Search Results for: dinnervention

This last Dinnervention post is an experiment in group blogging--I wrote the core piece, and then three of my fellow Dinnerventionists-- Margy Waller, Laura Zabel, and Devon Smith--were kind enough to react to it in commentary.  It was really interesting to watch happen--hopefully it is interesting to read as well!  The blogging platform allows limited capability to demonstrate in-text comments, so I've color-coded it.  We'll see if that's as clear to others as it is to me... (If you are … [Read more...]

"I want to kill them," Devon Smith says, the klieg lights heating up the tiny dining room where we are eating and intervening. She goes on, arguing that we need to kill the organizations that aren't relevant, that aren't trying to be relevant. The aggression is off-putting, and my gut response, which I act upon, is to soften up the verb, "surely you don't mean 'kill'," but Devon pushes back and tells me that is exactly what she means.  Which of course it is--Devon isn't one to misspeak. It is … [Read more...]

This one’s not going to be very new, I fear.  It seems to have been the core outcome for most of the folks coming out of the Dinnervention, and of course is also a trope that has run its course through the blogosphere for a while.  And yet… If the core problem facing the arts today really is one of relevance, of public value, of engagement, then the core solution must be one that embraces what America writ large finds relevant, what the public values, and what a new and expansive definition … [Read more...]

This is a guest post from Margy Waller, Senior Partner at the Topos Partnership and fellow Dinnerventionist.  Margy has previously guest-posted for New Beans here. The Invitation One of the great surprises of my year came in the form of an invitation to dinner received last spring when I awoke to an email titled in part: NOT SPAM PLEASE READ. The email and invitation to a Dinnervention came from Barry Hessenius of WESTAF (The Western States Art Federation). The dinner is his invention … [Read more...]

At one point during the dinner, Nina Simon and I got into a few sentences of disagreement about where the line was between arts institutions and community centers—and whether there should be one at all.  For me, this is a complicated issue, and it’s an area where I often end up feeling like the most conservative person in the room, especially when the room is filled with 11 other people making their names by questioning everything. Nina creates interactivity right at the border of the art—it … [Read more...]

The Djerassi Artists Retreat sits on the ridge of hills that cascade down to the Pacific Ocean, sloping deep into protected land and accessible only by a harrowing one and a half lane semi-paved road just wide enough that delivery trucks and yuppies in Priuses think they can barrel down it, stop short, and make unsuspecting strangers in difficult German-manufactured rental cars back up gingerly into narrow turnouts nestled between the road and a steep drop-off with no guardrail.  In late summer, … [Read more...]