The Field Blog

Make artWORK: You and Your Books, Part2

2015-05-07T10:39:00.003-04:00

By Clay Schudel

Last month I wrote about getting more control over your life by getting a better understanding of your finances. Click here to read that post! If you are just getting started, or don’t know where to start, here are a few useful tips:

1- Organize your paperwork. Whether you’re making your living as an artist / performer or if you’re just getting started as a working artist (but all of your income is from a day job), remember to take your business seriously.

l Get into the habit of keeping all bills in one place, so that you can easily put your hands on them, and commit to visiting your home “financial center” at least once a week. Develop a simple system that works for you and stick to it – for example, if you need to, use a red pen to write at the top of each bill the due date so you never get stuck paying a late fee for a credit card bill or miss an important payment.

l If you’re an individual artist your business expenses and personal living expenses are likely mingled; this makes it extremely important to save your records in an organized way so that when you file your tax returns you can claim every legitimate business expense as an independent contractor against any income, to make sure that you only pay taxes on any profit that your business made. Do this organizing as the year goes along. If you are going to claim a deduction, you’re going to need a record of:

When: The date of the transaction

Where: Where you bought the item

What: What the item was

Why: What purpose it served in your business

Try making a simple spreadsheet with these columns:

Date | Category | Vendor | Cost | Purpose

Make a note on your receipts (“rent; costumes; business meeting”) and file them as you pay them; $10 spent at Staples now on a few file folders will save you so much stress at tax time, digging through every drawer in your apartment and trying to remember what these receipts were for.

· If you’re prefer saving digital copies of your receipts, there are several phone apps that allow you to photograph and save a cloud based copy of your receipts; probably the two most popular ones are Shoeboxed ($9.95 a month, but this app has many other mobile accounting features than just organizing receipts) https://www.shoeboxed.com/features/

and the much more basic One Receipt (free app) http://www.onereceipt.com/

2 - Evaluate and understand your income and your expenses. Knowing what you spend, and what your income is, over a period of time will let you make intelligent budgets, better use what resources you have, and do all kinds of short and long-term planning. As I wrote last month, the program that I still rely on MOST OF ALL is one that almost everyone already has if they have a home computer – the old fashioned Excel spreadsheet.

· Start by listing regular income and expenses you know will happen or feel pretty sure about:

Make a thorough list of your regular income, and note when it happens; you should put down things that happen monthly (a job that pays a salary every 2 weeks), a few times a year (do you a get quarterly royalty check?) or once a year(do you usually get a tax refund every May? Teach a paid workshop every summer?)

· Make this same list for your known fixed expenses. Be as thorough and as realistic as you can; after you list your large and regularly repeating expenses like rent, utilities and internet, take a good look at your cash or credit card spending and try to understand your patterns and to group your spending into categories; use your bank and credit card statements to help you note regularly repeating automatic payments you may not think of (Netflix? Insurance premiums?) and notice when your credit card payments themselves are due.

Lining these two categories (Income & Expense) up side by side in two columns will go a long way towards showing you the bare bones of your financial picture and will help you see cash flow gaps that you have to prepare for or changes you want to make in your spending.

Follow the links below for pre-loaded templates!

Microsoft Office (maker of Excel) has lots of preloaded Excel spreadsheets that you can download from the Office website, and easily modify for your own uses.

SCORE, a nonprofit that provides mentorship services for small businesses and entrepreneurs also has many templates you can download and modify to help you analyze your expenses and cash flow

Here’s a very simple cash flow forecasting spreadsheet that I created using Excel

You don’t need to be stressed out about the money side of your creative business. A plan that’s simple enough for you to actually keep up with (and doesn’t take too much time away from your real work of making art) is the one that’s right for you.

Make artWORK: You and Your Books, Part 1

2015-04-03T14:20:00.001-04:00

Part 1, By Clay Schudel

Understanding your financial situation – what you have, where it comes from, what you really spend it on and when you need to spend it – gives you much more control over your life. It gives you more control over creating the work you love. It lets you make smarter choices. Understanding your finances lets you plan bigger projects, and avoid the stress of not being sure if you’re on the right track or of being caught by surprise by something you could have seen coming.

You may already have a great accountant (or you may BE a great accountant; I have seen some amazing financial records from some member artists at The Field!) but if not, there’s no time like the present to take a fresh look at your bookkeeping system.

There are some great accounting software packages out there that can help people with very little accounting training keep an impressive and accurate set of books; while you may think of a complicated software systems as "real" bookkeeping, any process that involves the recording of financial transactions is a bookkeeping process. You don’t need any special tools to keep good financial records. Until 30 years ago, almost every system relied on paper, pens and ledger books! But there are a lot of tools now that can make bookkeeping much simpler.

By definition, bookkeeping is “the recording of financial transactions, including purchases, sales, receipts and payments”, so at the most basic level, we’re talking about keeping clear records of your income and bills, all in one place, and understanding your bottom line. Having an accurate sense of how your money flows in and out, over a period of time, will help you plan in every way, from putting together a long term budget for a business plan, to strategizing a fundraising plan for a one-time performance.

The program that I still rely on MOST OF ALL is one that almost everyone already has if they have a home computer – the old fashioned spreadsheet. If you’re comfortable at all working with spreadsheets, Excel (Microsoft) or Calc (Open Office, and free) are extremely flexible programs that you can use to set up any kind of budget, cash flow forecasts and other planning tools, checkbook registers or really anything to do with numbers. The web is FULL of free tutorials on how to get the most out of Excel, sample templates you can download and tips about using spreadsheets in general. Google is your friend!

QuickBooks is a great software package with a not-too-steep learning curve but it’s sophisticated enough for most small businesses. The QuickBooks Pro desktop package costs about $250.
QuickBooks also has a cloud-based online product that costs about $10/month.

I have heard good things about Zoho, another cloud-based accounting program (but have not used it myself).
https://www.zoho.com/books/

Another cloud-based personal budgeting app that has been recommended to us is “You Need A Budget” ($60 one-time fee for download)
http://www.youneedabudget.com/

No matter how well you understand your business figures, unless your finances are extremely simple and you’re filing a basic non-itemized tax form, it’s a good idea to find a professional accountant to look over your books once a year (or quarterly if necessary) and to prepare your taxes. A good accountant will almost always be able to help you find deductible expenses that you may not have thought of yourself, and she may be aware of changes in the tax code that can make a big difference.

April 15th is just around the corner, so grab life by the horns and good luck!

Make artWORK: I Love Budgets

2015-02-26T16:13:00.002-05:00

Make artWORK: I Love Budgets

By Jennifer Wright Cook

Do you hate budgets? Do you get hives when you are asked to do one for a grant or a presenter?

I love budgets! Yes, I do. Budgets are just numbers really. And numbers are just numbers. They won’t judge you. They won’t tell you how much you are worth. They won’t reject you.

Budgets are information that you can use to make strategic decisions about your creative projects or your personal life or anything involving money. Without a budget plan you risk making last minute decisions and using your credit card to finance your show or your life.

Budgets are mutable. As your creative project unfolds over time you can update your budget with new information. For instance, if you estimated that you could raise $3,000 from Individual Giving and you actually raised $3,500 that means you have $500 more for your work! Amazing. Maybe that means you can afford a consultation with a Costume Designer or you can pay your artists a tad more.

And if you raise less than you estimated then you can make strategic decisions in advance about what you can cut. Rather than going into debt yourself (again and again and again).

A budget is also a moral document. It shows what you believe in and what you value. If you show that you are paying your artists a decent fee for their time then that shows your donors and presenters that paying your artists is vital to you. Conversely, if you don’t have artist fees then that shows something else. (Yes, of course, whether you can afford to pay your artists or yourself is another matter. But most funders and many presenters want to see that you aspire to that. And, yes, you should aspire to that. And you can make it happen. Maybe it’s all inkind/donated for now but maybe you start small with a stipend for a show. And then you grow from there….)

Ok fine. So in terms of your artistic life: how do I make a budget for my show?

