Amy Kimberly, former Carbondale Arts director and founder of Kimberly Productions, is the visionary behind the Roaring Fork Valley State of the Arts Symposium.

“In the arts, we have always struggled to prove our relevancy, one might say. If you’ve been in the arts for a long time, the question used to always be, ‘Why should we fund the arts?'” Kimberly said Thursday. “Now, that has shifted with people accepting that the arts are strong economic drivers. Our whole valley would not be as it is without the economy of the arts.”

This year is the second annual one-day symposium, which was created to spark inspiration, foster community connection and drive artistic cultural and economic growth.

“It’s important that we understand what we’re all doing and that we can share that information with our community leaders because finding sustainable ways to keep art strong in communities is a challenge,” she added. “It’s always good to be having the conversation and looking at the models and getting to know each other so that we can sustain and grow and keep our communities thriving as well.”

State of the Arts will be at TACAW, or The Arts Campus at Willits, 400 Robinson St., Basalt, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m on Oct. 10. Tickets are $45, and the symposium includes seven events — a mix of presentations, workshops and panels — as well as lunch and a happy hour.

“In my years in nonprofit work, or just about any work, I find that I’m always stronger when I am connecting with others that do similar or different types of work but in the same way,” Kimberly said. “I feel like in this valley, we have very distinct towns and communities, but then we’re also really one holistic place. We feed each other through inspiration, through different things to do, etc. But we don’t often all get together.”

Around six years ago, Kimberly participated in the Colorado Change Leader Program from Colorado Creative Industries. Attendees were encouraged to create a project, and Kimberly envisioned the symposium. 

“It took me six years,” Kimberly, who was the Carbondale Arts director from 2011 to 2022, said. “I wanted to do it when that wouldn’t have been my regular job.”

The symposium will feature a multitude of business and art professionals such as Josh Blanchard, director of Colorado Creative Industries, Teresa Booth Brown, director of education and community programs at Aspen Art Museum and Luis Yllanes, executive director of Carbondale-based 5Point Film Festival.

“We get into building strong partnerships, specifically the role of sponsorships between businesses and nonprofits,” Kimberly said. “That’s a place where there’s a lot of intersection, and I think many of us in the business still struggle on how to find sponsorships.”

The panels will delve into topics from municipal arts funding to event tracking and presentation technology. A panel of Roaring Fork Valley high school artists will also share their perspective on art education in schools. The last event of the day, Copyright 101 with David Ratner, founder of Creative Law Network, is free for local artists to attend.

“We can let people in at this point to really learn about your legal rights as an artist and then responsibilities as an organization,” Kimberly said. “Because we’re all doing murals and public art, but we’re not all clear on how that goes.”

Around 80 people came to the first State of the Arts Symposium in 2023, and Kimberly hopes this year’s turnout will be just as good.

“(I hope participants leave with) a new friend. A new understanding of different organizations. I hope they come away with some sparks of ideas that they might want to do, some knowledge they might have learned,” Kimberly said. “And hopefully, they come away feeling it was valuable enough that we do it again.”