Arts and Culture Brown County (ACBC) is looking to strengthen the surrounding creative sector after hosting its Creative Summit at the Green Bay Botanical Garden on Sept. 29.
The summit explored the future of arts and culture and identified four main ideas to address challenges facing the region: unifying the creative sector, promoting creative opportunities, mapping and celebrating art and advocating for the importance of art.
ACBC, previously known as the Bay Area Arts and Culture Alliance (BAACA), is a collaborative network made up of arts leaders and organizations that work to strengthen visibility, coordination and advocacy for arts across the region — which extends further than people often think.
“It’s not only our museums, theaters [and] longstanding arts organizations,” ACBC Board President Megan Dickman-Renard explained. “It’s also independent creators, artist entrepreneurs and really anybody who makes a living as a member of the creative sector. So that’s also crafts-people, artisans, graphic designers, creative agencies [and] individuals who do creative work inside larger business organizations. Basically, if you create or build a creative living in Brown County, you’re who we want to be serving.”
After years of discussion, ACBC presented its four ideas that work to cultivate, support and advance Brown County’s creative sector.
The first idea focuses on uniting the creative sector through shared resources.
In 2022, more than 1,800 people took part in SparkGGB!, a community-wide arts and culture assessment. The survey found that 82% of respondents said sector organization would be valuable or extremely valuable, and collaboration was one of the most mentioned topics, according to Dickman-Renard.
Ultimately, the survey described the creative sector as fragmented and underfunded.
“So most of our arts non profits run on budgets, as we all know, under $150,000 and many under $50,000,” Dickman-Renard said. “They’re doing a lot with very little, and they’re getting a lot of stuff done, but again; fragmented.”
Shared creative spaces and programs have shown to be an effective form of unification between artists.
“The NWTC Artisan Residency Program, a free year-long program, cemented my place in the creative community in Brown County,” said Sam Rowe, local artist and Green Bay public arts commission member. “I met so many artists and mentors through that program and gained the confidence to put myself out there and meet my own creative goals. Also the Green Bay Botanical Garden [and] Art Garage program Artists in the Garden Tuesdays. I don’t know any other program where artists have the opportunity to create in such a beautiful place on a weekly basis, again, for free!”
The second idea is focused on promoting opportunities so that creative people can find work, and work can find them.
A problem that Dickman-Renard identified in the creative sector is businesses simply not knowing what creative assets are available in Green Bay.
According to Dickman-Renard, Brown County lost 14% of its creative occupations between 2012 and 2020. However, she pointed out that the last national economic impact study counted about one million in-person attendees at arts and culture events in Green Bay in a year, nearly tripled from a study done the year before. Despite the loss in creative occupations, Green Bay continues to display a much larger creative community than what is generally perceived.
“[The national economic impact study] found about 50 million in economic activity [and] 983 jobs, and that’s with only 43 out of 137 eligible organizations reporting, which means we got an absolute fraction of what is actually here, and even that fraction is pretty astounding,” Dickman-Renard said.
The third idea plans to map and celebrate the places where art happens across the county, allowing both locals and nonlocals to find what’s happening.
An art map, now live on the ACBC website, allows for users to find venues, galleries, studios and more throughout the county.
Also available is a creative directory to search for artists, organizations and creative businesses.
“The intent [of the directory] is to do two jobs; to show our scales, so the next time somebody asks how many of us there are, we can give a great answer to that, and it also helps the community find us. So when a business needs a designer, a muralist… the answer doesn’t depend on who you happen to know,” Dickman-Renard explained.
“The unification of the art community and further development of the directory of artists will help decision-makers visualize the enormous amount of talent here in our county,” Rowe added. “It is a huge step towards more grant money, more jobs and more opportunities for artists.”
The final idea works to advocate for the arts as essential to who the community is and where it’s going.
70% of respondents to the SparkGGB! survey agreed that public investment in the arts improves quality of life for everyone.
“Artists everywhere make life more interesting and fill our cities with soul,” Rowe said. “I’m so proud to be one of those artists and encourage you to join this directory if you haven’t yet… I hope more and more people turn to art to cope with their emotions, express themselves and add more whimsy to their lives. I hope more artists find spaces to collaborate with each other and share their talents with the community, inspiring more folks to create.”
As ACBC continues to implement these initiatives, the organization hopes to strengthen connections among artists, organizations and businesses in Brown County.
For more information, visit artsculturebrowncounty.org.
Pass It Forward™ editorial is sponsored by Packers Give Back, Nicolet National Bank and the National Trust for Local News.
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