In 2002, after almost a decade of precarious under-the-radar loft living — Watson cites the time her leg went through the floor, as well as the drawbacks of sharing space with a peanut roaster — she found six partners, scraped together $170,000 and bought a 66,000-square-foot factory once used to make Venetian blinds, in the rough neighborhood behind the train station. The area has since been christened the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

The partners now rent studios to something like 25 artists. And that still leaves room for Watson, who is 41, to store her 1948 Chevy truck in a gymnasium-size room where she and her artist-husband weld their sculptures.

[...]

All this mixing of bohemian and sober, of art and music and theater and film, suggests another possibility: that it’s the scene itself, in all its fascinating complexity, that is the true work of art in Baltimore. These days, the idea of counting “life” as “art” has the grand name of “relational aesthetics,” and it’s a bit of a Baltimore specialty. Last year’s Sondheim winner was a collective whose “works” included a community garden in east Baltimore, as well as a scruffy little pavilion outside the BMA that came with an open invitation for groups to hold events in it.

“I like to think that the definition of art is expansive enough that the community could exist as the artwork,” says Hileman.

Even more interesting to me, however, was Anne Midgette’s story on what appears to be a thriving menu of operatic offerings in Charm City. You might remember that the 58-year-old Baltimore Opera was among the first arts-related casualties of the Great Recession, and at the time there was much gnashing of teeth over how many more established institutions would bite the dust and how many cities would become artistic orphans as a result. Merely 18 months later, however, there are “at least seven opera companies, maybe more,” of which “more than half…started this season.”

They offer young local singers, nontraditional stagings and in some cases unusual repertory — such as the stripped-down adaptation of “Madame Butterfly” for prepared piano and electric gamelan orchestra that American Opera Theater will present on a double bill with Messiaen’s “Harawi” in 2010-11. And they are definitely playing to a new audience.

“The growth has been in unexpected areas,” says Tim Nelson, who founded American Opera Theater in 2002. “Twenty-five-to-40-year-olds; people from less affluent, less educated backgrounds.”

“We took a survey at our second-to-last show,” says Beth Stewart, a soprano who founded Chesapeake Concert Opera, which performs in a church in Bolton Hill. “Tons of people said, ‘We weren’t really into opera before. Now we are.’ “

As Midgette points out, most of the new companies are run on a shoestring, and their success to date is to some degree possible only because it’s so damn hard for singers to make it anywhere but Baltimore, ensuring that the local talent pool remains high-quality. Caveats aside, though, I think this is a good lesson to remember when we worry about the impact the recession may be having on specific organizations. Change is always difficult, and certainly is not always for the best. But in this case it appears that the void left by the dissolution of the Baltimore Opera was quickly filled by at least four new companies collectively boasting more innovative programming and performances with appeal to a more diverse audience than ever before. Which raises the question: was the existence of the Baltimore Opera actually standing in the way of that innovation the whole time?

It’s an important thought to consider as we ponder how to offer stewardship to the arts community as a whole. As scary and depressing as the recession can be, sometimes starting all over again is the right thing to do.

Share/Save This Article

• Listening vs. doing
• Liveblogging the Yale SOM Arts & Culture Conference
• New Haven arts policy study

Helena Fruscio, Director of Berkshire Creative

I met Helena Fruscio when she spoke on a panel at the Connecting New England’s Creative Communities conference in Providence this past March that was about looking “beyond our borders” for productive collaborations. I was impressed with the innovative range of programs offered by Berkshire Creative as well as its unique (as far as I know) role as a local council for the creative economy, not just the arts or culture. Helena’s career path is equally notable: she is Berkshire Creative’s director and has evolved the position from internship in summer 2007 in the fledging organization to the paid position of Program Coordinator in late 2007, to the Director of Operations in 2008, to finally leading the organization as she does today.

In 2008, Helena was appointed to the Massachusetts Creative Economy Council by Governor Deval Patrick. She is the Chair of the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce’s Fine and Performing Arts Award, she sits on Berkshire Navigation-Berkshire Data Collection Steering committee, Berkshire Blueprint Steering Committee, and is an active steering committee member of the Berkshire Young Professionals. Helena received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) School of Imaging Arts and Sciences in Ceramic Sculpture, with a concentration in Anthropology/Sociology.

Can you tell us about how you came to be the founding director of Berkshire Creative? What was the initiative that led to its formation and how did you first become involved?

