a referral or referral from a Facebook group or a referral from a friend or, you know, they really all of a sudden have to be very cellophane-y and there's one painting on the whole internet called the very cellophane-y. And that was their research thesis though. I mean, it's very, there's those tight-knit connections even online. Yeah. Oh, I was going to follow up on that with like that ties into sort of the online presence. Like you literally have a brand yourself. And I'm hearing there's like a lot of burnout with those artists that are like super online, posting every day and doing videos, doing TikToks, doing, you know, every single social media channel. They have to become like marketing expert. And that's part of it is a story because you have to be a brand as well as sell your artwork. It's like two jobs in one. Yeah. Which is like, it's just the nature of how it works out. If I can pin you back on that, just to say there needs to be the opposite of it. There needs to be. You need to divorce yourself from it for a while. And last summer I did a two-week art residency which was offered and it was, it was incredible except it ended with a flood. So that was bad because I was completely disconnected from my family for a little bit while I was working out a river raging through my house, which it wasn't doing with Muckles, but that, so there was a bittersweet ending to it, but for two weeks I wasn't on a phone. I wasn't looking at the news cycle and I was making art every day. And so I would urge everybody to pull back from that business part that you need to do. You need to do it, but also go back to your core of what you make art. Anyway, yeah, find a time to sequester yourself with your practice enough that you're not distracted by all that stuff because that can be vital. And in making you, making it so that when you get back to the spreadsheet, you'll be like, okay. Going back to your Venn diagram. Yeah. Analogy is definitely an important aspect of branding and finding like the root of what you do and defining what success means to you, I feel like. And yeah, this takes some detachment to do that, but then also reattach to it. You kind of to constantly rebrand yourself a bit. I also come back to the point of community and developing that vocabulary for yourself. It really has a lot to do with who you talk to and the ideas that they have for you and your problems perhaps or what you bring to the table. And really, as far as not being really tech savvy and not like computers about, you don't necessarily have to, but you have to know what you want out of it. I feel like the results and the success that you're looking for as soon as you bring that, you know, a little education, a little research with Google, but ask it what you need and you can find the help in the community. There's people that are experts in the digital realm and you'll be excited for your problem. Kind of just that Venn diagram, multiple Venn diagrams, mostly time and business development, but, you know. Yeah, maybe in the end, your Venn diagram's gonna be like a piece of abstract art, right? Yeah. Well, is there a chat forum like for Vermont artists going, how the heck do I? There's quite a lot of active Facebook groups. Like I'm aware of, one's called Artists of Vermont. The Vermont Creative Network, which has been an initiative that we run at the Arts Council in collaboration with lots of different artists and sectors. It's called the Vermont Creative Network. So we have a Facebook page, but more importantly, we've kind of broken up the state into zones and we really focus on networking and research and advocacy as well. But there's, so here in this area, Megan Askberry from the Two Rivers Audit Beachy, Regional Planning Commission is the zone agent and she'll convene different networking things from time to time. That's in real life. IRL, Mod, the chat, is that the group, or is that? I can put you in touch with Megan actually. She's a great resource. And we're co-hosting with them at the end of April, which I can plug now or later. So we're doing, it's Artistry Meets Innovation. If anyone's aware, there's an amazing advanced manufacturing lab up on PTC's campus. It's insane. And we're doing that at Open House and tooling it towards what, for creative producers. And it may or may not be useful for what you do, but just going through it, you'll be inspired. And so we're gonna meet, we'll meet Barry, who's the director, and then do tours through the advanced manufacturing labs up there. It's April 29th. We have not determined time yet, but if you also sign up for Pultator's newsletter, you will also get that. There's another networking organization in the state for women, Vermont Women for New Orleans. And that was a place that I started last spring and Abby brought them here to Wittengrit. Yeah, that one was like a month ago. It was in January? It wasn't that long. Yeah, I know. And we're having another one of those in May 6th. Can we get on that list? Or do you want to email us? Pultator? Yeah. It's Vermont Women for New Orleans. So it's like, I'm sure the word starts with a name. Women for New Orleans. And just go onto their website and sign up for their newsletters, and you'll get information about all the meetups they have around the state, which are regular, but it's great when you can have one that's right here at Wittengrit or elsewhere. What is it again? Yeah, Wittengrit. Wittengrit is a great spot. I wonder about the list. Everybody put their emails on it. Oh yeah, people prefer that instead of going to a website. We can actually follow up with everyone with your email from tonight as well. Yeah, I was just about to suggest if you could compile all these wonderful