Start with expenses by projecting what you will need and researching or figuring out how much each of those needs will cost. Ask people you know, use your contacts and resources to find this information, and tackle it one item at a time. Think about your whole project and any possible expenses. Is your show outside for example? Then you might have expenses for permits, sound amplification, port-a-potties, etc! You might also consider adding a Contingency or Miscellaneous line item (FYI some funders want to see detail on such lines and some won’t let you have any lines like these though).

Your budgeted income should realistically include a variety of sources of support, including individuals, fundraising events, ticket sales, grants, in-kind (free) donations etc. Count all possible sources, noting any sources already “secured,” or "received." If you list any grants please be realistic and do your research. For instance, if you list Jerome Foundation at $25,000 that’s crazy town. Jerome (and any other arts funder) would think you don’t know what you are doing. You want them to trust that you know what you are doing.

It’s really that simple. Income and expenses. Not your worth. Not your value. Just plans and ideas.

Some other things to consider:

· Make sure that your overall budget is not too large or too small for your level of experience, scope of the project, and your history of carrying out similar projects. Do research on your peers’ budgets.

· Inkind income must be matched in expense. So if you show $5,000 in donated rehearsal space you must show at least $5,000 in expenses for rehearsal space.

· For internal purposes I often have 3 budgets! My big dream budget, my realistic budget and my sh*t hits the fan budget. As the project unfolds I tweak my budget as needed.

· Your final budget should always balance—meaning that income equals expenses.

And if you want an app or a program to help you deal with budgets? Our amazing choreographic colleague, Yanira Castro, recently pointed me to YNAB (aka You Need A Budget). She swears by it for her home budgeting. And understanding your personal finances is key in knowing what you need for your artistic work!

What budget tricks and tools do you love? Tell us on Facebook or Twitter.

Make artWORK: Leadership and People Management

2015-02-02T17:36:00.000-05:00

By Shawn René Graham

Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, on some level, you are continually leading yourself and others – you don’t necessarily have to have a large team reporting to you to be considered a leader or to need effective leadership skills. Once you have taken on that leadership role, you should also assess your effectiveness throughout the year.

Here is an exercise you can use often:

· Think about what you actually do on a daily basis. Draw generalizations about how you spend your leadership time. Complete the Leadership Behavior Chart below.

· The central question is this: Is your leadership behavior out of sync with the way that you feel an effective leader should be spending his or her energy?

Think about your daily interaction with the people you lead. Generally speaking, determine the actual behaviors that define that interaction. Using the list of behaviors below, determine the amount of time (in percentages) that you generally spend on each behavior. Then in the second column, determine what you feel would be ideal distribution of time (in percentages).

Behavior	Percentage of time spent on each behavior	Ideally the percentage of time you would devote to each behavior
Informing
Directing
Clarifying or Justifying
Persuading
Collaborating
Brainstorming or Envisioning
Reflecting (Quiet Time for Thinking)
Observing
Disciplining
Resolving interpersonal conflicts
Praising and/or encouraging

Don’t know how to get to your ideal percentage times for each behavior? Here are some key buckets and strategies that you can employ that can move you even closer to your ideal distribution of behavior?

1. Business Management
Managing a business effectively is the key to the establishment and growth of the business. The key to successful management is to examine the marketplace environment. Despite the importance of management, this area is often misunderstood and poorly implemented, primarily because people focus on the output rather than the process of management. Planning is essential for developing a firm’s potential. However, many small businesses do not recognize the need for long-range plans, because the small number of people involved in operating the business implies equal responsibility in the planning and decision-making processes. Nevertheless, the need for planning is as important in a small business as it is in a large one.
2. Setting Duties Tasks and Responsibilities
An organization is characterized by the nature and determination of employees’ duties, tasks and responsibilities. While many organizations use different methods for determining these it is essential that they be clearly defined.
3. Controlling Conflict
Another key to successful management lies in controlling conflict. Conflict cannot be eliminated from either the business or the interpersonal activities of the enterprise. A measure of the organization’s success is the degree to which conflict can be exposed and the energies associated with it channeled to develop your organization.
4. Organization Structure
The essence of a successful organization can be more simply summarized than implemented and the effectiveness of a particular organizational form depends on a variety of internal and external events. To get the best results you must have an idea about various aspects of the market such as activities and number of competitors. Even though you may discover that certain events are affecting your business be careful not to change the organizational structure of your firm without discussing it with your team. Because restructuring involves spending a lot of time learning new rules, implementing a new organizational structure is costly.
5. Delegation of Authority
Delegation is a key to the effective exercise of authority in your business. By delegating limited authority to accomplish specific tasks the talents of employees in the organization can be used to upgrade the skills and experience of the manager. You must coordinate and control work of your collaborators effectively. To effectively delegate responsibility and authority in your organization you must know the capabilities of each person you are working with. Ensure that specific training and information is available and provide periodic monitoring and interest which should be praised and criticized as per performance. The skills and abilities of each level of authority can be increased by effectively delegating authority throughout any organization.

Make artWORK: OMG!! Tax Time

2015-01-29T13:34:00.001-05:00

If you are feeling anxious about taxes, The Field understands. Below are some tips on taxes from February 2014’s Field Tip. These monthly writings are chalk full of advice on various topics related to artist’s lives. Generally, you do have to be a Member of The Field to have access, but we thought this one should be for everybody. Happy 2015 Tax Season!

The Field Tip

February 2014

OMG!! TAX TIME

By Shawn René Graham

While it is nice to enjoy the freedom of being a self-employed artist, we must also be diligent about keeping our paperwork in order and paying our taxes on time. By April 15^th of every year, taxes must be prepared and paid and, like you, I feel a slight amount of unease at this time of year. Like most artists, I receive a lot of income as an independent contractor and that means taxes have not been deducted from the money I received. I find myself sitting amongst a pile of 1099-Misc forms by mid-February. On top of that, I have other expenses related to the services I provided and must make sure I have valid paperwork to verify that these expenses are related to my business. So what are our tax obligations when it comes to being self-employed? Here’s what you need to know:

Generally, you are self-employed if any of the following apply to you.

· You carry on a business as a sole proprietor or an independent contractor.

· You are a member of a partnership or collective that carries on a business.

· You are otherwise in business for yourself, including a part-time business.

As a self-employed individual, pay your estimated self -employment tax quarterly.

· Self-employed individuals generally must pay self-employment tax (SE tax) as well as income tax. SE tax is a Social Security and Medicare tax primarily for individuals who work for themselves. It is similar to the Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld if you are an employee of a company or organizations. If you hear the words "self-employment tax" is used, it only refers to Social Security and Medicare taxes and not income tax. You can find information on how to pay these taxes here.

You must also file an annual tax return with the IRS.

· Because we must also pay income taxes, you will need to file an annual return. Your annual return is where you deduct your expenses. In addition to a 1040 Form, you will also need to use Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ to report your income or loss from a business you operated or a profession you practiced as a sole proprietor. Click here to find out more.

So who can do all of this paperwork? You guessed it! You can prepare all of these forms yourself. All of the forms can be found at www.irs.gov. If you feel that you really need a tax professional, get one. In some cases the expense of hiring a tax accountant is well worth it. Just know that this will still require some work on your end. You need to make sure that general accounting books, expense receipts and 1099-Misc forms are all in good order before handing them over to someone. And well, it’s February, so if you have not put all of this paperwork in one safe place, now is the time to get organized. April 15^th is just around the corner!

Make artWORK: How to Survive in NYC as an Artist

2014-12-10T12:32:00.001-05:00

By Liza Green and Claire Baum

This November we were invited to do a life and career guidance seminar for Barnard College dance students as part of the Dancer Empowerment Project. Our task was to take the (slightly daunting) topic of “How to Survive in NYC as an Artist” and make it manageable for these soon-to-be college graduates to have a career in the arts. The ninety-minute workshop aimed to provide these young artists with useful tools, skills, and resources to help them jumpstart their careers. Hosted by Gibney Dance, we opened the workshop to the public and ended up with a fierce group of early to mid-career dance and theatre makers.

We broke down this large question of “How to Survive in NYC as an Artist,” into four main categories:

Finance;
Relationships;
Marketing and;
Enrichment/Training.

