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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts  Volume 6, Issue 1 
http://artivate.org  pp. 1-2 
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Copyright © 2017, the author      
 
 

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE WINTER 2017 ISSUE 
Linda Essig, Arizona State University 

 
The three feature articles in this issue demonstrate developing research methods for arts 

entrepreneurship while illuminating field ontology (or ontologies) of both inquiry and practice. 
Jason White, in “Analyzing Entrepreneurship In The U.S. Arts Sector: Identifying Arts 
Entrepreneurs’ Demographics And Shared Characteristics,” endeavors to use data sets and 
empirical methods commonly employed across the social sciences to determine the 
characteristics of arts entrepreneurs in a given community, a process that uncovers some of the 
challenges inherent to research in the field. Travis Newton, in “LSO Live: An Entrepreneurial 
Venture,” uses a descriptive case study to illuminate intrapreneurial behavior, while Jonathan 
Gangi takes a conceptual approach in “Towards Consensus: Suggested Foundational Building 
Blocks For Arts Entrepreneurship Research And Pedagogy.”  

The authors offer complementary understandings that point to the ways in which arts 
entrepreneurship exists at the individual, organizational, and system levels of analysis. While one 
author indicates that arts entrepreneurship is unique because of the product created by individual 
artists, another differentiates arts entrepreneurship as being within a specific economic sector 
defined by its core workers. Yet the third considers arts entrepreneurship as a behavior at the 
organizational level. As a body of research in and of the field continues to grow, we will begin to 
populate these levels with the knowledge necessary to move the field from its current conceptual 
phase into the theoretical phase that signals a mature research domain (cf, Hagoort, 2007, p. 12-
13). 

In addition to the three research articles, this issue features the fourth installment of our 
“Perspectives” series to which members of the Artivate editorial board are invited to contribute. 
Susan Badger-Booth advocates for a close look at arts alumni in order to observe individual 
entrepreneurial behavior. Diane Ragsdale asks a provocative question about the relationship of 
the individual artist/entrepreneur, the organizations they may found, and the economic system of 
which they are part.   

Finally, please review the call for our first-ever special issue on the next page. Artivate: A 
Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts is pleased to partner with the Kresge Foundation on a 
special issue devoted to arts entrepreneurship and creative placemaking. 

 
Special Event 

 Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts is published by the Pave 
Program in Arts Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University. The Pave program also presents a 
biennial symposium on entrepreneurship and the arts. The fifth biennial symposium will be held 
May 5-6, 2017 in Tempe, Phoenix, and Mesa Arizona. The theme of the 2017 symposium is 
“Arts Entrepreneurship In, With, and For Communities.” Information about the symposium and 
a registration link can be found at http://pave.asu.edu/symposium. 

 
References 

Hagoort, G. (2007). Cultural entrepreneurship. Utrecht: Utrecht University School of the Arts. 



Essig            Editor’s Introduction 
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Artivate 6 (1)   

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SPECIAL ISSUE: ARTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVE PLACEMAKING  

 Creative placemaking is a topic of increasing relevance in the U.S. and around the world. 
However, little attention has yet been paid in the scholarly literature to the role of the arts 
entrepreneur or the entrepreneurial behavior of arts organizations in creative placemaking theory 
or practice, including in the policy domain.  
 According to the National Endowment for the Arts (2016), Creative Placemaking projects 
“strategically link communities and local governments with artists, designers, and arts 
organizations to improve quality of life, create a sense of place, and revitalize local economies.” 
ArtPlace America (2016) considers that in Creative Placemaking projects “art plays an 
intentional and integrated role in place-based community planning and development. This brings 
artists, arts organizations, and artistic activity into the suite of placemaking strategies pioneered 
by Jane Jacobs and her colleagues, who believed that community development must be locally 
informed, human-centric, and holistic.” Finally, the Kresge Foundation (2016) defines Creative 
Placemaking as the deliberate integration of arts, culture and community engaged design in 
community development and urban planning practices to expand opportunity for vulnerable 
populations.” 
 This first-ever special issue of Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts asks 
authors to address one or more of the following questions:  

• What is the role of arts entrepreneurship in Creative Placemaking?  
• How does/can arts and cultural entrepreneurship specifically support community 

revitalization and equitable development?  
• What role can arts entrepreneurs play in connecting the nonprofit and for-profit arts and 

culture sectors with residents, business interests, and local governments?  
• How does public policy (at various scales) promote or obstruct the contributions of arts 

entrepreneurs to creative placemaking and community revitalization? 
• How should the contributions of arts entrepreneurs to community revitalization best be 

captured and assessed?  
 
 Submission to the special issue are due April 15, 2017 for review for possible publication 
in the Summer 2017 issue. Please refer to the detailed submission guidelines at 
http://artivate.org. Presenters at the Fifth Biennial Pave Symposium on Entrepreneurship and the 
Arts: Arts Entrepreneurship In, With, and For Communities may be invited to submit their 
papers for publication consideration. 
 Guest editors of this very special Summer 2017 issue of Artivate: A Journal of 
Entrepreneurship in the Arts are Maria Rosario Jackson and Greg Esser. 
  

 References 
 
ArtPlace American (2016). Introduction. Webpage. 

http://www.artplaceamerica.org/about/introduction 
The Kresge Foundation. (2016). Reseources for transitioning economies. Webpage. 

http://diversifyeconomies.org/2015/12/kresge-foundation/ 
National Endowment for the Arts. (2016). Exploring Our Town. Webpage. 

https://www.arts.gov/exploring-our-town 
 


