Quarentimes #12 – Sam Black

Sam Black, founder of SYLA PGH, joins the Drinking Partners to discuss a behind the scenes approach to supporting artists by helping them gain access to funding and resources. By analyzing novel approaches and outside the box options, Ms. Black assists artists by lowering barriers and encouraging new ways of marketing and promotion with a logistical model. Listen in as she speaks on how to communicate and connect with a diverse cast of characters and how she uses that skill to help others, in what she explains as a “holistic look at the economic factors that keep Black Pittsburgh neighborhoods below the poverty line.” This inclusive, multi-scope advancement cannot be achieved without artist input, Ms. Black summarizes. The issue of underpaying and devaluing artists, one that the Drinking Partners have long attempted to dissuade, anchors the interview and is explored from many angles. In the closing segment, the group lets loose, and the discussion centers on talking to plants and waffle fries, in a tangent that listeners should expect and enjoy. Find more about Sam Black, SYLA PGH, and Greenwood Week: www.greenwoodweekpgh.com