things. I write down things all the time. I'm just going to say all the time. Do you like to have it? That looks like my not bad. I had a question that I was going to ask before the other thing that I said was, you seem to be able to find things to submit work to that are all over the place. Is there some kind of like national or state list of things to submit all queries? Yeah, I use submitable as my primary source for submissions, for literary reviews, for visual art, for residencies, for exhibitions. And it's a fantastic site. Once you've done 100, it's easy to send these. You can do a submission while you're cooking dinner one night because you have all your stuff in order. You know what to throw in. And it also gives you an opportunity to learn. I get rejections on Fridays. That's sort of like my wife and I have jokes where it's like, oh, it's Friday, it's rejection day. I got four rejections today. But every once in a while, I get accepted or we get accepted. We have a little celebration. And you know, I keep my reviews in the bathroom sometimes. If you want it, it's still there next to you. Yeah, but yeah, submitable is really good. And they say that the success rate for people that actively use it is about 2%. So it's very low, but it's worth doing because you get your work out there. Every once in a while, you get really good responses from people like, we could not use your weird shit, but boy, we loved it. And you know, this is what we liked about it. And we want to, maybe we want to put you in touch with this other person and maybe you can do this. Yeah, I've had a few cases where it's been, it's been really a fun process, even being rejected. So submitable, that's I think the most successful one out there. This goes back to your question about whether to post it to Instagram or not. Is it worth it? Just have a presence there, even if it's not, if you have to not get any tons of engagement, because if you have a piece in the show here, for instance, or you do something through submitable and end up on a cover somewhere, people will look you up and they want to see a little more about you. And then that's sort of becoming a place where they can see a little more. It's a landing place where they can see you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and also when I see something by an artist and I go look for them on Instagram and I don't find them, I'm like, what the heck? They're not good, what? That's a really interesting point. There's a- It's a pretty low lift. Yeah, there's a site called SoloTO and that's like an opportunity for you just list links to different pieces of work. And that's what I started before I made a website. And I put just a list of where I had exhibits. I put a list of, I write music so I put a link to all the music that I've written on SoundCloud and Make Connections. I made a little video. So, and I keep my SoloTO open. Wait there, Mark, you're going... I can ask, do you have a website? You can put your link there. Or do you have something? You can put your social media links. So you start throwing in a little bit more and you're filling out, because everybody that's looking at your work and checking it, they all have a different style of making a determination if they want to work with you or buy your work. So if you offer a number of different ways, some people are more visual. They want to actually look at a picture of your work. Some people want to see a video. And if you have some video stuff, you can look at that. Some people want to, they're just weird people out there and the people that look at your work are usually really weird. And so, they're artists. They're weird. And you never know what's gonna hook them in. So the more you create yourself, the more well-rounded you are just like a business, if you're able to kind of present yourself in a real well-rounded, holistic way. I know that's a word that's kind of overused, but your work is more likely to be seen. And I am by no means a professional artist. I am an emerging artist, but I have a lot of energy and drive and support from our community. And I think that what you'll find in Randolph is we really do have an enormously supportive community for the arts. And it's really just a budding thing that's happening. We've always had creative artists in our community, but it's becoming something more. And this is why having new folks here tonight is so important to me from an economic development standpoint, but also as an artist. Having Amy here tonight from Vermont Arts Council is a real privilege. The Vermont Arts Council does enormous support for the artistic community. She has resources. She knows people. And we're just so, we're so happy to have you here. Thrilled to be invited. And if I can't just say briefly a little bit more about grants that we offer. So we're the state arts agency. There's one of us in every single state. And the way it works is that the national downward for the arts gives each state some money. The state has to match that money. And it's our job to invest those resources to support the artistic community in all different ways throughout the state. So we're investing in arts organizations, in arts education, in community art projects, and in individual artists. Not every state arts agency is able or willing to give money directly to artists. We have the privilege of being able to do that. Grants can play an important role in how you're thinking about your career. And I want to also just kind of, the caveat there is that there are extraordinarily competitive. And we are thrilled that we've been able to quadruple the amount of money that we have available to individual artists. So we're giving out a lot more grants. We're