One thing I’ll say about the Berkshires is that the people here are a collaborative lot. A couple of years ago, I was asked to join a group that was then known as the Berkshire Creative Economy Steering Committee by one of its founders, Ellen Spear, CEO of Hancock Shaker Village. She and her co-founder, Laurie Norton Moffat, the CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum, were putting together an assemblage of business leaders in the nonprofit and for-profit creative sectors for the purpose of discussing how our area can grow economically, despite the downturn in manufacturing in the region.
The Berkshires has long been an area that thrived on its local mills and manufacturing plants, and over the last several decades the reliance on these seemingly bulletproof businesses proved to be a mistake, as many of these companies closed one by one. Fortunately, the area is also a haven for the creative arts and businesses that are creative in their own endeavors—just read “Avenue Q,” on page 52, about the Nash brothers and their incredibly innovative and successful business, Blue Q, as a prime example of a company powered by creativity.
The steering committee ultimately produced, with the guidance and expertise of Michael Kain of Mt. Auburn Associates, a report defining the exact makeup (and potential plan for growth) of the creative sector in the Berkshire region. The ultimate definition of the sector that was honed and massaged during the process was: “The enterprises and people involved in the production and distribution of goods and services in which the aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional engagement of the consumer gives the product value in the marketplace” while the scope of the sector includes non-profit cultural institutions, commercial businesses as well as individual artists. Eight different market segments make up the creative cluster: media/new media, commercial arts, design, literary arts, visual arts and crafts, performing arts, heritage and conservation, and support systems. Through extensive research and interviews, Mt. Auburn Associates isolated over six thousand jobs that can be tied to this group—a significant makeup of our full-time population and certainly enough to build upon. Full buy-in and cooperation of like-minded (and sometimes competing) businesses is crucial to the success of our area, and the steering committee was filled with people with the same overarching goals outlined in the report: 1) create economic opportunities for Berkshire residents, 2) strengthen the competitiveness of existing creative enterprises, both commercial and nonprofit, and 3) foster a business environment that is friendly and conducive to creative enterprise.
The completion of the report was supposed to be the end of the group, but the Berkshires being the Berkshires, that just didn’t happen. The Berkshire Creative Economy Council was formed shortly after as an independent economic development organization, working closely with the Berkshire Economic Development Corporation and its new president, David Rooney (“Mapping the Future,” page 20). The Red Lion Inn’s Nancy Fitzpatrick (“Inn-dividualist,” page 44) was elected chairperson. At the end of 2007, Berkshire Creative received a grant of $100,000 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to serve as seed capital for this new organization, and just this past April, the very hardworking and talented Helena Fruscio was employed as the director of operations.
Many people are working together for the first time to help the Berkshires move towards a creative economy, and significant collaboration is already happening. We at Berkshire Living are proud to be partners in the first project launched by Berkshire Creative. In conjunction with the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, we produced the first countywide guide to the Berkshires’ contemporary art galleries, and the fold-out piece was inserted into the June issue of Berkshire Living. It also was distributed to hundreds of racks around the county and to the BVB’s visitor centers to help people find the best in contemporary art. I expect that many more collaborations will come to fruition in the near future, as we all work together to help the Berkshires grow into the creative center of the country.
Michael Zivyak
Founder and Publisher
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