I'm very excited to have been selected as a participant in the Diverseworks Development Workshops, in partnership with The Houston Arts Alliance, Leveraging Investments in Creativity, and Creative Capital. I'm part of a cohort of visual artists and writers at different career levels that will be able to enjoy these workshops (for free, yes!) that cover Strategic Planning, Budgeting and Financial Management, etc.
(DW)2 is a six-month series of development workshops for artists looking to expand their practice at the professional level. Along with monthly focused workshops on varying topics, the program facilitates a mentorship to help reinforce the newly acquired information. Since the program’s inception in 2003 and through its years of development, DiverseWorks has been able to assist a diverse group of over 150 participants with their ability to professionally expand as an artist.
We had our first workshop on Wednesday, which was Strategic Planning I led by Sara Kellner from Kellner Consulting. Sara was the former Executive Director of Diverseworks, as well as Visual Arts Director at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY. I participated in a workshop with Sara as part of labotanica's School of Latitudes residency last summer, so really psyched to get 2 full workshop sessions with her (6 hours total).
In our first 3-hour workshop, Sara asked us to take part in several exercises designed to get us to think about goal setting, organizing our lives and our practices, and other aspects of strategic planning. We started by listing our accomplishments from previous years, which was followed by creating a vision for our futures, and breaking that down into clear, identifiable goals. She emphasized that we need to be careful not to censor ourselves at this phase of planning and to allow our imaginations to dream as big as we desired to.
I was surprised when looking at my short term goals and how many of them dealt with desires related to quality of life, relationships, health, and other personal goals.. When thinking about my "art career" I'm always so focused on pushing myself to make more (and better) work, to conceptualize, to find new ways to expand my practice, hustling, and balancing part-time teaching and other gigs, that I don't stop to think about the personal side of what is happening. I feel it's distracting at times. Through strategic planning I hope to allow myself to refocus on a better quality of life and having fun in my work.
One exercise that was also very eye-opening for me was writing my obituary, or the view from my 75th birthday. The point of this was to think about how we want to be remembered by our loved ones, colleagues, friends, and what sort of legacy we want to leave behind. Some of these things conflicted with the goals I had just brainstormed, so there's some interesting room for exploration in this area.
As homework, we received an excerpt from The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love that goes into much more detail about goal setting and realizing your vision. We also each received a copy of Business of Art: An Artist's Guide to Profitable Self-Employment. I'm going to schedule some dedicated time over the next week to tackling my goal-setting.
Looking forward to Strategic Planning II tomorrow...
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