Meet Nicole Minyard of Daybreak Arts

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Minyard.  

Hi Nicole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Growing up from a small town in KY, the narratives told to me about homelessness were pretty stereotypical–lazy, drug addicts, people who just don’t want to work. And sometimes when I volunteered with my church or school growing up, the opportunities tended to reinforce those stereotypes. 

When serving at a soup kitchen, we were not encouraged to sit, talk, or share a meal with people but rather just serve at a distance. This distance didn’t allow me to listen, learn, and empathize with the context of their situations or the trauma they’d experienced. 

In 2009, during my senior year of high school, I got connected with an adult from church who would visit homeless campsites in Louisville, KY and we might bring socks, food, or coffee, but ultimately, we just spent the day with them. It was an opportunity where I was invited into their “space” and Home–as their guest. 

Through that experience, I learned that they weren’t lazy or morally irresponsible. They were creative and resourceful, but victims of systematic and policy-level barriers. 

I moved to Nashville in 2010 to attend Belmont University and I got a work-study job for the Center for Service-Learning. My job was to plan community service projects for Belmont students. I knew I wanted to recreate the context I had experienced in Kentucky, but since I had just moved to Nashville, I didn’t know where any homeless tents or campsites were. 

I started to play with this idea of if art could be a space in which we become equals and interact with people experiencing homelessness in new contexts. Instead of seeing them in survival mode, we’d create an opportunity for them to share their talents and creativity with the Nashville community. 

I started by going to Church Street Park across from the downtown public library and building relationships with the people who hung out there. You see, Church Street Park is one of the few public spaces where people experiencing homelessness can simply exist–without the threat of arrest for trespassing. It was there that I learned how many people on the streets in Nashville loved a local homeless-services organization called Room in the Inn. 

Through my work-study job in the Department of Service-Learning, I reached out and partnered with Room in the Inn to host our very first “Poverty & the Arts” event (later called Community Art Days) in November 2011 which invited Belmont students to sign up and participate in creating either visual art, music, or creative writing with the homeless participants from Room in the Inn. 

We got such a positive response from our Belmont volunteers who said the experience had challenged their stereotypes. But moreover, the RITI staff said weeks and weeks later their participants were asking about us and when we were coming back. Because while RITI has an art studio, it’s usually one person coming in and teaching a room full of people experiencing homelessness art. However, we had created an opportunity where dozens of college students were wanting to know how their morning was or what their dreams and goals were. 

It was about getting to know each other, not just meeting a physical need–but deeper spiritual, social, and emotional needs. 

We came back and continued to host those events at RITI adding on improv theatre in Spring 2012. My junior year of college, I ended up interning at RITI under the art therapist. I began to notice how talented so many people were, but would get questions like “how do I get my art in coffee shop” or “How can I sell art on the streets without a cop coming up and stopping me?” Because you need a street vendor license. 

As graduation approached, I started to think more about the program I had designed at Belmont. I started to dream about its sustainability and about the impact it could have on the Nashville community. After meeting with several contacts from the nonprofit field for advice, one phrase that continued to stand out was “Don’t repeat services.” Nashville doesn’t need more nonprofits doing the exact same thing and competing for the same funding. This really resonated with me as I began to evaluate our program and shape its current services. 

Through the relationships formed with several homeless individuals during the events at Room in the Inn, I started to recognize the talent so many possessed but was overwhelmed with the lack of resources, skills, and understanding they had to do anything with it. We filed for 501c3 status in fall 2013 with the goal of providing that needed marketplace, training, and mentorship people on the streets seemed to lacked access to. 

We launched our Artist Collective program with two inaugural artists with the goal of providing studio space, art supplies, developmental workshops, and a marketplace for artists overcoming homelessness to create and sell artwork as a way to earn income for themselves. Many individuals experiencing homelessness struggle with maintaining traditional 40-hour/week jobs due to criminal history, physical disability, and mental illness. By offering the artists in our Artist Collective program an opportunity to earn supplemental income through their creative skills, they’re granted greater independence in their day-to-day lives and can take control over basics like where they eat, how they get around, and who they hang out with. 

