WAN and Adrienne in a Nutshell

The Founder of Working Artists LLC, Adrienne Fritze, began actively developing the Working Artists Network in early 2006, and launched the first version of the Network in mid 2007.

WAN has had its fits and starts during its development, and is proudly being relaunched in October 2008 with this new website, and many new programs – including options for:

affordable health care,
access to professional service providers to help artists and creatives build solid businesses,
discounts on a wide variety of art and office supplies, clothing, food and more.

The idea of WAN, however, is quite a bit older. Adrienne has been interested in the idea of being an indie biz person for over 40 years, which is what artists and self employed creatives are to a “T”!

It all began with a modified lemonade stand in her hometown of Wounded Knee, South Dakota where she sold Koolaid, popcorn and Creepy Crawler creatures against the competition who sold traditional lemonade and cookies. Adrienne’s stand sold out all its unique stock of Creepy pencil heads and rubbery creatures, and pratically all her foodstuffs (she ate and drank some of her own products) – standing toe-to-toe with her competition one stand over. The child entrepreneur was hooked on indie biz ever since…

Later, in her late teens running her first two “real” companies [Total Creations Design and Wall Graphics, and her visual artists rep agency The Artists], Adrienne adopted the radical, and somewhat insane idea, that everyone in the United States should be self-employed. Why would this young woman think it wise that EVERYONE in the USA to be self-employed?!? It was simple really – she knew from her own experience that being self-employed gave her an empowered sense of being responsible for her own life and destiny, which lead her to have:

increased self-confidence;
full self expression through the products and services she sold beacuse she only sold those things that truly inspired her;
fulfillment to her innate need to be creative.

The other positive result, which she hadn’t planned on, was the added benefit of developing better skillsets in:

reading, writing and math
presenting new ideas
creating relationships
being bold in trying out new concepts, and learning from her mistakes
taking action even when scared or nervous from head to toe.

As she went along in life, these skillsets took her to places she’d never imagined, into jobs she didn’t know existed – like publishing a full-color consumer magazine in Japan, working at the bleeding edge of internet technology solutions before anyone really knew there was an internet, and in advertising as a client services director managing interactive advertising programs for companies like Samsung USA.

After 30 years of taking risks, traveling around the world and being at the forefront or as part of some of our world’s most important events and developments, she finally settled on applying all this accumulated knowledge to an area she personally loved above all others: the arts.

And that brings us to the Fall of 2008 and the launch of WAN 2.0.

Please take some time to explore this website, and get in touch to talk about what’s offered here, what you need that isn’t here, or to just start a conversation. We’re just an e-mail or a phone call away.

eMail: HQ@workingartistsnetwork.com | phone: 503.349.6075

Thank you for visiting!

To art and all the power it brings!