The arts are a $26 million business in Portsmouth, a business held together by the invisible connections among artists, venues, city officials and the public. Facilitating those connections is Erika Hunter, the coordinator of Art-Speak, the organization charged with implementing Portsmouth’s cultural plan.

“Art-Speak is more or less a clearinghouse for the arts,” Hunter said of her new role. “We basically help create connections.”

Hunter, a jazz musician and therapist, took over as part-time coordinator on Monday, Feb. 6. Her first week on the job has been “really interesting (and) challenging,” and though she’s still finding her way around, Hunter said being surrounded by artists is “very energizing.”

Now in its second year, Art-Speak has “gone through its infancy” and is going to survive, according to Hunter.

“It’s breathing pretty well on its own, it’s starting to have personality,” she said. “That personality is shaped by the municipality … and the board and people in the area. I think it’s interesting what that personality will end up being.”

Hunter’s predecessor, Beth Shepard-Rabadam, served as coordinator from 2004-2005. She left the post to take over as assistant dean of planning and assessment at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.

Because Shepard-Rabadam left Art-Speak in November 2005, Hunter said she is looking at completing the various grants and projects left over from last year. She’s also working on getting acquainted with, and updating, Art-Speak’s Web site, www.art-speak.org.

This means that initiatives like Overnight Art!, the public art exhibit sponsored by Art-Speak last spring, may not happen this year, because grant funding isn’t in place and there hasn’t been anyone to coordinate the event. However, Art-Speak is working with The Music Hall on an outdoor mural competition that celebrates The Music Hall’s history. The competition winners will be announced on April 1 and the murals unveiled in September.

As for promoting affordable housing and studio space for artists, Hunter said Art-Speak is continuing to work on those issues but didn’t say if any new initiatives are planned. Art-Speak and the Portsmouth-based Housing Partnership recently wrapped up a series of seminars on the basics of buying a home for the first time. Results from an arts space survey Art-Speak conducted in early 2005 are forthcoming, but “everything is up in the air right now,” according to Hunter.

“We’re more or less finishing up and anchoring what’s gone on before,” she said.

Hunter said this means putting her own ideas on hold while work on other projects wraps up. “Whatever I’m thinking about isn’t important,” she said. “I’m here to advance the initiatives (already in progress).”
Hunter lives in Lee and maintains a small therapy practice in Durham. She’s also a jazz pianist and vocalist who is “crazy about the standards.” Her husband, John, is a bassist and teaches jazz at the University of New Hampshire, and the two have performed together throughout New England. Last year, Hunter released her first book, “The Little Book of Big Emotions,” and continues to work as a freelance writer.

“We’re kind of an artist family,” she said.

In addition, Hunter said her background in therapy has given her good listening skills and the ability to listen objectively.

“I can put my own needs and wants into the background in order to promote something for the good of everyone,” she said. That’s especially important when it comes to promoting the arts, because too much ego can twist a creative venture into something entirely different.

As an artist, Hunter said she’s very aware of the many choices artists have to make when it comes to making a living from their work. Because they’re working on their own, artists don’t receive amenities like health insurance, pension plans and other benefits. And as other costs—like gasoline—increase, artists are still generally being paid the same amount for their efforts.

“I think I understand the artists’ … quandary, in terms of housing costs, how much everything costs,” she said. “You don’t get an incremental raise when you’re an artist.”

Programs like Art-Speak’s “Creative Business Strategies” series of seminars, held in conjunction with MicroCredit-NH, the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce and the West End Studio Theater, help artists navigate those areas, Hunter said. The next session will be held on Wednesday, March 22 at 9 a.m. at City Hall.

And while artists may not necessarily make a lot of money, the arts are big business in the city. A 2002 study by Americans for the Arts found that nonprofit arts organizations help bring $26 million a year into the city’s economy. That amount does not include money generated by for-profit venues, according to Hunter.

The city has commissioned a similar study to be conducted again this year.

“Arts contribute a lot more than just the experience of art,” Hunter said. “Where the arts go, money follows.”

And while the monetary impact of the arts is formidable, Hunter is quick to add that above all, the arts satisfy deep, personal needs.

“Art is something that’s in us,” she said. “Artists just make it visible.”