Posts from ‘Economy’
The Cultural Council of Jackson Hole currently has all 2011-2012 Arts for All grant applications available. Arts and culture organizations, as well as individual artists, are eligible.
The Cultural Council’s Alissa Davies notes that the program “distributes social service tax dollars from the Town of Jackson and Teton County for arts education, producing and presenting opportunities, and public projects by individual artists that have a strong community benefit.” Â Up to $6,000 in monies can be awarded, but all grants must be matched 1:1 or more by applicants. Grants are cash.
Applications are due by June 1, 2011, and late applications will not be accepted. Any organizations receiving public funds from the Town of Jackson or Teton County are not eligible.
For full details, visit www.culturalcounciljh.org. Contact Alissa Davies at 307.690.4757 or  email culturalcounciljh@gmail.com.
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On April 27, 2011, Americans for the Arts hosted complimentary access to Transitioning into the Arts Sector in this Economy, a webinar for those
seeking jobs in the arts sector. Â I believe these webinars are free to those already registered in the American for the Arts Job Bank, so check their home website for details.
Americans for the Arts notes that their webinars are  ”geared toward those who are new to the nonprofit arts field and want to learn how to make their resumes and cover letters stand out.” The non-profit says their jobs links will help job searchers “discover what executives are looking for when hiring for open positions, and what to highlight if you’re transitioning from another industry.” Question and answer sessions are offered after the webinars.
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A quadruple opening this Friday night, May 6, beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Art Association:
- Y.A.R.D. Art Year 10 – “Works created by this year’s YARD (Young Artists Revolutionary Designs) Art students feature repurposed furniture made from recycled items in collaboration with the Habitat Restore. Their creativity knows no bounds – come see what these talented students in the YARD High School outreach program have created over the course of the schoolyear with instructors Sam Dowd, Javier Baez Armenta and Ben Carlson.”  On exhibition at the Artspace Main Gallery through May 23, 2011.
- Y.A.R.D. Art Alumni & Instructors – celebrate a decade of Y.A.R.D. with former students & teachers–Artspace Loft Gallery, on display through May 23, 2011.
- Figures: Eliot Goss at the Art Association – “A collection of ink wash drawings” by painter and architect Eliot Goss – Artspace Conference Gallery – on display through May 27, 2011.
- On the Other Side: Teton Mudpots and Driggs Clay Group Collaborative Ceramics Exhibition – Artspace Lobby Gallery – on display through May 27, 2011
Pro-active. Citizens creating their own opportunity. Creative people building an incubating economic arts engine in Jackson. Â That is good news.
Teton Art Lab and its new entity, the Factory Studios, are new arts non-profits with a mission to support the creation of new work, education and ideas by young up-and-coming artists.
I’m very worked up about the direction of development and use of donated and public funds here in Jackson. In an era where people are struggling to stay off the streets, frequenting food pantries in greater numbers, forgoing health insurance, and just plain leaving town…Jackson continues on the path of high rents, ever higher ski pass prices, over-building (ignoring voters mandate NOT to overbuild, or at least develop imprudently; even if you push through building projects one at a time, instead of en masse, the result is the same, a glut of empty commercial and luxury residential space), and lobbying for taxes we now may not be able to democratically allocate, expensive marketing to lure tourists who will probably stick mostly to their patterns, putting the idling police on the public’s tail (I know the source of this initiative and it is worthy, but our town’s real, immediate needs are urgent (at the least let’s pass a no-talking-on-cell phones-while-driving law)…Maybe we’re so insulated from our country’s massive tragedies and ruined lives that we just don’t see ourselves clearly.
We cannot, right now, fullfill personal agendas by repeatedly applying bandaids instead of finding real cures. Especially in cases resulting from egregious, imprudent financial planning. This is a time to re-set our compass. We urgently need to keep people here by creating good, long-term jobs and re-think uses for all the empty space. We built a “tunnel to nowhere” in the side of Snow King. It never felt right, and it turns out it ain’t. The mountain was gutted, condos were built that few, if any, people have bought, and now our town is in a position to lose crucial amenities. And more jobs.
I don’t hear our public officials talking in real terms about Jackson’s economic future. What is the vision? How will we get there? Is 10×10 on track? How many of our leaders are even aware of a 
federal tax rebate program benefitting green building and retro-fits? Â There are even benefits for government buildings.
