Business Name: Society for Photographic Education (SPE)
Name: Virginia Morrison
Contact Info:
2530 Superior Avenue, #403
Cleveland, OH 44114
216.622.2733
Email Address: vmorrison@spenational.org
Website: www.spenational.org
Year Established: I joined SPE only a year ago, but have been actively involved in art and image making for almost 30 years, sometimes at the core of my professional life, and sometimes at the margins!
Type of Work: The Society for Photographic Education is a nonprofit membership organization that provides a forum for the discussion of photography and related media as a means of creative expression and cultural insight. Through its interdisciplinary programs, services and publications, the society seeks to promote a broader understanding of the medium in all its forms, and to foster the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship and criticism.
COSE Member Since: 2007
Benefits of Membership: When I joined COSE to research health care plans, I didn't know how it would serve to provide networking sources for services, guidance, and community outreach. COSE regularly prompts us to get connected and to dare to try new things. I have not taken advantage of our COSE membership to the extent I hope to over time, but it's been great even at my limited level of involvement.
About the Business: When I started in July 2007, the first little task on my plate was to move the organization from its former home on the campus of Miami University in Oxford to Cleveland - within a month. I was daunted by the prospect of finding space, moving, furnishing, and finding new staff, all while trying to learn my new job and maintain business as usual! Thanks to the dedication of the SPE staff, both new and old, the support and faith of the board, and the patience and good humor of the membership, we were set up in the Art Craft Building in August. This ability to roll up sleeves and move mountains is typical of SPE, and makes me proud to be a part of the organization.
Connect: SPE has dynamic relationships with many industry partners such as manufacturers of photographic equipment and supplies, photographic book publishers, other arts associations and educational institutions, to name a few. They advertise in our publications, participate in our exhibits fairs and sponsor scholarships and corporate memberships. Many of our industry partners provide seminars and workshops at our national conferences providing valuable content about what's new in the field to our membership. SPE gives these organizations access to a specific market of photo educators and related professionals, and in turn to their students (and future photographic professionals).
Advice: I think artists and businesses need to recognize that we are all human beings with the potential to be creative, engaged and constructive. I think the stereotypical concepts of "The Artist" or "The Corporation" are obsolete, and limit our ability to grow opportunities wherever possible.
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