The Grand Marais Art Colony has announced a new conference to be held March 6 – 8, 2020, in Grand Marais. The three-day For the Love of It! Conference is focused solely on professional development for artists.
“Artists have told us for a long time that they want help with the professional side of their practice: everything from setting professional goals to learning how to price their work. This conference is a great chance to do a lot of that work in just one weekend,” says Drew Digby, Director of the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, or ARAC.
With an organizational mission of facilitating and encouraging arts development in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota, ARAC has been a major supporter of the conference since it was first brainstormed by Grand Marais Art Colony Artistic Director Ruth Pszwaro in the summer of 2019.
Digby is among the six presenters who will be leading ten individual sessions spanning the course of the conference. Joining him are Lynn Speaker and Greg Mueller, both career artists and board members of the Art Colony; Paul Lajeunesse, Professor of Art at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth; and Kathleen Durbin, a St. Paul-based musician, composer, and creative coach.
The keynote speaker of the conference is Philadelphia-based writer and choreographer Andrew Simonet, who, in 2006, founded Artists U, an incubator for helping artists make sustainable lives. Because his organization shares many of the same goals as the For the Love of It! Conference, the Art Colony, identified Simonet as an ideal candidate for the conference’s inaugural year.
Sharing his thoughts on the struggles many artists face, Simonet says, “There is no roadmap for artists. Our careers and work are mostly self-generated. We create our art, and, at the same time, we build opportunities and resources to support it. This can be thrilling and difficult and isolating. Artists U and this gathering are crucial spaces for artists to connect and learn from each other. Like other professional associations and conferences, we make space for practitioners to swap ideas and strategies. How do you sell your paintings? How did you make a rehearsal space for your dance company? How do you bring community participation into your mural project? Connecting with other artists makes our work stronger, our impact deeper, and our lives more sustainable.”
According to Pszwaro, the For the Love of It! Conference pledges to address some of the thorny issues that arise when making a career out of being an artist. Conference sessions include not only practical topics such as pricing work and grant writing but also topics such as understanding one’s creative strengths and orienting an artistic practice around such strengths. Each session is priced individually, so attendees can either participate in everything at the conference or take a frugal approach and select just the sessions in which they’re most interested.
While the most comprehensive conference pass will cost $160 (with a discount for current Art Colony members), individual sessions are priced at either $10 or $25 for those interested in tailoring their own schedule. Additionally, once the conference begins, attendees will have the added benefit of being able to sign up for one-to-one appointments with the conference presenters so that each attendee can get direct feedback and advice on any particular topics with which they might be wrestling.
The Art Colony hopes for a strong turnout from regional artists and, as Pszwaro says, “loving a practice and sustaining it inherently go hand-inhand.” Digby adds, “We spend a lot of time helping artists think about their careers and finding the resources to do the work they want to do. We’re excited to help artists live better lives.”
Tickets are available now through March 1, and can be acquired by calling the Art Colony, visiting the Art Colony, or can be purchased online at grandmaraisartcolony.org/events/for-the-love-of-it-conference/.
Member discounts apply.
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