On Sat., Mar. 21, the 3rd annual Self-Employment in the Arts Conference at the University of Tampa aims to give practitioners in the visual, literary, performing and film arts a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency. The daylong lineup includes sessions on marketing, networking, work-life balance and intellectual property led by professional artists, writers, filmmakers, professors and an attorney. This year’s conference is organized by Suzanne Williamson, a recent transplant to Tampa Bay whose experience as a visual artist makes her uniquely suited to the task.

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Laura Mae Dooris. Cornucopia of Discovery. Mixed media on canvas, 36″ x 24″.
I just learned today about TampaArtist.com, which has an extensive image gallery featuring work by about 200 Bay area artists. About 75% of the names were new to me (unlike, say, Laura Mae Dooris, whose work I’ve seen in several exhibitions over the [...]

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Video courtesy Tampa Bay Business Committee for the Arts. Produced by Edit Suites.

Last week, Chicago-based marketing guru Patricia Martin landed in Tampa to talk about the ideas behind her new book, RenGen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What It Means to Your Business.

Some of Martin’s rhetoric sounds familiar. Instead of a “creative [...]

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