When Sarah Corlett was growing up, her family traveled from Toledo to Cincinnati for summer vacations. They came to visit family. She left with an appreciation for all that the city had to offer.
Years later, she's putting that appreciation to use to launch a program designed to support artists while filling storefronts with new small businesses.
SpringBoard, based at
ArtWorks in Over-the-Rhine, is an eight-week program focused on helping artists, artisans and other creative entrepreneurs build business plans while learning from local experts in financing, marketing, legal needs, business planning and more.
"We're giving people the basic tools to shape their businesses," says Corlett, 31, who moved back to Ohio from Philadelphia with her husband last fall. The first SpringBoard class starts June 7. "Our hope is that we would have a handful of artists and entrepreneurs who are seeds of inspiration to other people who want to go out on their own."
Inspired by
a similar program in Chattanooga, Cincinnati's SpringBoard provides business expertise to artists who are more familiar with canvasses than spreadsheets.
Education programs for artists teach artist skills and give them opportunities to develop their talents, but profitability often takes a back seat to techniques. Corlett understands the challenge. A dancer since age three, the arts have never been far from her heart. Corlett says that SpringBoard answers the question: "How do you transition from being an artist into being a small business owner?"
Supporting artists and the arts comes naturally to Corlett, whose life has been infused and energized by artistic creativity. When she talks about the sustainability of artist communities, she leans forward slightly on her petite frame, her ballerina's posture perfect, her blue eyes intense. "The arts had such an impact on my life," she says. From Toledo, Corlett moved to Dayton for college, and while majoring in American Studies, she found time to dance with the Dayton Ballet. After graduation, she landed a spot with the company and had her turn at the Nutcracker and even Swan Lake, a four-hour production which she describes as "grueling." When dance became more about work and less about passion, Corlett moved on to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She studied Urban Planning and Public Policy.
Still, the arts found their way into her favorite work efforts. When she worked for Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, she compiled resources for artists. Though she loved the Windy City, where she met her now-husband, she couldn't shake the urge to work in a city where she could have more of a direct impact. She got her chance at the New Kensington Community Development Corporation in Philadelphia. "It was a phenomenal experience," she says. As the director of economic development, she connected artists with resources and worked to create an artists' corridor, transforming older buildings into renovated work and retail spaces.
After four years, though, Corlett and her husband, also an Ohio native, felt the tug of their home state. They wanted to be closer to family, closer to friends. His work in IT gave them flexibility. They could choose any city in the state and he could still do his job. Corlett immediately set her sights on Cincinnati. "It's hard not to be moved by the potential here," she says.
Last fall, the couple made the leap. They set up a new home downtown. Corlett took a few weeks to get acclimated to the city. By the end of the year, she was sending out resumes, hoping, but not expecting, immediate responses. Her resume landed in the offices of ArtWorks just as a group of innovative thinkers were ready to test the viability of SpringBoard in Cincinnati. Excited by what he had seen the program do in Chattanooga, Eric Avner, vice president and senior program manager for community development at the The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation helped galvanize support. The future of vibrant urban cores doesn't lie solely in the world of high-tech start-ups with little, if any, ties to a geographic home, says Avner. New art school graduates eager to build a future while selling their work, as well as artisans whose unique skills have been handed down through generations, have identities rooted in Cincinnati. "Why aren't we tapping some of that?" Avner asks.
He found a natural home for SpringBoard at ArtWorks, already the largest employer of visual artists in the city.
"SpringBoard is a natural jump from putting artists on the street," says Tamara Harkavy, ArtWorks executive director. "It's all about innovation."
With $45,000 from the Haile Foundation to fund SpringBoard for a year, Harkavy and her team needed someone with experience developing artists' communities to lead the charge. When she saw Corlett's resume, she couldn't believe her luck. For Corlett, the chance to help shape, launch and lead SpringBoard has been an exciting crash course in Cincinnati arts capacity-building and business know-how. She meets with artists and educators; she builds bridges with business and funding experts; she scans empty storefronts in Over-the-Rhine. She sees SpringBoard as a mechanism to pull those disparate pieces together. Next month, she oversees the first Cincinnati SpringBoard class, which will accept no more than a dozen students. For $250, artist-students receive classroom instruction, personal consulting and direct connections with real estate opportunities.
"There's going to be a lot of homework," Corlett says. "This is your eight weeks to focus on your business plan."
Initially, Corlett says part of the focus is to encourage SpringBoard graduates to help populate empty spaces in Over-the Rhine. While planning a downtown shop is far from a requirement for the class, she explains that the historic neighborhood does come with unique advantages.
"Over the Rhine already has that energy," she explains. Building on the traditions of Findlay Market, the Gateway Quarter and BuyCincy, she sees lots of existing support for creative new entrepreneurs in the neighborhood. "Owners are so connected," Corlett explains. "It's a nurturing environment."
As a new transplant living in the urban core, Corlett would know. She and her husband share a car, so she spends much of her time walking the streets of downtown, including walking to work at ArtWorks, located in the Gateway District. It's a far cry from her summer vacations in the Cincinnati suburbs, and Corlett wouldn't have it any other way. "I'm loving it," she says.
Applications for the first SpringBoard class are due May 20. Corlett plans at least two more SpringBoard series before the end of the year. For more information, contact Corlett at
[email protected].
Photography by Scott Beseler.
Sarah Cortlett in the Artworks window
Sarah Cortlett portrait
Space available
Approaching Vine street from the west
Vine street redevelopment