Are you a Fort Worth business owner or resident who has struggled to connect with local artists for projects? A new digital platform is prepared to fill that gap.
Arts Fort Worth, the nonprofit organization that manages the city’s public art and grant programs and serves as a resource for artists, has rolled out the free online network Culturalyst: Fort Worth. The digital directory was announced during the inaugural Arts Forward summit March 29 at Texas Wesleyan University.
Culturalyst is designed to make it easier to contact, discover and support artists, organizations and opportunities. Fort Worthians are able to browse local profiles and search specific artists or disciplines to find what they are looking for. Filter keywords include fashion, music, visual, performing and writing.
The digital platform is already available across four states, including Connecticut, Louisiana and Missouri. Fort Worth is the first city to bring the platform to Texas.
Wesley Gentle, executive director and president of Arts Fort Worth, said the idea to fund Culturalyst locally came after community leaders found a need for a central hub that serves both artists and residents. There hasn’t been a digital directory like it before, he added.
“I talk to people all the time who want to volunteer and they don’t know how. I hear all the time from artists who are looking for an opportunity to participate in something bigger. I hear all the time from businesses who want to all have a mural on it and have no idea how to find a muralist,” Gentle said. “We partnered with Culturalyst to create something that’s going to help us do all those things and so much more.”
Fort Worth artists can create free profiles on Culturalyst that link to existing portfolios, websites and social media handles. The digital platform also connects artists with contest opportunities, grants and art residencies both locally and nationally.
“It’s been easier to find couches and cars than it has been to find artists in each city, and that’s bizarre because artists want to be found,” Samuel Bowler, founder of Culturalyst, said during the March 29 event.
Here’s how to use Culturalyst:
If you’re a Fort Worth artist, you can sign up for free with Culturalyst: Fort Worth here. You can create a profile as either an individual or an arts organization.
Megan Henderson, director of events and communications for Near Southside Inc. and board chair of Arts Fort Worth, told audience members that she was initially skeptical about the new platform because of past experiences she’s had with digital platforms that haven’t been as helpful to artists as they might have been. After previewing Culturalyst, she’s optimistic about what it can do for the city.
“I have spent tens of thousands of dollars utilizing other tools and banging my head against the wall of asking artists to fill out profiles and subpar tools that don’t cross-pollinate across opportunities,” Henderson said. “This is so much more dynamic than anything I’ve built in 20 years of arts communications work. Art leaders will begin to see the opportunity for collaboration.”
In the coming months, Arts Fort Worth and Culturalyst will accept feedback on the platform and find ways to continuously match the needs of Fort Worth’s art community, Bowler said.
“If every arts community has shared problems and the arts sector is so resource-constrained, why don’t we just work together and share digital infrastructure between cultural communities?” Bowler told audience members. “We can work on it together to make sure it stays current and keeps evolving.”
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.
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