INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINED CREATIVITY

What We Advocate For

The Institute for Sustained Creativity challenges arts leaders, community partners, and the public to advance contemporary policies and pedagogies that recognize artists as essential contributors across all sectors of the economy. Rooted in grassroots artistic and administrative experience and strengthened by strategic communication and community-building, we advocate for the following:

• Revealing pathways that artists can use to sustain creative lives.

• Strengthening the understanding that artists are far more than just “makers”: they often lead with their ideas in many different ways, across various sectors.

• Elevating public recognition of artists as essential contributors to the well-being of others.

• Connecting siloed organizations and community leaders to foster collaboration and shared impact.

• Replacing historic myths about artists with real-life narratives of artists’ lives in the 21st century.

• Sharing research-based reports and actionable recommendations of contemporary pedagogy, practices and micro-level problem-solving for artists toward sustaining their lives.

• Affirming artistic expression as essential for freedom of speech and democratic life.

• Embedding the arts throughout our education systems at every level.

• Transforming language by shedding inherited terms that continue to define artists by the past rather than the present, and advancing a framework of abundance rather than deficit.

Together, these advocacy priorities establish the Institute for Sustained Creativity as the central connection hub for arts leaders, artists, organizations, and allies advancing the value of the arts and artists today.

Profile of ISC Founder & Executive Director, Sharon Louden

Produced by The New Yorker Brand Studio (2024).
Print interview: The New Yorker.