giving out slightly bigger grants, although I wish they could be bigger. The fact remains that our funding rate is about 10 to 14% for individual artists' grants. So I don't say that like, I feel weird saying like it's very competitive. Like we wish that wasn't the case. I think it's a result of just like the unbelievable cultural creative talent that there is in this state. And I also think it's important to say, just in terms of like managing people's expectations. But we do have two primary grants for artists. And I brought a handout that's called Resources for Artists. They're on the wrong table at the exit. Yes. So, and this handout kind of breaks out the particular grant programs and the other kinds of resources that we have available, including that Vermont Creative Network that I was mentioning a little while ago. So the two primary artistic grants for individual artists are the Creation Grant Program, which is open now, which is up to $5,000 for the creation of new work. And then the smaller grant that operates twice a year is called the Artist Development Grant. And so that's up to 2,000. And that's for, hey, I need a website developer, or I need marketing assistance, or I have this opportunity to, we just supported someone who's going to a really important national conference to speak in their field, poetry. And they couldn't otherwise go and be a part of that. So that's, so I just wanna mention those two resources. Grants can be a real pain. We try to simplify the process and remove the barriers. We're really happy to talk to people and like help them through the process. And you just have to kind of figure out whether it's all grants, not just us, or worth your time, because there is some amount of work and it is no guarantee, but it can be a useful part of kind of your income stream. So who are you looking for? How is that 10% you're looking for? What do you guys think? 10% we don't wanna take the time of day. We just can't afford it. Right, yeah. No, you've gotta make that decision whether you wanna go into that grant making realm because you are having to take time to really articulate what your mission is and what you're doing. The way our grants work, because we're giving away government money, there is some accountability there. And so the way we operate, most state arts agencies operate, we're not making this decision. So we're not sitting with an idea of, we want abstract, we want weird, we want Mark's weird shit. We are, all of our grants are discipline agnostic. So all disciplines, so you're in the mix with musicians and sculptors and theater folks, and we employ an external panel process. So we put out the guidelines for applicants so you can see really clearly, it's kind of like being a teacher. Here's the rubric that you're going to be graded on. Here's the things we're looking for. Try to be really clear with the applicants in advance. Here's what we're looking for. And then we pull in panelists from all over and often work with individual artists. If you're interested in serving as a panelist, it's a really, did you do it recently? No. Okay. Have we paid you well before? No. What? Okay. Anyway, so we're recruiting from the community, always looking for a broad diversity of perspectives, different disciplines, different kinds of points of view. And they kind of go through and read the applications. Points for unique, by the way, that you just said, points for unique, differently. Yeah, well, each program has the kind of breakout of the criteria. Yeah. And so that's what, that's how the panelists are kind of, I just went through the decisions. I went through a couple of years of applying to some particular grants and what they really wanted was street theater. So unless you were doing street theater, like a production, whether it's tickets or absolute admission, they don't see that as affecting larger amounts of community, even if you sell lots of calendars and educational material, for example, or calendars and things like that. So it's just very... It feels like we're wasting our time when they already have a specific idea of what they're funding. Even though people are getting books with illustrations and text, it's not considered, what do they call it? Like street presence or performance of the contact exposure, I don't know. You know, they want a grant, they want to get the biggest impact as possible and they measure impact by performance attendance, essentially. How many people are passing on the street that day or how many people will go to the show or how, yeah. So like the way they scale it is... I think that's really important for everyone to do everything you can from the beginning to find out what the great tour is looking for. We try to be as transparent as possible. Here's how we're assessing it and we welcome those conversations with us beforehand. But yeah, that sounds really frustrating. I can speak for Vermont Arts Council. If there are people, you can actually call for clarification on the application process. You can actually, if you're on comfortable riding, you can do video submissions. You can do video submissions. So there are a number of opportunities to kind of... And now, and I know this sounds probably a little strange, but with AI, with the proper prompting, you can get assistance on the way that you're applying and you don't have to be ashamed of it. It's not like you're letting AI write your application but you're using, if you're using proper prompts and asking correctly, it's really worth your time to learn about what AI can offer. The people over the next 24 months that embrace AI in using it properly are gonna have a very distinct advantage over those that aren't. And it allows you