Arts summit’s three-year move to KC celebrates flyover country creatives (and the entrepreneurs who make it)

Great art stands on its own merits, said Diane Scott, but if the artist behind a piece can’t or doesn’t sell their vision to the world, their expression hasn’t achieved its goal.

“Nobody makes art to not share it with other people,” added Scott, director of artist services for the Kansas-City based Mid-America Arts Alliance, describing the intersection of arts and entrepreneurship — the business of getting creativity to the masses. “You have to make good art and have to communicate it well.”

A coming event — 2025 Artists Thrive Summit — is set to bring together artists, arts leaders, educators, and funders from across the United States May 6-8 at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center in Kansas City.

Funded by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Artists Thrive is a growing initiative offering activities, practices, language, visions, and values of what it means to succeed and thrive as an artist — and what it means to have a thriving arts sector and, eventually, thriving communities. (Mid-America Arts Alliance is the lead local Artists Thrive partner — along with Charlotte Street and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation — and a regional arts organization that supports the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.)

Click here to follow Artists Thrive Summit on Instagram.

The spring gathering marks the first year Kansas City has hosted the Artists Thrive Summit, Scott said, which offers a powerful networking hub to help connect attendees with passionate colleagues from across the region and country.

The city is expected to host again the next two years, she added, noting the arts alliance looks forward to showcasing Kansas City. The event includes tours to cultural venues embedded in the community. 

“Most of the country still thinks of Kansas City — and basically everything that isn’t the coast — is flyover country,” explained Scott, who recently moved back to Kansas City after a decade in Massachusetts. “It’s like a mystery to them. It’s all cows and chickens. I’m not exactly sure what they’re thinking or if they can even identify it on a map sometimes. But the work that is coming out of our region and Kansas City artists in particular is just as good as work being done anywhere else.”

Having worked with local artists one-on-one, she said, Scott has seen what sets the region apart: resilience and an entrepreneurial spirit.

“Their ability to just make amazing things happen never ceases to amaze me,” she explained. “And you know, we’re fortunate enough to get some great guests into the region all the time, and when we do, they always say that same thing.”

A session during the 2024 Artists Thrive Summit in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; courtesy photo

While the summit includes sessions for individual artists, it also boasts programming for organizations and higher education institutions that work with and fund artists, Scott said, adding that the highlight is getting to network and connect.

Click here to explore the schedule for the 2025 Artists Thrive Summit.

“We’re taking a bunch of amazing learning journeys,” she explained. ”The final list of sessions are amazing. As a matter of fact, I’m having a hard time even deciding which sessions I’ll go to. But, always, it’s the chance to meet with so many colleagues from across the region in the country, all at once for three days.”

“It brings together artists and arts educators and arts administrators and arts funders all into the same room. Typically that is not the case,” she continued. “The convenings and different conferences that happen across the nation are typically just funders or typically just arts administrators, so bringing everybody into the same room is huge.”

Click here to register for the summit.