First, thanks to everyone who bothered to click through to see the New Blog on the Block post. It’s gratifying to know that there are people out there interested in this stuff. That said, the pressure is on to see whether anything sufficiently interesting can be said in Engaging Matters to keep people coming back. (I almost said “engaged.”)
Photo credits below
So, why, again, am I doing this? It has something to do with the fact that the arts are important; there is under-recognized value, there is insufficiently tapped potential in the arts’ ability to improve communities and individual’s lives.
Imagine a world where
• Artists are recognized and valued as community assets
• Communities demand quality arts instruction in the schools
• Public funding for arts activities is no more controversial than funding for police protection
• Private funding for arts activities comes, in some amount, from over half the community’s citizens
• Artists and arts organizations are sought out in planning community initiatives, solving community problems
Pipe dreams? Naîveté? Impossible? Certainly, given the status quo. But rather than bemoan our distance from that imagined world, let’s ask why we do not live there.
Why are there no artists’ portraits on U.S. currency? France had numerous musicians, painters, and designers on franc notes; Poland had Chopin on the 5000 Zlotych. When will Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, or Georgia O’Keefe be on the $1000 bill? Why do U.S. citizens not identify with opera the way Italians do? And why, unlike in tribal societies, doesn’t everyone attend and participate in our community festivals? Parallel questions could extend far down the page.
The answer, with respect to the arts about which those of us in the not-for-profit arts establishment are concerned, is that those arts are not viewed as powerfully important to the lives of the bulk of general public. If they were, every one of the preposterously imagined scenarios in the list above would be true.
And why is that? The answers are legion: the subject of books, philosophical tomes, late night bull sessions, sleep-inducing lectures. But one thing is clear. Wherever and in whatever ways artists and arts organizations can be more engaged with more individuals, demonstrating the real power of the arts (as opposed to window dressing or light versions of the arts), that is good for artists, for arts organizations, and for our communities.
The naîve, impossible utopia imagined above will never come to pass, at least not without social and structural transformations currently unimaginable. That is understood. But unless a path is blazed to move, even incrementally, in the direction of those fantasies, the future of at least some arts organizations we know today will be . . . challenging.
Regardless of which answers to the “Why’s” are correct, if the situation is going to be addressed, whose responsibility is it to do so? Politicians, teachers, factory workers, civil servants, health care providers? That’s not reasonable. Who has the most significant vested interest in altering the relationship between the arts and the community? Clearly, it is those of us in the world of the arts. Assigning fault or identifying excuses serves no purpose. It’s time to act.
This blog will be addressing many what’s and how’s of community engagement, focusing on those of us in the arts being the water carriers for change.
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And for the cool example du jour, I give you Elizabeth Streb’s SLAM, a Brooklyn-based modern dance company that is dedicated to the proposition that community matters. As Ms. Streb says on the website “At the heart of this machine is the driving force of art and action, and the belief that art can provide a service to a community such that voters, taxpayers, and consumers will consider it indispensable.” Her rehearsals are open to the public. The schedule is posted online and “outsiders” are invited: “Come in and watch the process as it unfolds and if you have a great idea let us know. STREB believes that the cross section of activity in our space feeds the creativity. Bring lunch and use our WiFi!”
I’m in debt to fellow AJ blogger Diane Ragsdale (see Jumper) for the heads up on Ms. Streb. Actually, Diane uses SLAM as a key example in the essay she has written for Building Communities, Not Audiences. I’ll say more about that essay in another post. In the meantime . . . .
Engage!
Doug
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When artists, curators and museums decide to join the rest of the human race struggling with daily life, they will find themselves in the realm of Things That Matter. The Tates do a fine job; New Museum doesn’t. Chapman Brothers (mostly) do, Tracey Emin does not.
About five percent of the above group provides a public service, while the remainder seem only interested in talking to themselves. Possibly they have great and important ideas, but never think to take the rest of us along. While the British art community scratches its collective head over budget cuts, they might think about how they found themselves in this position in the first place.
I’m reluctant to “pile on” the arts establishment. First, it’s difficult to know that you don’t know what you don’t know. I was trained (years ago) in “the system” and did not get this perspective either in the training or from my peers and mentors. Was that my fault? I think the issue of fault is not germane to the discussion. Second, the incentives for maintaining the status quo have, to this point, been *extremely* difficult to ignore/resist. I believe there is change afoot and that despite the pain being felt (and more is coming), political and economic circumstances will encourage (force?) more and more of the arts establishment to see there is another frame of reference, another mode of operation, for the work of the arts.
