This workshop, led by Sharon Louden, is designed for artists and creative professionals seeking to build sustainable practices rooted in community. Through group discussion and guided exercises, participants will explore the many roles artists play in society and develop strategies to connect meaningfully with their networks.
After a group exchange and discussion, the workshop dives into essential topics, including:
- Who makes up your community?
- Establishing realistic and aspirational goals—both professional and personal
- Sharpening research habits to find collaborators who share your values
- Building a core database as your personal currency
- Creative approaches to connecting with others in your arts community
- Identifying and creating your own opportunities—financial, personal, and community-based
- Organizing time, priorities, skill sets, and deadlines
- Resources and pragmatic solutions
Because of the amount of information covered, participants receive a follow-up email about a week later with resources discussed. A final group Zoom session then provides space for open-ended guidance and conversation.
About the Artist:
Sharon Louden wears many interchangeable hats: artist, educator, advocate, consultant, community builder, founder and director of the Institute for Sustained Creativity, and editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books. As a changemaker, Louden amplifies unheard voices and advances meaningful opportunities for artists across all disciplines toward sustaining their creative lives.
As an artist, her work has evolved from using writing as a medium, to figuration then abstraction through her paintings and drawings, to creating many physical environments that involve an inclusive advocacy using a varied range of media.
A visionary leader with decades of experience in academia, Louden is also a committed connector—bridging communities and catalyzing change, particularly on behalf of underserved artists within institutional structures. She is a skilled collaborator, bringing together siloed stakeholders from the nonprofit and business sectors to spark dialogue and drive collective progress. All of her work—no matter the form—is rooted in her active creative practice as a working artist.
For complete Biography: Sharon Louden
Generously supported by Bank of America.