Jackson needs a new identity, one that can include ski amenities and culture, but that should not be the major goal for Jackson’s development. Instead we must look to invite new businesses, focus on job growth—everybody else is—broaden our economic base. Let’s prepare for the certainty that there are no certainties. Let’s encourage leadership that inspires us, that is investing in tools we can use to position Jackson residents to flourish locally and globally. Â Keep track of how our government influences our lifestyles, what it encourages and what it does not.
I can’t predict how the  newly formed Factory Studios will ultimately fare because I’m not privy to their accounting. But I admire Travis Walker’s innovation and bravery in the face of hard times. He keeps coming up with new ideas, and HELLO!!!!!!  Town and arts vitality factors go up. Some young artists now operating out of the Factory were planning on leaving town until this space was harnassed.
As Travis and I have discussed, this is his version of a business incubator. Something we’ve talked about many times–and definitely here on the Blog. (Use keywords “economy,” “public art,” “smart growth,” or “economy,” Â ”vertical gardens” and “window art” to search for other related articles on the Blog.)
I am hugely impressed with the enterprise behind Teton Artlab’s new Factory Studios, a converted factory space made over into artist studios and work space. Teton Artlab, Strapped Glass, Treefight, the Deadlocks, Caldera Collective, Abbie Miller, Meg Daly, and Dave and Anomaly Farm are based there. Over 6,500 square feet will house a contemporary gallery, glassblowing studio, printmaking presses, and a digital media lab.Walker says eight private studios ranging from 112 to 1,000 square feet are on site.
Even though I may be out of town and miss their Grand Opening, you should not. The party takes place Thursday, January 13, 2011, 6:30 – 9:30 pm. The Factory (hello, Andy Warhol…) is located at 1255 Gregory Lane in Jackson. Lots of parking, check for space in and around Martin Lane and Bison Lumber. The opening party will feature large-scale textile art by local fashionista Abbie Miller and music by the Deadlocks.
www.tetonartlab.org/www.factorystudios.org
Paul West, "Key West Pier," copyright 2007
“The Photography” is here, and Edward Riddell brought it. Riddell’s affinity for European flair — particularly Italy’s culture and language—inspired him to title his new collection of curated fine prints Le Fotographie.
Photographers represented on the site are long-standing friends of Riddell’s, and he’s taught the craft alongside many of them. Knowing Riddell’s penchant for professionalism and perfection, colleagues were more than willing to test the idea. A ringing response to a challenging economy and a boon to photography collectors challenged by high prices, Le Fotographie offers the opportunity to purchase great photographic prints. Riddell calls photography one of America’s truly original contributions to the art world, and it just seems appropriate to make photography—a medium that can be replicated almost infinitely—available to anyone.
At this writing, Riddell has just re-structured his pricing. Prints are available beginning at $24.95 plus shipping and handling. Periodically the new business will offer free shipping on purchases over a certain amount. Prints are delivered in special boxes containing an embossed portfolio folder for the print, and a transparent, embossed protective tissue.
If Riddell is successful, his new resource stands to create solid competition for galleries charging much higher prices for limited edition prints. Le Fotographie is the second major innovative Jackson-based arts marketing project in as many months.
(These dynamic initiatives are at the core of what the Town of Jackson needs to incorporate as we plan for the future. We need to be in the business of creating a distinct identity, instead of trying to replicate Teton Village and Shooting Star aprés ski ambience. We don’t have the location, and we need to diversify our economic base. If you had $500/night to spend at a ski resort, where would you stay? In town, or at Teton Village/Shooting Star/Amangani?)
Riddell says Ansel Adams’ Yosemite portfolio is really responsible for the creation of Le Fotographie. In 1958, Adams made affordable prints of some of his most famous images. His will stipulated that those prints would continue to be made
Matt Mallams, "Purse Snatcher," copyright 2006
after his death; he reserved the other negatives, which will never be available for sale.
“As Ansel told the story he believed tourists and visitors to Yosemite ought to be able to have a really beautiful souvenir, something other than “rubber tomahawks” sold in so many of the shops. So to this day the prints are available for only $225, which is incredibly inexpensive for a real Adams print,” explains Riddell. “They are unsigned and stamped ‘Ansel Adams Special Edition Print.’ A signed version of any of those prints would be worth many thousands of dollars.”
Limited supplies are pricier, but few editions of any photogrpaher’s work sell out.
“The concept of limited editions is inherently ‘unphotographic.’ After all, photography is virtually the only art form with the ability to produce infinite original prints from a single image,” explains Riddell. Â Le Fotographie offers unlimited images of every image cataloged.
Riddell’s expertise, love of the medium and, frankly, exquisite taste, curated the collection; but he offers a “democratic” product. Riddell thinks Adams would have championed the concept, and he has stamped “Le Fotografie Authorized Special Edition Print” with a copyright notice for the photographer on each order.
