Ashland Viscosi

Founder, Creatives Meet Business and CMBXP

Austin

Ashland founded Creatives Meet Business (CMB), an event and podcast series in Austin for creatives of all disciplines to define themselves as "artists" and "creatives" AND "small business owners" and "entrepreneurs." The event series helps creatives – filmmakers, dancers, graphic designers, photographers, web designers, writers, and anyone wanting to make a living as a "maker" – learn how to become sustainable in their artistic craft. She also hosts, produces, and edits the Creatives Meet Business podcast and helps folks one-on-one with goal planning and various endeavors.

Ashland values collaboration and accessibility of knowledge and information and wanted to create something unique for the community. The result was CMBXP, a three-day series of workshops that helps artists and creatives in real-time with artistry, business, marketing and storytelling.

Before founding both CMB and CMBXP and dedicating her time to community building and transformative educational events, Ashland worked in film and production. She has produced several short films including the festival hit "Rat Pack Rat" (Sundance 2014 – Special Jury Prize for Unique Vision, SXSW 2014), and she was a Production Consultant for "TOWER" (SXSW 2016 – Documentary Grand Jury Winner & Documentary Feature Audience Award Winner).

Concurrent with her work in film, Ashland honed her fundraising, marketing, and event production skills during her years at an arts-based non-profit. Ashland is also the Sponsor Relations Coordinator with the ATX Television Festival.

She LOVES connecting people (she actually teaches about it!), brunch, cheese plates, and conversations. Invite her to brunch or happy hour if you want to chat!