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Marisa Catalina Casey
Founder/Executive Director
Starting Artists, Inc.
Brooklyn, New York

Marisa Catalina Casey is an innovative emerging leader with a strong sense of creative entrepreneurship. She is founder/executive director of Starting Artists, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization preparing youth with the artistic and entrepreneurial skills to start arts-based businesses in Brooklyn, NY. Marisa obtained her B.A. in Latin American studies from Brown University and her M.A. in arts administration from Columbia University, where she worked full-time and was president of Student Advocates for the Arts. A member of the Emerging Leaders of New York Arts, Marisa has received numerous fellowships and scholarships from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, Columbia University, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Utilizing her artistic and entrepreneurial skills, Marisa has worked as a photojournalist for CARE-Peru, the Alliance for Children, and The Providence Journal. Additionally, she co-authored Born in Our Hearts: Stories of Adoption (HCI: 2004), selling over 12,000 copies with proceeds benefiting orphanages. Marisa has held positions at the William Randolph Hearst Foundations, the Metropolitan Opera, and APERTURE Foundation. She has received grants from the Newton Cultural Council, Production Workshop, and Creative Arts Council. In 2007, Marisa was a semi-finalist for the Echoing Green Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship and is currently a 2008 semi-finalist. In addition to leading Starting Artists, Marisa is a consultant to the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations and is a newly elected member of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Council.

Your career has been about innovation(s)—what do you consider your greatest innovation in the arts so far?
Innovation is important to me as is using both my analytical and my creative abilities. I consider founding Starting Artists, Inc. to be my greatest innovation so far in my short career. All of my preparation as an artist; all of my jobs at nonprofit organizations; all of my classes in business, education, law, and aesthetics during graduate school have gotten me to this place. Starting Artists is like a living organism that evolves and grows and, hopefully, improves over time. Leading Starting Artists allows me to combine my passion for arts education, enterprise development, and arts administration. I've tried to be innovative in our programming that trains youth in the arts and business as well as in the way in which we implement and pay for programs, too. As a start-up we are very heavy on the contributed income side but we strive to become primarily support by earned income.

How has being a practicing artist influenced the structure of Starting Artists?
Growing up I knew that I was creative but I didn't quite know how to translate that into a career. Through Starting Artists' programs we strive to provide teenagers with the tools to translate their artistic talent into careers in the arts. I design projects and programs that I would have liked when I was a teenage artist. There seem to be more opportunities these days to be a freelance artist or to enter the creative industries by learning new technologies. Through Starting Artists I want to make sure that under-privileged students can take advantage of this recent shift and can also earn some money as they learn professional skills. We encourage our students to look for projects in our community that will pay them for their creative work, be it graphic design, photography, or video. As a practicing artist myself I know what it takes to work with clients and to manage projects. As someone trained as an arts administrator as well, I know what skills can be taught from a book and which ones need to be learned on the job. All of these lessons translate into how Starting Artists is run.

Tell us more about why you've been involved with advocacy for the arts and underserved populations for so long—what do you hope to change?
Advocating for the arts comes from my desire to ensure that others have similar exposure to the arts from a young age as I did. I try to work on both the micro and macro levels of improving the arts and arts education. I practice art. I teach art. I run an arts organization. Advocating to ensure that others are able to do these things too was the next logical step. Every year I visit Albany, NY, for Arts Advocacy Day, which is organized by the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations. It's important to me that the arts are included in the conversation at a public policy level. This is also why I participate each year in the National Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, with Americans for the Arts. Many people feel like they don't have a voice and are excluded from the democratic dialogue in this country—I go to Arts Advocacy Day to represent them and to try to make our government more accessible to young people, especially those are disadvantaged and who feel disenfranchised. It's been important to me throughout my life to lead by example. I hope to inspire my students to become more involved in advocacy so that they can communicate their unique experiences and perspectives in order to take part in creating the world they will inherit. One of the things that inspires me is the idea that I have been given so many opportunities and tools at my disposal. As an adoptee, this is especially palpable to me and it fuels my work with disadvantaged populations, especially youth, in order to ensure that they have comparable access and inspiration to realize their dreams.