The Way forward for Creativity is Now: Our High Takeaways from FORM Fest

What’s the way forward for creativity? And the way will creators discover new methods to sustainably make their artwork with compromise? These have been just some of the numerous questions explored at FORM Fest, a three-day inventive retreat and pageant filled with music, artwork, concepts, structure, wellness, and group.

Joe Barham is the Creator Partnerships Lead right here at Patreon. He was additionally a part of the workforce that helped formed Patreon’s collaboration with FORM Fest and helped convey our activations to life.“We have been excited to ideate round how we may very well be supportive and complementary to this actually fascinating pageant,” says Joe. “We actually needed to ensure it was natural and really creator-first.”

For instance, Joe and some of his colleagues labored with a workforce from Florida known as Pulp Arts to construct an on-site recording studio house at FORM fest dubbed “The Conservatory,” the place artists may join and create with different artists.

“Placing that in place, we didn’t actually know what to anticipate,” says Joe, who explains that they needed to create an area that will encourage creativity and join a number of completely different worlds.The consequence was fairly particular. By the tip of the pageant, he and different pageant attendees bought to witness near 17 completely different distinctive collaborations from musicians who wouldn’t essentially get the prospect to work collectively.

“It did really feel otherworldly,” says Joe about witnessing jam classes between the likes of Fred Armisen of Saturday Evening Stay and Portlandia and Lindsey Jordan from Snail Mail.

Along with The Conservatory, Patreon additionally arrange a comfortable Creator Lounge, that featured a 2020 Imaginative and prescient Sales space the place pageant attendees may file their needs and visions for the way forward for our nation.

Final however definitely not least, Joe participated in a panel dialogue known as, “Artwork and Work: The Future Creativity.” The panel included poet Aja Monet and group organizer Phillip Agnew, founders of Smoke Indicators Studio in Miami, Favianna Rodriguez, Government Director of CultureStrike and impartial artist (and Patreon creator) Julia Nunes.

Collectively, they mentioned how they outlined artwork and what it means to be an artist in 2019. The dialog took many turns however a theme that saved arising was the significance of creating artwork that’s significant.

“It’s actually essential to face by your voice,” says Joe. Artistically, in case you’re not being true to your voice, whether or not you’re financially profitable or not, that is usually what results in artists to really feel unfulfilled, he says.

For instance, the panel touched on the connection between artwork and social justice, and the way that relationship can change when an artist turns into extra centered on paying the payments or doing one thing for recognition’s sake.

Many artists really feel pulled between completely different goals, whether or not it’s rising their fanbase, or creating artwork that’s significant and genuine or having the ability to have an effect on the world via their artwork, and this may be difficult to navigate, particularly as an rising voice.

As an example, gentrification and the position artists play in it was a subject that got here up through the panel. Backed housing communities for artists are sometimes created with the great intention of revitalizing city neighborhoods. Nonetheless, low-income residents are sometimes displaced within the course of as rents improve and so they get priced out of the market.

“All of us agreed that artwork is without doubt one of the most, if not probably the most, highly effective methods and efficient methods to create change,” says Joe.

Nonetheless, with that energy comes nice duty – and a few onerous decisions. As Joe notes, it’s not straightforward for an artist that’s scraping by to show down a free place to reside, which is why it’s so essential that they’ve the instruments to make knowledgeable selections. For instance, he says that there’s a necessity for extra programming and academic providers for brand new and younger artists to assist them navigate a few of these trickier components of this profession path.

Compromise was one other scorching subject lined. For instance, whereas some may interpret having to make the selection between business success and staying true to their values as having to compromise on one space to satisfy the opposite, panelist Aja Monet instructed an alternate manner to have a look at it.

“Compromise is that this detrimental phrase, however in actuality, somewhat than interested by it as you compromising your artwork, take into consideration how one can create new worth methods together with your artwork,” Joe says.

On the finish of the day, whereas it’s debatable that inventive industries are noisier than they’ve ever been, on the flipside, advertising, promotion and distributing content material has by no means been simpler.“You may simply submit [your art] and it’s on the market,” he says.

The identical goes for incomes a dwelling. All the things from shopping for a house to elevating a household is harder while you don’t understand how a lot cash you’re going to make subsequent month. However with platforms like Patreon, artists could make a predictable, sustainable earnings and construct a deeper relationship with their followers, with out counting on inconsistent income channels like grants or excursions or licensing charges.

“Having that core basis of tremendous followers who actually admire your artwork and there’s a relationship there, is the place [Patreon] matches in as one of many options that I feel is useful for the way forward for artwork and serving to creatives create,” says Joe.

So what does the way forward for creativity seem like? It’s an enormous query with no easy solutions. However with the emergence of platforms like Patreon and distinctive creator-first programming at festivals like FORM Fest, one factor’s fairly clear: it has by no means been a extra thrilling time to be an artist.