The Minnesota Artists Guild, an organization hoping to provide local artists with opportunities to network and develop their craft, launched Jan. 30.

Despite launching two weeks ago, the guild looks to create new chapters to accommodate all of its members. Fifty musicians, writers and visual artists have joined the guild’s two Twin Cities chapters — one in each of the cities. 

Guild founder Heather Renne said she hopes to provide artists with a space to connect and help each other’s careers, both artistically and professionally. She said each chapter will host monthly connection salon meetings where each member will briefly present their projects, ideas and concerns to other members. 

“It’s to support artists of all disciplines, to help them form connections and develop and grow their craft,” Renne said. “And, bottom line, it’s to make it profitable.” 

The Minnesota Artists Guild is seeking official status as a charitable non-profit organization. Renne said all of her work with the organization has been as a volunteer. 

“She’s got a real vision for this place,” Patti Walsh, an abstract painter and guild member, said.

Walsh said she discovered the organization while seeking a new board position to apply for. When she saw Renne seeking applicants for positions on the guild’s board, Walsh said she was eager to apply.

“A lot of art doesn’t sell,” Walsh said. “You say you’re an artist and people say, ‘What’s your day job?’”

Walsh hopes she can help the guild find funding through her experience at her day job as the director of communications & fund development of the African Development Center of Minnesota.

Other guild members said they joined to learn about the industry from other artists and experts. 

Filmmaker and guild member Xavier Thomas said trying to make connections with agencies, studios and distributors as an artist in Minnesota is challenging. As a recent college graduate, Thomas said he hopes to learn how to make his projects financially sustainable, or better yet, profitable. 

“I’m not making Avenger movies yet, but I am putting in a lot of time, and I haven’t had the chance to see the return from it yet,” he said. 

Thomas said he hopes to be a professional filmmaker within the next five years. He said he already found work through networking at the guild launch party. 

“I want to make this a reality for myself,” he said.

Even sustaining a part-time career as an artist can be a struggle, surrealist painter and guild member Patrizia Vignola said. 

“An artist’s relationship with a gallery is like a partnership,” she said. “But it has been difficult to find galleries to work with.”

Vignola, a native New Yorker and art teacher at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault said living in Minnesota is great, but she thinks she will need to make connections out of state in order to make her artistic career sustainable. She hopes to make connections with galleries and buyers through networking at guild meetings and events. 

“To me, it’s always nice to have artists around, to inspire you, to talk to,” Vignola said.