The idea for the Berkshire Creative Economy Council (Berkshire Creative) was first conceived in 2006 by the brilliant and driven Director and CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum, Laurie Norton Moffatt, and the President of the Hancock Shaker Village, Ellen Spear. They happened to be sitting side by side at a meeting about a countywide economic development plan for the Berkshires. They realized their organizations and similar creative businesses needed to have a unified voice around their economic impact and the role creativity plays in Berkshire County.

Fast-forward to March 2007: A steering committee of 45 creative business owners and non-profit directors was formed, a grant from Massachusetts Technology Collaborative was received and the Berkshire Creative Economy Report produced by Mt. Auburn Associates had been unveiled. This report outlined the creative economy as one of the top industries in Berkshire County with over 6,000 jobs and millions being generated.

In the meantime, I was oblivious to these developments, as I worked on my Bachelors of Fine Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. My major was Ceramic Sculpture, yes that is a major, and I was happily working on my senior thesis show. I was uncertain of my post-graduation plans when I stumbled across the Berkshire Hills Internship Program (BHIP) offered through the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, in my hometown of North Adams, Massachusetts.

Three days after I graduated, I became the first intern of the fledgling Berkshire Creative, which was still a loose affiliation of the amazing Steering Committee that created The Report. It was at this critical juncture that Berkshire Creative was provided with a Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) Adams matching grant. The Adams grant provided the fiscal support and leverage necessary for Berkshire Creative to make its pivotal transition from a steering committee of invested community members to an organization with a highly committed board and a staff of one: me.

Today, I am the Director of Berkshire Creative and with the help of a highly committed Board of Directors and volunteers, we work to execute our mission to stimulate and support job growth and economic opportunity in the Berkshire County region by sparking innovative collaborations between artists, designers, cultural institutions, and businesses.

Let’s talk about the creative economy. As you know, most of the discussions we tend to have about “the arts” in this country tend to focus on the nonprofit sector primarily or exclusively. What do you see as the most important synergies or connections between nonprofit arts organizations and local creative industries?

We define our work as a movement: “A movement that came into being at the intersection of art, innovation, design and creation. It’s a big concept to grasp all at once, encompassing the collaboration between disparate groups in a dynamic new direction that is uniquely Berkshire. One line sums it up better than anything else: Creativity means Business in the Berkshires.”

The driving values of the creative workers and businesses we serve are inherently different from many other industry clusters. What propels those we serve to chose to their respective fields is not purely financial, but a passion for their creative product and/or service.   For many of these businesses and organizations, the generation and promotion of their product or service is their priority. They want to find better ways of making a living off of what they love to do, and we exist to help them do that. This unique value set gives a distinct slant to the purposes of connecting, networking, customer relations, and product development.

At the end of the day a creative business or organization is still a business and has to be treated as such, but it takes a certain organization to support these business owners and their business perspective.

Another component of our creative economy work is a new argument for “the arts” that turns old assumptions on their heads. Often times when we speak of “the arts” and “supporting the arts” it gives the sense of struggling artists or cultural institutions looking for donations. In other words, the organizations and individuals are “taking” something from the community, usually money, and giving art in return. By changing the “the arts” argument to the “Creative Economy”, the inherent message conveys that art organizations and creative businesses have an impact on the economy. It focuses on what the businesses and organizations give to the community and not receive from it. It makes them a “sector” of the economy, with a strong impact, not just people with their hands out. The “Creative Economy” says that art jobs are real jobs too, that donors or patrons are still spending real money, that a struggling artist contributes to the “movement” of the economy, that all businesses centered around creativity have a place in the county’s plan and that the creative organizations and businesses are seen by economic developers and that their needs are met by business support organizations.

With this sector it seems contrary to progress to keep old divisions intact as we move forward to develop strength as a single industry. We can and should recognize the different business needs of a non-profit, a for-profit and a sole proprietor, but our power is in numbers and in speaking with one voice. Not to mention that it continually amazes me what happens when you get a group of creative people into one room.  You can almost feel the sparks flying and you never know what is going to evolve.  To keep the creative leadership separate because of their incorporation status just does not make sense in the new economy.

What is your definition of the “creative economy”? How do you decide what’s in and what’s out?

