Artists can be known for isolating themselves from the outside world, but sometimes the best art is made with help from others.

In a seasonal economy where it’s everyone for themselves, the founders of the new Martha’s Vineyard Arts and Culture Collaborative are hoping the group will bring together all Island artists to promote a nurturing year-round arts community.

The collaborative held its first meeting on Wednesday, where former interim executive director of the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Robert Sennott and Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce representative Megan Storey shared their experience with managing similar projects on the Cape to a roomful of Island artists at the Old Whaling Church.

The arts foundation promotes Cape Cod’s arts and cultural programs throughout the year by awarding grants, fund-raising and providing artists with community outlets, while the chamber of commerce works with artists to help promote themselves through tourism. This is a brand new endeavor for the Vineyard, but Mr. Sennott and Ms. Storey emphasized there is help across the Vineyard Sound.

“It’s important to realize as a region we can support arts and culture as a region,” Ms. Storey said to a crowd that included Island artists Alan Brigish, Susan Klein, Melissa Breese, Tony Holand, Andrea Rogers and more. “It takes a long time to develop these collaboratives, who you’re going to work with on a partnership collaborative level, and an artists and artisans level.”

The collaborative was an idea stemming from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s Island Plan, but took off in the fall after a roundtable discussion by Vineyard artisans.

“Seven of us got together and within three weeks, we wrote a grant [for the Massachusetts Cultural Council],” executive director of Featherstone Center for the Arts and coordinating committee chairman Ann Smith said. The $5,000 Adams Arts Program Planning Grant was matched by the Permanent Endownment of Martha’s Vineyard by adding $1,250. “Our first task is to talk about collecting data about the arts and cultural organizations on Martha’s Vineyard, and the best way to get started is to try not to reinvent the wheel. We looked to our neighbors on the Cape who have done it for a long time.”

Mr. Sennott recommended the collaborative figure out their identity early on: Will they be a grant awarding entity, a programmatic organization, or both? The arts foundation plays both roles, awarding grants from $1,000 to $15,000, holding fundraisers like Pops by the Sea every August, or working with the chamber of commerce on art-driven guidebooks.

But whether it’s through a coupon book, a walking trail map or the media, both Cape Cod visitors insisted that having a name out there consistently is critical.

“It’s important to make sure people know you’re out there and what you’re doing,” Mr. Sennott said.

“We are experts in marketing; it’s not my job, but the people who are in our office and do marketing are phenomenal,” Ms. Storey added. “None of the projects we do could be successfulit’s a hard thing to sell to your partners because it spends a lot of money, but it comes back to you in spades.”

“Flexibility and morphine” are equally important, Mr. Sennott added, as well as thinking outside of the Island bubble.

“If you’re in something, your ability to actually see it is severely compromised because it’s who you are,” he said. “Towards that sense of collaboration, you want to seek as many opinions as possible. The ego at the project should be left at door and the project’s mission takes center stage.”

Other suggestions included getting county funding, defining who counts as an artist, establishing a steady membership and taking advantage of the tourism outlets.

“With the arts foundation, I’ve observed that as an organization that has duality of both programming and granting, it needs to get money,” Mr. Sennott said. “Membership had been ignored and then taken for granted, when in point of fact one needs to be active to acquire, sustain and renew members.”

The chamber of commerce spent time and money figuring out who was their audience and discovered artists make up 4 per cent of Cape Cod’s economy. The Vineyard collaborative’s next step is to do a similar study.

“The Vineyard arts and culture committee is way underrepresented,” founding member and executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Donors Collaborative Peter Temple said. “When we do a census, it’s really important to get other artists you all know to fill out the census so we can count everyone.”

For more information on the collaborative, visit marthasvineyardarts.org.