Page 40 - BusinessWest August 8, 2022

specific communities — not just geographic, as in individual cities and towns, but into the Native American, Hispanic, African-American, and other demographic communities in the local creative ecosystem, to get them involved and develop a richer and more robust membership.
“The liaisons are working to help us under-
Clapp said. “The arts were hit so hard. Arts orga- nizations were slammed. It’s one thing to be closed down, but another thing to have absolutely no access to venues and no place to be found. One in six jobs in the Valley is tied to the creative economy, so it’s critical that this sector be sup- ported and have access to resources. We are here
Clapp said. “These are topics of interest to folks in the arts.”
A Lunch and Learn workshop series will likely follow, with artists given the chance to speak for 15 to 30 minutes about their work, she added. “I’m going to kick off the first one by talking about internships.”
Davol noted that the virtual creative-economy summit in January featured workshops on every- thing from how to get leads and market one’s work to how to get into galleries. “The Lunch and Learn may be a way to continue that. We’ll see what happens the first year and what needs are brought to the surface. What have we learned from this, what has been brought to our atten- tion, and where can we go? We’re very open to possibilities.”
Developing Story
Not only is ArtsHub connecting artists with resources and encouraging the community to hire locally, Boyle-Clapp said the general public might find the site useful as well, whether they’re look- ing for a musician for a bar mitzvah or planning on visiting the region and seeking cultural activi- ties to fill their itinerary.
“People have wanted this for a really long time. It’s a dream come true,” she told BusinessWest. “We’re really excited that it’s here, and now we’re just trying to get more people to know about us, to understand it, to access its potential. It’s a site that should be utilized as much as possible.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached a [email protected]
“The arts were hit so hard. Arts organizations were slammed. It’s one thing to be closed down, but another thing to have absolutely no access to venues and no place to be found.”
stand what the needs are of those artists who rep- resent those communities and help them tap the resources of the ArtsHub,” Boyle-Clapp said. “We think of the ArtsHub as a platform, and now we’re inviting other people to participate. Do you have a studio for rent? Are you looking for an actor
or artist? Do you have a grant available? This is where to post it.
“It opens up opportunities for everyone, so it’s not an exclusive group, which is why the com- munity liaisons are so important,” she went on. “They’re helping to open this up to the wider community of who’s working here.”
This effort comes at a time when the arts community is recovering from unprecedented challenge, particularly for those who depend on public gatherings, which were shut down for long stretches during the pandemic. The $186,000 grant, in fact, specifically targeted COVID-recov- ery efforts.
“How can we help this sector revive?” Boyle-
to help facilitate that as much as possible.” Most of the initial effort was building the site,
Davol said, and now the engagement piece is in full swing, getting artists to sign up. And it’s been successful, with about 2,500 Western Mass. art- ists on ArtsHub now, many busy connecting over shared resources and opportunities, while posting events to a calendar page.
“I think at the one-year mark, we’ll be able
to see what the impact has been,” she added. “There’s a lot of engagement on Facebook, a lot of people signing up. And the more people we can get, the better a resource this is for the creative community, and the more job postings there will be. It looks really great now, but it could be so much bigger.”
ArtsHub has also been engaging writers to share stories on the site, from the Rosenbaum profile to a recent discussion about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. “We have writers doing stories about individual artists and concepts,” Boyle-
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