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Around the Ground – Welcome to Rhode Island

Posted 3/08/2023

​​​​​​​Around the Ground returns, and the next stop in our series highlighting our partners and how they use CreativeGround is Rhode Island. Keep reading to learn how the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts uses CreativeGround!

Discover - CreativeGround

Creative Economy at Work  

Blue and black ship anchor with the text "Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Art is the Anchor"

We are so excited to share this blog about our partners at the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts (RISCA). RISCA participated in our Kickoff event for the public launch of CreativeGround 2.0 this past fall. Their Executive Director, Lynne McCormack, joined us and shared that RISCA had 2,150 artists (and growing!) on CreativeGround. We were pleased to learn that they share CreativeGround with folks who are looking for Rhode Island artists to book for events like festivals. RISCA has been using CreativeGround to support its work and activate its network in many ways, which we love! If you're a Rhode Island artist, sign up for their newsletter to stay connected. And keep on reading to learn more about RISCA and CreativeGround.

We All Play A Part In Helping CreativeGround Grow 

 
We spoke with Mollie Flanagan, Individual Artists Program Director, who shared how the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts (RISCA) has been encouraging local artists to create or update their CreativeGround profiles to respond to a need by the Council.  

“At RISCA, we are constantly getting asked to recommend artists for a variety of events, commissions, or just curiosity. Creative Ground is the perfect place to send people looking to hire artists…” 

Starting with portrait artists, RISCA is launching a monthly CreativeGround push focused on getting specific artist groups onto the platform. The hope is to create a state-wide roster of artists working in various disciplines and practices as a community resource. Additionally, this push from a longstanding regional arts agency helps ensure more Rhode Island artists learn about CreativeGround and are in our dynamic directory and database. “We wanted to make sure that the amazing array of Rhode Island artists are represented in the directory,” shares Director Flanagan.   

Take a look at a couple of the talented Rhode Island portrait artists we’ve already found on CreativeGround.  

Clara Creavin, Rhode Island Portrait Artist

Clara Creavin is a Rhode Island based portrait artist generally specializing in oil paint as her painting medium and caran d'ache crayon as her drawing medium. Many of Clara's commissioned work involves colorful and vibrant bust portraiture, rich with detail. If you have any interest in a portrait of you or a loved one, feel free to reach out! Image courtesy of Clara Creavin CreativeGround Profile. 

See the CreativeGround Profile

Fu'una, Rhode Island Portrait Artist

Fu’una is a visual artist specializing in murals and soft pastel. Her pop-realism style draws upon Fauvism, street art, and tattoo culture. Portraits of humans and animals are her primary subjects, with botanicals and natural elements incorporated into her designs. While stylistically fluid, her artwork is most easily recognized for its sensitivity and expert use of color. 

Fu'una's work is currently on view at RISCA's Atrium Gallery.

See the CreativeGround Profile

If you’re a RI portrait artist, check out RISCA’s push and update or create a CreativeGround profile today! The more our communities use CreativeGround, the stronger a resource it is. Let's keep CreativeGround growing. 

Sharing Tools

To support their portrait artist push, the RISCA team leaned on our CreativeGround Promo toolkit to build their artist call page.   

“The promotional toolkit ensured that everything we needed was accessible in one place – making it easy for us to write a blog, drop a blurb in our newsletter, and post on social media. It was also a great reminder of the services the staff at NEFA offer to support arts and culture workers as they create or update their profile – including frequent office hours!” 

We love to see arts organizations across the region taking advantage of the toolkit and finding ways to integrate it into their work and needs. Our friends at RISCA shared what they liked most about the toolkit and our nested branding. 

“Anything that makes our jobs easier is great – and working with NEFA and the other SAAs in our region definitely helps our small states reach a broader audience and do more with less. Creative Ground is great example of this.”

Feedback Makes Us Better

Is there something missing in our toolkit that you believe would aid you or your org in better communicating about CreativeGround? Email us at CreativeGround@Nefa.org and let us know how we can continue to make the toolkit more useful for you.

We also recommend checking out our Activate Your Network page to see some ways the toolkit can be used to deepen connections within your community!

See the Promo Toolkit

Rhode Island Teaching Artist Roster


Not only does RISCA talk the talk when it comes to using CreativeGround, but they walk the walk! In addition to encouraging local artists to use the platform and create CreativeGround profiles, they’re using it themselves, transitioning their teaching artist roster to CreativeGround, and managing who has the special designation on the platform. Now RISCA doesn’t have to maintain a separate public list and it’s easy for anyone to find talented teaching artists from across the state on CreativeGround with this Search filter

Image courtesy of Christopher T. Terry

New England’s Creative Economy Network is for everyone! 

Team work makes the dream work! CreativeGround is made possible by a combination of efforts by each profile, local leader, state arts agency, and NEFA as a regional organization. Thank you to our RISCA colleagues for being a model of the many ways this collectively derived directory can meet the needs of leaders at all levels of the network! 

And don't forget, anyone can search CreativeGround to easily get connected to our region’s creative community. You can also be a Community Leader, helping to promote the artists and creatives that make all communities in the region thrive!  Dig in to find resources to Activate Your Network, including our Promotional Toolkit.  

Keep an eye out for our last blog in the Around the Ground series, where we highlight our community partner NIAA (Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance), and learn about how they’re using CreativeGround to engage with and support Indigenous artists across the region!