Networking, marketing could help Oklahoma City's artists stand out, study suggests

The Cultural Development Corporation of Oklahoma, a nonprofit, commissioned a study by Minnesota-based Creative Community Builders to help develop a strategy to support Oklahoma City's artists. The findings were presented to the city Arts Commission at its meeting last week.

The study found Oklahoma City has an advantage it can exploit in a burgeoning creative class, more than a quarter of which is composed of self-employed workers. The challenge is to capitalize by finding a way to help them network with each other and market their skills and products.

“We found a real diversity of artists, and self-employed artists at a much higher rate than the rest of the country,” said Julia Kirt, the development corporation's president and director of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. “But we're pretty fragmented and not coordinated between art forms.”

Arts investment

Oklahoma City has made increasing investments in money and time to better the local arts community as part of efforts to improve quality of life. The development corporation and city have partnered to develop a cultural plan for the city, and an Oklahoma City ordinance requires one percent of construction budgets to be spent on public art.

MAPS projects and other public and private investment efforts have led to a number of arts districts, museums, exhibitions and programs in the metro.