to be able to apply for something like a grant at Vermont Arts Council by not making it less worthy, but actually making it better because it's very succinct. You ask to AI what the objectives are, what the clarifications, what the needs are for the actual grant. You talk about all your skills and you can have AI actually tie in those to help them write perhaps an essay on why this grant is important to you. And then you can take that and use that as a starting point to turn it into something that's a little bit more your own. And my wife works at Dartmouth. Dartmouth is an Ivy League school. There are some of the smartest people around and they've spent probably, she's spent probably a third of her time over the last year learning how design instructors are using AI to help teach. So this is the real deal. It's not all evil. It's not all something that's dangerous and bad. If you actually avail yourself of what it is and use it in an area that's helpful for you, you'll find that it can simplify your life a great deal. I will say Katrina's been teaching classes on how to use it. And more of a story. So the next ones that I have are actually image creation but if we're given up interest, I'll do the language one again. So it's teaching chat GPT how to use it to do what you're doing better, learn your business, write your business plan and do it ethically. Yes, we have a nice discussion about this as well. And the whole, I mean, going back to the topic of the story or whatever it is that makes the art interesting, I think what's gonna happen as we're flooded with this AI imagery, is it's gonna be the tactileness of things that are actually created by hand and that's what's gonna get people interested. More than 100%. Right, right. So showing that in your social media I think it's gonna be important whether that's video or with the story or maybe showing the piece as it goes through the creation phases. I think it's gonna make a big difference. That's really good. That's been a huge discussion in the licensing industry just because for the wall decor side, we obviously use like AI as a tool like for writing blog posts or coming up with concept ideas or just generative fill and Photoshop or Firefly. There's all kinds of uses for it but unfortunately what we've been seeing is like customers who will use mid journey to create 100% AI wall decor and sell that wholesale which it's a total change from the way things used to be it's happened very fast and there's no laws to protect artists whose art has been used for those learning models. So part of the reason I'm here is I feel like my job isn't gonna be around for a very long time and I'm gonna have to do that pivot to figuring out an alternative. I do think real art is going to become a luxury good as we see this glut of like disgusting looking like digital weird art hit the market I think customers will be able to tell the difference and we'll look for real tactile art. Yeah, I love geometric art but now when I see geometric art that's perfect. Even it's like I question whether it's digital or whether it's human made and so therefore that's what I do when I do my art when I do geometric work I purposefully make sure that there's like it does not look like the lines are perfect. It's not as tight as what I want it to be maybe a few years ago because I am, I feel like it's gonna fall into a category where it's just that was digitally created and I do I think the little nuances the what could be perceived as mistakes or a weakness years ago is now gonna be a it's going to be a distinct advantage. Again, during the next 24 months it is an opportunity. I was a trader on Wall Street for 20 years and every time there was disorder and chaos in the markets it was an opportunity to make a shitload of money and this is where we are as artists right now. There's a lot of chaos in the market. There's a lot of fear. Nobody really knows how it's gonna kind of sugar out so figuring out a way to sort of come up with a place within this disorder and chaos right now can be very valuable for not only for us individually but for us as a community where we can come out of this as a place where we can be a hub for artists. We can be a place where people want to learn and talk about experience and stuff. That can be our community. And so we are, this is a very special time even though it doesn't necessarily seem like it is. Can I mention something we haven't talked about yet? I'm curious how many folks are, you mentioned teaching a class at artistry and as you look at the diversified income streams that a lot of artists have often being a teaching artist or leading workshops and that sort of thing is a really important piece of that. So I'm curious, I know you mentioned you're an art teacher. I'm an art teacher for preschoolers. Awesome, awesome. That whole realm of being a teaching artist whether you're an employee within an organization or you're doing gig works, you're doing residencies at different places, I think there's a lot of rich opportunities in the state for that. We have a, what do you call it? The idea exchange for teaching artists, kind of a networking regular meeting for teaching artists. We have a teaching artist roster. There's other, many arts organizations have rosters of teaching artists who they're using for various different things whether it's teaching classes for adults or during the residency in the classroom. So just kind of lifting that up because it hasn't really been mentioned. Yeah, that's excellent. I think we have about 20 minutes left. So one of the, I had four topics in mind of, but we've kind of, it's funny because we've sort of gone through all of the topics organically. But one that we've