NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — More than 100 stakeholders in the creative economy spent an afternoon sharing ideas, stories and strategies for sustaining the state's cultural identity. 

 

The Western Massachusetts Arts Economic Impact Summit brought creatives from the nonprofit, for-profit and governmental worlds together at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts to talk housing, energy, grants and funding, training and retaining, partnerships and sustaining.

 

Belchertown Select Board member Jennifer Turner came to North Adams to hear what other communities are doing to sustain their creative development. Her town had built a strong foundation for arts and culture as an economic driver but is struggling as it's run out of resources. 

 

"We've been using a lot of ARPA funding to fund a lot of initiatives, and we use our volunteer economy mostly, but a lot of them are getting burnt out," she said. "So it's always trying to come up with a different alternative."

 

She found like-minded people and is going home with "tons of ideas." 

 

"Just networking and talking to others about the struggles that they're finding in their organizations, whether it be municipality or other," said Turner. "There was somebody who brought up a civic leadership transitional program in the city of Lowell, which is very interesting. For me, that's like a key takeaway, you know, to look into models that are existing across the state, that are working."

 

That's what state Sen. Paul Mark hoped would happen. The Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development pushed for the summit after speaking with people from Western Mass during a Creative Economy Day at the State House and with local artists.