Keying In: Getting Close to 186 Carpenter, Creative Placemaking, and the Artist Entrepreneur

Abstract

This article describes 186 Carpenter, a co-work and gallery space in Providence, RI, and considers its praxis of nonparticipation in Creative Placemaking efforts and artist entrepreneurship models. I develop the category of the “not-not-for-profit” organization as a mode of organizing, which intentionally resists the legibility afforded by these discourses. By outlining the cultural circumstances that inform why some arts organizers chose to not participate in Creative Placemaking and artist entrepreneurship schemes, this ethnographically informed analysis can nuance their critiques and affirmations. My central question is: why are artists opting out of the resources Creative Placemaking provides, particularly in a city such as Providence RI that has been a prime example of successful Creative Placemaking efforts? Entering these discourses from the humanities and utilizing ethnographic gestures may present an alternative methodology for understanding how artists may still be mobilizing to make places, while also failing to reproduce funder-determined models of support found in the Creative Placemaking enterprise and artist entrepreneurship discourses.