just touched on is the mental health of artists and what resources are available for artists to be able to pull out of their plows, to be able to have support to, I think it's very easy. Is there a few of you who are talking about being sort of very introspective at home, sort of a reclusive maybe a little bit. And I think artists, especially when, like at times when you're really in the zone and you're working, you can be very reclusive. It could be like, I think creating art can be very selfish endeavor where you're really in a zone and you're working on a project. Like you just disconnect with everybody. And then when you come out of it, you gotta like realize, you gotta sort of reconnect with your family and your friends and or conversely, if you're having a really hard time and you're struggling, there's a whole slew of opportunities for artists to feel like they're struggling. So I'd love it if any of the panel members could talk a little bit about what, if any programs are available for artists to be able to tap into, to reset, to get that sort of vulnerable conversation. You're talking about the stable residency? Residency, yeah, I think, the residencies are the best thing. And there's so many of them once you start tapping in. And that's a place where in your Instagram feed, if you start looking for some and following them, then you find like a million get thrown at you and every third picture that pops up is a polymer residency in France, like. Okay. How much does it cost? Yeah, they're all over the place in costs. So yeah, I mean, the France one would be like $5,000. But there are tons of them, especially around the Northeast, like ones that are drivable, so you don't have to get on an airplane to go. There's lots of them in Maine, there's lots of them in Vermont, New Hampshire. You can just start snooping around the inner ones and you will find them. Where did you do your residency? I did mine at Sable, which is in Stockbridge, Vermont. And it's a very rustic one. It's called Sable? Sable, it's called the Sable Project. And it is, it's on a mountain without cell service and internet. And it was pretty magical. It is a camping residency, so you have to prepare it yourself for rustic living. But it's great, they feed you beautifully. And it's super rustic and I lived in a tent where it rained every day and I survived. That's a common application to the Artist Development Grant program is helping folks fund residents. I painted that planare under an umbrella a couple different days and then just out of my little hut through the window. Because I wanted to do planare things all the time, but the skies weren't allowing it. But it still was a really, really great time. Plus, it was a lot of interaction with other people who were there. They do, their residencies are for all kinds of disciplines. So there was a singer-songwriter. There was two dancers in part of it. And they had an outdoor stage there. So while I was in my little space with the rain pouring down and my tent roof, I was looking down out of my window to dancers on the stage through rain. It was really great. On submitable, you could apply to a hundred different residencies. Well, you're cooking dinner. Well, it's funny, with my job that I have now, part of my negotiation was that I could take up to four weeks off a year without pay for a residency. So I didn't have to sacrifice my relationship with my family with vacations and that sort of thing. So if one comes up that I get accepted to, I feel like I've made a mental plan to be able to do it and to take the time. But I also think realistically, not everyone has an opportunity to go on residencies. And so this is where we are, our family is a huge believer in therapy. We all have five kids, their wife, we all have therapists, and we constantly do check-ins and reality checks just because the stress of life is so crazy. We live in such a divisive society. And all the emotions that come and putting yourself out there as an artist, it's just always helpful to be able to check in and communicate with somebody that, listen. The Vermont Studio Center also in Johnson, Vermont, that they do it Vermont week. Vermont week. Are they doing more than one now? Yeah, I thought it was once a year. I think it's once a year, but yeah, they just did their first one and they stopped doing it for a while. I did it about 10 years ago. I think they're doing one in May. Highly recommended, isn't it? The Vermont Studio Center is an internationally known residency program for artists of all disciplines and it's in Johnson, Vermont. And they hold a special residency week which is very affordable. Very affordable and they feed you. Yeah, yes, they do. And it's a great, beautiful. But you do have to go for an application in there because, oh yeah, it's... It's kind of... Yeah, it's very competitive. They take writers... There's so many arts in Vermont. Writers and artists. Okay. I have a question for you, Amy. I've noticed that on a national level, not Randolph, but Vermont artists do tend to struggle more in terms of their average earnings on an annual basis than other states. We're much lower. What's your big down on that? I don't... No, no, no. No, I think it's... We've done a lot of research and I think it's a really important question. We're actually working with University of Vermont Center on Rural Entrepreneurship to do a new set of research and trying to get that income piece because some of the studies... So, yes, artists in Vermont need to be making more money. Like, I believe that 1,000%. Also, a lot of the data is a reflection of folks with side dates. Look, like it's not... And so, if you say the average Vermont artist makes 11,000 a year, then that leads one to think that we've got truly an epidemic of starving artists in Vermont. And I don't think it's any more true than in other places. Okay, so the data is not accurate. The data sets are really hard to measure because we like the agricultural sector working gigs and we piece it together and doing a lot of other things. So it's hard to get... But your bigger point that Vermont artists need to be making more money is an important point. It's an important point, but it's good to know that. Yeah, because the numbers seem so lopsided that we're at 11,000 or 12,000. The natural average is 25,000. We've got such a supportive community. Why the hell are we making half of what other places? Population and logistics. I mean, we're so spread out in a lot of rural areas. It's not like there's a lot of venues. