Making a Creative Practice, Sustaining a Career

The School of Design is excited to announce an evening with janera solomon on making a creative practice, sustaining a career.

In this talk, janera solomon explores the emotional and structural architectures of creative work. Drawing from her practice as an artist, writer, and founder, she examines how care, discipline, and imagination shape the systems we build—and the futures we make possible. The talk invites designers to consider not only what they create, but the conditions that allow creative lives to thrive.

Curator, writer, and cultural strategist, janera solomon’s work bridges creative practice and systems design. She is founder and CEO of ARTPOWER, where she leads a team team developing tortoise, a digital financial tool that helps artists map and strengthen their creative practice, producing the ARTPOWER podcast, and creating events that explore the emotional, economic, and creative conditions shaping artists’ lives.

janera’s portfolio as a cultural strategist includes work with the Museum of the African Diaspora, Louis Armstrong House, Brooklyn Museum, Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, and the August Wilson Center for African American History & Culture. As executive director of Pittsburgh’s Kelly Strayhorn Theater, she led a decade of transformation—commissioning contemporary performance, launching interdisciplinary residencies, and pioneering community‑rooted cultural practices that strengthened trust, belonging, and creative infrastructure. Her curatorial and producing work spans collaborations with visual artists, independent spaces, museums, and performing arts centers, including projects with the Andy Warhol Museum and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.

janera has been recognized for her transformative leadership through fellowships with the Aspen Institute, National Arts Strategies, and PolicyLink, where she served as a cultural strategy fellow in 2020. she holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her creative work—essays, cultural criticism, and research into the emotional architecture of creative life—continues to inform her artistic practice and her approach to building systems that support artists and the communities they shape.

The event will be held in Pratt’s Graduate Research Studios on the 7th floor of the Pfizer Building, in the Commons space, Room 730.

Admission is free but space is limited, registration is required.

Critical Conversations: creating space for and educating one another about our multiple cultural contexts, activism, civil discourse, and academic engagement.

This event is open to the public.