Using the highest quality archival paper and pigment inks, each print is made after the photographer has approved a master print of each image on the site. Riddell will add more images–change things up–monthly. Â The site offers a newsletter, reviews, and (GASP!) a blog that will cover topics relating to photography and the website.
“This way photographers can continue to sell signed editions of their prints to collectors willing to pay a premium for the signature. But for those who just enjoy a beautiful photograph they can afford to buy it and enjoy looking at a beautiful print every day,” says Riddell. Much more information is available on the website:  www.lefotographie.com.
Photo Credits:  Top, left:  Paul Adams, “Key West,” © 2006;  Middle, right:  Matt Mallams, “Purse Snatcher,” © 2006; Below, center:  Jon Stuart, “Backstop at la Taos Church,” © 2007.
Jon Stuart, "Backstop at la Taos Church," copyright 2007
Buy five, get one free. Â That’s the simple and sound model for a new brochure-ticket created by five regional museums in the Greater Yellowstone area. Wyoming’s Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) in Cody, WY; the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY; the Carbon County Historical Society and Museum in Red Lodge, MT; the Yellowstone Historic Center in West Yellowstone; and the Yellowstone Gateway Museum, Livingston, MT are offering families a chance at a free family membership.
All you have to do is visit each of these museums before December 31, 2011. Â With each visit you will receive a passport-like “stamp.” Once the fifth and final museum is visited and your passport is full, a free family membership to the to the
final museum is awarded. Hence, if you have a hankering for a BBHC family membership—good for a year—make that museum your fifth stop.
A query as to whether passport owners may request the reward of a family membership to be gifted to another family has not been answered; Â but it seems a good way to get even more people to visit the great consortium of museums surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. For now, go with the assumption that the gift is non-transferable.
Questions? Â Contact Marguerite House (307.578.4137/margueriteh@bbhc.org ) Â OR Lee Haines ( leeh@bbhc.org/ 307.578.4014) Â at the BBHC.
The BBHC released the announcement, and you can visit their website at www.bbhc.org.
Has Jackson’s first business incubator arrived on the scene?
It may have, but do the artists and activists involved know it?
Not long ago, Travis Walker’s Teton Art Lab up and left their Center for the Arts space. The group loaded up its truck and moved to Greg-o-ry.
Lane, that is. Â 6,500 square feet in the facility formerly home to Huckleberry Mountain Candy Company. Teton Art Lab is the new landlord. The group is reportedly sub-renting space to MADE’s John Frechette, who will use the space as his studio (he’s not moving out of his retail shop in Gaslight Alley); to artist Ben Roth, who will also use his corner as studio space, and to blogger/filmmaker/photographer/activist David Gonzales—word has it that Gonzales plans to capture artists creating and composing, and post it to his site. Â Abbie Miller has been down there, sewing her heart out; Â and a musical group emulating the Greatful Dead has set up rehearsal space.
That’s a factory! Â A huge Warhol fan, Walker may have subconsciously (or consciously) established his own arts assembly line. “The Incubator.” Â ”The Assembly.” The new location is certainly not a great foot traffic/retail space, but that could change. And maybe Jackson’s town leaders will take notice. If ArtLab and its tenants succeed in their mission, they will nurture new artists, new business and talent. And product.
Business incubators often get established because communities donate empty, excessive space. Business incubators can be industrial, high-tech, medical, artistic, even food growers. The idea, says one expert, is to set up a commercial building capable of housing different operations and industries at low cost. Incubators supply in-house office help to all tenants—copy machines, answering phones, teaching technology skills. Assistance continues until fledgling businesses are developed enough to move out of the space on their own. Cost of doing business is lowered. The vacated incubator space is filled by a new, young enterprise.
ChubbyBrain, a tool resource for business entrepreneurs, posted a United States map that in 2009, highlighted states with incubators. Maps measure total number, distribution and “scalability.” ChubbyBrain’s totals map is
shown here. The site also graphs 2009′s top ten incubators. Healthcare offers the most, followed by technology and internet companies.
Incubators are measured several ways, but Wyoming, as of 2009, had zero incubator presence.
“We funded an incubator with a USDA grant which purchased the building,” says my expert. Â ”We then set up a non profit corporation with the board being half private and half government. The government board members were mayors and commissioners. It is important to get real business expertise on this board. Activists have the vision but not often the practical skills to make it happen.”
