Image via Imagine MKE
Jazmine Holifield
This week, Elisabeth Gasparka spoke with Jazmine Holifield, a multi-hypenate Milwaukee creative who is a creative director within her own company, and also works at the Operations Coordinator at Imagine MKE.
Holifield is one-half of C&B Creative, a local creative consulting company, which she founded in 2012 with longtime friend and business partner, Kayla Green. Together, they produce creative arts events, support dozens of artists and creatives (local and across the country) and provide several services such as creative brand consulting, set design and staging, event planning, project management, and more. As Operation Coordinator for Imagine MKE, she’s been leading on Imagine’s Arts and Economic Prosperity Study from Americans for the Arts, and also spearheads programs and events for IMKE.
Jazmine Holifield was born and raised in Milwaukee. After a few years living in Dallas and Los Angeles, she returned home to Milwaukee three years ago during the pandemic, and was pleasantly surprised the find herself back in the midst of a creative community that had been building momentum since she left six year prior— stumbling into what she calls “Milwaukee’s creative renaissance.”
Holifield is motivated by bringing a sense of purpose to her role inside and outside of Imagine MKE, with the hopes of encouraging and supporting other creatives on their journeys. She also values the reflections from the Milwaukee creatives she works alongside, who have been building since she started her C&B Creative Brand. Finding herself today in more of a mentorship role, Holifield is encouraged by seeing the growth she’s seen in her fellow creatives, and is also motivated to keep going on her own journey by seeing the impact she’s had within the ecosystem in Milwaukee’s creative sector. She shares words of wisdom for Milwaukee creatives who are just getting started-- urging them to "start where they are."
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“There’s so many different shades of greatness, here.” says Holifield in the conversation. In the future, she wishes to see Milwaukee’s diverse creative scene flourish. If that were to happen, to her it would mean more color, more public art, more collaboration. A place that is more outwardly artistic, with a central arts district, where laughter is abundant and the culture can be a refuge from challenges and "the news". A place where artists and art are valued and respected at all levels. Holifield also hopes that when this new creative day dawns, that the professional creative opportunities that arise here will first and foremost be abundant for the native Milwaukeeans who created the conditions for flourishing with their talenta and persistance.
Transitional song is an excerpt from “White Dookies,” by Milwaukee artists Big P and Lik (featuring Q. Star)