Because of the impending Thanksgiving holiday, we naturally asked them to draw a hand turkey, like the ones we made in grade school, on a piece of construction paper. The “feathers” on the turkey provided space for the four points of our lives as art makers We asked them to dress up their turkeys however they liked, beaks, tap shoes, etc. and to put their name and their artistic discipline/role in the center. For example, the center of Claire’s turkey read “Claire Baum, Dancer, Choreographer.”

Below is a condensed version of the topics we covered on our turkeys, complete with helpful tips and links to even more resources.

FEATHER 1: FINANCE

Finance can simply be broken down into earning and spending. Artists typically earn their income in three different ways: earning money from their art, having a flexible day/night job (i.e. babysitting, bartending, temping, etc), or by having what we’ve coined a “co-career,” meaning a job that is not exactly your art, but feeds your artistic practice (i.e. teaching artist, arts management, graphic design, etc.). When assessing how you are going to earn your living, here are a few key points to think about:

Weigh your values with your needs. How much will you need to earn to not only meet your basic living expenses (rent, food, transportation, etc.), but to also address expenses linked to your values (eating out with friends, taking classes, seeing shows, etc).
Earning money from your art is possible. Samples of this income might include: artist stipends, rehearsal pay and/or performer stipends. In addition, you may want to find a fiscal sponsor (like The Field) so that you can apply for grants, create crowdfunding campaigns, and write appeal letters asking others to help fund your creative work.

The flipside of earning is spending. Spending is easy for many people, but managing the spending is harder. Here are a some helpful tips:

Create a spending diary to help manage your spending. Over the course of the month write down every item you spend money on. Label expenses “personal” or “professional.”
Use your spending diary to assess your spending habits so that you can adjust accordingly to meet your goals.
Continue tracking your spending with a budgeting app like Mint or Budgt.
If you have expenses that are falling in the “professional” column and you are producing your own work, open a new account to keep your art and personal expenses separate. Budgeting for your projects is similar to budgeting for your life.
Click here for tips on project budgeting and a sample budget form.

FEATHER 2: RELATIONSHIPS

Building solid relationships is crucial for artists. Not only do relationships help you create balance and personal fulfillment, but your friends, family, and colleagues often become your first audience members and donors. Here are some tips on how to cultivate relationships:

Make a list of who you want to work with/what organizations you want to work for or get involved with (i.e. volunteering at a benefit, ushering for a show, or doing workstudy in exchange for classes, etc.)

If there is a person you want to get to know, or a position you want to know more about, we recommend asking that person for either an informational interview or just for cup of coffee. Be attentive, ready to listen, and able to about talk yourself in a clear succinct way (click here for more resources on how to talk about your work).
Thank yous, updates,and reminders can also be a great way to stay on peoples’ radar. Sending a reminder the day before your meeting tells the person you are on top of your game and sending a simple thank you note or email after a meeting keeps you in that person's thoughts longer. And be sure to add personal notes to your follow-up correspondence (a handwritten note can go a long way these days).
It is also really great to able to talk about something other than your field. It could be that you and the person you are having coffee with have more in common than just your art, and those connections go a long way both professionally and personally.
Click here for some more tips on networking.

FEATHER 3: MARKETING

Being an artist means putting yourself in the public sphere and marketing yourself as well as the work you create. Creating a brand this way can be tricky. In the age of social media, we recommend being careful with what you broadcast on Facebook and other media. Here are some key ways to make your marketing materials work for you:

Start by creating a website. A few very easy to use website builders are Wix, Wordpress, and Squarespace. Be sure to buy your domain name. We also recommend buying your own name as a domain name as well, even if you are not going to use it.
Create a strong social media presence. If you don’t want your personal facebook and professional facebook getting mixed up, you can create a page for your art, or even create a whole separate account. If you start Twitter and Instagram accounts, be sure to stay active. Using a platform like Hootsuite can help you schedule all of your social media posts.
Thinking of starting a blog? The key to keeping a blog is keeping it up. Create a schedule and stick to it (i.e. post once a month, once a week, etc.)
Use a cost effective service like Vistaprint or find a local printer for business cards and postcards.
Work samples are also incredibly important for grant or showcase applications and your web presence. Photo and video work can quickly and succinctly tell your viewer what your work is about. We recognize that producing this type of media can get expensive so we recommend using skill trading sites to help produce high quality work samples while keeping costs down (try Our Goods or The Artsy Yenta).
Click here for even more marketing guidance.

FEATHER 4: ENRICHMENT and TRAINING

Building a balanced life between your artist self and personal self is what enrichment and training is about. What it really comes down to is an assessment of your values, and how these play out in each aspect of your personal and professional life. Some ways that you work towards balance may include:

Continuing to take classes attend festivals, and workshops for your field. See shows, performances, and visit museums and galleries. Consider seeing work that is outside your field for inspiration.
Take care of your body. It is your instrument. This care could include cross training, cycling, running, yoga, pilates or massage. And don’t forget about health insurance. We suggest looking at Healthcare.gov, Oscar insurance, and The Freelancers Union to get a plan or shop for a better one.
If community engagement or spirituality is important to you, allow for time in your schedule to participate.

GOAL SETTING

Once our turkey feathers were filled in, we asked these brave artists to set a three-year goal and a one-to-three month goal for the feather they felt was most challenging. The participants collaborated in pairs to come up with 3 realistic action steps for each one of their goals. You can do this for each of the 4 points we have covered in this blog. If keeping your turkey with your action steps on your fridge is a good reminder for you, then do it! If you’re more technically minded, make a spreadsheet that you can look at and update to check in on your goals and action steps. Ask a friend or collaborator to help you create action steps for your goals. They may have ideas you never would have thought of and bringing them into your goal-setting process will keep you on task. And finally, remember to make this kind of dreaming and planning fun!

Thanks to all of the artists who participated in the workshop. And best of luck with those action steps.

Eating the Big Apple: Self Producing Work In NYC, By Emilyn Kowaleski

2014-11-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

This piece is late, unforgivably overdue. What excuse can I give? My computer dropped onto the subway tracks? A piece of scenery dropped on my head? I was consumed in tunnel vision, tackling a recent production of my work? Or most honestly, I am a young artist, mastered in over-commitment, but admittedly, not yet mastered in time management. “There is never enough time!” I cry, shaking my fists melodramatically to the ceiling. I was underwater trying to solve the myriad of artistic challenges in front of me and the financial and logistical ones that accompanied them. However, the unforgivable irony of the matter is that The Field is a buoy that I've found and clung to for support in those arenas after I dropped myself into what felt like the ocean-like task of making and self-producing my own work in New York City.

I graduated from liberal arts school in New York, a few years ago, from a program I loved that taught me many things about making theater and that whole-heartedly encouraged me to go out and start creating work. But what I discovered when I graduated was that; I didn’t really know how to do that on a practical level. Outside of college, rehearsal space didn’t exist for sign up on the third floor in front of the production offices. I didn’t get to attend a class anymore where people were forced to sit and look critically at my work. I didn’t know proper grant writing language, or how to get a residency, or really how to convince anyone that I, a bright ideaed, starry eyed, post-graduate deserved time, money and resources to create that work, especially when I am one of thousands. I had no track record in the big bad apple, so I just started biting in wherever I could.

Two years past graduation, in hungry searching of finding the existing remnants of my cushy college life, and building patterned practices of producing work, I found The Field. There, behold: cheap rehearsal space to be connected with, fundraising workshops, and people to meet with every week who would watch and respond to my work. I started with the later. I signed up for Fieldwork, where I could again, play, try, fail and build in front of an audience who would tell me what they were seeing. I had just begun the first stage of development on a piece called Root of the Rosebush that is based on a series of interviews I had conducted with people about their history with relationships from first crush to present day. I didn’t know what that piece would be, or how to construct it really. I just wanted a place to experiment and a chance to know how my words and images were affecting others; I found that in Fieldwork.

Six months later, after I had built that piece into a first draft and was looking to develop it further, both financially and artistically, I knocked again at the doors of The Field. I signed up for Jumpstart and another session of Fieldwork, back to back.