Our Artist Collective quickly grew to 10 artists within the first year. The Artist Collective program was fortunate enough to operate with minimum costs its first year through the generosity of Turnip Green Creative Reuse (TGCR) who let us use their downtown studio space and donated recycled art supplies free of charge. We continued to host “Community Arts Days” from 2011-2015 in partnership with RITI. 

In May 2015, we secured a rental property and transformed a dilapidated blue house into a Studio and Gallery in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood to expand opportunities and accessibility for the artists in our Artist Collective program—most importantly allowing us to participate in the neighborhood’s monthly art crawl and gain more exposure. In 2016, a couple made a generous donation so we could purchase our own van to transport artists and artwork around town. 

In May 2018, the organization moved into a larger, more accessible Studio and Gallery space in East Nashville where we have an active roster of 20+ artists. Since 2014, we have served more than 100 artists and paid out almost $60,000 to artists experiencing housing insecurity. In 2020 and 2021, we went through a complete overhaul of our organization’s name and brand alongside our artists, and now we’re named Daybreak Arts. Today, finished works by our artists are displayed in the gallery of our East Nashville space as well as in businesses and personal collections across the city, state, and country. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As with any nonprofit, some of our biggest challenges usually relate to funding. However, our organization has taken on an additional challenge of critiquing and evaluating our place within the nonprofit sector. Our goal is to model ourselves after mutual aid projects rather than traditional nonprofits for a variety of reasons. 

One reason is that mutual aid projects strive to include a lot of people, rather than just a few people who have been called “experts” or “professionals”. We believe that people experiencing the problem will come up with the best solutions and that effective strategies are developed through shared power in decision-making. Mutual aid means long-term solidarity with the community and consistent exchanges of information and ideas, not a momentary act of charity. Sharing of power within groups and communities reduces hierarchies and power imbalances within and between groups of people, enabling artists and other stakeholders to participate fully in reshaping our community together. 

One of the biggest things we’ve tried to do within the organization is challenge a “top-down” decision-making approach usually made by traditional nonprofits, and instead incorporate a “community-based decision-making” process to make sure everyone has a say in the decisions that affect them. Our goal is to understand each other’s concerns and try to create a path forward that addresses all the concerns as well as possible. Community-based decision-making gives us the best chance to hear from everyone concerned, address power dynamics, and make decisions that best represent what participants want to implement. Even in situations where all concerns cannot be resolved fully, community-based decision-making ensures that those most impacted by a problem are able to participate in its resolution. 

However, a large challenge in trying to implement these changes on a small and large scale can be summed up in the book ‘Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis and the Next’ by Dean Spade where he writes, “It makes sense that we are not good at creating emancipatory group structures. Most of us have never been in groups that had fair, participatory, transparent structures. We’ve been working at jobs where bosses tell us what to do, or been in schools, families, state institutions, or churches where strong hierarchies rule and most people get no say in how things will go. We do not have much practice imagining or being in groups where everyone can truly participate.” 

This is extremely important because it highlights the inconspicuous challenges of not only how we can all have trouble imagining new systems, but how it can be even more difficult when trying to build a community of trust with a population who has been severely hurt, traumatized, and abused by people and society. 

Another challenge we’ve had is trying to communicate to Funders the depth of our services… Funders love numbers, and they can most often connect a greater number of people served to the largest impact possible. However, our organization recognizes the vast individual needs that each of our artists have and as such, we’ve prioritized providing deep services to a few (20+) a year rather than shallow services to many (100+) a year. An example of this is how we journey alongside our 20+ artists the entire year as they set goals, apply for housing, reconnect with family members, and earn income, rather than providing a one-day art workshop to clients at a social service organization and only seeing them 1-2 times a year. 

