INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINED CREATIVITY

Higher Education & Learning Environments

Rethinking Professional Development

Over the past three decades or more, ideas about professional development for artists have continued to evolve, reflecting changing beliefs about how creative lives are built and sustained. Yet within much of higher education, professional development for artists is still treated as peripheral: unevenly taught, secondary to studio practice, or shaped by mythology and outdated models of artistic success.

In our workshops and ongoing conversations with artists, especially those who have moved through higher education, a familiar story emerges: guidance around sustaining a creative life was rarely part of their education. When it did appear, it was often impractical, incomplete, or no longer relevant to the realities artists encounter today.

The Institute for Sustained Creativity responds to this gap by serving as a shared resource for professional development that accurately reflects today’s creative economy. We examine how sustainability is currently taught across institutions when we meet with experts in the field. Engaging directly with syllabi, curricula, related programming, and other varied pedagogical approaches, we also draw on insights gathered at the grassroots level -- from working artists, arts leaders, educators, and participants across diverse communities. We gain contemporary knowledge from many art worlds — not just one. Our goal is to ensure that students and alumni encounter multiple, viable ways to sustain their lives as artists, rather than a single, narrow model.

At a moment when higher education faces increasing accountability, this work is both timely and necessary. Colleges and universities have an opportunity and a responsibility to demonstrate how artists can build sustainable lives through diverse strategies beyond reliance on traditional systems that no longer meet the needs of artists today.

To this end, ISC is building a centralized database and living archive of substantive resources that will be rolled out throughout 2026, including:

• Professional development syllabi.

• Real-life pathways and examples from the field.

• Case studies drawn from working artists.

This archive will allow institutions to compare and contrast approaches, while sharing current, evidence-based pathways that help students and alumni thrive.

How ISC Supports Higher Education

As part of our work with colleges and universities, ISC:

• Tracks which colleges and universities teach professional development.

• Surveys art departments and career services offices to collect syllabi.

• Designs professional development programs and syllabi.

• Shares contemporary professional development pedagogies.

• Collaborates with career services to update and expand resources for visual artists.

• Offers research-backed guidance and resources to faculty and administrators on effective professional development curricula.

• Documents and disseminates real pathways toward sustaining a creative life.

• Collaborates with existing alumni programs to strengthen connections and opportunities for graduates, including alumni-focused professional development initiatives.

• Curates and shares lists of visiting artists who model sustainable creative lives.

A Shared Resource for the Field

Across higher education, institutions are often working in parallel, unaware of the valuable professional development models and tools being developed elsewhere. This siloing often results in repeated efforts and missed opportunities for collaboration to share information widely.

ISC functions as a valuable resource for the field, bringing together professional development curricula, research, and guidance in one accessible place. By collecting and disseminating this work broadly, we hope to normalize professional development as a core component of arts education and ensure that artists everywhere are equipped with a variation of tools and ways they can choose to sustain their creative lives.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Professional development in academic institutions is shaped not only by curriculum, but also through learning environments: the structures, formats, and physical or virtual spaces through which students engage ideas, people, and resources.

The Institute for Sustained Creativity designs and implements learning environments that expand access to resources, foster experimentation, and respond to the real-world realities of the art industry. These environments emphasize flexibility, inclusivity, and relevance, meeting artists where they are and preparing them for sustainable professional lives.

Through this work, ISC demonstrates how intentional design of space, structure, and pedagogy, can expand opportunity, stimulate community building, challenge outdated norms, and support artists in developing their meaningful creative lives.

A few examples include:

1.  Establishing the First Dedicated Arts Library for the Art Department at the University of Central Arkansas.

Located within the Art Department at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway, AR, not only was this library their first-ever that was focused solely on arts publications, but it quickly played an essential resource in the school’s learning curriculum.

Through collaboration with undergraduate senior art majors and national networks, ISC identified the need for this foundational repository and populated the library with contributions of over 100 significant art publications, launching a critical learning environment that continues to support students and faculty.

Ongoing: 2018-2026.

2. Decolonizing the Arts Library at Chautauqua Visual Arts (CVA).

Building on the success of the UCA library initiative, ISC expanded this work by developing a smaller, intentionally decolonized arts library at Chautauqua Visual Arts. The collection broadened access to underrepresented voices and perspectives, reinforcing the role of libraries as active pedagogical spaces rather than static repositories. ISC did this through an outreach to organizations that provided a wide range of contemporary publications.

2022.

3. Redesigning Curriculum and Programming at Chautauqua Visual Arts (CVA).

ISC designed an inclusive, diverse, and intergenerational curriculum for the CVA residency program, continuing education offerings, and related initiatives.

Programming was restructured to be more fluid and responsive, emphasizing:

• Mentorship models that resist rigid roles.

• Experimentation and idea-driven inquiry.

• Emphasizing dialogue instead of outcomes based solely on production.

Guest contributors included thinkers and leaders not traditionally associated with visual arts education, such as representatives from Homeboy Industries. The pedagogy intentionally disrupted siloed disciplinary models — integrating studio practice with professional development, contemporary writing, archiving, and critical engagement of art history.

2018 - 2022.

Chautauqua, NY (2019-2021)
Chautauqua Visual Arts (CVA) Residency
First ever CVA Drag Show!; End of season group dinner; Pedagogy Workshop

4. Real-Talk Professional Development at the New York Academy of Art.

As part of the New York Academy of Art’s Professional Development Lecture Series, ISC designed and facilitated candid conversations with practitioners who were deeply engaged in the realities of varied contemporary art communities. By centering generosity, accessibility, and lived experience, these sessions addressed questions often left unspoken—making the complexity of multiple segments within the art industry more transparent and navigable for artists.

Contributors included: Seph Rodney, Nayland Blake, Hrag Vartanian, Alpesh Kantilal Patel, Robin Cembalest, Kay Takeda, Heather Pontonio, Julia Kunin, Mark Tribe, Deana Haggag, Robert Storr, Steven Sergiovanni, Ellen Harvey, Amanda Church, Austin Thomas, Carter Foster, Melissa Potter, Walter Robinson, Ken Johnson, Michelle Grabner, Roberta Smith, and Steven Henry, to name a few.

For more information about this series and to view videos of panels, please visit this page.

2009 - 2019.

Learning environments are never neutral — they shape what artists believe is possible.