Let’s get growing 13 Portland artists offer ideas on what to do with Representative John Eder’s $500,000 for a creative economy incubator BY SARA DONNELLY

In March, Portland state representative John Eder managed to achieve something of a creative economy coup. Eder, the nation’s only Green Party state representative, agreed to vote for the governor’s budget in exchange for $200,000 for the Portland Bilingual Program and a whopping $500,000 to establish the state’s first "creative economy incubator" in Portland, along with an appointment for himself to be made co-chair of the governor’s Creative Economy Council, which will advise the governor on how this creative economy should be fostered. Eder hopes the Portland incubator will help bolster the arts in the city. Thing is, he’s not exactly sure how to best use the money.

Many established arts incubators across the country have, like the small-business incubators that already exist around the state, focused on the business side of being an artist: The Arts Incubator Program in Houston, Texas, provides area arts organizations with office equipment, administrative assistance, and other business support for three years. The Kansas City incubator provides shop space and other business resources. The Flashpoint arts incubator in Washington, D.C., provides temporary housing to start-up arts businesses and helps them transition to more permanent space.

"I come to this with a vision of what I had in mind when I asked [for the money]", says Eder. "But we want to keep it community-based so I’m opening up my vision and what I proposed to the governor."

Eder had originally conceived of an arts incubator as a hub for arts around the city, with studio spaces and office spaces for arts organizations. But after attending a Creative Conversation discussion at Space in April, Eder has decided to broaden the definition of the arts incubator. To date, Eder has only just begun discussions with his steering committee, which is comprised of Jessica Tomlinson, Director of Public Relations for the Maine College of Art and a local arts activist; Alden Wilson, Director of the Maine Arts Commission; Donna McNeil, Contemporary Arts and Public Art Associate for the Commission; and a representative from the University of Maine system, which governs the incubator budget under the deal cut between Eder and Baldacci. It doesn’t take an arts expert to realize that the proper use of this tidy chunk of change could make a big difference in town and beyond, and there are no shortage of ideas about what to do with it among members of Portland’s arts community. Some people think it shouldn’t be much more than a grant-making body, doling out significant amounts of cash to organizations that need it to start up, grow, or simply stay afloat. Other people say with $500,000 you could buy a building that could house studio space, recording space, any kind of space that artists could use for free on some kind of sign-up basis.

Still others think the government should just stay the heck out of their studio and get out of the way. Maybe the $500,000 could be used to hire a lobbyist to advocate for lower taxes, universal health care, and ever-elusive affordable housing.

To give you a feel for the spectrum of ideas that exist in town, and the spectrum of who might be the "artists" helped by this incubator, the Phoenix asked artists around town what they would like to see done with the incubator and its substantial budget. Here is a sampling of the responses:

Joe Brien, audio engineer and producer at Foreside Studios in Falmouth:

I think that this town needs and has always needed a multi-faceted complex, a place that would have secure and clean rehearsal facilities that are equipped with musical equipment, but would also have spaces within which performance artists could work on their routines. Or there could be small cubicle-type rooms for people who are either painters or sculptors. That kind of a thing would be critical to the arts community. The biggest obstacle I see is the sheer cost of the commercial real estate, which could be a hindrance because you may not be able to afford enough square footage.

To me it sounds like enough money to get a space going — as far as keeping it going in the future, that’s hard to say. A complex like this is important because everybody feeds off everybody else. The people who paint and sculpt like to listen to music and be inspired. Maybe there’s a choreographer who needs music and wants to work closely with a musician. I always thought if there’s one big place that everyone could have access to that would be really cool.

Scott Conley, guitar maker, owner of Conley Guitars in Bowdoinham, guitarist in the Muddy Marsh Ramblers:

It wouldn’t be a bad thing for most artists to look at their cash-flow cycle [with a business consultant] — just as simple as developing a business plan to help artists and artisans take their creative juices and turn them into cash. This whole making art and getting paid for it after you’re dead is not such a good thing. You could create a space that artists could work out of and get some financial advice to make their businesses float. Maybe even take advantage of what Commercial Street is going to turn into over the next few years, which is a huge tourist destination all the way to India Street. If you could create something with artists’ space on the waterfront that has floor-level stores basically promoting and selling those artists’ works, all contained in that one building, I think that would be a huge draw.

James Hoban, Affiliate Artist at the Portland Stage Company, actor:

I think the most effective thing that most any organization could do is to build audiences. Currently, if you look at the fine arts in Portland, across the board, you’ll find that the audiences are a graying demographic. There are also barriers to access — barriers of perception, barriers of cost, barriers of communication and marketing. Subsidized tickets would be one method [to alleviate this problem for performance art].

What it comes down to is building audiences and cross-fertilizing audiences. You’ll find Merrill Auditorium, PCA Great Performances, Mad Horse Theatre, Portland Stage Company will have their own audience base, but I don’t really know to what extent those audiences venture beyond their comfort zone, their routine, their subscribing habits. It would be worthwhile to dedicate a substantial portion of [the budget] to a pilot program to create subsidized tickets targeted toward specific communities or specific areas.

Also, I don’t think anyone’s made really successful inroads against the bedroom community mentality. I think for a lot of people once they get in the car and head home to Yarmouth or Windham it’s really hard to get them back in town for a cultural event. The money could be used in whatever way to support greater urban density. There’s a trend toward reurbanization in many cities around the country that to the best of my knowledge is not happening in Portland. When you have people living in proximity to the arts they’re much more likely to be a subscriber, to attend an arts show. I think any well-funded arts organization has to look beyond the province of the Arts to the community at large.