We understand that each individual has their own personal goals and definition of fulfillment. Our organization is committed to helping artists achieve those goals and overcome lack of access to resources commonly available to the economically advantaged. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Daybreak Arts (formerly “Poverty and the Arts”?
Daybreak Arts (formerly “Poverty and the Arts”) is a social enterprise nonprofit that creates artistic and economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity by providing them access to the creative resources needed to achieve personal fulfillment and success. 

Many individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity have difficulty obtaining and maintaining housing due to barriers to traditional employment like physical or developmental disabilities, criminal history, past trauma, and lack of skills for higher-wage employment. The Artists we serve are currently or formerly homeless adults with an artistic background or passion and are impacted by various employment barriers. They also all have a variety of intersecting and underrepresented identities including different gender orientations, disabilities, races/ nationalities, education levels, religions, and more. In addition, community members typically have limited opportunities to interact with people experiencing homelessness which can often limit personal connection and reinforce inequitable power dynamics. By highlighting the creative talents of people experiencing homelessness, we aim to educate and broaden the general community’s perspective. 

Daybreak Arts provides access to a free studio space, quality art supplies, monthly exhibition opportunities, art and business educational workshops, and transportation as needed. 

These creative resources allow our program participants to increase their economic mobility by producing marketable art, gaining skills, and earning income through selling art. 

We recruit artists through established partnerships with social service organizations. Prospective participants can submit applications year-round and meet 1:1 with our Artist Manager where they sign contracts that outline all expectations and agreements required for participation. 

Our multifunctional East Nashville location along bus route #23 operates as a professional art studio and gallery space. Our studio space offers artists a safe place to create and store their artwork, as well as peacefully explore the healing nature of art making. Our gallery allows us to schedule art consultations with prospective customers and host events throughout the year. 

Our Artist Manager oversees individual artist needs and opportunities, including supply requests, transportation, and studio appointments. She also tracks and reports participant data and outcomes to help tailor programming to meet the individual needs of our artists based on their feedback. Our Director of Programs manages the artwork inventory, portfolios, sales, community partnerships, and program volunteers. 

Our Artist Collective program is committed to helping our artists elevate the quality and presentation of their work. We provide both informal education to our artists through coaching, mentorship, and answering art-related questions while they’re creating independently at the studio, as well as more formalized education like in-person art workshops and an asynchronous and self-directed course list for online learning that encompass fundamental art principles and professional business practices. 

The goal of our Artist Collective Program is to increase accessibility to creative non-traditional forms of employment, which counteracts employment barriers and rising housing costs. Participants earn income through their creative talent by producing marketable art, gaining artistic and entrepreneurial skills, and publicly displaying their work so they can increase their financial independence. Since 2014, Daybreak Arts has served more than 100 artists and paid out almost $60,000 to artists impacted by homelessness in Nashville, TN. 

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up I dabbled in all of the arts. I played guitar for our church’s youth group band, acted in community theater plays, took ballet and dance classes, and participated in creative writing competitions on the Academic team. While I loved engaging in artistic endeavors, I never felt good enough to pursue any of the arts at a college or post-graduation level. However, what I discovered is that my love for art could build a platform that allowed other artists with a natural talent to cultivate the opportunity to pursue their artistic craft–I became an Arts Administrator. 

In addition to participating in a variety of art forms growing up, I could also be found imagining ideas, starting projects, and taking the lead in our neighborhood and community. As an elementary school kid, I remember directing my sister and our childhood neighbors in musicals that we made up, as well as recording dance programs with commercials alongside my sister with our parents’ 1990’s video camera recorder. In middle school I started participating in clubs and running for officer positions, and by high school, I was meeting with our town’s mayor to organize a TOM’s “One Day Without Shoes” march to raise awareness of poverty and the lack of shoes in developing countries. 

While I was sheltered in my small hometown community and had a lot of things to learn (yes, I know I still do), my passion for knowledge and people allowed me to begin building relationships with people from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds which transformed my understanding of society and human relationships. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://daybreakarts.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicole.minyard/
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/daybreakarts
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwbel4zAkW2r7IOAWgACIsA