Brown County wants to incubate arts businesses

For more than 100 years, the creations of Brown County artists have added to the county’s reputation as the “Art Colony of the Midwest.” \nIn continuing with that tradition, the Brown County Economic Development Commission is seeking fledging arts businesses to nurture and grow.\nThe EDC has an office space in the National City Bank building in Nashville, Ind., with enough space for five small arts businesses to get started. It will be called the Art Industry New Business Incubator.\n“Basically, the purpose of the art incubator is for new start-up arts-oriented business operations, primarily focused on the commercial arts, which could be anything from publishing to web design or visual arts,” said Douglas May, business arts development consultant for the Brown County EDC. “With Brown County being a creative center, this is a great place for any arts-oriented business operation to start their business.”\nMay said they started the application process with 12 businesses, but no one had been chosen yet since the incubator was announced just a few weeks ago. The EDC anticipates several more applications from young arts businesses. \nMay began work on the project in July, in an effort to expand the range of arts-related businesses in Nashville.\n“Brown County has always needed to look at expanding how we define the arts,” May said. “The arts industry is a huge, huge industry, which I don’t think we’ve ever really truly tapped into, so this is an opportunity to open the doors in many ways to those that want to benefit from the association with an art colony.”\nThe arts businesses that are accepted into the incubator will have a furnished office, and will share office equipment, communications access, secretarial support and potential funding avenues with their fellow fledglings. \nIncubator hopefuls must submit an application and a business plan to the EDC. \nMay is also working on a project called the “Working Artists Program,” which will help artists find unique studios in Nashville, especially if they are interested in working with the public “for the development of bigger artistic endeavors,” May said. \nHoward Hughes, a member of the Brown County EDC, said the incubator and other programs could have long-lasting benefits for the arts colony area. \n“We think that the payoff in Brown County would be the spin-off businesses that would actually bring more places that may develop because of the efforts here,” he said. “It could help out with taxes, and that would certainly be a payoff for us. Also, we’re claiming credentials of the Art Colony of the Midwest, and in order to have those credentials, you have to have arts businesses.”\nThe process of creating the incubator has been a smooth one, May said.\n“It’s definitely been embraced by the community, it’s been embraced by normal artists,” he said. “It’s just a total win-win.”