Berkshire Creative serves the community of Berkshire-based individuals and businesses ranging from museums, historic homes, performing art centers, and theater companies to designers, architects, artists, technology companies, and manufacturers who each contribute to the distinctly creative and innovative nature of the region.

I have people ask me all the time, “I am a creative lawyer or plumber, am I part of the Creative Economy?” The answer is no. Not all jobs are part of the creative economy, even if the people working in them are creative.

We define the creative sector as: “The enterprises and people involved in the production and distribution of goods and services in which the aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional engagement of the consumer gives the product value in the marketplace.”

Unfortunately, at the time this definition was established the industry and job coding used by government agencies did not yet fully quantify these segments as a whole sector. Fortunately, the New England Foundation for the Arts released a report shortly after the Berkshire Creative Economy Report which outlined the industry and job codes that fall within the creative sector. We use these codes to help further our definition and measure our creative industries.

Berkshire Creative recently announced a collaboration with the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, Berkshire Economic Development Corporation, and the Berkshire Visitors Bureau focused on aligning the four organizations’ approaches to regional economic development. It’s quite rare for the creative community to be invited to the table for these conversations so explicitly. What do you feel are the most important factors that made this possible in the Berkshires and what lessons do you see for other communities looking to form the same kinds of partnerships?

In the Berkshires we realize the need for collaboration and a unified front for economic development and business support. Things are changing around the world, as well as here in Berkshire County and forward-thinking regions are positioning themselves NOW to be leaders in the new economy. 1Berkshire leverages the strengths, capabilities and resources of the four organizations involved, while positioning the Berkshires as a whole to thrive.

For the creative industry to be invited to the top economic development tables in other regions, the creative industry must be organized with a succinct and unified message. Let’s face it, classic business development and support organizations can have a hard time wrapping their heads around this industry. It is our job to be clear and cohesive about its importance within every city, region, and state’s economic development plan.

Again this is where the argument for the support of the “creative economy” versus “the arts” carries more weight at economic development tables. The act of assembling and supporting and then communicating and advocating for the creative industry is the foundation for being included in the economic development conversation.

So it sounds like just bringing people together is the most important first step. Can you describe some interesting interactions you’ve observed at your events or unusual connections that have been made through Berkshire Creative that wouldn’t have been possible if the focus were just on “the arts” rather than the “creative economy”?

My favorite story of inter-sector collaboration comes from the beginnings of our organization. It centers around two of our founding Steering Committee members, Bill Hines, Jr. of Interprint Inc. and Ellen Spear of Hancock Shaker Village. For years they had operated their respective organizations just a stone’s throw from each other in Pittsfield: Hancock Shaker Village, a National Historic Landmark, and Interprint, a leading decor printer and designer of laminate flooring. Even though these two organizations were less than a mile apart, it was not until Bill and Ellen met under the auspices of Berkshire Creative that they considered that there might be synergy between the for-profit manufacturer and non-profit museum.

Working on the launch of Berkshire Creative gave Bill and Ellen the opportunity to discuss their respective needs and resources, which ultimately resulted in a new line of Interprint designed laminate layer inspired by the floors of Hancock Shaker Village. This is a perfect example of how breaking down the barriers between non-profit and for-profit results in innovative collaborations that are beneficial both socially and monetarily. This is the creative economy at its best!

That was one of our earliest connections, but smaller and equally important connections are made at our events and through our website regularly. Connections that lead to hiring new employees, collaborations that lead to new product lines, and cross county colleagues meeting for the first time.

As an emerging leader in the charge of a very new organization, what challenges have you faced and lessons have you learned that might be helpful to your peers assuming significant responsibility in an organization for the first time?

I began working with Berkshire Creative as an intern three days after I graduated from college. I had no prior ‘professional’ experience and since Berkshire Creative was about as new as I was, what I was getting into was not yet fully defined. I didn’t know how the “business world” worked, only how to work hard and get things done with the end goal in mind. In some ways this lack of experience has been beneficial, a newcomer working to develop a new field. I had no preconceived notions about the way things worked or about myself. At the time I was quite aware that I knew very little, so I asked for help and asked a lot of questions.

Which leads me to, in my opinion, the most important strategy for a young leader: ask for help and advice from people with more experience than you. The phrases “can you advise me?” or “can I ask you a question?” are my most valued professional development tools. It is not about knowing everything; it is about knowing whom to ask and leveraging the resources and brain trust around you. Be a sponge.

