Athens, Ga. – The first annual Local Arts and Culture Business Summit will be held April 17 at 11:30 a.m. in the reception hall of the University of Georgia Tate Student Center. It will be followed by a 1 p.m. lecture by author, editor and creative director Amy Flurry on “Do-It-Yourself Publicity for Entrepreneurs.”
The two events are sponsored by Ideas for Creative Exploration and the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts for Thinc. at UGA, an initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research.
The summit is a public forum for local arts and culture business owners to share experiences and best practices and advocate for the best ways to support local arts entrepreneurs in the future. The 13 panelists include Rebecca Wood of R. Wood Studio Ceramics, Kristen Bach of Treehouse Kid and Craft, Sanni Baumgärtner of Community boutique and Janet Geddis of Avid Bookshop.
“Last year, I moderated an arts and entrepreneurship panel session as part of the inaugural Thinc. at UGA Entrepreneurship Week, with a focus on alumni and faculty,” said event organizer Mark Callahan, ICE creative director and Willson Center associate academic director for innovation in the arts. “My goal this year is to shed light on some of the more practical aspects of entrepreneurship and to engage some of the people who make Athens a cultural magnet in a conversation about some of the real challenges and benefits of being here, ways that you learn in the ‘real world’ and how our community can best support arts and culture businesses.”
Flurry’s lecture will educate entrepreneurs on how to refine their messages, engage media and create relationships with editors and bloggers. She will present examples from across industries and around the country.
Flurry is author of the popular guide to do-it-yourself publicity, “Recipe for Press,” designed to strengthen relationships between entrepreneurs and editors. She has spent 20 years as a contributor to some of the biggest publications on the newsstand, including InStyle, Conde Nast Traveler, Country Living, Design Sponge and Lucky.
In addition to “Recipe for Press,” Flurry co-founded Paper-Cut-Project, a company that conceives highly crafted installations for clients including Kate Spade, Hermes, Valentino, Cartier and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Paper-Cut-Project’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Italian Vogue, Nylon, Selvedge and Marie Claire Taiwan.
Flurry is also creative director of Parlore, a new project management app and marketplace for interior designers. For more information about Flurry and her projects, see http://amyflurry.com.
Thinc. at UGA promotes entrepreneurship and fosters economic development in the region by providing inspiration and advice to those contemplating a plunge into the competitive and exciting world of entrepreneurship. For more on Thinc. at UGA, see http://thinc.uga.edu/.
Ideas for Creative Exploration
Ideas for Creative Exploration is a catalyst for innovative, interdisciplinary creative projects, advanced research and critical discourse in the arts and creative applications of technologies, concepts and practices found across disciplines. It is a collaborative network of faculty, students and community members from all disciplines of the visual and performing arts in addition to other disciplines in the humanities and sciences. ICE enables all stages of creative activity, from concept and team formation through production, documentation and dissemination of research. It is supported in part by the Willson Center’s Faculty Research Clusters program. For more information, see http://ice.uga.edu/.
Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
The Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts is a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Research at UGA. In the service of its mission to promote research and creativity in the humanities and arts, the Willson Center sponsors and participates in numerous public events on and off the UGA campus throughout the academic year. It supports faculty through research grants, lectures, symposia, publications, visiting scholars, visiting artists, collaborative instruction, public conferences, exhibitions and performances. For more information, see http://willson.uga.edu/.