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but to show your art and to be active in showing it, I mean, unless you go to all the crafts fairs not all artists are equipped to do that because it's financially not that easy to do and also you have the huge body of things to take at one time. But I think it's because there's, you know, you can probably have a two or three page list of all the galleries that actually sell work in the state. It's, I think that's part of it. We also have an enormous asset as a very, very rural state as you say. And yet we're sandwiched between three of the biggest arts markets there are. You know, that access to, I mean, I talked to my colleagues who are working and supporting artists in the middle of Wyoming. You know, the idea of them going to Boston for anything or New York City. So I think that I'm agreeing with your point and then just adding that you do have some advantages over some other far more isolated rural places. That's true. Having Montreal in New York City and Boston, there's a number of artists and maybe some of you who's, they are selling to her monitors. We also, yeah, we are a tourist industry as well. Yeah, the idea that artists should price their items based on Randolphs. Exactly. I mean, it's not what we should be thinking. We should be thinking how do we market Randolph as a destination for our culinary and our arts. Our new website is gorgeous. I looked at it and it's like, oh my God, I live here. So if you're not, if you don't know, we have a new website in Randolph. It's called The Vibe. And The Vibe has, yes, it's a project that was born during the pandemic, but it's now live. There's a very artistic feel to it. We actually developed the website based off of, we stole some of the design from a bunch of different galleries that we saw interesting the way they present their work. So we created our vibe website with it to appeal to the senses. Randolph5.com. Yeah, Randolph5.com. We also have blogs. We've found funding to support our website, to support blog writing. It's really exciting and it's just begun. So there's a lot of opportunities to build out, especially for the arts. And so if you haven't seen it yet, it's definitely worth checking out. And there's a calendar on there and you can submit things on the calendar. You go to that portion of the website and it'll come to me directly and we can post it for you. You can. Time back to the location Randolph is in that very unique central Vermont location. And potentially could even be seen, and we thought of hosting directories to Vermont artists. We have, yeah, we could do that. We have tags and different sections on our directory and we have an artist directory. So you could put your information on our business directory and tag art and you'll, when someone goes and looks for art, they can see, they'll go right to you and your work with others. And it's really just begun. So that, and the business directory on the vibe is really exciting because you have an opportunity to put all your social media links on there, have a little blurb about yourself. So it's not just a boring directory. You go in, it's very interactive. You can push a button. It'll send you an email directly. You can push a call and bring up the phone number. If you're using your cell phone, you can just click the number and you'll connect to the person that you're trying to reach out to. So it's very, it's interactive. The ease of use was really important for us for the website so people can navigate around. The average person spends almost three and a half minutes on our website when they go. And we just opened in November. We've had over 10,000 people go to our site and the most popular ones of course are dining and play but also the arts. And Chandler has a big presence on the arts page because they are, we've had a huge digital void in central Vermont for a long time and Randolph is starting to fill that void. And over time the vibe will be able to be similar to what Rutland has which is they have other towns around Rutland actually are part of their website and they have links and stuff. And I see Randolph playing that role with our surrounding communities as well. So it's definitely a resource. Speaking of calendars, I just wanted to mention really briefly, we have a free arts calendar. So not only can you submit any events or gallery shows but it's also a really great place to look for things happening around the state. We also have a free arts classifies and a lot of galleries put their call to artists on that classifies. You can submit anything. I saw the artist recently was giving away some of their empty supplies, you know. So it's kind of an open classifies. There's job postings there, there's call to artists there. You can swap equipment and find stuff there too. So I encourage you to take advantage of that. Just run your website. Yes, and it's