For example, when I began with Berkshire Creative I did not know how to make a budget. I did not even know what a budget was! So I tapped into the resources around me and engaged a board member with financial expertise to lead me though the budgeting process.

Surrounding yourself with strong mentors is important. I remember one moment from my earliest days with the organization. I was in the office of Berkshire Creative co-founder and Norman Rockwell Museum Director, Laurie Norton Moffatt, calling local officials to invite them to a press event for the launch of the Berkshire Creative Economy Report.  After I hung up from a call, Laurie said to me, “Helena, make sure that at the end of your sentences your voice goes down instead of up. As women it is important that we don’t sound like we are asking a question or are undecided in our statements.”

I have been fortunate to have amazing and generous local business leaders mentor me as I evolved into the role of Director, including Board Co-Chairs Nancy Fitzpatrick of The Red Lion Inn, Kevin Sprague of Studio Two, and the other Berkshire Creative Board Members. They have continually supported me, with incredible generosity of insights, energy and time. We developed the work of Berkshire together as a creative community and I am thankful to have the opportunity to work with such inspired, intelligent, giving, and creative individuals.

Share/Save This Article

• Creative Providence
• AFTA Convention Wrap Day 1
• Connecting New England’s Creative Communities

Posting has been light around here lately because I am in the midst of another move. I am coming to the end of my official residence in Rhode Island, where I have been plying my trade and generally causing trouble for the last year or so. I’m moving back to New York to join the rest of my Fractured Atlas colleagues in the West 35th St office, and have been subletting a place this month in Harlem/Morningside to provide a home base for apartment searching (which thankfully looks to be over) and unpacking. I really enjoyed my time in Providence – it’s a very cool small city that has a lot going on for its size and very much “gets” the value of the arts and creative industries in a way that many places don’t.

• Much has been made of the NEA’s new investment in urban revitalization, but since the agency’s budget looks like it will be the same or a little less compared to last year, this is all something of a zero-sum game. In this case, looks like Dana Gioia’s “The Big Read” program is the big loser in Rocco’s reorganization of agency priorities. (As an aside, I came across this old-ish articlecatching up with former NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant this weekend and noticed the following observation: “in Sergant’s department of 14 people, four were dedicated to making books-on-tape.” Another legacy of Gioia’s literary-centric worldview, perhaps?)
• By the way, did you know the NEA has a YouTube channel? Here’s Design Director Jason Schupbach talking about “creative placemaking.” There’s much more here.
• Meanwhile, right wingers are hot on the trail of arts funding again, though so far it seems less organized than it was for the Sergant incident. The same “arts jobs are not real jobs” lie that we heard during the stimulus fight is once again front and center. (Michael Rushton patiently explains why it’s not true.) Senators Coburn and McCain have continued to identify arts projects supported by the federal government as “wasteful” for no other reason than that they are arts-related, offending Gary Steuer in the process. Perhaps more troubling is the newfound focus by conservatives on state and local funding for the arts, led predictably by Glenn Beck.
• Looks like Bill Gates’s and Warren Buffet’s efforts have had some impact: 10% of the world’s billionaires have now adopted the Giving Pledge to donate at least half of their wealth to charity before or at death. Notable arts supporters among the list include Gerry and Margaret Lenfest, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Paul Allen, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Bernard and Barbro Osher, and Sanford and Joan Weill. Hopefully they’ll listen to Kathleen Enright’s advice for them.
• Grantmakers in the Arts is ramping up an interesting-looking series of guest blogs, and the latest is a grantmaker-grantee conversation between Ute Zimmerman and Theaster Gates.
• Retrospective: Michael Kaiser looks back on the Arts in Crisis tour, and Conni of Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant takes stock of inventory after a year of support from the Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists program.
• Delinquent nonprofit form filers are getting one last chance from the IRS to prove they still exist: file the 990-N “postcard” form online by October 15. Otherwise, it’s lights-out.
• Newsweek may be considering going nonprofit.
• Massachusetts has signed a law empowering local communities across the state to define their own cultural districts and identify incentives for their development. The Massachusetts Cultural Council will manage the program. Earlier this summer, the MCC had been in danger of getting moved under the aegis of a new quasi-public agency called the Massachusetts Marketing Partnership, but it looks like that proposal is off the table.
• So in addition to seven-figure salaries, we need to be giving top culture executives seven-figure tax-free housing as well? I want to see Dan Pallotta‘s defense of this. It’s not all fun and games, though – sometimes you get a full-fledged performance review from your colleagues in the New York Times. If you too want to be a culture executive, Laura Zabel explains how did she get that job.
• I was totally going to give Devon Smith a rest after linking to her blog a bunch of times over the last few months, but dammit, she keeps coming up with fantastic new stuff that can’t be ignored. Her “Social Media Measurement Plan” is perhaps her most ambitious post yet, chock-full of tips and tricks to track your online footprint. It’s seriously a must-read. I’m starting to think maybe we should try to keep Devon from getting a job after all because then she’ll keep giving this stuff away for free. (Just kidding, D.) Devon has a panel proposal in the mix for South by Southwest Interactive; and Fractured Atlas has two, one for Interactive and one in Film.
• By the way, you can vote for those SxSW panels, thus helping to choose the content of the event you’re going to. Ever since I wrote that article on crowdsourced philanthropy platforms, I’m always coming across new systems that I wish I could have discussed as part of it. Case in point: IDEO’s new collective design hub for the good of the world, OpenIDEO. Meanwhile, Lucy Bernholz declares “Curator” to be the philanthropy buzzword du jour.
• Iranian leader declares music incompatible with Islamic values.
• Are affluent Westerners psychologically different from the rest of the world?
• So, this is…unexpected: Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, “is setting up a foundation dealing with contemporary art in the South Pacific [specifically Vanuatu], he’s got 400 acres of land on the island, and will be inviting artists, writers, film makers, composers etc from all over the world to do small residencies of several weeks each. They’re going to have artist residencies starting mid next year, and the whole venue will be based on bamboo.”