For Jumpstart, I was delighted to turn up at American Table, met by the smiling but serious face of Fran Krimser. “Ok,” she said handing us a packet of information on budgets, networking and fundraising that set off palpitations in my idealistic artist heart that was childishly screaming “But why?! I just want to make things!” My adult brain knows, of course, that this is part of that work. Thankfully, she made it easy. “I’m not going to spend three hours of your time talking at you generally without applying this to your project specifically.” She breezed us through the packets, took us through some exercises and let us practice how to talk about our work. Then, she sent us on our way with the homework of creating a budget, a project description, and development and potential sponsor lists. A week later, I met with her individually to discuss how best to proceed with my project. She told me how I could make the timeline more manageable, where I could slash the budget and bit, by bit where I could raise the money I need. She articulated the marketable strengths of the work and advised me on an application to present a workshop production at Dixon Place, which, in thanks to her, I ended up receiving. My heart palpitations have not gone away, still staring at the gigantic apple in front of me, but they have slowed. It was as if someone had sat down and helped me cut that apple into manageable pieces that I could actually start to chew.

Fieldwork, on the artistic flipside, operates in much the same way. Every week, artists meet and present roughly ten minutes of work for feedback. By showing chunks of a larger piece that I was building, I was able to test flavors, and focus on fine-tuning particular moments as I wove them into a whole. Jumpstart was a process of learning how to market my work. It was all about finding the most captivating language with which to articulate what I was doing. Fieldwork was a process of discovering what about my work itself was intriguing to an audience. Fieldwork is magical. It a safe space for creative trials, with caring eyes to greet it with observations that fuel the work. It is easy for me to view Fieldwork as a delicious treasure, and Jumpstart as a necessary chore. However, what doing the two programs in tandem taught me, was that this all of it actually feeds same important skill set that is necessary to develop as an artist—Learning how to articulate descriptions of my work and make it in a way that engages people.

To fail and fail big: In Action: F*ck You Money (or how to build a Working Capital Fund)

2014-09-24T12:38:00.001-04:00

In mid-May my partner and I adopted a beautiful newborn girl. We named her Miranda. I went on maternity leave the day she was born. I was out for 3 months. Sort of (e.g., I’m a control freak).

Six weeks of my 3 month maternity leave were paid by The Field. 2 weeks were vacation. This means that for one month I wasn’t paid. I have now come back to work ¾ time. (My partner and I have some personal savings to support one month unpaid. My partner works in tech and he also got paid parental leave. We were both able to be with the baby for three months while working very intermittently and remotely. Amazing. Unheard of. We are privileged.)

How did The Field pay for my maternity leave? In 2008, The Field strategically set aside unrestricted surplus money in a Working Capital Fund for “special initiatives, cash flow needs and financial challenges.” We used it for the first time in 2013 when our first staff member went on maternity leave and we had to move offices. We used it for the second time for my maternity leave. Success! The Field has money to support staff leave!

Now how did we save that money in the first place? 1) We committed to saving. Every year, we included an expense line item in our budget for $2-$5k for our Working Capital Fund - right alongside traditional expenses like rent, salaries and paperclips. And then we fundraised and earned income toward meeting this and all annual expenses. We were transparent with all of our stakeholders and donors that we were doing this for our resilience, innovation and nimbleness. No one questioned it. In fact, we were applauded for being “capitalized” unlike many of our peers who were undercapitalized. 2) We committed to ending every year with an unrestricted surplus that we could then allocate to the Fund. (How? We grew our earned income and unrestricted individual giving.) 3) We paid strong attention to our expenses. We probably scrimped at times. (I wouldn’t necessarily do that again. I would rather push income than scrimp.)

How can you do this in your life? At our “to fail and fail big” APAP session last January one of our guest speakers, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, told us that they always have a small pile of “f*ck you money” so that their projects are not vulnerable to the vagaries of funders and producers. You too, dear reader, should have a Working Capital Fund or f*ck you money for cash flow, medical needs, dream projects etc. Don’t tell me you can’t. Don’t tell me you are already hand to mouth. I know. But even you, dear reader, can save a dollar a day. Yes, you can.

So can a leader of a small non-profit really go on maternity leave? Yes.

I have three Executive Director friends who are pregnant right now. They are all a bit nervous about maternity leave. One of them also has a Board of Directors that is anxious about her leave (“what will happen without YOU?”). The Field Board was incredibly supportive of my adoption plan and I gave them little to no reason to worry about my absence.

Here’s what I learned on my maternity leave, some failures and some successes.

1) Give people an opportunity to lead (and then really let them lead): Instead of hiring an outside interim Executive Director I promoted two senior staff to “Interim Co-Executive Directors”. They each brought different skills to the table and different energies. The rest of our small staff and Board trusted them deeply. Success: They did a stellar job. They became closer as colleagues. They seemed to feel more empowered and invested in The Field. Failure: see #3 below.

2) Check-in: I did weekly check-ins with my Co-EDs on any major projects or decisions to be made. Success: They felt supported. I felt connected and that I wouldn’t come back in 3 months to an unrecognizable situation, project or decision.

3) I am a control freak: This has definitely served me at times (i.e., success: I’ve gotten a lot done the way I want it done) but not for the long haul. Failure: I worked more during my maternity leave than just weekly check-ins. I spent some time on a few grant reports and proposals that I just felt I had to do myself. It wasn’t terrible for me (and my family) but I am sure it would have been fine if I had NOT worked on them. Failure: the staff felt a tad confused (who is doing what? when?) and maybe less empowered.

So what’s the end result? I feel valued by an organization and a Board that supports me as a rounded human being with a growing family. I feel like it’s possible to be an Executive Director and a Mom. I leave work on time now. I work 4 days a week. I don’t work 80 hours a week. I feel efficient and effective. So far. So good.

But I’ve been warned by Mom/artist friends to not talk about my baby. “No one wants to hear it. Everyone is working 80 hours a week for too little money. This is what we value. Not family.”

Bullsh*t. I disagree. I want it to be different. For me, for The Field, for others. I’m working in my small ways to make it different. At The Field at least and by being transparent, vulnerable and active in my work and in posts like these.

My question to you dear reader is: where do you want the arts to be different? How do you want your life to be different? And what are you doing to make it different?

P.S. I love the Artists Raising Kids compendium from Headlong! Check it here http://static.squarespace.com/static/53767189e4b07d0c6bf4b775/t/5388abffe4b02f7f94909052/1401465855677/Artists%20Raising%20Kids%20Compendium.pdf

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Are you afraid of failing?

2014-04-15T14:26:00.001-04:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Are you afraid of failing?

I am the mid-career, middle-aged leader of a mid-sized, mid-career arts service organization.

I am afraid of failing.

I do many things to protect myself and my organization from failing.

Some of these things are super strategic and 100% in line with how I want to be in the world.

Some of these things are less than 100% in line with how I want to be in the world. For instance…

I try not to piss of funders. I hold my tongue. I go to events when I am too tired but there is someone there I have to schmooze. I go after grants that aren’t totally appropriate to our mission. I underbid our work because maybe that will make our bid more competitive. I squeeze general operating money from every project and every nook and cranny.

Where there is money, there is power. I am afraid of not having power. I am afraid of being on the outs.

But I can afford to fail. Here is some full disclosure:

I have a salary and health insurance. My partner makes more money than I do. My parents are healthy. I own my apartment. I have no education debt. I have no kids. I will inherit some money. I have an IRA.

I have financial stability and familial resilience that can protect me from falling off the cliff.

Still, I am afraid of failing.

Here’s the rub: I am beginning to think that the ways I protect myself and my organization from failing actually hurt me and us in the long run.

They hurt us because we just keep it all status quo, humming along, everything’s fine and dandy. We aren’t honest about what’s not working. So no one ever really knows the truth. We stagnate.

We never really have enough. Not enough time or money. Everything is under-resourced.

We get some things done but never really as bold or big or transformative as we hope. Good enough, but not HUGE. Not unbelievably forceful pushy radically HUGE.

The longer I am in this non-profit arts business, the longer that an organization exists, the harder it seems to push against these fears. Maybe because I/we have more to lose now. Maybe because no one wants to be the one that pulls the plug.

But we all have something to lose, always. So maybe it’s more about our perspective, or our relationship to losing, or failure, or gain.

What would YOU do if you weren’t afraid of failing?

What would YOU do if we were unabashedly fearless?

