Art and entrepreneurship collide for Blondie Mansion Weekend

Blondie Mansion is Crawford’s signature event series bringing art and entrepreneurship together for a unique creative networking experience.

How different is Blondie Mansion from your typical networking event? Its original concept was an adult funhouse.

“Which is a fun concept,” Crawford said.  “Over time, I’ve kind of grown into a space where it’s still the funhouse component, but really fusing all of the things that really speak to me. I’m an entrepreneur and I really love music. I love art. I love business, but I also like to create impact. I’m able to stay connected in the creative community and also stay connected in the small business community.”

The weekend starts with an evening of live local music and artistry featuring G’Jurel “G Dash” Jones and Eriah Love at MKT Place Gallery on Friday, Sept. 29. That’s followed by a full day of panels and talks on entrepreneurship, finance and wellness at The Westin Wilmington.

There is a focus on learning how to build a business that is geared toward artists and others, including technologists, who aren’t necessarily business-minded but could be.

“The entrepreneurial part is really more education,” Crawford said. “It really has a huge overarching focus for the creators, because most creators don’t have their business-integrated brain, they just have the creative brain. So my goal was to make sure that if you’re an artist, your goal is to collaborate and understand how you have to change your brain to treat your creativity and your talent like a business.”