Share/Save This Article

• Michael Dorf for NEA head?
• Knowledge
• The NEA gets into urban revitalization

photo by Angelina :)

Recently, JP Morgan Chase & Company gave away $5 million to two hundred charities, including some arts organizations, through its Summer 2010 Chase Community Giving campaign. Pepsi has been sending $1.3 million to nonprofit organizations each month this year as part of its Pepsi Refresh campaign, money that would have otherwise gone to Super Bowl ads. American Express is donating $200,000 to each of five organizations every three months. And in all three cases, regular people like you and me are helping to decide the recipients. You’d think we’d be happy about this, right?

Wrong. After largely avoiding controversy in the arts community (though not in the broader nonprofit sphere) when these projects made their first appearance 6-8 months ago, recently philanthropy by popular vote has started to see a strong backlash in these parts. It started with a post from 2am Theatre’s David J. Loehr pointing out the huge marketing gift nonprofits were making to Chase by participating in its program. A week later, Chicago Tribune‘s Chris Jones complained that the spectacle was demeaning to the arts and “yet a further example of the rampant cult of the amateur, masquerading as [a] grass-roots movement.” Then a Twitter controversy (Twitterversy?) erupted last month when no less than Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts got into it with fellow Members Project contestant StoryCorps, prompting the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Luis Cancel to lament in the comments that “marketing and the most venal ethics of pop culture have combined in this misguided effort…to link sponsorship in the arts with [corporations'] need to reach a mass audience.”

From there, the floodgates opened. The Nonprofiteer declared that she doesn’t believe in “crowd-source philanthropy,” calling it a “lazy and manipulative approach to corporate giving.” Technology in the Arts’s Joe Frandoni weighed in, pointing out that “this model has no way of insuring the best organizations reap the rewards or that the most efficient and effective programs receive funding.” And on ArtsBlog, Alison Wade wondered aloud, “the idea of democratizing this process sounds nice, but will the money really be used effectively?” Virtually all the authors complained or mentioned complaints of the deafening volume of solicitations for votes received from nonprofits participating in the sweepstakes.

Earlier this year, I spent quite a bit of time crafting, with co-author Daniel Reid, an article for Edward P. Clapp’s forthcoming 20UNDER40 anthology entitled “Audiences at the Gate: Re-Inventing Arts Philanthropy Through Guided Crowdsourcing.” So you might be surprised to learn that I agree wholeheartedly with the criticisms mentioned above. Indeed, the American Idol model of choosing donation recipients is, in the arts at least, little more than a mild twist on survival of the fittest in the commercial market. Those with the most pre-existing visibility (update: okay, not really) and inherently broad-based appeal will be at a natural advantage to do well, meaning that worthy grassroots, new, and obscure-yet-influential organizations are likely to be shut out. If widely adopted, this approach could actually do more harm than good by undermining one of the core justifications for subsidization of the arts: the notion that there are some forms and instances of human creation that deserve to exist even if the market won’t support them. Democracy is a wonderful thing, but grand leaps of imagination are not often achieved by group consensus.

