Company: Anne Patterson Design, New York, NY
Entry Submitted By: Melissa Sones Consulting
Company Description: Anne Patterson is a leading artist and businesswoman who has created a highly successful artists’ business wrapped around the creation of massive installations for orchestral, operatic, theatrical stages; religious institutions; and museums from coast to coast. With each growing year, her business has grown as her artworks have also increased in size, scope and levels of creativity.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services –10 or Less Employees

Nomination Title: Anne Patterson, Founder

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated entrepreneur since the beginning of July last year (up to 525 words):

In 2005, the National Endowment for the Arts announced a crucial study. That study showed that American artists are among the best-educated; most productive and creative of all occupational groups – and they are the lowest paid.

And then there’s Anne Patterson. A highly successful installation artist (massive artistic structures appearing everywhere from the Kennedy Center to the Arena Stage), Patterson creates artwork that is widely admired - Stephen Sondheim was “knocked out by my visuals” – and she is a talented businesswoman to boot. As a result, Anne Patterson Design has become a model to men; and, most of all, to women in the arts who follow her lead and whom she purposely hires so that they too can learn “how to do it all.”

For Patterson, who has an architecture degree from Yale, the Awards period was “stellar.” Her installations appeared at the Bard Music Festival (Patterson was director); the Reno Symphony (director); the Frick Museum (director); the Pittsburgh Symphony (ditto); the Chicago Symphony; the San Francisco Symphony.

When Grace Cathedral, in a competitive process, chose its artist in residence, it chose Patterson. Carnegie Mellon honored Patterson as its Visiting Artist. The sought-after Artists’ Residence, the Hermitage, made that invitation-only Patterson selection..

But Patterson isn’t prone to accidents. The works are purposely big – and have become the artistic centerpieces (a new artistic arena created by Patterson) of stages the size of football fields - orchestral; operative; and religious. The work is an artistic mix of Patterson’s unique ability to “see music”; her love of it; and her choice to combine music, dance, acting, painting, projection, videos, music – and more - in shock-prone installations that in the Awards period played a major role in drawing young people nationwide to the once insular world of classical music.

Her artworks require a team that is outsize; and Patterson the businesswoman is a brilliant manager and team builder. The team runs well into 20-plus members from assorted designers to projection experts; it has been fiercely loyal (a rarity in art); and highly productive (productivity surged 30% this year). Patterson’s skill as a manager? “I’m a good listener and I respect the stagehand the same way I respect a famous composer.”

In the last year the world of Patterson got even bigger – “I intentionally contacted bigger institutions and produced bigger works because I want to grow as an artist and financially as a businesswoman.” And Patterson set the scene to move into global installations – think Venice Biennial; Whitney Biennial and Metropolitan Opera by 2014/15. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is already on the way.

Finally, there is another Patterson business skill well-known among the many women who populate her team (rare in art) – Patterson travels nationwide directing installation of massive sculptures; and, yet, she raises three children brilliantly. “The key is self-care," instructs Patterson, often to young women who admire her. "No matter what happens with my children or work I meditate and exercise daily. No exceptions. I come first."

Indeed she does - in her own life and in the art world as it meets and holds hands with the business world.

Provide a brief biography of the nominated entrepreneur (up to 125 words):

Anne Patterson of Anne Patterson Design is an artist and highly successful businesswoman whose artistic focus is the creation of massive installations that have been the centerpieces of many major orchestral, operatic and theatrical stages; religious institutions; and museums across the country from the Kennedy Center to the Arena Stage to San Francisco’s famed Grace Cathedral. Stephen Sondheim said he was “knocked out by Patterson’s visuals” and so apparently are the many who clamor for her installations – in the last year alone, the Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Bard Music Festival; the Frick Museum; New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is on the way.