Undergraduate Studies
In my undergraduate studies, I double majored in English and Theatre. I’ve always been more of a writer and a literary type of person, but I could not resist the temptation of auditioning for plays and musicals in the theatre department at Saint Louis University. During my time there I had small and big roles, worked on deck crew and stagecraft, tech positions and even had the opportunity to direct two one-act plays in the school’s black box theatre.
At the same time, I was studying the great literary figures, mostly of British and North American descent. While I was studying my lines for plays, I was equally reading and learning about the greats in literature. My most favorite part about the education was the vast opportunities I had to write. I took every dramatic literature class offered by Saint Louis University and Washington University. As a writer, this felt like a major accomplishment.
The Call Board
My favorite part of those four years was going to the call board every day to learn something new about the theatre, music and studio art sections of the Fine and Performing Arts department. I tried to attend music and studio art showcases when I had time, and I noticed that there was not a lot of other artists present at the events. All three disciplines were equally as important, but there was little participation from students stepping out of their comfort zones and experiencing a different artistic discipline.
Company Formation
I wanted to create a company where artists from different disciplines can come together and share their methods of collaboration as a means of promoting the arts and possibly generating economic activity between them.
My senior year I took a Business and Professional Writing course, and I made the creation of the business my final project. Even though I turned in the assignment several years ago, I never stopped working on it, and I am still doing so today.
Reaching a High Alexa Rank
Before graduation I registered Art Bracket LLC as a business, and a few months after graduation I launched the company’s initial domain at Artbracket.com, which featured a community of more than 600 artist from around the world, 6,000 pieces of art, many original blog posts and over 400 news articles. The website reached a ranking of 100,000 on Alexa, but did not go any further due to the fact that it was created on a content management system that does not easily comply with all of Google’s standards.
Creation of Arts Tribune
After a hiatus, I decided to get back into following my dream, and came up with the idea of Arts Tribune, which initially functioned as a news website. However, I’ve come into the awareness that traditional news in the arts and entertainment field is already saturated by many popular publications, but as a blog-the influence Arts Tribune could have would be limitless.
Arts Tribune is not an ordinary blog. It aims to highlight the cross-section between arts and the economy, publishing stories on collaboration, new forms of art, the economic impact that each genre brings to our world.
Arts Tribune is about words. Passion. Creativity. Expression. Collaboration. Opportunity.
I look forward to sharing many stories with you and the readers from around the world. I am especially excited for the emerging voices that will share their stories on this platform and how it will impact future artists and economics.