Well, we need business experts. We’re loaded with activists in Jackson, so what we need are business strategists acting in the interest of diversifying (lessening risk) Jackson’s economy. Â Leaders should look to establish tax breaks for properties that can’t, in the immediate future, realize full value for their space.
Risk happens not only when you carry potentially volatile investments; it exists when you invest in mainstream, blue-chip sectors—if that’s your only portfolio presence, you are carrying great risk.  Ask anyone loaded with BP stock or too much empty, expensive commercial and residential real estate in Teton County.
My expert councils that the best way to start is to visit established, successful incubators. Many aren’t viable because they are not grounded in solid business basics.To provide a job, a business (or any enterprise) must be successful enough to generate plenty of worthwhile income.
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CIAO Gallery has put out a call for entries for “Autumn Leaves – Works Inspired by the Fall.” Deadline is October 29, 2010. Â Artists are invited to submit their entries to the gallery by visiting CIAO’s website and clicking on the “Call to Artists” page. Â There, you will find instructions. Â www.ciaogallery.com. Â Â Good luck!
The Great Plains, for many an undefinable space, is “….a place that you can feel deep in your bones, a place where you cross into this space where the land is mostly just an anchor for the sky–it’s a place where you can’t open your arms wide enough to take it all in.”
Michael Forsberg’s photographic embrace of America’s great, sweeping prairies Great Plains – America’s Lingering Wild, on display at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), reveals that region’s ecosystem’s tender underbelly.  The great magic of the plains is mystery—its ability to “camouflage” its own natural wonders.
Nature’s camouflage, though, is natural wonder. Â In this enchanting exhibition Forsberg wakes us up to the fact that what many people might dismiss as dull, in-the-way detrius is critical foundation for this embattled grassland ecosystem. Â Like many wildlife photographers, Forsberg
stuffs himself into a bivy and otherwise does what he needs to do to capture his images of wild lands and wild species. Â But Forsberg’s photography is friendly–not freaky. Â A wide angle view provides hemispherical landscapes; viewers swim through these prairies, spotting primrose, cougars, bird species, butterflies, tiger salamanders—and of course the great Bison—from behind diving goggles.
You can stand out in the tall grass prairie and not move all day, says Forsberg, and see all sorts of creatures that will come your way. Â But, he clarifies, you can also just look at your feet and see hundreds of species….(the prairie) is just teeming with life.
Childhood innocence, that scampering into twilight when fireflies commence their blinking. Â That’s what Forsberg accesses. Â We’re playing hide-and-seek in these waving, flowered, delicately populated fields. Â This is a treasure hunt. Â Forsberg handles his subjects with utmost delicacy, lest they break.
Great Plains – America’s Lingering Wild, remains on display at NMWA through January 30, 2011. Â Â www.wildlifeart.org
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Last week Governor Freudenthal’s office and the Wyoming Arts Council released Wyoming’s Creative Vitality Index.
The (pie chart rich) 107-page report “measures the changes in the economic health of an area by integrating economic data streams from both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Through per capita measurements of
revenue data from both for-profit and nonprofit entities as well as employment data from a selection of highly creative occupations, the system aggregates the data streams into a single index value that reflects the relative economic health of a geography’s creative economy. The CVI provides an easily understandable measure of economic health to help communicate information from a broad arts coalition to policy makers and stakeholders.” *
Where did this report come from?
“The CVI grew out of a conversation about whether to undertake an economic impact study of the arts. The staff leadership of the Washington State Arts Commission and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, in collaboration with others, explored ways to expand and enrich the economic argument for support of the arts and especially public funding of the arts. In doing so, the group was influenced by two national conversations concerning economic development: the defining of a creative economy and the outlining of the concept of economic development clusters. Those conversations did something the nonprofit arts community was very late in doing–they included the related for-profit creative sector in a universe normally reserved for nonprofits.
The public value work articulated by Mark Moore also played a role in the development of the CVI. That work helped the public sector component of the nonprofit arts funding community move away from a perspective oriented toward saving the arts to considering ways to be responsive to what citizens wanted in the arts. The approach also worked to shape agency deliverables to reflect their actual value to the public rather than the value arts aficionados considered them to have for the public.
One result of this influence was that the CVI was developed in a context of thinking in which individuals are assumed to have choices and that, to remain viable, public sector arts funders need to offer choices the public will value and thus select. In this concept of selection is the understanding that choice in the arts ranges outside the nonprofit arts and that the public sector arts agency needs to ensure that such choice is available.” *
You can download the entire report by visiting www.wyomingartscouncil.org. * excerpt from Wy. CVI