The group. Twenty-seven artists showed up at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon. Primarily, the mediums represented by the artists were theatre, film, writing, music, and visual art. We also had a few members of the business community join us who work in arts administration and arts management. With a few exceptions, the majority of the artists who gathered were in their twenties or thirties, college-educated, and Caucasian.

The conversation. We began with introductions since many of our artists met for the first time that afternoon. We asked each person to fill out a worksheet entitled "Portrait of An Artist," which asked for some very basic information &mdash 1) Contact info, 2) Why do you need art?, 3) How's that Going?, and 4) How can you be a resource to other artists? After everyone had an opportunity to fill out the worksheet, we had a group discussion about questions 2 and 3.

The breakout sessions. After the participants shared their thoughts in the group conversation, we introduced the breakout session topics &mdash Art as Individual Process, Art as Collaborative Process, Arts Education / Art as Service, Experimentation & Play, Defining An Artistic Identity, and Audience Development. Each participant chose a session that interested them and headed for that area of the room; once assembled, the artists recorded their conversations on butcher paper. After twenty minutes of discussion, we switched groups, allowing each artist the opportunity to participate in two sessions. At the close of the second session, we reconvened as a large group, and we posted the butcher paper from all the sessions on the wall. As a group, we discussed our findings.