Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture offers new business course for artists

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Pecos Pryor is a visual artist at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barbara.

He’s excited the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture is offering a new course for artists to develop business skills.

"Yeah, I’m really excited because for the last five years, I’ve worked four different jobs trying to make make it as an artist and this could allow me to go down to maybe just one part-time job in addition to my my work," said Pryor.

This new free educational series called Work of Art is for creative workers across the Central Coast region. 

“I’m very excited about the whole concept of it … it’s like 90 percent of what I do at center stage … to help artists and producers … understand how to promote their show how to market themselves and branding," said social media and publicity manager Jim Sirianni of the Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara.

Led by local artist instructors, the biweekly interactive workshops are designed to teach essential business skills.

The course applies to artists across disciplines such as music, writing, culinary arts, film, and more. 

"A lot of times artist aren’t that familiar with the whole business side of things about how to market themselves and so at centerstage we mentor a lot of our producers who are brand new most of our producers that come through center stage are new to the whole thing," said Sirianni.

The county hopes every artist in the region will take advantage of this new opportunity.

“It’s a great impact in that sense that it takes people that are already devoted to their work and devoted to their art and allows them to build new skills that are gonna help them take that to the next level," said business specialist Nicholas Ragheb of the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity, and I think everyone who is who’s an artist at performing arts should definitely take advantage of it," said Sirianni.

Workshop facilitators come from the Central Coast region with training from Springboard for the Arts.

“I hope one that we get some really great attends that people take advantage of this great opportunity because it really is a valuable opportunity for people out there. They can do it for free and also that we can kind of continue this momentum and love these facilitators hopefully can find different places different avenues to apply those skills their building," said Ragheb.

The Work of Art course is offered on Thursdays from 12-1:30 p.m., and will run through June 6, 2024. 

Adrienne de Guevara, a Santa Barbara-based artist who teaches one of the courses, says, “Many artists either have never been exposed to basic business information, find it overwhelming to integrate it into their creative practice, or have been taken advantage of because they did not know how to value their work. With these workshops, we aim to meet creatives where they are by using language that is relevant to their practices."

Producing organizations include the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture, Arts Council for Monterey County, Arts Council Santa Cruz County, San Benito County Arts Council, San Luis Obispo County Arts Council, and Ventura County Arts Council.

Funding for the program is provided by the California Arts Council as part of the Central Coast Creative Corps workforce development program.

For more information on Work of Art, visit: sbac.ca.gov.