The Human Essence

Hey, Y'all!

Here I sit, preparing my first blog.  In fair warning, you will be reading a stream of consciousness.

I come to NPAC with no pre-set expectations.  Unmet expectations can be the biggest disappointments in life, and I am hoping to be enriched and thrilled by the NPAC experience... not expecting, but hoping.

I'm an artist, a professional musician and entertainer for 44 of my 55 years.  I run my own companies (management, booking, production, recording, etc.) to provide the business infrastructure that supports my artistic expression.  I'm in the music business; it's 99% business and 1% music.  

I must succeed in all these aspects of my career to feed my family.  I must understand, collaborate with, and mutually serve my family, my colleagues, my clients, my ideals.  The entire supply chain is in my creative world.  We all work together to enrich lives and make the world a better place by making people happy.

I am participating on a scholarship provided by APAP.  I'm honored, pleased and ready to rock and roll in the community building process known as NPAC.  So, here we go....

My first day, Wednesday, was a mix of new and old.  I saw many of my friends and colleagues (I am lucky that they are one and the same).  I met many new friends.  The day was well spent.

My first experience was the market/village.  Here I was able to take care of some business (a team effort to do some spot tours in Canada), and attempt to connect with some organizations I've never been able to gain access to.  We'll see if I can break into their communities by Saturday.

Our opening session was inspiring.  There were some wonderful messages expressed that, hopefully, will be realized.

Rather than speak of people, I will speak of ideas.  There were many great ideas expressed in the opening session.

Public Art in the community, as an institution of its own, is a powerful notion.  I was impressed by a call for us all to rethink the "Perception" of what an Arts Institution is.

The pursuit of Grace and Kindness, successfully implemented through an interactive building of art through community and community through art was demonstrated.  Multiple generations of a single family, among many families, to create art as a community impressed me.  I had not previously thought of things this way, but this is a foundation of my own culture and experience, and I see the power of the artistic process building family, community, and these groups creating art for today and for tomorrow.

I heard the call to integrate cross-cultural art works, and can steal that idea to include opening acts from other cultural expressions, and thereby enrich the audiences that we get to share with.

Art is world altering, and I embraced the concept that communities to nations can come together through art.  I've lived this in personal experience, performing across cultures, and in other countries.  I will now embrace and act consciously upon this paradigm.

From our speakers ideas, I see new opportunities to enrich and expand our outreach.  I loved the concept of musicians and artists as Ambassadors to our young people... the musician or artist Ambassador in the lunchroom is a phenomenal idea, and I plan to implement it as part of our arts outreach to children.

Shared resources, such as medical care or legal services, is a great idea that I have seen implemented in many different organizations. Rarely have I seen true partnerships, but I would welcome such resources.  

Our first Caucus gave me mixed emotions.  I met some very interesting new friends/colleagues.  I encourage everyone to to let go of their agendas, their personal business objectives, and their need to "get their stuff out".  Strategic thinking is going to be extremely important for the NPAC caucus process; tactical, personal objectives can follow later.

The first Caucus process kinda felt like playing "Telephone" when we were kids.  I am concerned about the end result being a reflection of our expressions.  That's my major impression from my first caucus experience.

Regardless of the end result, some powerful concepts emerged in our discussions.  We truly need to understand and communicate each others' "success measurement" systems.  Presenters, Artists, Agents, Producers, Audiences, Suppliers, all have different measurement systems for success.  If we learn about each others' needs we can be more sensitive and successful ourselves as a group.  We've always worked with the "Everybody must Win!" concept in our project.  Understanding each other is the key.

And now a word about "stealing".  I openly encourage people to steal anything I do if they see value in it.  Steal ideas, steal techniques, steal tricks of the trade.  Anything you steal and use will make my Art live forever.  Let's all steal from each other, and build an Art legacy that will outlive us all.

Throughout the opening session I kept hearing the voice of my late friend, Dr. Isaac Asimov (author of hundreds of sci-fi books, including "I Robot").  We once shared a cocktail discussion of robots in the arts (robot composers, painters, etc.).  Dr. Asimov said something profound; he said, "Robots will never capture the human essence.  Art is the human essence."

Dr. Asimov was right.  Let us capture the human essence, and together share it with the world.

posted by MOJO.