Periscope Class of 2017. (photo: Lauren Newman-Nashville Entrepreneur Center)
The Arts & Business Council hosted their annual Periscope graduation event on Thursday, July 6, at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC), located at 41 Peabody St. in downtown Nashville, TN. The program is designed to be a transformative experience for each artist, sparking the moment when their career will really start to take off. Periscope provides training, exchange, mentorship, and exposure.
The training comes through 6 weeks of professional development training for working artists. The exchange comes as artists share best practices with interdisciplinary peers through small group work. The mentorship is provided as each artist is paired one-on-one with a high-caliber mentor. And the exposure is in year-round opportunities to celebrate the work of alumni artists, plus red-letter visibility at the culminating celebration, the Periscope Pitch Event in September. Periscope is a program of the Arts & Business Council (ABC), delivered with several community partners.
“We couldn’t do this work without the incredible support of our Periscope partners, including the Entrepreneur Center, the Metro Nashville Arts Comission, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor’s Office of Economic & Community Development, and Southwest Airlines,” says ABC’s new Executive Director Jill McMillen.
On hand for the graduation were Casey Summar, Executive Director of the Arts & Business Council through this summer, who is handing the reins over to Jill McMillan, Incoming Executive Director of the Arts & Business Council; Jennifer Cole, Executive Director of the Metro Nashville Arts Commission; Audra Ladd, Manager of Small Business / Creative Economy in the Mayor’s Office of Economic & Community Development; John Murdock, SVP, Product of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center; and Courtney Ross, Chief Economic Development Officer of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.
“As the incoming Executive Director of ABC, I feel incredibly lucky to be able to take part in the graduation of these 19 inspiring members of our 2017 Periscope class today,” said McMillen. “This six-week intensive training is designed to be a a transformative experience for each artist as they learn the tools to sustain and grow their practice, and is one of ABC’s core programs in our commitment to cultivating Nashville’s creative community.”
The 19 members of the 2017 Periscope class were present and interacted with invited media and guests. They are Alysha Malo (multi-disciplinary), Brian Somerville (visual art), Chip Boles (visual art), Colleen Phelps (multi-disciplinary), Danielle Duer (visual art), Donna Woodley (visual art), Jama Mohamed (multi-disciplinary), James Adams (metal sculptor), Jordan Holland (music), Julia Whitney Brown (multi-disciplinary), Kat Jones (drama/theatre), Kristin McCalley (drama/theatre), Rebekah Alexander (performance art), Richard Barrow (photography), Ryan Rowland (multi-disciplinary), Saran Thompson (music), Susan Prado (visual art), Tony Sobota (visual art), and Tony Perrin (jewelry).
Periscope’s six-week intensive training opportunity is hosted at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC) and empowers working artists to see their vision through an entrepreneurial lens. Led by the EC’s Director of Education, along with break-out sessions facilitated with Nashville’s top arts professionals, Periscope gives artists the perspective and tools to organize, plan, and sustain their creative careers with the goal of preparing each artist to take their career to the next level.
