Establishing a career as an artist is challenging. Incomes fluctuate from year to year. It takes time to hone skills and build a following. Many creatives don’t have formal training in accounting or marketing.
But as Business Report details in its cover story from the latest issue, opportunities for Baton Rouge’s career artists seem to be improving, as the four artists profiled in the story would seem to indicate. Larger and more diverse audiences are taking advantage of an expanding arts scene. The decade-old Shaw Center for the Arts is now home to multiple arts organizations, some of them grassroots. The Walls Project has helped numerous public murals, and the new Elevator Projects brings original artwork to pop-up installations.
Events such as the Surreal Salon at the Baton Rouge Gallery, Forum 35’s Art Melt, the Mid City Merchants Association’s White Light Nights and the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s monthly Arts Market, which attracted 62 artists in May, are also making art accessible and keeping artists busy. The Arts Council’s annual festival, Fest-for-All, drew 91 artists from 16 states this spring, who earned an average of $2,500 over two days.
“There is no question that Baton Rouge is changing in a positive way in terms of the arts,” says artist George Marks, a painter with a national following who spent most of his career in Baton Rouge. A decade ago, Marks moved to home Arnaudville, where he has been instrumental in its transformation as an arts and cultural district. “I’m blown away by how much has changed here,” he says of the Capital City.
Still, local leaders and arts professionals acknowledge there is significant room for improvement in the way the Capital Region fosters the arts as economic development, especially as Baton Rouge attempts to attract the so-called creative class. Traditional small businesses, technology startups and culinary ventures find support through entities such as the Louisiana Business and Technology Center, the Louisiana Technology Park and the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator.
Yet while the arts are expanding, no business accelerator exists that specifically targets artists.
“We have quite a lot of activity around artists,” says Adam Knapp, president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. “The next horizon is likely the infrastructure development and the business development of the arts.”
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