Great to see this blog come to fruition, Doug! FYI, I’ll be meeting with the Wisconsin Presenters Network later this month at their annual conference, and will do a recap of the “Altering the Face and Heart of America: The Gard Symposium” work that was accomplished last September here in Madison. The Wisconsin Arts Board valued its partnership with the Robert E Gard Wisconsin Idea Foundation on that so much that we’ve committed to continuing the conversation about what constitutes a healthy community whenever possible. http://gardfoundation.blogspot.com/ Congratulations also on your board member status for that Foundation. They’re fortunate to have you join in, and vice versa!
Doug,
It’s refreshing to see your response to mr. Green’s post with its acknowledgement of the pressure for conformity.
I’m interested in your development how did you come to realize that our ambition driven careerist Art community was being channeled by force and circumstance into a particular aspect? I have been ranting personally about this for a while now.
Jim
The hoped-for purpose of this blog is to include the established arts community in conversation about community engagement. In the field there seems to be some positive movement in that direction. True Believers are sometimes so strident that not only can they not be heard, their arguments end up being counterproductive. Anyone who has chosen to make a life in the arts is passionate about their work. And I daresay all of us are ambitious to one extent or another. The discussion in this blog has a real practical element. What approach makes the arts most viable for the long term? To me, it’s the development of substantive working relationships with the community outside the arts. That has the advantage of yielding a demonstrable social good.
How about this: In a community where the local arts council is run by politically savvy — or frightened — folk, a proposal was made to demonstrate the involvement and clout of the arts community. The idea, stolen from Broadway, was to have every movie ticket-buyer, museum goer, concert attendee and theater buff pay an extra 50 cents or a buck that would be sent to the arts council. It would either provide a bigger pot of local funds — and warn legislators that the arts meant business — or it would provide a cushion against politically inspired cuts and show that the arts community was willing to do its part to climb off the backs of horribly put-upon taxpayers and the pols who refuse to lead. You get the idea. We’re all in this together; users are happy to give back and stand up for the arts. The idea never moved out of memo stage. Treating theater goers as taxpayers entitled to legislative support was the only way to make the case for arts funding, proposers were told. Any suggestion of shared responsibility was dismissed.
The result: About $200,000 a year not developed and continued exposure to the political system.
Well said… and the grassroots artists and arts agencies have to step up first and foremost. All the others have diverse palettes and plates to address… yes, pun intended. I’ve been working training artists in Tanzania East Africa on entrepreneurialism and arts business development for the past five years. Realizing and advocating the ‘value’ of the arts is my main message to them. They face the same issue there as does most the rest of the world. As artists we have the tools/media of expression by humans, lest we forget the arts are humans’ first language, and it is replaced soon after birth by aspirations of parents and institutions focused on archaic testing goals.
The main reason that arts support and valuation is at a low level in this society is the suppression of creativity. The main models of school music are bands, choirs, and orchestras. Nothing wrong with these except that they assume that creativity is the province of distance experts (composers). If you want to create music yourself you will have to get a guitar and join a band. We lose a lot of young players who can’t find any possibility for personal expression in large groups – attrition is considerable even before the end of high school. Creativity is messy and hard to grade; education likes what is easy to do even if it has great faults (the same way hospitals are built for the convenience of the staff, not for the patients). If improvisation and composition were introduced at every level, students would be empowered to create their own music, which would engender a life-long appreciation, understanding, and enjoyment of the process, just as early exposure to sports in school does (imagine if you could only play sports if every move were scripted – that’s how we do music). Improvisation doesn’t have to be jazz – you can make up all kinds of music at any level. Making up your own music is a wonderful joy that is incomprehensibly keep out of music education. Arts support will grow tremendously if we make creative arts (not just re-creative arts) a part of every student’s life. It’s a tough battle because of the entrenched system and because it’s hard to weigh or count anything in the arts. But breakthroughs are beginning to happen here and there: for example, Nova Scotia has just made creative music part of its band curriculum with the teachers reported wonderful and gratifying results (details for the curious can be found in my blog horninsights.com). It took me over forty years of doing music the “literate” way only to finally realize that the other half of musicianship and musical life (the “aural”, creative side) was there all along, waiting to be discovered. What a difference it makes!
I could not agree more with he theory of suppressed creativity. At a very young age we have little rules and inhibitions on what is possible. Failure is not recorded as such but rather as data collection. When we get older data collection is seen as failure and people are apt to take less risks.