Critical Mass

Dr. Marilyn Besich, Dr. Edrienne Kittredge, and MAP artist Janet Christenot work on pricing at the Kentucky Crafted Show

It is interesting how ties from the distant past follow us.

Recently, I found a packet of letters from my great-grandfather to his father discussing his preparations to leave Kentucky ahead of the impending Civil War. The planning included selling off house goods, purchasing supplies, and packing the wagons for the trek west.

Over 150 years later, I returned to Kentucky several times with groups of Montana artists invited to participate in the top-rated Kentucky Crafted Show. As part of a growing segment of Montana artists, these artists were chosen from artists who have continued to develop their entrepreneurial skills to build successful businesses.

They are working examples of how micro-businesses can create a critical mass in the current push for “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Critical mass, a phrase taken from nuclear science’s chain reaction, now appears in a number of places, book titles, band names, bicycle races to name a few. It is used to describe the minimum amount of something, possibly an effort or resource, needed to start and maintain a direction.

In applying the term to the artists in Montana’s economy, I use it to describe what I see happening as artist after artist in Montana and Idaho signs up for MAP (“My Artrepreneur Program”) and takes the plunge into the entrepreneurial pool. Individually, their business activity may seem too small to register on the economic developer’s calculator. However, taken as a group, the impact becomes visible, a force to be recognized and heeded.

Surveys and studies (like the one at https://art.mt.gov/Portals/27/MAP%202016%20Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf) have shown, for example, that:
• One in every 78 people in Montana is a working artist. This number probably doesn’t include the hundreds of folk artists who do not self-report as artists, but as ranchers, farmers, teachers, housewives, etc.
• The economic impact of those one in 78 Montanans is almost a quarter of a billion dollars a year.
• Selling art to out-of-state customers brings in “new” dollars.

Such figures do not include the multiplier of those incomes because this “art” money is as green as other industry dollars. Artists spend money for supplies, for workshops, for studios and transportation. They hire framers, glass cutters, graphic designers. The ripple effect is wide.

Montana’s folk and traditional artists have long been part of Montana’s economy, but hidden in plain view, contributing without being “counted.” Their saddles have helped the cattleman work his cattle. Their quilts have warmed the bodies of miners and foresters and their worked and embellished furs and hides have protected the bodies and hearts of tribal members. The list is endless.

Add to that the growing group of artrepreneurs. They are the real thing, and they add to the banquet table that feeds the West’s economy.

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