 The main college of art in collaboration with Creative Portland and the Quimby Foundation is launching a professional development series designed to give professional artists the tools they need to succeed in the business of art. Tom talked with program director Jessica Tomlinson and artist Edwidge Charlot about the skills the new program will offer. Edwidge, Jessica, thanks for joining us. A lot of exciting things are happening at MEKA and there's a new series for artists coming up that is in a collaboration with other organizations including artists at work which is something at MEKA that people may not know about. So before we get into the see or talk about the series, Jessica do you want to talk a little bit about what artists at work are? Absolutely Tom, thank you. Artist at Work is a new initiative at Maine College of Art to provide our students and our alums with the critical skills, opportunities and experiences they need to be creative professionals in the world. And so we're offering them a professional development workshop series starting in October which is what we're here to talk about today. Great, yeah and I understand that's also a collaboration with Creative Portland and Maine Lawyers. Maine Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. We're very grateful for the Quimby Family Foundation for providing critical support to allow this collaboration to happen starting in October. And we do have a special vantage point because not only are you a faculty member but you're also an alum. Well, faculty is a little misleading. I'm an artist in residence in the printmaking department at MEKA and I have done some assistant teaching at MEKA but like you mentioned I am an alum so this is an especially great sort of initiative that the Maine College of Art has taken on is to continue the work that we've started as students to give us the skills to think about all the parts of being an artist, how to manage your taxes, how to promote your work and even getting legal advice on protecting our artworks to think about intellectual property as being something to think about. Somebody who is a working artist would know the kind of issues that artists face when they get out there so it's kind of a little surprising for me anyway to hear that lawyers are involved which sounds like a great idea. What was the impetus, what was the need that you saw that this series is hopefully addressing? Oh sure, there's a critical need for this information. So often the educational experience focuses on the studio skills which are of course the core critical skills that you need and then people say I didn't learn how to make a living as an artist and so we hear from our alums and we hear from people in the community quite honestly not MEKA graduates but other people who are here they need those critical skills to understand how to take their artwork to the next level to how to understand themselves as a business and so that's why it's a great partnership with business people with lawyers with accountants and artists to help provide that next step in the education of an artist. I suppose that this is open to any artist not just alum of MEKA, is that true? Absolutely and that's what's one of the best parts about this program is that it gives MEKA alums and current students an opportunity to network with other artists who are in the area. I mean as a marketing and networking event it's it's really really great and they'll be happening every second Wednesday of every month. And the first one's coming right up in October? October 10? Yes and so they're six to nine they're free for MEKA faculty, staff, students and alumni and it's ten dollars for others. The first one is grant writing for artists, the next one is pricing your artwork and the third come holiday time is doing your taxes as an artist. So those are the first three. So how's the response been? I mean how many people have you had signed up for it so far? So the way that it worked we actually did a poll of the community we had over 200 people respond to our poll about what kind of professional development programming they wanted to see so we're really thrilled that we're actually tailoring our programming to meet the community need. That's great so you know that those 200 people that responded to the survey obviously are interested in seeing this sort of thing. So you've got a lot of people signed up for the first event already you think? Yes there's a lot of interest. It's a critical issue. Grant writing for artists is again a skill that's not necessarily taught in art school and it's about making sure that you have the right portfolio put together to make your grant application appealing to the jury. Well there's a lot of things involved with that too because sometimes you need to have a 501c3 or an organization back you up with that sort of thing so that's a great way to get started with it. There's so much information that probably people want to know about this series is there a phone number or website or both that people can go to to get more information? Yes because this is an initiative that is spearheaded by creative Portland the website is portlandarts.org again that's portlandarts.org and there's information about the series and how to sign up in advance. And the name of the series that people would look for on that site is? Sure it's the professional development workshop series for artists. Okay at the Weege Jessica thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks.