Preventing burnout through art

PULASKI – The Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce is setting itself apart and filling gaps in the community through new Burnout Prevention sessions.

“I took over the Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce executive director position in January of 2023. Prior to that, I worked full-time as an artist. And in 2017, I actually founded Sage, which is an arts organization that serves Brown County,” said Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Director Stacey Von Busch.

“This is kind of the result of me taking previous work and integrating it into my current work, which I firmly believe that community development and the arts just really go hand in hand, especially when you’re out here in a rural community,” said Von Busch. “The opportunity to bring the arts in for purposes of overall well-being and quality of life is, is just so necessary, you know, especially as we deal with an epidemic of isolation and loneliness.”

“I’m pursuing my master’s degree in the field of arts and health from the University of Florida. 
What that degree empowers me with is the ability to take the arts, and as opposed to art therapy that would address a specific mental health challenge or, you know, an intended outcome. For arts and health, we look at how do we improve [the] quality of life in a community,” continued Von Busch. “How do we address isolation and loneliness? How do we utilize the arts to connect people?”

Taking her lived experience, VanBusch and the Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce are intent on setting the Rural city of Pulaski apart.

“I have an amazing board consisting of women from various leadership in this community. 
And they’ve always been really supportive of any new ideas that I’ve brought to them,” shared Von Busch. “ And as we looked at continuing to expand this little Chamber of Commerce into something bigger, you know, it was like, well, you know what can we offer? What can we create for our economic sector that isn’t already happening? Where is a gap that we could fill through something that our Chamber of Commerce could offer? What could make us unique?”

“I think one of the things that we deal with, or whatever everybody’s dealing with right now, is burnout. And when I was crafting this project, it was like, I kind of wanted to give it a different name. 
I gotta give it something more cheerful. I felt like we needed something that sounds a bit more optimistic, and I was like, no, this is burnout prevention,” said Von Busch.

Through her degree, Von Busch has done research on how the arts can affect mental health and isolation.

“We know that engaging in the arts and engaging in creativity has positive effects on our mental health and well-being. And it also connects us as individuals, increasing communication, increasing like an authentic nature, we relax,” said Von Busch. “One study that I pulled from was specifically about how creative classes inside a work environment. What does that do to, like, good old-fashioned customer service? And what they found was the individuals who engaged in artistic practice with their coworkers engaged better than with customers, with clients. 
They were just in a better mood.”

“This is just our equivalent of lunch and learn, burnout prevention sessions. Instead of going to something to specifically learn a task related to your workplace, this is the opportunity to learn how to utilize the arts to connect with your coworkers, how to utilize the arts to improve your mental health, well-being, your attitude, and I truly believe that these burnout prevention sessions — for our companies taking them — shows how much our companies want to invest in the talent and retain those individuals as long-term employees,” said Von Busch.

While creating these sessions and setting its organization apart, the Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce was seeking flexibility for companies interested in participating in Burnout Sessions.

Maybe it’s a home-based business or a solo entrepreneur, and you want to get 5 people together, we will absolutely accommodate that…
But you know, at the same time, you know, using village companies as an example out here in Pulaski. If they want to host a whole bunch of sessions with a bunch of their different teams, we could do that too,” said Von Busch. “Whenever I build anything in all honesty, I really want to be able to cater it to whoever it is that we are serving.”

Von Busch also wanted to offer a space where coworkers can really step into each other’s shoes or at least hear a bit of their story in the process.

“I really like to incorporate the act of storytelling into whatever class I’m hosting. We want you to be able to share something about yourself through art, because I think that’s what art is to begin with,” said Von Busch. “Why did you make this shape? Why, as a group, did you choose this modality? And the act of being in a space where people are sharing like that,, it’s shown to really build that cohesiveness among staff, um, you know, the investment for talent or attention purposes.”

“I think to pull this from the rural community of Pulaski, feels really great, because I also really love my community, and I want to be able to set us apart...I think that this is achieving that, and I really believe in this program, and that it’s gonna catch on. And so we wanted to go ahead and offer it to all of Brown County,”

For more information or to get your workplace involved in the Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce Burnout Prevention sessions, email pulaskichamberwi@gmail.com.