in one of these bullets here. Oh yeah. Well, I'll give a call. We have our local artist shows and open call just posted on the website and the theme is nature's palette. So you can do a lot with that. And the craft center is always looking for artists to get involved and also to exhibit. So the last, this one here is the one that's downstairs involves textile stuff. So again, my stuff is really strange and weird. So I created a four foot by 96 inch piece with 3,000 dog tags and all this weird stuff. And finally, the woman who was carrying it said, you know, what if I'm actually gonna put this in here because there's no fabric, there's no textile, there's no nothing. I was like, okay, that's fine. So, you know, another one of those rejections for me but I'm really happy about the work. I'm gonna put it somewhere else and so. It's part of, I'm really proud of it. And I'm looking forward to showing it in the future. But you know, the right time, the right place. And my wife keeps saying, you just send it to some veterinarian somewhere. Does anyone have any other questions for the panelists before we kind of wrap up? Were we gonna pass around, did you pass around the paper for people to pass through? Yep. That's really, thank you. This is to sign up for our newsletter unless we don't want that. You can just put a note on that and I'll share it with all of our newsletters. If you're okay with that. I apologize because I came in late but I didn't meet the panel. I don't know who is here we are. So Abby is, I'll just, I'll go through it real quick. I think Abby is the, she's the program coordinator for Cultivator which is Randolph's Innovation Hub. Sue is an active artist who's made the leap to working professionally. She has a fantastic website, she works. She does a great deal, you know, she's out there, she's doing it. And she's living the dream and Amy is the president of the United States. She's, she's with Vermont Arts Council. She's a deputy, what are you? Yeah, deputy director. Deputy director and you know these two. So that's, thank you. I'm looking forward to talking to you a little more about your experience with AI and because I've begun using it a little bit more I do a lot of letters of support for the business community. I had one happen last week where I had a very intense meeting with a feeder operation in our town. The feeder operator had such a noble high brow idea of what to do for his business over five years but it was just not profitable. We did a SWAT analysis of the business. We did a million different things. I've got pages of stuff from the work that we did. And, but he's so close to actually making a, being successful he reached out to me for a letter of support recently. And I took the pages that I had done and the work that I had done in the research of his business. I put it into an AI and I took the data on the grant website of what the deliverables were and all that. And I asked them to write a letter of support for the feeder. And it was absolutely amazing what I was able to work with at the end. And when I sent it over I felt confident that in the past a letter of support like that would have taken me three or four hours. And this one took me about an hour and a half. Two hours of savings. I could focus my time on something else. And the end result was, I always felt like my letters of support were maybe a B plus. This was an A plus plus. I was so proud of it. And so it really don't be, don't be too, too hesitant. The big thing that I'm finding the big pushback besides the whole ethics, which is a whole other conversation is just people say, well, I asked it something once and it turned out absolute garbage. And the big thing is it's garbage in, garbage out. How much detail you give it, the information you give it, it can get as specific as you need it. You can dial it after it's given you something, ask for more, ask for a different tone, ask for whatever you need. Absolutely. And they all have a different way of going out into the internet and actually helping you. Like for instance, Microsoft's AI is actually current. And so like if you want information that's current over the last couple of years, you wanna use Microsoft, chat, GBT and these other ones only have data that goes up to 2021. So like it's, and that's a huge difference among them. So having somebody and understanding. It's January 2022 now for the free version. If you use the paid version, then you're getting all the way. All the way up to now. So there's different nuances for each one. So again, it's garbage in, garbage out. The more you test and experiment, the more helpful it can be with whatever it is that you're looking for. At the end of the day, if you decide it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. It's, you know, you love writing, you love longhand, you love doing all that. But at the end of the day, if it's about saving time, about getting through an application for a grant that's too overwhelming. Whereas you're able to do something that you wouldn't otherwise have been able to do, then that is a win for the artist. Even just organizing yourself, if you've got 10 different things that stuff's written on napkins, stuff from emails, you can throw it in, you can ask it what the steps are to get something done. So it can be organized. The word that they use is prompts, right? The prompts that you put in are what helps you. But anyways, it's after eight. So thank you to all the panel members for being here and I hope we're able to connect again in the future. And remember, Randolph is here and it's only gonna get better over the coming year. So we're hoping that we'll see more of you in the future. Thanks for all the work we will do.