I was invited recently by my colleagues at the IU Arts Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab to contribute to a monograph they are editing on “Cultural Entrepreneurship” in the Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship series. To my surprise, and I think theirs, I said yes. Despite my demanding “day job” I now find myself at my desk overlooking the East River poring through the literature on arts incubators since 2014 when I published a typology of arts incubators. My contribution to the monograph will include a review of this literature along with an update on the status of the 46 arts incubat ..read more

I’m teasing out the opening paragraphs of each of the ten essays in Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action. Interested in reading more than the first paragraphs? You can order directly in the US from University of Chicago Press, in the UK from Intellect Books, ask your local bookstore to order it for you, or purchase from a giant online retailer. Essay Three is probably the most “academic” or “theoretical” in the collection, but no prior knowledge is required. Essay Three: Art, Capitalism, and Its Discontents When one looks at the intersection ..read more

I’m teasing out the opening paragraphs of each of the ten essays in Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action. Interested in reading more than the first paragraphs? You can order directly in the US from University of Chicago Press, in the UK from Intellect Books, ask your local bookstore to order it for you, or purchase from a giant online retailer. I do so now, with some trepidation, as I know that AI bots can pull this language and subsequently write something in “my” voice. But, unless I decide to unpublish this whole site, which would be antitheti ..read more

Over the next weeks, I’ll be teasing out the opening paragraphs of each of the ten essays in Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action. Interested in reading more than the first paragraphs? You can order directly in the US from University of Chicago Press, in the UK from Intellect Books, ask your local bookstore to order it for you, or purchase from a giant online retailer. Essay One: An Ouroboros of Self-sustainability The Ouroboros as Metaphor Artists thrive when they can sustain their creative practice and their creative practice can sustain them. I explain this ..read more

I am delighted to share that Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action has been favorably reviewed by Wen Guo in Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts.* Here are a few excerpts: “…a remarkable book that, over 196 pages, thoughtfully discusses and demystifies the key issues that make frequent appearances in the burgeoning discourse of arts entrepreneurship as both a scholarly field and creative praxis.” “Essig integrates her dramaturgical lens and training in stakeholder theory to analyze both contextual and behavioral constructs of arts entrepreneurshi ..read more

Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action is now available online or, maybe, at a bookstore near you if you ask for it. Please do. I started these essays in 2017, but many of the ideas first found the light of day on this blog, which launched December 31, 2010. Many thanks to all of you who read, commented, contributed, agreed to be interviewed, or just made good work. Enjoy ..read more

It has become my annual ritual for the past 11 years to write a New Year’s Eve blog post, celebrating the launch of Creative Infrastructure on December 31, 2010. But let’s face it – blogs are so last decade…or maybe even the decade before. Both my blogging (this is only the fifth post of the year) and the readership have declined significantly this year (down to about 9000 from a high of over 200,000 in 2014). Nevertheless, there were some very important milestones and transitions during 2021 worth noting. Quite unexpectedly, I left Los Angeles to return to New York to assume a new position as ..read more

I am thrilled to announce that Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action is now available for pre-order. E-book or UK paper from Intellect Books US Paperback from University of Chicago Press ..read more

I’ll just leave this here ..read more

I wanted to provide an update for my readers who have been following the progress of my book, Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action.             After some delay, I received a positive reader report from the publisher, Intellect Books. It was all one could hope for: thoughtful and constructive, with a conclusion to “publish with minor revisions.” Those revisions are now underway especially in response to the reader’s suggestion that I address race, class, and equity more directly. It is great feedback that pr ..read more