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Temple University Council on Entrepreneurship Hosts Arts Conference

“To be an artist is to be an entrepreneur in this day and age,” said Bill Johnson, Managing Director at Temple’s radio station WRTI-FM, the nation’s only full-time classical and jazz station.

Johnson was one of seven panelists featured at Temple University’s Council on Entrepreneurship half-day conference, “Entrepreneurship in the Arts: from Talent to Venture.”

The panel was composed of leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs from the Greater Philadelphia Region’s arts community. Each presenter addressed the interdependence between entrepreneurs and artists.

We like to inspire both our students and faculty that there’s a lot of money to be made in the arts through entrepreneurship,” said Chris Pavlides, Executive Director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute at the Fox School of Business. “We want to let students know that if somebody in music doesn’t make it as a singer, it doesn’t m“ean it’s the end of their career.”

Panelist Rebecca Davis, a 2004 Fox School graduate, and Founder of The Rebecca Davis Dance Company, told the audience that it is important for them to have an alternate plan, in case ‘Plan A’ falls through.

“When I was 18, I realized I was not going to become a professional dancer, but I always had a passion for the arts,” Davis said. “I decided to go to business school, and have a lifestyle that integrated business and the arts together,” she added, stressing the need to find a balance between one’s role as an artist and one’s role as an entrepreneur.

Davis, who majored in entrepreneurship at Fox, won the school’s business plan competition in 2004 and incubated her business at Temple’s Small Business Development Center. She is particularly interested in spreading the message of entrepreneurship throughout Temple.

Another panelist Kathy Wickline, President of Kathy Wickline Casting advised aspiring to keep coming up with ideas, because some will be bad and some will be good. An idea can only be good if many ideas are thrown out there. “Do what you want to do. I’m an idea person. I like shaking the trees, to see what types of ideas come off,” said Wickline.

Bruce Kaminsky, Creator and President of Kydd Products, Inc., a company that produces compact electric basses, stressed the idea that combining entrepreneurship and the arts is not a new concept.

“Arts have always been involved in entrepreneurship and have been commercialized,” he opened. “Da Vinci, and Michelangelo were both commercial artists. To say that there is entrepreneurship in the arts is redundant.”

He warned artists not to define themselves as artists, because then they will be limited in how they view the world. “Arts and entrepreneurship in Philadelphia have always been combined, and always will be. Without these things we will die,” said Kaminsky. “Arts have to be part of a culture.”

Other participants included the moderator, Tom Kaiden, COO, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; and presenters Eric Haeker, Arts in Motion, who talked about leveraging for-profit projects to support your non-profit business and Tim McDonald, Plumbob LLC and Onion Flats, who talked about the necessity for an entrepreneur to take risks.

The conference received rave reviews from the audience members who were impressed by the unique diversity of the panelists.

“I liked how every type of artist was represented,” said Gina Bacci, who earned her BA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art (‘75), and her MBA in marketing from Temple University’s Fox School of Business (‘79). “I think that all of them (the speakers) spoke from the heart.”

Marc Rice, a Resident Director at the Tyler School of Art was thrilled by the conference. He enjoyed the presentation given by Kaminksy.

“The artist and the person are not two separate things,” said Rice. “Today’s art community is a mix between business and making music. Artists have to realize that artists are not disconnected from business.”

This conference is the first initiative of the newly formed Temple University Council on Entrepreneurship (TUCE), which aims to encourage entrepreneurship throughout Temple, across a range of disciplines. Guided by Temple’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute, TUCE unites all 17 schools and colleges at Temple in helping students, staff, faculty, and alumni strive toward entrepreneurial success.

Sponsors of the conference included the Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance, Tyler School of Art, School of Communication and Theater, Fox School of Business, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, and its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute.

By Rebecca Carroll