Vermont Creative Network Summit Panel: Advancing Vermont Arts

On November 4 & 5 the inaugural Vermont Creative Network Summit will bring together Vermont’s creative sector: Practitioners, educators, administrators, advocates, business owners, and volunteers. Hosted over two days by the Vermont Arts Council and Vermont College of Fine Arts, it offers colleagues from the entire creative sector a hands-on opportunity to network, learn from experts, and share practical insights.
 
The Summit creates opportunities to explore topics that are shaping our arts experience in Vermont: Arts Integrated Learning, Creative Economy, collective impact, makers’ spaces, Results Based Accountability, social media, social practice, Vermont Farm to Plate Network, and more. Attendees will get to discuss ideas, exchange strategies, and share developments targeted toward advancing Vermont’s creative sector.
 
Among the Summit workshops and panels will be ‘Advancing VT Arts’ Thursday, November 5 at 1:30pm. See http://vermontcreativenetwork.org/summit/ for the panel location on the Vermont College of Fine Arts campus.
 
About the Panel:
 
Vermont’s creative community is validated by how many creative artists comprise it. This variety is its hallmark: Unique personalities, modes of expression, grouping of talents, models for organizing institutions that champion the arts, all together demonstrate its vitality and strength. Our creative community also recognizes common needs. Alliance building and an exploration of these shared needs is occurring within the VT Creative Network, a first step toward a future where the arts community is self-empowered.This panel provides a practical overview of the landscape in which individuals and organizations are seeking to advance the arts in Vermont. Panelists describe challenges faced in social and government systems that have handicapped arts advocacy and offer solutions that create a new level of opportunity for everyone. Moderated by Zon Eastes, Vermont Arts Council.
 
About the Panelists:
 
Marguerite Dibble
MARGUERITE DIBBLE
Marguerite Dibble is the CEO of GameTheory, a Vermont based company developing mobile apps and games, which also provides consulting services to a variety of companies, helping them using game design thinking to approach motivational, organizational, and engagement challenges with their businesses. She is a Vermont native, and attended Champlain College to study Game Art in the class of 2012. Marguerite continues to focus on building the creative and technology economies of Vermont with an emphasis collaboration making the possibilities for the state's future a reality.
 
Matt Dunne
MATT DUNNE
For the last eight years, Matt has worked for Google out of the Tip Top building (an old bread factory) in downtown White River Junction. Matt serves on the board of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, The Center for Cartoon Studies, and the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. In the past, he has served on the board of the Vermont Arts Council, Windsor County Court Diversion, and the Vermont Infrastructure Bank. At age 22, Matt was elected to serve in the Vermont legislature by his community and was re-elected three times. He later served two terms in the state senate representing Windsor County. In the legislature he focused on economic development strategies, including the first legislation dedicated to the redevelopment of downtowns and brownfields, deployment of broadband, and the creation of the Vermont Film Commission. He is currently running for Governor of Vermont, and lives with his wife, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and their three children Judson, Abe, and Cora in the same farmhouse in Hartland where he was raised.
 
Genese Grill
GENESE GRILL
Genese Grill is a writer, visual artist, educator, translator, and community organizer living in Burlington, Vermont. She is co-founder of The Fools' Gold Artists' Fund, Research Sharing Via Paper, and The South End Alliance, and the author of The World as Metaphor in Robert Musil's 'The Man without Qualities': Possibility as Reality (Camden House, 2012) and translator of Robert Musil's Thought Flights (Contra Mundum, 2015). Genese is interested in enhancing Vermont's creative capabilities through grass-roots community activities and conversations and especially in working toward developing a means to celebrate the value of art and critical thinking for society within a current context which seems to privilege short term economic gains over other values. Most recently, in her work with The South End Alliance, Genese has collaborated with diverse local stakeholders to preserve Burlington's thriving Arts and Enterprise from the threat of market-driven forces.
 
James Lockridge
JAMES LOCKRIDGE
James is the Executive Director of Big Heavy World. He has directed Vermont’s Burlington-based independent, volunteer-staffed music office for 20 years, generating partnerships and channeling enthusiasm that supports Vermont-made music of every kind & stage of development. James has championed inclusion and respect for diversity, and built a widely recognized engine of support for regional music based on these values. James is a cultural heritage advisory board member of the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership (Vermont’s National Heritage Area) and serves on the King Street Neighborhood Revitalization Corp. He also directs the Youth Safety Council of Vermont and coordinates the Distracted Driving Task Force of the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance and its Education/Outreach & Marketing Focus Group.
 
Tom Stevens
TOM STEVENS
Tom Stevens is a writer, photographer, actor & director. He is currently a state representative for the towns of Waterbury, Huntington, Bolton & Buels Gore and is a member of the Arts Caucus. As an artist and a legislator, Tom is interested in finding solutions within the tension between STEM and STEAM, and with the application of the concept of the Creative Economy to communities that wish to revitalize. Tom conceived and produced "Going to Waterbury: An Elegy," a multimedia art installation at the Vermont State Hospital prior to its removal from the State Complex in Waterbury. He lives in Waterbury Village with his family.
 
The panel was coordinated by James Lockridge, a persistent advocate for equity in the arts, with thanks to Zon Eastes.
 
More Information about the Summit:
 
Other Summit workshop sessions, led by a number of organizations include: Benchmarks for Better Vermont, Burlington Generator, Cultural Data Project, Emergent Media Center of Champlain College, Massachusetts Creative Economy, Vermont Department of Libraries, Vermont Downtown Association, VSA Vermont.
 
To learn more and register visit: http://vermontcreativenetwork.org/summit/