At the height of last year’s SWAIA Market, Santa Fe Reporter published How ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Second Life’ Shaped the Future of Indian Market. The article, written by Culture Editor Alex De Vore, merged his love of gaming and of emerging Native American arts into the first-place feature in the Arts and Entertainment and Food category in the recent “Top of the Rockies” Journalism Contest.
The article highlights how NDN World was inspired by SWAIA Executive Director Kim Peone, and realized at the hands of Steve Pruneau, chair of the Clark Hulings Foundation Board—in collaboration with Indigenous artists and designers. Not only does it have a deep connection through Steve, but it was also deeply supported and rooted in the efforts of the Clark Hulings Foundation. Elizabeth Hulings and the Clark Hulings Foundation team in its entirety co-produced the market and navigated the communications and PR developments through their shared PR Agent, Audrey Rubinstein.
This deep synchronicity, passion for innovation, and championing underrepresented communities is what underlined the entire initiative. You can hear about it in-depth in The Thriving ArtistTM podcast episode, Selling Art in The New Normal: Marketplace, Native Communities, and Virtual Reality. Host Daniel DiGriz is joined by SWAIA ED Kim Peone, The Clark Hulings Foundation’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Hulings, Artpsan Founder & Director Eric Sparre, and Steve Pruneau, in his role as the leader of the Vircadia Implementation Project. All four organizations actualized possibilities for collaboration and community in the digital world.
“If it doesn’t start with vision and innovation—if you don’t know why the heck you’re doing something, or you’re doing something because you’re going to make bunch of money quick…maybe you will make a bunch of money quick, but you’re going to end up with something that doesn’t serve anybody else in the long term. Right now we’re in a moment. You mentioned Tesla, Steve—we’re in a moment where we have got to change the way we do a lot of things: in order to not just make sure SWAIA is here for another hundred years, but make sure that any of us is here for another hundred years. And the way to do that is by involving the artists, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and innovators at the beginning of the process.” —Elizabeth Hulings
Read more insightful quotes and listen to the podcast here.
The Clark Hulings Foundation for Visual Artists equips working visual artists to be self-sustaining entrepreneurs. At CHF, we believe that art is a business and artists should run it. We activate this belief through innovative projects like NDN World, Art-Business Accelerator Fellowships, the Digital Campus, Brown Bag LunchTM Series, Thriving TuesdaysTM Series, Thriving Art Exchange, The Thriving ArtistTM podcast and Virtual & In-Person Conferences, such as the upcoming State of the Art Industry Conference (Oct 17-21, 2021). This hybrid conference will provide a sustained, comprehensive examination across all CHF program formats of logistical, infrastructure, and technological developments that are fundamentally changing the way we do business. The Conference explores their impact on the art industry, challenges, and opportunities.
