Reflecting on the Seeds of CreativeGround, Year Six

Happy Sixth Birthday, CreativeGround!

Year six had the CreativeGround team dreaming big about what this community can achieve in the future, and you kept us grounded by demonstrating what a fertile creative community we currently have here in New England. Read on for some fun data points that the team has harvested from the that is CreativeGround in the last year – such strong roots for us all to deepen and grow together.

Connection Detection

Since CreativeGround sprouted, your profiles have listed over 13,500 working connections; that is over 1000 new working connections added within the past year! You are finding each other online (a lot!) and have sent over 2000 messages to various profile owners in 2019; however, this statistic does not include the folks that may have reached out by phone, other social media, or through your linked websites – so we know there is even more communication going on out there!

Speaking of linking up, here are a few pickings from 2019 CreativeGround live on-the-ground encounters. We networked with you:

At Locally Hosted Info Sessions

• Arts Alive! Monadnock hosted us in Peterborough, NH, where MBT Designs and Eddie Gomez chatted with us about their approaches to marketing.
• The spring Vermont Creative Network Mashup in White River Junction informed us how Vermont creatives, like Catamount Arts and Anni Mackay, are thinking about community building.
• In Connecticut, International Festival of Arts & Ideas hosted us to connect with local artists like Rachel Bernsen and creative businesses like Musical Intervention.

At Conferences

• The CreativeGround team got to cross reference with librarians at not one, but two library conferences in Connecticut – the Connecticut Library Association Conference and the New England Library Association Conference. 
  • Psst… we met more than librarians – such as Tom Callinan of the Connecticut Storytelling Center, and Mike Francis of SoloTogether.
• The Radically Rural Conference in Keene, NH, introduced us to Assemble Artisan Studios and Bethel Area Arts & Music who gave us renewed inspiration for supporting our rural community members.

At Artist Markets

• We met Wampum Woman and Amy Hook-Therrien and saw some gourd-geous works by Jeanne Morningstar Kent at Vermont Abenaki Heritage weekend.
• Our team nearly bought all of Janette Vanderhoop’s necklaces and at the Aquinnah Culture Center’s Native American Artisan’s Market.

At NEFA and Partner Events

• CreativeGround enabled us to discover Jeremiah McLane and Annemieke McLane and invite the power duo to perform at the CreativeGround reception at NEFA’s sixth Creative Communities Exchange (CCX) in Montpelier, VT.
• Leicester Bay Theatricals and the Maine Music Educators Association at Arts + Culture Day in Maine talked about how they use CreativeGround now and where that use can grow.
• We hosted 10 one-on-one checkups at our CreativeGround “Clinic” at NEFA’s 18th Annual Idea Swap, where Doolittle+Bird discussed their approach to artist management.

By Email and Phone

• We spent time working on your profiles with you by phone and email; hello vicky anderson and Jennifer Lin!
• We’ve collected stories from seven artists, creative businesses, and cultural nonprofits to share with you from “On the CreativeGround.” (Check out the latest blog with Michael Sakamoto).

How About them Apples?

Thanks to your direct feedback, the ‘Ground has shifted, as a dynamic reflection of our live creative community. We:

• Changed the “Literature” discipline to “Literary Arts” 
• Added "Children’s" to the Literary Arts discipline category
• Added “Polish” to the Languages Available category
• Learned to be aware that there is always another event and/or gathering on your local radars 

We have had librarians, community organizers and local artists flag or make suggestions for profiles. Since CreativeGround launched, you have helped us find owners for over 1,200 profiles germinated by IRS seed data. AND, you have helped us welcome new artists to our community, with 352 new profiles added in the past year. Basically, you’ve made CreativeGround and the creative economy of New England look lush. 

Who is digging in the 'Ground?

There were 72,062 visitors to the site (that’s human beings, but they may have visited the site many times). Popular searches included:

• discovering creative businesses, nonprofits and artists by location
• seeking teaching artists; and finding touring performing artists

Over 27,000 visitors are based in a total of 50 cities/ towns (making them our “top 50”), with over 20,000 of those people based in New England. 

What about those not in New England? We get folks perusing CreativeGround from New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Philadelphia and more! Why? Artists may want to tour their work to New England and are looking for venues. Presenters may be seeking to book a New England artist. Sometimes, a person or gallery has a work of art by a New England visual artist and CreativeGround provides a way to reconnect (or even commission another piece!). Not to mention, grant panelists from the region and beyond may be reviewing your qualifications. CreativeGround is a platform for the New England creative economy, and both those inside and outside the region can dig how good you look.

We’re excited to cultivate the future of CreativeGround with you, our dear community members. Our 2020 vision for CreativeGround is only just beginning to blossom.