Whether you’re starting an art collective, launching a cooperative studio, or exploring new ways to share resources and income, the legal structure you choose matters. This workshop introduces key considerations for creative collaboration, including governance, profit-sharing approaches, entity selection, as well as some other initial considerations.
This event is brought to you by the Artist Legal Cafe, an artist-led initiative that offers direct services and capacity-building to individual artists, artist collectives, and arts organizations. The ALC is a cross-sector partnership between SELC, Vital Arts, and Movement Law and is generously supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the City of Oakland.
About the Presenters
RENEE HATCHER is a human rights and solidarity economy lawyer. She is the Director of the Community Enterprise and Solidarity Economy Law Clinic at UIC Law, a legal clinic that provides free legal support to grassroot organizations, cooperatives, and other solidarity economy enterprises. Currently, Renee is a Solidarity Economy Law Fellow with the Boston Ujima Project and a member of the Law for Black Lives (L4BL) movement lawyering squad. She previously served as the Co-Director of the Chicago Community Wealth Building Ecosystem and board member of the New Economy Coalition. Daughter of the late civil rights activist and first elected Black mayor of a U.S. city, Richard Gordon Hatcher, Renee is committed to advancing the Black Freedom Movement through her work with coops and communities. Her research and clinical work focus on solidarity economy and the law.
QUESTION CULTURE is an artist-owned cooperative and media production studio that integrates cooperative economics and transformative justice into popular culture. Operating as a fellow in the Art.coop Remember the Future program, they champion the Solidarity Economy by redistributing resources and power away from exploitative, corporate models.
MS. LORETTA FIELDS-POWELL (QUESTION CULTURE) (she/her/hers) is a daughter of revolution, hailing from Altadena, California. By day, she is a professional bookkeeper who specializes in bookkeeping, tax preparation and administrative services. By night, she is a student of life, art, and wisdom. Ms. Loretta began her career working for AT&T as a branch results manager & specialist. After 24 years, she retired and began a career in private client services with Wealth & Tax Advisory Services. When the recession hit, she made another career pivot and began offering bookkeeping, tax & notary services to small businesses in LA County. In addition to the work she’s done in her field, Loretta has held positions in retail, healthcare and risk management so that she could provide the best experience for her clients when it came to starting her own business. Though her professional merits shine bright, what is most effervescent about Ms. Loretta is her dedication and commitment to her family, community, arts, mental health advocacy, mentorship, and mutual aid. Ms. Loretta is and has been a proud Inglewood resident for over thirty years but one of the things she is most proud of is helping to establish and maintain the Inglewood Community Fridge (located at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart) during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GROUPMUSE is a worker- and musician-owned cooperative seeking to uplift artists and strengthen broader community bonds through live, intimate performances of historically-rooted music. At first glance, Groupmuse is an online platform where hosts and musicians organize concerts (which we call "groupmuses") in non-traditional spaces, such as living rooms, backyards, church basements, and public parks. But ask any long-time groupmuser, and you’ll learn that Groupmuse is about so much more. It’s about building real, in-person community. It’s about bringing friends along and making new ones. It’s about giving and receiving gifts seen and unseen. It’s about closing your eyes and being transported during a particularly powerful passage of music. It’s about feeling connected to yourself, your local community, and the world.
KYLE SCHMOLZE (GROUPMUSE) is an entrepreneur, musician, software-engineer, political activist, and coop-enthusiast living in Oakland, California. He is rarely seen without a border collie named Stella somewhere within earshot. He is the co-founder of the platform coop Groupmuse.
Both Question Culture and Groupmuse are "Remember the Future" Fellows with Art.coop.
Artist Legal Cafe Partners
The Sustainable Economies Law Center provides direct legal support to individuals and groups who are working to create new solutions for resilient local economies. The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides sliding-scale donation-based legal advice by appointment.
Vital Arts envisions a world in which groundbreaking arts and culture that are essential for the continued health and vitality of society at large are recognized and cultivated. We seek to bring this about by implementing projects to meet the needs of low income artists in the Bay Area.
Movement Law, the client-centered law practice of Hope Mohr, builds power with artists, changemakers, and mission-driven organizations.
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Questions? E-mail [email protected]!