Tell us on FaceBook!

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Let's Get Married!

2014-03-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Our recent blog posts talked about the Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” that we hosted last fall 2013. There’s a lot to share about that event; so here’s Part Three.

One of the topics we unpacked at the Funders’ Edition was Project Funding (i.e., money that supports a specific artistic project).

Page 24 of “to fail and fail big” suggests that artists can risk more artistically if funders give them multi-year grants that are artist-specific and not project-specific. What does that mean? It means that funders should give gen op grants to specific artists/companies for several committed years. What does “gen op” mean? Gen op grants are ones that can be used to pay for your general operations – essentially everything from artists’ fees to rent to health insurance to design fees to your accountant. Project grants, typically, can only be used for direct project expenses (artists’ fees, space rental, props, costumes, etc).

Gen op grants are kinda like being in a committed stable relationship.

Project specific grants are kinda like dating. (Ok, stick with me here.)

In dating there can be these big moments of dinner and dancing and moonlit walks. You are wooing and being wooed! It’s huge and thrilling (or sucky and ego-killing).

But in dating there’s nobody at home to help clean up the cat vomit; no one to hold the chair when you change a light bulb in the ceiling lamp; no one to lie in bed with you and talk about your hopes and fears and kids and dying and politics!

Project grants tend to support the BIG SEXY STUFF (the premiere! the original score! the uber talented actors!).

Gen op grants help support the whole shebang of YOU and your art-making world. They are an investment in you.

Project grants tend to support the artistic product.

Gen op grants support the artistic process. Like a committed partner, a gen op grant invests in you and your vision, your being. They are there for you when the going gets rough.

Now, why can multi-year gen op grants help artists risk more, be more resilient, feel more supported and ultimately, maybe, produce “better” work?

You can risk more when you know that someone is in it with you.
You can risk more when you feel stable.
You can risk more when you know the rent and health insurance bills can be paid.
You can grow more when you know that someone trusts you and your process.

So what did the funders at our Funders’ Edition table say about when we asked them if they could get married (i.e., give multi-year gen op grants to artists)? Not so much.

“We can’t really do that… We can only do one type of grant…..our bylaws, our mission, our Trustees, our processes, etc are strict…..We just can’t.”

Aha? Change is hard. The status quo is easy to maintain. Getting married is scary. Don’t rock the boat. Just do what you’ve always done. Then you don’t have to go out on any limb. You don’t have to risk critique or judgment.

Aha again! Funders are people too! They are just as afraid of failing (or risking) as the rest of us. They have bosses and Boards etc who can fire them or make their lives difficult.

But some funders push against this fear and push for change in the grant-making system. At our Funders’ Edition the perspicacious Ben Cameron of Doris Duke Charitable Foundation reminded funders that they can go HYBRID! They can offer project grants with some gen op money attached! MAP Fund does this already! Duke does it too of course. The Pew in Philly is doing it now it seems! http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_detail.aspx?id=22

Can more funders do it? Yes, they can! Or at least they can assert in their applications and budgets that 15-20% expenses should/can be gen op-related.

Now, of course, sometimes dating is key. You need to test things out, meet lots of people, see who you are in different scenarios. You need to learn who you are and what you want and feel confident.

And sometimes getting hitched is key. But when the world is only dates and no committed relationships it seems really hard to move yourself forward.

So dear reader, our question to you is this: where do you feel like you can grow most? In dating or in a committed relationship? What’s working for you?
Tell us on Facebook!

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Funders’ Edition Part Two; Can I tell you honestly about our failures?

2014-02-21T11:31:00.002-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Our last blog post talked about the Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” that we hosted last fall 2013. There’s a lot to share about that event; so here’s Part Two.

My aha moment: can artists really tell their funders that they failed?

I doubt it. (I know I can’t.)

Most of the time we all pretend that everything worked perfectly. We hit all the marks. There are no problems. Oh, maybe there are some “challenges” or some “opportunities.”

But rarely, if ever, is there a flat out, full force failure.

Or maybe we bend or soften the truth. We say that we will raise twice as much from individuals this year in our sexy new kickstarter campaign. We say that we have a “deficit reduction plan” that will reduce that ugly negative number. We say that we will hire extra staff to do that big project (rather than just ask current staff to take on more work and stay late).

And we keep saying how busy we are and how excited we are about the next big thing and how tired we are. Because if you aren’t busy, excited and tired, then you must be a failure.

Aha #2! All this spinning of reality doesn’t help. In fact it makes it worse.

Funders start thinking that it really does only cost $15,000 to put up a new play with an Equity cast of 10 with live music. And donors start thinking that you don’t need money for “overhead” to cover office rent or paperclips or health insurance. That gets covered elsewhere right? And other artists start feeling like everyone else is getting all the gigs and grants and they are getting nothing. And funders start thinking that artists really do it just for the love of it and they don’t need to be paid for their creative work.

And all these secrets and lies keep perpetuating the same old under-resourced, destabilizing paradigm that is the arts in America.

If we tell the truth, we might just shift the paradigm. We might shift the system to have MORE resources. MORE partnership. MORE good work being done. MORE clarity. MORE empowerment.

So here I go. Here are some of my current fears and failings:
If I push myself to tell you that I think I failed at APAP with our presentation of “to fail and fail big”, will you think less of me? If I tell you that actually I am a bit lost right now, that I am not fully satisfied at work, that something’s missing, that I just want to watch Battlestar Gallactica (again). Will you run far?

Or, do I trust that you don’t need me to lie? Do I trust that you actually want to see the full and whole messy picture?

Dear reader, where do you lie about your work? where do you hide your failures? And why? Tell us on FaceBook!

P.S. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that we have to tell the whole truth nothing but the truth so help me ________ in every situation and to every person all the time. That would be inappropriate and ineffective.

P.P.S. But I do mean to suggest that we can and should be strategic about our sharing our failures and our challenges. We can be solution-oriented too!

"to fail and fail big" In Action: The Funders’ Edition (Who is at the table and how did they get invited?)

2014-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

In late September we co-hosted a rabble rousing Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” for 30+ lead arts funders at Mertz Gilmore with our colleagues from Booth Ferris, Lambent Foundation and the New York Community Trust. All the heavy hitters were there. It was intense and thrilling.

We asked two artists and two presenters to participate as well: choreographer Yanira Castro, art-maker Miguel Gutierrez, Chocolate Factory Artistic Director Brian Rogers and 651 Artistic Director Shay Wafer. These four folks were amazingly courageous, honest and generous. I don’t think they knew how intense it was going to be. But it was. And they were stunning. I am honored by their forthrightness. (Just imagine that you are sitting at one big 10’x15’ table with all the big arts funders. What would you say? How would you behave? What would you be afraid of?)

Thomas Cott, of You’ve Cott Mail, facilitated the conversation. Funders in attendance included: Ben Cameron (Doris Duke Charitable Trust), Moira Brennan (MAP Fund), Lisa Robb (NYSCA), DCA, New Music USA, Andrew W. Mellon, LMCC and more and more.

Did I say it was intense?

I realized quickly that, ironically enough, The Field and I were poised on a risky ledge. The event itself aimed to challenge the system. But we are beholden to this system too. Many of these folks at the event fund us or we want them to fund us. So if our event “failed” then these gatekeepers had the power to lock us out of potential funds in the future.

Or just ignore us. And we could wither away.

But we have to push against that fear of failure. We have to step into our vulnerable spot and act out of integrity, courage and transparency.

So, as counseled by Thomas Cott, we asked this intimate group to tackle three core recommendations from “to fail and fail big” specifically related to the funding community. (see pages 24 -25 of “to fail and fail big”):

Invest in the Artist: multi-year artist-specific funding
Transparency and Privilege
Failure

There were so many huge moments for me but one of my favorite takeaway issues grappled with Transparency and Privilege. Essentially it asked WHO IS AT THE TABLE AND HOW DID THEY GET INVITED?

This is an ongoing question. Who adjudicates grant panels? Who gets invited to curate? Who speaks on panels? Who gets the shows and the awards?

It often feels like the same ten people. And whoever is hot at the moment – is everywhere.

Why them?

