Artists who participate in our annual wholesale/retail event, Craft at the Market, all receive a promotional toolkit that has everything they need to promote their participation and their business, to promote their participation in the show through various means: whether that be through print media, radio communications, television, or more and more through social media. We provide them all the tools they need to do that, at the local level. We do our own promotions at the state and national level for that show, but also encourage them to promote themselves through their own channels and networks. That’s a really good example of something that is sometimes successful and is sometimes not successful, and it depends on the artist’s willingness to use the tools that are provided to them. What we have found is that the artists who will use what is sent to them, those who are really go-getters and who will share the information, that they have much better results than the folks who use one or two pieces of the information sent to them.

We had people talk about available commercial space. We’ve created the opportunities, we haven’t really tracked how people have followed up with these opportunities, but we have created the opportunities. We also have resource fairs, particularly around artists who are also educators. So, we make it available but I don’t think we’ve followed up.

It’s not about bringing artists through our doors and introducing them to one another or an institution. It’s about trying to get people out to their openings, gallery exhibitions, things like that, because that tends to be where you have the best chance of even having people already there to introduce them to. So, we can’t be relying on them coming to us; we need to be doing a decent job of staying on top of the arts scene and its programming throughout the area, and making sure that folks in this city know about folks in that city. Sometimes that’s even just very casual: “Oh you’re looking for a studio, I know someone who is leaving theirs.” I wouldn’t say we have a lot of formal things encouraging that.

Robert Gipe, Appalachian Program Director for the Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College, shares experiences with community based arts projects as well as the challenge of creating opportunities for young people who want to stay and thrive as artists in their hometown.