January 10, 2023

Applications Open for Artist INC Topeka

By Margaret A. Keough

Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) and ArtsConnect are proud to offer Artist INC Topeka for its second session in spring 2023. Artist INC is a professional development program that connects artists of all disciplines to tools, resources, and opportunities necessary to develop their entrepreneurial skills and to strengthen their artistic practices.

Artist INC Topeka takes place over the course of eight consecutive Tuesday evenings from 6:00–9:00 p.m., May 9–June 27, 2023. Sessions will take place at ArtsConnect, 909 N. Kansas Ave., Topeka, Kansas.

Applications are now open.

The deadline for the online application is March 7, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. CST.

Artist INC is an eight-week seminar designed to address the specific professional and entrepreneurial challenges that artists of all disciplines face in their practices. Led by a team of five trained peer facilitators, and designed for up to twenty-five participants, artists learn and grow together through artist facilitator mentoring, small group activities, large group discussions, and the opportunity for networking with other artists.

Artists are selected for Artist INC through a competitive panel process that looks at quality of work and readiness for the program. The selection process also looks at the diversity of the seminar cohort to ensure diversity in all its definitions including demographics (gender, age, and ethnicity) and artistic discipline.

The seminars are most effective when the artists reflect a rich mix of art forms that includes visual, performing, literary, and film. In most cities, artists are commonly siloed by discipline and Artist INC is often the only opportunity they have to learn and collaborate with each other.

ARTIST INC SESSIONS INCLUDE:

Your Map: Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
Your Story: Strategic Communications and Building a Personal Brand
Your Public: Writing About Your Work
Your Money: Budgets and Financial Planning
Your Value: How to Fund Your Practice
Your Plan: Artist as Solopreneur
Your Presence: Public Speaking and Online Presence
Your Work: Sharing your Work with the Public

Now in its twelfth year, Artist INC has been completed by more than 1,500 regional artists. Artist INC is a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance and is supported in part by grants from the Windgate Foundation, the Hallmark Corporate Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Now in its twelfth year, Artist INC has been completed by more than 1,300 artists throughout Mid-America Arts Alliance’s six-state region. Artist INC is a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance and is supported in part by grants from the Hallmark Corporate Foundation, Windgate Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Learn more at www.artistinc.art.

Photography credit: Topeka WorkShare event. Photo: Nick Krug.

Margaret A. Keough Staff Writer

Margaret A. Keough is M-AAA's first Director of Advocacy, working to strengthen our region's arts and creativity sector through advocacy. For more than 30 years, she served in marketing and communications roles at M-AAA, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Keough holds undergraduate degrees in art history and advertising from the University of Kansas and a master’s in business administration from Rockhurst University.