Culture & Community | Southern Connecticut State University | Arts & Culture | Arts & Anti-racism | Canal Dock Boathouse | Sweets & Sounds
Angel Dahfay and Kolton Harris. Abiba Biao Photos.
Petra-Ann Brown was dropping knowledge left and right, and an audience of two dozen arts entrepreneurs held onto every piece of it. One minute, she urged attendees to track their expenses. The next, she pointed to the importance of finding resources—especially those that already exist—to fund projects. Before finishing, she noted the importance of having an emergency savings fund.
Last Saturday, Brown joined artists, activists, and creative entrepreneurs at the first annual Creative U, a two-days arts leadership conference held between the Canal Dock Boathouse, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and several arts locations in the city. A celebration of art and artists in Connecticut, the conference marked a burgeoning collaboration between Sweets & Sounds Entertainment, New Haven’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Meant to mirror a university welcome week, participants picked one of three “majors” to specialize in: the creative workforce major, the creative leadership major, or the entrepreneurship major. From their selection, they received corresponding workshops and lessons based on their discipline. It is an outgrowth of the Sweets & Sounds Convention, which most recently came to New Haven in a day-long conference at NXTHVN last year.
“It's just focused on, at the core, giving people everything they need for them to succeed, in whatever field that they decide to go to,” said Sweets & Sounds Founder Angel Dahfay, who has been growing the brand since 2020. “[Whether] that's being an entrepreneur or trying to take your talent somewhere else and working for a company and doing that.”
“We're here to really bring community together, to help inspire and enliven the creative ecosystem through this collaboration,” added Kolton Harris, himself an artist and a program associate at the Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Top: Brown. Bottom: Romeo.
In Brown’s workshop on financial literacy—part of the entrepreneurship major—that vision was in full swing. As she spoke at the front of a room in the Adanti Student Center, Romeo (who declined to give their last name) took notes feverishly. An actor based in Hartford, Romeo said they were inspired to attend Creative U based on a suggestion from Dahfay.
Originally in the nonprofit sector, Romeo first changed their career outlook in 2018 when they enrolled in a college-level acting class in California. There, they discovered their love for being in front of the camera and grabbing the attention of onlookers.
“Over the course of my first year there, I was like, ‘Oh, I'm an artist. This is, this is something I was born to do,’ and started that very fulfilling but vulnerable journey of betting on myself in the smallest and biggest increments that I could every step of the way,” they said.
As a multidisciplinary artist, Romeo credited Creative U with helping them find their next creative steps, adding that they released their new line of handbags over the summer. They also mentioned that they found the lectures in the creative leadership major helpful.
“It's been so good to be around other creatives, and it's helping me take myself more seriously in the areas that I need to,” they said. “It was just really great to get tangible [advice and] not [focus on] this ethereal concept of like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm an artist,’ but being like, ‘Okay, what do you actually need to do? What are the steps you need to take to make this shit happen?’”
Mike Lasky.
Leaving the financial workshop, paraprofessional Mike Lasky also found himself more aware of resources around him. Following Brown’s teaching, he said he plans to place a stronger emphasis on creating connections and collaborating with others.
“It's really about knowing whatever you don't know, like, the lack of knowledge is ignorance, right?,” he said. “So I'd say, like we're ignorant to the programs we could receive, or we're ignorant to opportunities that we could have just from knowing someone that might be doing something that's in the same realm of what we do, right?”
A Bridgeport native, Lasky works in education as a paraprofessional, but hopes to pivot into the music industry on a managerial level. He wants to offer a friendlier alternative to artists in comparison to signing exploitative record deals, he said. More specifically, he hopes to help small artists find creative direction, market their products, and solidify profitable distribution deals.
“If the artist is up for it, and they have a strong work ethic, they're good at building community, then they can go direct to consumer instead of going through these different [channels], it's a better way to build community,” he said.
While parental responsibilities have hindered him from embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, Lasky now says he feels equipped to start his own music promotion business and had some advice for others.
“For anybody that's really trying to do something and is creative, be outside and be accessible, talk to people,” he said, “because if you're not talking to people and you're not moving around, or you're talking to the same group of people and doing the same thing all the time, you're not going to figure out anything else.”