You are building a dynamic art career. Let’s create a foundation that makes it last.

The dots between helps put the financial structures in place for your big visions to happen.

How the work happens:

Through coaching, workshops, speaking and partnerships with art institutions, The Dots Between helps artists from any background create an arc of sustainability, made of concrete steps like:

building retirement accounts // designing funding strategies // managing uneven income // paying down debt // creating a nest egg for your creative elderhood

Our clients span the arc of a creative career:

  • A national foundation awardee approaching retirement whose career is taking off and needs to simplify her multiple revenue streams.

  • A midcareer filmmaker who’s career has stalled, is struggling with student loan debt and needs a solid plan for right now.

  • A student fresh out of art school who wants to find revenue streams apart from art while still having time and space to develop their practice.

And perhaps…someone like you?

INDIVIDUAL COACHING
TALKS & WORKSHOPS

Image: excerpt from Treatise on Rhythm, Color, and Birdsong. Single-channel video by Jaewook Lee, former Dots Between fellow.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

The Dots Between COMMUNITY

  • Carolina Aranibar-Fernández

  • Multidisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural producer, 500 Capp St Foundation International Artist in Residence, Projecting All Voices Fellow

  • Daisy Quezada Ureña, faculty and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Institution of American Indian Arts, United States Latinx Artist Fellow

  • Faculty and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Institution of American Indian Arts, United States Latinx Artist Fellow, dots between fellow

  • Rika Iino

  • Founder & CEO, SOZO

  • Michele Byrd McPhee

  • Founder Ladies of Hip-Hop, SOZO Fellow

  • Thanh Tran

  • Music Artist, Filmmaker, and Policy Organizer, SOZO Fellow and Ford Foundation awardee

Join our NEWSLETTER

and receive occasional announcements: new free resources from the dots between and our expanded networks and communities, access to our live workshop announcements, and more.

NEWS & EVENTS

Photo Credit: Artist Jessica Mueller, “Public Weigh In” www.jessicamuellerart.com, former dots between fellow

The Big Picture: What Do Artists Need for Long-Term Thriving?

UPCOMING WORKSHOP:

November 14, 2026, 11 am MT, 12 CT, 1 pm ET

Insights and takeaways from The Dots Between’s work with hundreds of artists who are building strong foundations to realize their biggest visions. What hinders our financial choices? What expands them? How do we plan for the future amidst uncertainty? Real life examples and real information on saving and investing.

Lots of time for Q & A. Free! But you have to be there, this will not be recorded.

REGISTER:

* indicates required

Hi, I’m Tamara Bates, founder of the Dots Between.

The Dots Between aligns creative visionaries with a strong financial foundation at every stage of their careers.

When artists aren’t supported to create a solid foundation for themselves, the change they seek to create—vital to our society—is undermined. Supporting artists to realize their visions is what lights me up, and has been the central theme of my different career paths— from building extensive knowledge of fundraising for the arts, to my training and practice as a financial advisor for the largest investment firms in the world.

I understand the flow of money and how capital works, and I’m here to put that knowledge to work for those hard at work creating life-giving culture for all of us: artists.

I’ve worked deeply with hundreds of artists through the pandemic instability, and what I find is that now many of us are in an even more precarious financial and career state. I’ve developed a set of tools that will make sure you’re able to create a secure financial container for your life and practice. My work combines my 20 years in philanthropy and nonprofit fundraising with the concrete investment tools I learned as a financial advisor for UBS and Raymond James. This combined skillset helps artists from any medium and career stage take practical actions toward their financial stability.

  • I have worked as a financial advisor for UBS and Raymond James. I obtained a Chartered Retirement Plans Specialist Certification along with extensive training in financial planning through the UBS Wealth Advisor program. In addition to finance, I spent much of my career in nonprofit fundraising and philanthropy, as Executive Director of Searchlight New Mexico, VP of Strategy and Programs for Innovate+Educate, and as a Program Officer at the Schott Foundation for Public Education. I hold an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning and Child Development from Tufts University. I was an Arts Commissioner for the City of Santa Fe and a former board member of Creative Capital.

Tamara at SITE Santa Fe. Photo by Gabriella Marks.