April 2020
Dear CreativeGround Community,
We appreciate all the sacrifices that you, our New England creative community, are making in order to keep our friends and family, our neighbors, and our most at-risk peers safe so that our healthcare system stands a chance at fighting this deadly virus. As creatives and cultural organizations, we may not be able to connect and share our artistry and creative collaboration in person, and we may need to actively devote time to self-care and finding new means of support. CreativeGround encourages you to take care of yourselves and each other – whatever that might look like.
During this time, however, CreativeGround is noting increased traffic to virtual spaces to learn, connect, and to be inspired. This transition to an online audience is not always the most familiar to arts practitioners that passionately value the shared space of a live performance, or the intimate experience of seeing the brush strokes on a canvas up close, but we might be able to see it as an opportunity (as creatives tend to do). To this end, CreativeGround encourages you to "have a date with your data" by updating your profile, and we will do our part by expanding how we feature you and your work on the site, on Facebook and Twitter, and in CreativeGround communications. This is the time to ignite conversations that build community and lend resources to each other - tangible and intangible.
To make yourself more visible online (and to get into the queue to be featured by us), update your CreativeGround profile and then let us know. Not only is this a positive action step you can take during this very challenging time, but it will better position you to come up in search results, improve your ability to connect with each other, and better enable us to support you by being counted in your local, regional, and national communities now and in future research on the impact of COVID-19.
If you don't have access to reliable internet and/or would like individual help updating your profile, sign up for a phone time with a CreativeGround team member here.
If you would like to share additional thoughts with us (and not on your public profile) about what you are working on - in your creative practice, in your professional development, in your whole self - during this time, please do reach out to us.
Thank you for all you do. Thank you for responding to this invitation to show up online, if you are able. Thank you for sharing with us, and being with us so that we can advocate and be there for you.
Stay strong,
- Morganna (she/her), Natalya (she/her), Dee (she/her)
P.S. As the public health crisis continues, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) monitors developments and has assembled resources to share with our constituents. Visit NEFA's website to view COVID-19 resources for the cultural sector.