Listen: We've spent this past stretch of our Make Milwaukee campaign with a great partner -- the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee and their Creativity Works! initiative. What better way to explore Milwaukee's creative community than illustrating some major themes from their intensive year-long study of Milwaukee's creative industries?
We started by exploring a familiar idea for those who know Milwaukee -- the city is small enough to be incredibly well-connected and large enough that there's major talent based here. So how did we represent that idea? Through phone chains, hop scotching between collaborators.
Next, we explored two permutations of the idea "creativity attracts talent." Not only can a vibrant, exciting creative community act like a magnet for creative folks ( as we heard with Kahler Slater), it can attract professional talent of any kind ( as we saw with the law firm of Whyte, Hirschboeck & Dudek)
Moving on, we took a look at Milwaukee as a "maker economy" economy. It's in our industrial past, design present, and our rapidly approaching future -- to capture that idea, we headed to the Harley Davidson Museum for a ride through their history.
Then, we got into our non-profit arts world. The Harmony Initiative is a collaboration between the Milwaukee Ballet, UWM's Peck School of the Arts, Froedtert Hospital, and the Medical College of Wisconsin -- this project shows how groups can come together not just to reduce costs or consolidate tasks, but truly hold stake in a joint collaboration.
Finally, we hear some of their major ideas summed up by Cultural Alliance president Christine Harris:
It's been wonderful working with Creativity Works!-- being able to tap their connections was a total coup for us. Additionally, the work they've done thus far will be an exciting platform to build around -- I can't wait to see how they move forward.