Pete Brown Creates Cultural Connections

photo by Harold Brown

Interview by Dave Combs Images courtesy of Pete Brown

Pete Brown works three day jobs and has two different and very interesting side projects we wanted to learn more about. In his off hours he somehow finds time to run Piggyback App and Midwest Street Art in addition to having a family. A couple of years ago he interviewed us on WFYI Indianapolis, and this is our opportunity to find out more about him. Here’s what he had to say.

Can you tell me a little about what you do at your day jobs? Yes, I have a few day jobs. I run a modest creative digital services company in Indianapolis called ASH Interactive. My team and I do audio/video production, help companies with basic websites, graphics, social media strategizing, basic branding, project management and consulting. My real mission there is to help small businesses, individuals and non-profits put together cost-effective and creative solutions that help them get their mission out to the world in engaging ways.

I’m also an adjunct professor at the University of Indianapolis in the communications department and I teach the classes that cover topics tied to ASH Interactive services. Those include, audio and video production for radio,

TV and freelance, marketing, PR, digital media for the web and social media and intro communications classes.

Another job that’s been a blast for the last 18 months is being an on-air contributor for Indy’s NPR affiliate WFYI, focusing on local arts and culture stories. As I go through these things, it hits me that I’m just one of those people that is fortunate enough (depending on your point of view) to be able to juggle several creative professional endeavors and they usually end up gelling together. That and I have an amazingly supportive and encouraging family!

Your side projects are Piggyback App and Midwest Street Art. Tell us more about what you do for those projects. Sure, Piggyback App is a free mobile platform for increasing access to our nation’s arts and cultural organizations. It was created with the intention of providing an even playing field for giving arts and cultural organizations a voice for connecting with new and underserved audiences through their smart phones. On one level it’s akin to Yelp!-style directory with a tight arts and culture focus that also has a second purpose. That purpose is to give the cultural organizations access to the backend to let them create and manage their own content, analyze data about who’s exploring the content and let them cross market with

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thousands of other organizations. Essentially, they can create a custom app experience right through our platform and have a much larger reach than they’d have in their local area alone. It’s also free for them to start up so it isn’t cost prohibitive for smaller or low staff/ budget organizations.

Midwest Street Art grew out of a personal need to shine a spotlight onto the killer street art, graffiti and mural work that has been coming out of our region for decades – but hasn’t gotten mainstream attention. I’ve resided in Indy for about 15 years, but I was born, raised and regularly travel back to Detroit. I started dabbling in professional art in 2008 and was regularly driving back home and through areas of Indianapolis with some fantastic street art. However, whenever I’d get online to search and explore more works I was constantly being directed to either coast, Europe or South America. Creating Midwest Street Art on Facebook and Twitter was simply a way to try and connect like-minds,

share photos, video, promote events and network artists from the Midwest and those looking to paint and create here; in a more mainstream way.

Why do you do Piggyback App? I spent about eight years as an arts administrator at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis and have continued to work closely with arts and cultural organizations since my resignation to start ASH back in 2013. The short story is that there are some major barriers that cultural organizations face when trying to get their missions in front of people. Generally, I’m not talking about the top 1-3% of the cultural landscape, those household name museums, historic sites, festival, zoos, theatres and such, but I’m referring to the 97%. Our nation has about 50,000 arts, cultural and historic sites and organizations and most people couldn’t name 50; one tenth of one percent of them.

As a cultural tourist myself, I want to know

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...nothing makes me happier than being able to connect people from different areas; whether it’s artists or an artist with a curator, gallery owner, a fan or even a potential collector.

about all of my options before I pick places to travel. My family is into park systems, museums, street art and live performance venues so being able to locate these places helps us dial in our plans. I know that we aren’t the only ones that get tired of visiting the same spots repeatedly, but I was finding it to be a challenge by just searching Google. I’d regularly have to go 3 or 5 search pages deep before getting a suggestion that wasn’t a large organization or a paid ad. So, in some ways Piggyback is definitely a self-serving platform!

Why do you do Midwest Street Art? In 2012 I received a Creative Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis with the plan to travel around the Midwest, meet with artists, photo/video document the work I was seeing and the people I was meeting. I used Facebook and Twitter to archive everything, with no major plan for it to grow strategically or anything. Since then I’ve curated/

co-curated a handful of exhibitions around the region, assisted with some public art and graffiti events, lead walking tours, profiled artists and exhibitions/galleries, spoken and “Powerpointed” my way around and been a part of several panels. It’s been a lot of fun to see the organic growth behind it and nothing makes me happier than being able to connect people from different areas; whether it’s artists or an artist with a curator, gallery owner, a fan or even a potential collector.

I’d love to see it continue to grow and would really like to bring on some contributors on from each state. Being based in Indianapolis and being from Detroit, I try to keep decent tabs on those areas, but the scene has grown so much that I can’t get to everything. Many folks will email me photos or let me know about events, so I try to promote as many of those as possible. Midwest Street Art could probably populate it’s own zine if I could get organized!

photo by Zach Medler 7

What do you hope to accomplish with each of these projects? Great question… Both Piggyback and MWSA grew out of a need that I observed and I’m just thrilled, and amazed, that they’ve come to life in many aspects. If I’m shooting for the stars, I’d love to see Piggyback become that one app that lives on everyone’s phone as a constant contact point with arts and cultural exploration. I think that there is a large group of people out there that are looking for new things to experience and having our free app could be just the thing to feed their curiosity. You also have to consider that more and more people, especially younger generations, are spending their money on experiences, not things, so an open source content sharing platform full of experiences has some real value.

With Midwest Street Art, I’d love to see it continue to grow. I really hope that a page like this can inspire some artists in more rural areas of the region to start creating. I’ve tried to target the more western states in our region to try to learn about movements and I’ve gotten a lot of “there’s nothing good out here” sorts of responses from people in those areas. Perhaps down the line MWSA can help plan some events and exhibitions in underrepresented areas and get a new crop of artists thinking about murals, graffiti and public art initiatives in a serious way.

Is there crossover with these two projects? Absolutely. Once fantasy I’ve had in the back of my mind is to start to use Piggyback as a mobile app platform for Midwest Street Art. We’d set up different areas on Piggyback to map out street art locations where people can go and explore landscapes with great graffiti, murals, public art and street art. Something curated by locals with clear directions and descriptions of each area. I think that a lot of people can be apprehensive to explore areas like Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc., larger cities that may be “rough” in areas, so the more information we can provide to people, the more comfortable they’ll be. I’d also love to see bike or walking tours of areas lead by local artists/experts on a semi-regular basis.

What’s next for each of these projects? Another great question... The short answer is continued growth for both. The longer answer is that I’d love to see these take off and become my 9to5, as well as my 5to9 gigs. For that to happen, I believe that I’ll need collaborators and, I hate to bring it up but, funding. Folks that are passionate about arts and cultural access, technology, street art, social networking, connecting people with places, encouraging exploration, fundraising/ business development and have their own ideas that have come up simply while reading this interview can reach out to me anytime to chat. I’m always up for discussions, meetings and collaboration. I love working with other passionate and creative people. That being said, I’ll keep chipping away at both for as long as I can!

Thank you for taking the time from all you do to do this interview. You’re welcome, it’s truly an honor to be included in 5to9.

More info at: www.piggyback-app.com

www.facebook.com/MidwestStreetArt www.petebrowncreates.com

photo by Pete Brown

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