So who was at our Funders’ Edition table and why? Miguel is in “to fail” and it’s important to us to have at least one study member at every event as appropriate. Brian was on the Advisory Council for our study and his provocative quote led to the title “to fail and fail big”. We asked Shay to be on the Advisory Council but she was very busy; so we asked her to be at the Funders’ Edition. Plus we are committed to gender and racial diversity. Our 4th participant was Yanira Castro.

Yanira, for me, is one of the smartest, most resilient, savviest and ambitious NY artists. Her body of work pushes her artistically, she takes risks, she pushes against failure. She is articulate, generous and rigorous. She is a mom in a city and a sector that makes parenting challenging. She’s been a member of The Field for eons and done many events with and for us.

For sure, Yanira gets some decent funding, residencies, gigs and press. For sure. But I think she should be getting more resources, and more folks should know her work. So we asked her to participate in the Funders’ Edition to get her in front of more powerbrokers who could move her resources up a notch.

Part of our actionable work with “to fail and fail big” is specifically to push for more equitable distribution of resources. Part of how we can do that is to have a “less visible” artist present at every “to fail” event that we host. This is one of our “to fail” action items: to give opportunities to artists who don’t get them, to give the non-it kids a chance.

Now we are not naively suggesting that you just ask whomever, whenever, however to do your grant panel or show or whatever. For sure we have an agenda and we act strategically – but we do it with transparency. We tell you why we chose someone and how we did it.

When you know how something happens for someone, then you can work to make it happen for yourself too.

When you don’t know how something happens (e.g., “Why did she get that grant?” How did he get on that panel?” “Why did she get that teaching gig?”) you are left to devise your own self-abusing, inflammatory, defensive reasons.

And you may get really bitter really fast.

Oh but folks will say, “Finding new, non-it kids is too hard, it takes too much time! And if an artist is so hot it’s for a reason! They must be the best! I don’t have time to explain things to folks.”

Yes, it’s harder and yes it takes more time. Yes, it involves stretching yourself and your organization farther and harder. It’s risky to work with folks who aren’t hot. It involves working with the unknown. It involves taking a stand and saying “this is why we chose this person. This is why it’s important.”

It’s so much easier to go with the herd. And pick the same ten folks.

It’s even more limited with diversity. It’s as if the sector suddenly decides that this one Asian-American playwright is the one for 2014. And this one black choreographer is the one for this year. And this one xyz artist fills this check box and this one….…… And as long as we have one of every “kind” of person then we are good to go. We are done with diversity.

Ridiculous.

Who is at the table changes the nature of the room and the work of the world.

Who is at the table changes us. For the better.

Yes, we have to start somewhere. So here some things you can experiment with: allocate more time to find panelists and staff members. Yes, you can, if it’s important to you, you can. Cast a wider net. Use all your social networks and search more broadly. Clarify the “why” underneath your actions and your choices. Be prepared to say “why” you chose someone. Be transparent about it.

And then keep going. Push harder.

At The Field we try in fits and starts to do these things. We make mistakes for sure. We try again. It’s ongoing work. We keep trying.

Our question to you dear reader: How do you cast a wider net? Where do you stretch yourself to include folks who aren’t part of your usual table? And if not, why?

"to fail and fail big" In Action: APAP failure: a crisis of courage

2014-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

On Sunday, January 19th The Field was privileged to curate (oh yes we did!) a session at APAP on failure, success and privilege with 10 stellar artists and presenters/producers.

I had many aha moments but the one that is still sticking with me came from the unbelievably smart Kristy Edmunds of UCLA.

There’s a crisis of courage.

It takes deep courage to make art. It takes crazy courage to put it up publicly and risk critique, opprobrium, humiliation, disdain and even boredom. It takes courage to ask friends, family and strangers for money to support your art.

It takes courage to present artists too. It takes courage to say to your Board, your boss, your audience “Yes, this work is important to see. It’s not easy, it’s intense, it’s smart, it’s odd, it’s provocative – and yes, we will present it.”

It even takes courage to run an arts service organization like The Field. Every choice we make is based either in courage or in fear. And every choice, one way or another is a moral choice. Meaning, for instance, I put a line item in our 2014 budget for health insurance for our staff (and me!). Our current health insurance is mediocre at best. And it’s going up 20% from $567 to $682 a month per staff member. We can’t afford this. We just can’t. After all, our funding hasn’t gone up 20%. Nor have our fees. So in order to afford this increase, we would need to cut other expenses (like rent? like our audit? Nope. They don’t budge down either).

So I get afraid. As a leader. How can we do this? Do we choose (again) mediocre health insurance for our staff (and myself!) or do I ask staff (and myself) to pay a higher percentage of it (currently staff pay 10%)?

These are moral decisions.

A budget is a moral stance.

A presenter’s season is a moral offering.

A funder’s grant is a moral relationship.

When we say yes to one thing, we say no to another. And this says something about us and our values.

I have crises of courage on a daily basis. But I try hard to push myself, and The Field, toward courage, toward abundance, toward transparency.

My question to you dear reader: what’s your crisis of courage? Tell us on Facebook.

P.S. There has been a huge conversation online that brings up questions of courage in the arts. I am not commenting yet but if you haven’t read it, you should, with a glass of whiskey perhaps. http://www.culturebot.org/2014/01/20493/considering-alastair-questioning-realness/

Steve Gross: Prison Psychology and the Arts

2014-01-17T14:10:00.001-05:00

I've always been the type of person (and artist) who imports from one arena/discipline/set of experiences into the other - and find that there's often a synergy that can happen as a result. The series of talks I will be doing through The Field is my first formal attempt to bring my experience of working in the prison setting back into the community and community of artists.

During the past five years, however, I haven't been idle regarding this cross pollination...I've been doing most of the importing in the other direction, from my Field experiences into my work as a psychologist, therapist, and supervisor. I wrote the following short essay for the newsletter that is disseminated among the psychologists who provide mental health services in prisons throughout New York State.

When I practice, one of the experiences I refer back to on a regular basis is facilitating feedback groups for choreographers. In these groups, called Fieldwork, artists show their work in progress before putting it in front of the public.

The basic rule for showing work in Fieldwork is that the artist can't talk. She can't tell the group what came before the section she is showing. She can't say the intended meaning of the work, what influenced her choices, or what artistic tradition served as inspiration. She can't describe the music or the lighting to come. She can't say how unprepared she is because the heat in the studio where she rehearsed was out.

Not only do artists showing work have a boundary – viewers do as well: don't ask questions, don't make suggestions, just tell the artist what you get from the work. “Get” covers an enormous range, well beyond what actually happens on stage. “Get” includes what meaning the viewer thinks the artist is trying to convey, what rings true (or doesn't) onstage, what seems to be going on under the surface, what comes across as meat and what comes across as filler.

As therapists, we are both artist and audience. As the artist, we don’t really talk about our work. We don’t announce our interventions (unless that is part of the intervention, which it can be). We don’t ply our patients with explanations of how they should feel or think (unless that is part of the intervention, which it sometimes is). We don’t convince patients of our effectiveness. Instead, we do – we embody the work, through modeling, through interaction, through our relationship with our audience. If we mess up, we don’t provide all kinds of excuses, we own them and weave them into the work: (“I feel like I went down the wrong track with you during our last session – did you sense that? What was it like for you?”).

We are also the audience. We “see” what’s on stage – our patients show us themselves all the time (in session, in groups, in the bull pen, on the walkways, in notes they send us and poetry they share). Their explicit words and behaviors are only one stream of information – ideally we are set to receive on all channels, ranging from our “gut,” to historical patterns, to familiarity with inmate dynamics in our facility. In fact, what our patients display is rarely the critical part, the part that leads to the most effective interventions, whether that’s a crisis unit admission or placid, steady attention.

Seen in this light, treatment is a dance, an interplay of seeing and being seen, no matter what the costume or lighting. The most powerful art usually translates, whether robed in the red velvet of an opera house or the zigzag of cinderblock.

