View all

Artist Resource Collective | LiveARC: Tending Your Financial Garden

Photo by Ian Douglas

Saturday, March 21 | 11AM–4PM

Facilitated by David Thomson
Created in collaboration with David Thomson and Artist Resource Collective

Tending Your Financial Garden is a day of workshops and engagements focused on supporting artists’ financial lives by tending to the often unseen systems that sustain artistic practice. Through practical tools for budgeting, income planning, taxes, and resource navigation, artists are invited to explore financial knowledge as a root system—one that supports longevity, mutual aid, and collective resilience. Together, we will share strategies for planting sustainable futures, strengthening networks of support, and understanding financial practices as acts of care within an interconnected artistic ecosystem.

Artist Resource Collective, powered by YoungArts, addresses key topics such as personal finance, business structures, contracts and agreements, taxes, grant writing, legal issues, intellectual property, and more as it continues to grow. At its core, ARC is guided by a philosophy of care—by providing artists with the resources they need to build lasting, fulfilling lives and careers. Supporting the individual to facilitate the artist.

These workshops are free and open to the artist community.

Building your Roots

Facilitator David Thomson, Artist Resource Collective (ARC)

11 AM – 1 PM

Building Your Roots is a financial workshop that helps artists strengthen the foundations that support their lives and work. We’re going to dig into practical tools to make sure you’re set up with care.

We’ll discuss banking, cash flow, credit & debt, and decision-making as a root system for long-term growth.

Paperwork Party

Facilitators Pam Capalad & Dyalekt, Get Shamele$s

2 – 4 PM

If paperwork makes you anxious, you’re not alone—and it’s not you, it’s the system. Financial paperwork is designed to be confusing and high-stakes, which is why so many of us avoid it. That’s exactly why we’re hosting a Paperwork Party: because community support beats going it alone.

Bring the paperwork you’ve been dreading. We’ll provide a supportive, low-stress space and expert guidance to help you move things forward. Come as you are, bring what you have, and leave with more clarity and fewer loose ends.

Some ideas for what you can do:

Apply for a new credit card or loan
Open an IRA or other investment account
Write a budget for a grant application
Review your credit report
Switch banks
Open a high yield savings account
Create cash flow projections

RSVP HERE

Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project

David Thomson is an interdisciplinary artist who has worked extensively across the fields of dance, music, performance, and theater for over 40 years, working and collaborating with a wide range of artists including Bebe Miller, Trisha Brown (1987-1993), Ralph Lemon, Sekou Sundiata, Marina Abramović, Yvonne Rainer, Maria Hassabi, and Matthew Barney among many others. Thomson’s work has been recognized with awards and fellowships from United States Artists[Ford], New York Foundation for the Arts, Yaddo, MacDowell, Rauschenberg, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Alpert Award. He was honored with a Bessie for Sustained Achievement (2001) and for Outstanding Production for he his own mythical beast (2018).

Thomson initiated the Artist Sustainability Project with Kate Watson-Wallace in 2017, as an ongoing platform that seeks to expand the discourse and ideas of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment in the arts community. In 2024, he and Emily Waters developed YoungArts’ Artist Resource Collective (ARC), a financial wellness and professional development program.