In direct response to the Cincinnati Artist Report (C.A.R.) conducted in partnership with Artworks throughout the Summer of 2019, Wave Pool launched an Artists Professional Development Program in 2020 called “Driving Lessons”.

Since 2020 this class has taken a myriad of forms—from an online full curriculum class taught over the course of several weeks, to a topic-centric, one-off presentation by experts in their fields.

“Driving Lessons” (sometimes referred to by its more recent title, “The Professional Practice”) is an ongoing professional development program for artists, which was developed by Wave Pool in conjunction with some amazing artists, creatives, and educators.

Further information about “Driving Lessons”:

Over 800 artists were surveyed in summer 2019 as part of the Cincinnati Artist Report. The report is complete and available on Wave Pool’s website. In the report, artists listed their top needs (in descending order) as funding, promotion, time, workspace, and community partners in order to execute their projects. In order to secure these things, artists need basic knowledge of proposal writing, budgeting and financial literacy, communications and public relations, and negotiation skills. Education and Support were the 2nd and 3rd most frequent solutions named to barriers seen by Cincinnati Artists in the Cincinnati Artist Report, making up 36% collectively. Additionally, 55.75% of artists surveyed in the C.A.R. have either non-existent or limited relationships with other local artists and those that support the arts. This was also singled out as one of the biggest personal challenges facing local artists and one of the largest community challenges.