Steve Gross began making dance/performance art in the late 1980s. His work was shown at various downtown venues including Performance Space 122 and Dance Theater Workshop and supported by various funders including the NEA, NYSCA, and Art Matters. Simultaneously, he transformed The Field from a fledgling performance space into a service organization for performing artists. Having been spoiled by 19 years with the best arts administration job on the planet, he went back to school to become a psychologist. He currently is the Chief Psychologist for Corrections-based Operations of Central New York Psychiatric Center - the organization that provides mental health services to New York State's 56,000 prisoners. He also practices privately.

Click here to sign up to attend any of Steve's three talks at The Field!

"to fail and fail big" In Action: the revolution will not be funded?

2014-01-09T13:41:00.002-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

In September 2013, I met twice with the superb folks from the Brooklyn Commune to talk about our study, “to fail and fail big”. From this point of view, they interviewed me about the funding landscape and the challenges therein. In November I attended their opening night event and participated in a rousing, discussion about MFA debt and its huge impact on artists, the onerous structure of the 501c3 model and the lack of transparency about money in the arts. Stay tuned for their white paper that tells it all.

One big aha that strikes me hard with the Commune and over the past few years: “can the revolution be funded?” (Terrible to admit but I’ve only read the reviews and summaries of the 2007 book that pushed this question forward for me, “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex” – but it’s on my list and I think I get the basic jist. It scares me.)

The non-profit sector can be a dirty world. You have to work with honed clarity, great governance and nuanced reflection to keep focused on your mission and its delivery in an ever changing and über competitive world. You can easily be pulled off mission and off integrity. Sometimes, taking charitable dollars can pull you down a rabbit hole where your politics and your work are worlds apart.

In our regular lives, however, many of us make strategic life and consumer choices based on fair trade processes, green choices, humane labor practices, etc. We align our politics with our actions and our purchases. We aim to stay on mission and on integrity. It’s not always easy and it takes more time but we try.

What if we did the same in our non-profit work when offered philanthropic dollars? Could we, for instance, say no to a grant from (Insert Questionable Company here)? Some folks did just that back in the day when Philip Morris was one of the biggest NYC arts funders. Some folks said nope, no thanks. I am not okay with tobacco money. Other folks said yes, my work is worth it and the money can be put to good purpose now. And one group right now is having an amazing conversation about funding from Exxon/Mobile and their dilemma about accepting money from sources they find questionable.

Do you know where your money comes from? Are you ok with how it was made? Can your work remain “clean” if the money to fund it is dirty?

On top of all the “dirty money” that can stall a revolution, the revolution won’t be funded because the non-profit machine grows so fast and mission delivery is often left behind. Fundraising begets more fundraising begets more fundraising…and which requires more administration of stuff and people and things.: Yyou have to hire more development staff to keep up with all the grants you have to write; you have to pay them competitively because they are expensive; you have to hire more admin staff to fill out even more paperwork for all the oversight and compliance you have to do for all that money. And there are scandalously few grants to pay for any of these things because they aren’t very sexy.

So suddenly you are squeezing money from YOUR MISSION WORK to pay for for the administration of it all its management.

So the revolution you aimed to start is dead.

Now Now maybe the play you are working on or the dance you are creating is not a revolution per se. Maybe it’s just a play or a dance. your art work may not be aimed at starting a revolution. At The Field ours isn’t. But it is aimed at changing an artist’s life and the artist’s landscape for the better.

And money has changed us over the years. And The Field, our work, is not really a pursuing a revolution either.

As the crazy smart Diane Ragsdale wrote in her September Jumper blog “…what happens in the psyche of a grantee when a little bit of money comes in and when it, inevitably, goes away. In response to the question, Would it have been better not to have received these grants than to have received them and lost them? I find[ing] myself wanting to shout back at the page, “Yes! You would have been better off never having received the money!”

I love this idea. I fear it. I love it. Taking the money changes you. It forces you to comply with larger systems you might not agree with. It creates dependency. It forces you to compromise to survive.

But I am not sure I am courageous enough to say no to money.

Our question to you: Are you funding your revolution?

P.S. I am not at all a hater of in full support of hiring amazing development or administrative staff (to write grants and fill out all the paperwork). I do think we need, ironically enough,But, I think we need more unrestricted grants that FUND the administration of and fundraising for programs and the general operations that undergird all of this non profit machinery. Lastly, the ongoing frustration: why are artists often paid way less than administrators?

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Getting Lost in the Loss?

2013-12-17T17:44:00.000-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

The Field hosted a free public panel in July for our National Network Conference with Octavio Campos (dance theater artist and queer activist), previous long-term Field director Dr. Steve Gross, Melanie Cohn (Executive Director of Staten Island Arts) and Sacha Yanow (Director of Art Matters Foundation). The panel was focused on resilience and building artists’ capacity for resilience, and thus, building their capacity for risk!

The astute Melanie Cohn (whose Sandy and post-Sandy work in the arts is deep and strong) reflected on how artists deal with devastation and their resilience in light of this: "Some people get lost in the loss... and other people are able to envision where they go next."

As artists (and as people) we experience loss all the time, small losses and big losses: the loss of a grant or a gig; a bad review (or no review at all!); insufficient recognition and visibility; seeing our peers succeed where we feel invisible; or deciding to stop making work because we are just too darn tired of feeling rejected or invisible or broke.

It’s no joke that artists speak about having postpartum depression after they close a show. The show’s end, (or any ending) can be devastating.

The list of losses is not short.

So our question to you, dear reader, is how do you grapple with loss?

Tell us on Facebook if you like.

One of our answers and our aha moment: reflection and goal-setting are key to our capacities to hold loss (and to hold “gain” too!). Reflection on failure (or success, or even stagnation) is key to our growth and our sense of contentment. Reflection and goal-setting build our awareness of who we are, what we want and how we can try to get it.

Reflection builds our resilience.

But one of my failures as Executive Director at The Field is that I convince myself that I am too busy to reflect, to analyze, to set goals. I gotta get things done! Now! I prioritize action and product over process.

Many of us do this in our art-making too: the show is somehow more important than the process of making of the show.

The rub? The creative product often reflects this rushed, unclear, unreflected creative process.

So here are some questions for you to provoke your reflection and goal setting:
What do you want to achieve with your art-making?
What’s realistic? Really realistic?
What is essential to your vision and its implementation?
Why was something successful for you?
Why was another thing not successful?
What can you change or work on?
Do you have a trusted colleague with whom you can speak honestly about your work, goals, process and product?

"to fail and fail big" In Action

2013-12-10T13:30:00.000-05:00

by Jennifer Wright Cook

In keeping with our focus on live arts, over the past six months The Field took “to fail and fail big: a study of mid-career artists, success and failure” from the page to the stage and into action. As we promised in “to fail” we are aiming to talk with every prong of “the big we” in the arts sector so that we can move the work in “to fail” forward.

And we are doing it.

And we want to be über transparent about what we are learning, what we are risking and where we are headed…..So over the next few months we will unveil a few of our most titilating takeaways and ahas. We will include provocative questions and actionable tactics about what YOU (artist, art-lover, arts administrator, Board member, donor, etc) can do to fail and fail big too. So here we go….

Who’s hot and who’s not? The Field did a public launch panel at SITI Company on May 1st with artist Okwui Okpokwasili, producer Tommy Kriegsman, funder Moira Brennan and artist Somi - facilitated by the crazy smart Georgiana Pickett of Baryshnikov Arts Center. An aha moment from an artist in the audience (paraphrased), “I am mid-career and I’ve been somewhat successful but I feel invisible now. I am not in the ‘it club’ that gets the Doris Duke money, the Genius grants or the European tours. Do I have to change my work and my self to be in the ‘it club?’”

The question to you, dear reader: What ways do you contort yourself or spin your work so that you get a gig, a grant or a review? Is it worth it? Do you end up feeling like you aren’t being honest about your work? Or is it all just part of the game? We've started you off with our answer below. Join the conversation with us on our Facebook page.

Our answer: We’ve contorted ourselves at The Field for sure! Five years ago the “it club” in funding was all about innovation. We didn’t really do “innovation” per se but we had a big dream for a re-grant program called ERPA. So we applied to the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund and amazingly we got two big grants! We were in the “it club”!

Now “innovation” is over it seems. It’s all about creative placemaking. We don’t do that. And we have no big dream programs that are contort-able to fit into creative placemaking. So are we out of the “it club”? What do you do when your work is out of fashion? Do you contort and spin? Do you let go and wait for the next round?