Yet one would be hard-pressed to argue that our dominant system of institutional giving is all that much better. The decisions of our corporate and foundation funders have an enormous impact in shaping the field, yet in most cases less than a half-dozen people have meaningful input into those decisions. Sometimes, a single individual might drive essentially the entire agenda for a portfolio of hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. That’s an incredible amount of influence accruing to an incredibly small number of people. And individuals, no matter how dedicated or qualified, are increasingly not up to the task of responsibly evaluating the full range of artistic activity within their jurisdictions. There simply are not enough hours in the day or days in the year for a human being to give ongoing, fair, and substantive consideration to the work of the millions of artists and tens of thousands of arts nonprofits in the United States today. For all of Chris Jones’s lauding of the “noble tradition of the corporate giving officer,” what percentage of the participants in Chase Community Giving or Pepsi Refresh have had corporate giving officers regularly (or ever!) attend their performances or exhibits?

So in my opinion, we need to be careful about throwing the baby of crowdsourced philanthropy out with the bathwater of popularity contest philanthropy. The latter is not synonymous with the former; it is merely a poorly executed version of it. What we need, instead, is a way of broadening out the selection and adjudication process to a greater number of people without sacrificing the qualities and expertise that make professional program officers special. To do this, we’ll still want to access the crowd, but rather than treat everyone the same, we’ll need to differentiate between good members of the crowd – the ones who are generous with their time, consider differing viewpoints thoughtfully, and demonstrate personal integrity – and bad members of the crowd – “one-issue” voters, poorly informed fly-by commenters, and vendetta-carriers. Put another way, we want to give anybody the opportunity to participate meaningfully without having to give that opportunity to everybody.

The system that Daniel and I designed addresses this challenge by establishing a new class of “star” voter: the Curator. Instead of having our regular users vote directly on arts projects submitted through our (hypothetical) giving platform, we have them vote on the reviews and commentary devoted to those projects instead. Users who build and then maintain a consistently positive reputation among their peers get elevated to Curator status — and it’s the Curators who then exert direct influence on how philanthropic dollars are distributed. We called this tiered approach “guided crowdsourcing,” in that it fuses open, flexible opportunity at the lower levels with structure and influence at the top. This concept is new to arts philanthropy, but it has found success in other fields. Recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the sense of community engendered among Yelp’s “Elite Squad” and Amazon’s super-reviewers, who derive considerable intrinsic satisfaction from performing the volunteer labor involved in sharing their experiences with dozens or hundreds of products and local establishments with the broader world. Indeed, as cultural consumers arguably look for deeper engagement with the art that’s important to them, curation represents a way to “do” without dropping everything and becoming a professional artist themselves.

So by all means, rail against the American Idol-ization of giving all you want. Just don’t give up on crowdsourced philanthropy just because we all know Jennifer Hudson should have won in season 3.

Share/Save This Article

• Thoughts on Effective Philanthropy: Part VI – The Philanthropist as Speculator, Not Gatekeeper
• Wrap-up: SOM Philanthropy Conference (Part II)
• Thoughts on Effective Philanthropy: Part I – The Nature of the Arts and their Impact

We also touched on the Pro-Am Revolution and other topics. You can see the full set of videos here.

Share/Save This Article

• Knowledge, part II
• Watch the National Arts Journalism Summit here @ 12pm ET
• Knowledge

[...]  Thanks to all for the stimulating conversation. I think for me, the most exciting policy development on the horizon is the ability of data to illuminate who we are and what we do. (Oops – just saw Brian’s post – I guess I’m not the only one!) Our increasingly interconnected, networked world is generating huge reams of information too dense and extensive for any human to handle. But our technology has reached the point where batch processing of that information is almost trivial, and the real–and yes, creative–challenge posed to us is how to slice, segment, mash up, or otherwise arrange that data in ways that tell stories, that inform priorities, and that let us know how we’re doing.

