Developing Artist Collaboration

Artist development focuses on professional resources, creation space, connection, and innovative presentation opportunities for our artists. A major initiative of Artist development is the creative career support program (ccsp). Ccsp is an intensive professional development program that pivots an Artist's career in just two months. Workshops, content creation, web development, business coaching, and marketing tools are included. We use one-on-one and group settings to foster growth among similar professional and ability levels. In 2022, we had 9 artists go through the program successfully. Other aspects of Artist development include:-development of an Artist portal app to connect artists with their peers, potential clients, and dac events and service offerings.-monthly artist-led meetings that allow dac artists to engage with one another through monthly or bi-monthly meetings.-one-on-one mentorships between established artists and emerging and mid-career artists.-workforce development focused on skilled volunteering. Artists may contribute hours to out of the box, artreach, workshops, group leadership, and/or events in exchange for access to resources, studios, vendor fees, ccsp and/or print services. Relying on skilled artists to do impactful work results in quality output and engagement in our programming.-studio and communal spaces. Our current facility, "the studios", houses sixteen art studios that are all currently rented.

Artreach is dac's community development and beautification initiative. Dac is founded on the belief that through skilled volunteering, artists can make impactful change. Our current artreach project is the west rehoboth historical mural which is nearing completion. West rehoboth has a rich cultural history that is overshadowed by a harmful stigma associated with the struggles of its community members. Through the creation of an educational mural and historical markers, this project will help remove stigma and cultivate a better understanding of the importance of west rehoboth to the greater Delaware beach area. Mural Artist, terrance vann, whose family is from west rehoboth, is expected to finish in 2023. This will be followed by an education infographic and website development to better educate members of the public as they visit the area.

Out of the box diy (otb) is our revenue-driven program staffed by working artists. It sells diy art kits and in-person art experiences locally & through offsite events. Otb experienced an impactful transition in 2021 due to a large grant from the longwood foundation. We rebranded from dirty hands diy into out of the box diy in response to concerns from our community of color about the connotation of the term "dirty hands. "in 2022, we expanded our event programming and renovated a portion of our space to better serve in-person workshops to include our paint pour process as well as to offer a venue for dac Artist members.