BCA's Artist Sustainability Workshop Series (ASWS) continues with Work, Create, and Play: Holistic Practices for Creatives. Attendees will explore a balanced approach to their craft by integrating mindful work habits, intentional financial strategies, and self-care practices. Designed to nurture personal, professional, and artistic well-being, this series offers practical tools for navigating tax season, income diversification, and creating space for healing. Through interactive activities, group discussions, and creative exercises, participants will learn how to cultivate a fulfilling, holistic artistic practice that enhances both productivity and overall wellness. This series is ideal for artists of all disciplines seeking harmony between their work and creative lives.
Workshop Schedule:
Workshop I: Taxes for Artists
Instructor: Amy Smith
Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Taxes For Artists aims to help artists from any discipline and phase of their career prepare for filing taxes, with or without the help of a paid preparer. This workshop is designed and led by Amy Smith, a working artist with expertise in bookkeeping, budgeting, tax preparation, and financial management. Smith will provide an overview of tax issues affecting artists, including income and expense tracking, business deductions, entity types, and how to handle grant income and fiscal sponsorship.
Workshop II: How to Build a Sustainable Art Business
Instructor: Giannina Gutierrez
Wednesday, November 20, 2024, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
How to Build a Sustainable Art Business aims to explore the creation of a master plan and the setting of reasonable goals for establishing and sustaining a business. This workshop will explore how to leverage skill sets to generate multiple income streams, utilize social media for visibility, and create opportunities for growth and success. Attendees will learn how to identify long-term goals, break them down into smaller tasks, and get organized to achieve dreams. The goal is to shift perspective and use creativity as a powerful tool for creating art and building a successful business.
Workshop III: Creation Begins With Care
Instructor: Christopher Ferreiras
Wednesday, December 4, 2024, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Creation Begins with Care is a creative writing workshop designed for artists looking to nurture their well-being alongside their creative practice. Attendees will discover essential self-care strategies and tools to cultivate a healthy, sustainable relationship with our craft. Through guided exercises and open discussion, attendees will learn how to create supportive rituals and boundaries that prioritize mental and emotional health, allowing for a more fulfilling and balanced artistic journey.
About The Instructors
Amy Smith (she/her) is a dance and theater artist, educator, and facilitator. She works to dismantle oppressive structures and empower artists through financial well-being workshops, one-on-one work with artists giving financial advice and doing tax preparation, co-facilitating anti-racism sessions, and as a dance and theater educator. Amy co-founded, co-directed, and performed with Headlong, a dance theater non-profit that transformed into a community arts organization over 25 years. She left Headlong in 2019 to pursue her freelance work.
A multi-disciplinary artist, Giannina Gutierrez is also an established makeup artist working in the fashion, film/tv, & beauty industry for over 15 years. Borrowing from her painting practice, she uses her color mixing, blending skills, and creativity in her artistry, approaching the world of beauty as she does her art. Her experience includes SFX, bridal, special events and period makeup and hair. Her work has been published in Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, A&E, several features, independent films & commercials.
She truly believes in being an eternal student, continuously learning, expanding and honing her skill sets. In all her creative endeavors, she lives by several inspirations and quotes, one of many that resonate with her is from ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield “The most important thing about art is to work.”
Christopher Ferreiras is a Dominican-American author, artist, poet, and educator based in New York City and Toronto. His work is interested in the transformative power of the written word to inspire positive action, influence meaningful change, impact culture, and heal generations. Over the years, he has built a vibrant online community of over 100k readers across social media channels by inspiring audiences and offering tools by which they can tell their own stories. His writings have been recognized by the Chopra Foundation and featured in Andrews McMeel’s Crown Anthologies and Softening Time, iD and Nylon magazines. His debut collection of poems, The Sun Underground and All The Colors in Between is available worldwide and his second collection of poems is on the horizon.