A few years ago, when I first went to graduate school, I was convinced that the arts were antithetical to data. I vividly recall a Thanksgiving conversation with my cousin in which we were talking about why I was so passionate about the arts. He was finishing up an MBA at the time, and as I waxed eloquent about the impact of arts activity on real estate, the relevance of the arts to innovation in business, etc., his ears perked up with clear interest. “But I would never say that’s why the arts should be funded,” I finally concluded. Surprised, he asked, “so why should they be funded?” “Because they’re great,” I responded definitively. But it was obvious I had lost him. And I didn’t know how to get him back. He didn’t have an arts background. How could I explain to him why the arts were so great when they hadn’t been a formative part of his life experience? How could I ever convey to him the depth of that intensity in words, in a few minutes no less?

Now, a few years later, I have come to the conclusion that it’s not quite so black and white. If the arts do, in fact, make our lives richer in ways other than money, there are means of figuring such things out. I’m really excited for the intrinsic impact work that Clay mentions because for the first time, this line of research attempts to delve into some of these “unmeasurable” ways that the arts give meaning to our lives. Other methodological innovations like these are bound to proliferate in the coming years, propelled forward by the increased access we’ll have to more and more meaningful data. One area where I think our research could improve is more sophisticated segmentation of our subjects. I suspect a big part of the reason that some of the arts research literature seems inconclusive is that it tries to lump people or activity or contexts together when it would be more interesting to look at a subset of cases. For example, there’s a long tradition in our field of trying to universalize the arts: this idea that all of us have some hidden yearning to be creative and that our lives are forever impoverished by the lack of access to the symphony/theatre/museum etc. Yet my cousin’s experience and those of many like him seem to belie this notion. He may not realize how much art is part of the background of his life, but he appears to be perfectly happy and fulfilled without it in the foreground. So what if it’s the case that art is really important — important enough to save lives — but only for a minority of us? We’d have to figure out the policy implications later, but that would be pretty valuable information to have. By the same token, most research in the arts that deals with events treats all arts events as the same – 1:1 equivalence. Yet any artist can tell you that the “impact” of one arts event to another can vary immensely, depending not just on the show/production but even from night to night. And even at the level of a single event, goodness knows people, even knowledgeable experts, can have incredibly divergent judgments as to the quality of the experience.

I mention this because I think our policy, and by the same token advocacy, similarly risks putting too many people in the same bucket. I take to heart Molly’s example of the copyright views of the MIT scientist and the television writer being affected by how they each pay the rent. In a way, when we talk about “artists’ creative rights,” we’re really talking about two different things that our copyright laws and systems have artificially mushed together: the right to control who gets to use your work, and the right to an opportunity to make a living as a creator. If we segment our interest groups by who depends on copyright to pay their daily bread and who does not, and open up the possibility of dealing with those groups differently, the path forward may become a lot clearer.

Share/Save This Article

• Fascinating experiment in crowdsourcing
• Knowledge
• I am famous

Share/Save This Article

• Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
• On the Arts and Sustainability
• Live from GIA: Day II – Arts, Culture, and Community Economic Development

What Would Direct Representation of Artists Look Like?

At Fractured Atlas, as a national service organization ourselves, we’re starting to think about arts advocacy in a new way. Since our focus is on using technology to build infrastructure for the arts field, naturally we see the future in that frame. What if there were a way for artists to engage with policy issues directly rather than through the intermediary of a service organization with which they might or might not have any meaningful relationship? What if there were a way for them to obtain crucial, unbiased information about their own communities, their own representatives, and how the arts fit in? What if there were a way for them to organize themselves around that information, determine their own agendas and priorities, and create email/social media/grassroots campaigns centered around specific actions? What if there were a way for them to hold elected representatives accountable for their decisions by easily and conveniently tracking legislative outcomes, whether at the national, state, or local level? What if there were a way for them to actually play a role in drafting legislation itself, in collaboration with their peers?

Read the rest of this post over at the Creative Rights & Artists discussion.

Share/Save This Article

• Fractured Atlas and NYC Performing Arts Spaces to Merge
• Connecting New England’s Creative Communities
• We’re all in the same ocean, but not the same boat

Share/Save This Article

• eighth blackbird and the Ethics of Pay-to-Play
• Professionals vs. Amateurs
• Flashback: Press Play!

Share/Save This Article

• ArtsJournal Conversation on Creative Rights & Artists
• Victory.
• A talk with Ford Foundation President Luis Ubiñas