Why Halcyon is adding an arts fellowship

Since launch in September 2014, the Halcyon Incubator, housed in the stunning Halcyon House in Georgetown, has welcomed social entrepreneurs to its hands-on, 18-month fellowship. Now Halcyon is adding an Arts Lab.

The idea? The Arts Lab will be “a robust fellowship supporting emerging artists with bold ideas of how art and creativity can be forces for social impact.” Both the Incubator and the Arts Lab (as well as some other new initiatives) are part of the newly-formed nonprofit called Halcyon — a spinoff of the S&R Foundation under which the Halcyon Incubator previously operated. Cofounder Kate Goodall will serve as Halcyon’s CEO.

We chatted with Goodall to learn more about how the Incubator and the Arts Lab will collaborate and complement each other.

“We see a lot of overlap and efficiency” that can come out of hosting both entrepreneurs and artists at the same time, Goodall said. For example, many of the artists do not have, but could benefit from, some basic business skills. The Incubator’s entrepreneurial members, though still early in their own business journeys, might be able to offer some assistance here.

For this reason the first cohort of the Arts Lab will start at the same time as the Incubator’s cohort seven — both of which Halcyon is recruiting for right now.

Of course, Goodall admits, it’s hard to know exactly how the artists and the entrepreneurs will interact until they try it out. “We’ve always had a very risk-tolerant attitude for the incubator,” she said. In forming the new fellowship program, this attitude will continue. “We sort of feel like we’re on to a unique methodology when it comes to providing creative people with the haven they need,” Goodall said. “We believe that D.C. is a very special place for this kind of work.”