Share your thoughts with us!

Thomas Kriegsmann: Teacher of Touring 101

2013-11-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

In this installment of our teacher profiles, we asked THOMAS KRIEGSMANN, founder of ArKtype and teacher of this fall's Touring 101, about his thoughts on Resilience and how it relates to being a touring artist.

"On the topic of resilience and its place in a touring model, I would say that developing a viable touring model requires the artist to incorporate a touring repertoire that fits the markets they wish to access from a creative and community engagement perspective, and following that a marketing strategy that invites multiple communities in a few different ways, and gives the presenter tools to strategize toward those markets effectively.

"Resilience in the touring market is a matter of continuously moving work to new opportunities while coaxing former supporters into support for new ideas. This constant shape-shifting, internal and external dialogue, self-motivation and openness to community needs, and exploring what different opportunities offer you creatively and professionally and the dialogue and effect that has on the art is inherent to the practicalities above and will be a general theme we discuss."

On a practical level, you can expect Thomas to address "developing a viable touring budget that is within the present fee structure of touring venues in the US and beyond, staffing, venue specifications and technical specifications as relates to viable tour budgets, what to expect from marketplace pricing and how to get what you need."

Click here to sign up for Touring 101!

Producer, manager and curator who founded ArKtype in 2006 toward the long-term development, production and touring of new internationally based performance work on various scales. His work includes projects with venues worldwide and renowned artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Peter Brook, Yael Farber, Annie-B Parsons & Paul Lazar, Lisa Peterson, Jay Scheib, Julie Taymor, and Tony Taccone. For three seasons he produced the Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, FL and recently premiered Big Dance Theater / Mikhail Baryshnikov’s MAN IN A CASE and the U.S. premiere of Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater’s NOT BY BREAD ALONE. Current collaborations include Jay Scheib (Cambridge); Baryshnikov Productions (New York); Denis O’Hare & Lisa Peterson (New York); Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater (Tel Aviv); Big Dance Theater (New York); Byron Au Yong & Aaron Jafferis (Seattle/New Haven); Phantom Limb (New York); Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen (New York); Sam Green / Yo La Tengo (Brooklyn / Hoboken); Compagnia T.P.O. (Italy); Aurélia & Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin (France); Joshua Light Show (New York); Dayna Hanson (Seattle); KMA (London); Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra (Brooklyn); Rude Mechs (Austin, TX); and Theatre for a New Audience (New York). Upcoming premieres include Jay Scheib’s PLATONOV from the story by Anton Chekhov (La Jolla Playhouse, September 2013), Dayna Hanson’s THE CLAY DUKE (Summer 2013) Jessica Black & Erik Jensen’s LESTER BANGS PROJECT (Spring 2014). www.arktype.org

SHAWN RENÉ GRAHAM: Individual Giving Appeals Workshop Teacher

2013-10-22T17:05:00.001-04:00

We recently asked SHAWN RENE GRAHAM, teacher of Individual Giving Appeals, and Artist Services Manager at The Field for her thoughts on how to stay resilient when asking for what you need as an artist:

"Well first:
Stop saying ‘I am not good at asking for money.’ Develop some techniques that make you better.

Then:
You can’t be afraid of ‘NO’ or take it personally. You have to learn to move to the next prospect and not let the ‘NO’ be positive and not negative. Maybe it just means you should re-examine your message or strategy, be clearer about who you are and what you are asking for exactly.

You need to examine your own inhibitions about asking. Part of the work is understanding your own relationship to money and your own hang-ups. We tend to project those onto other people, when what you think may not be true at all for the person you are asking.

Also:
Know that fundraising involves cultivation. Learn something about your donors as individuals or funding sources other than the fact they have money to give and appeal to that. If you are meeting one-on-one, show an interest in them that isn’t just about the money. This means you may have to step up your game and do some research. What appeals to that individual may not appeal to you in the same way, but you still need to engage them before saying ‘give me all your money.’

Click here to sign up for Individual Giving Appeals!

Lastly:
Find other ways to get stuff that is not just monetary. Maybe you can exchange skills with someone. You provide something for someone and they help you develop marketing materials, or grant applications or whatever. This is about surrounding yourself with people who do some things better than you and learning from them, but making the exchange fair."

Ms. Graham is a freelance writer and dramaturg from San Jose, California who has worked with many writers including, Kia Corthron, Nilo Cruz, Steve Harper, Eduardo Machado, Walter Mosley, Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, John Henry Redwood, Guillermo Reyes, Paul Rudnick, Steve Harper, Susan Sontag, Dominic A. Taylor, Edwin Sanchez, Judy Tate, and Naomi Wallace.
She has been a guest dramaturg at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Crossroads Theatre Company's Genesis Festival, the New Professional Theatre, and African American Women's New Play Festival and on many panels including, National Endowments for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Artist Grants Panel in Playwriting and the Mark Taper Forum's New Works Festival and is currently the resident dramaturg of The American Slavery Project's: Unheard Voices collaboration.

Ms. Graham has worked in dance, serving as dramaturg for The Errol Grimes Dance Group's RED, Mrs. Robeson in Moscow, Sunday Day, Prism to a Dream and By the Sea at the Henry Street Settlement's Harry De Jur Playhouse. She is the Producing Coordinator for the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Future Classics Series and Playwright’s Playground, and founder of All Creative Writes, an artistic assistance service designed to provide individual artists and performing arts organizations with administrative, fundraising and writing support.

Ms. Graham holds degrees from the California State University, Los Angeles and the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She lives in Harlem, NY.

Fran Kirmser: Marketing and Communications Strategies Teacher

2013-10-15T16:08:00.001-04:00

The Field is thrilled to have FRAN KIRMSER, a two time Tony Award Winner, back as our teacher of Marketing and Communication Strategies this fall.

Fran has worked for over twelve years, producing, promoting and fundraising for dance and theater, and has been working with The Field for several years!
Collectively she has raised millions of dollars in institutional funding and corporate sponsorships for hundreds of companies. She has held positions in Development, Public Relations, Management, or Booking and Representation with the following organizations: Ellis Wood Dance, Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, Lisa Giobbi Movement Theater, Shen Wei, Pascal Rioult Dance Theater, Doug Varone and Dancers, Sandra Cameron Dance Center, Pentacle.

She was a founder of manhattan theatre source 1999-2011 where she served as Producing Artistic Director and in 2002 founded Made to Move, Inc. - a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of public knowledge of the art of dance and theatre that still thrives today.

Fran produced August Wilson's Radio Golf on Broadway nominated for four Tony Awards. She holds two Tony Awards for the 2009 Best Musical Revival Hair and this year's 2013 Best Play Revival Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In 2010 Fran conceived a sports series for stage including the 2011 longest running Broadway play Lombardi, Magic/Bird and now Bronx Bombers.

She is a graduate of Skidmore College with continuing education at NYU Tisch School of Dance and Columbia University.

www.frankirmser.com

Our Marketing and Communications Strategies workshop will take place at The Field on Tuesday October 29, at 6:30pm and in the vein of our fall theme of resilience, will address creating a communication strategy that adapts to your needs over time! For more info, visit us here!

Amy Cova: Fall 2013 Fieldwork Facilitator Profile

2013-09-17T12:43:00.001-04:00

This Fall, Fieldwork is being facilitated by AMY COVA, the Founder/Artistic Director of Amy Cova Dance.

Amy's choreography has been commissioned by numerous institutions including the Detroit Institute of Art. Her company has been seen at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, The Alvin Ailey Studio Theatre, TriskelionArts, The Flea Theater and Dance New Amsterdam.

Most recently Cova premiered her evening length work Spinal Streets and a Straw as part of FLIC fest 2013.

Having been a faculty member/guest artist at numerous universities including Oakland University and the University of Michigan, Cova is currently a Groundwork Artist in Residence at Shannon Hummel's Cora Dance and performs with Nadia Tykulsker/Spark(edit) Arts.

We recently asked Amy why she wanted to facilitate Fieldwork,

"Fieldwork is a welcome and safe environment in which I can share my work. More importantly, it is a space that inspires learning, about one's own process and the process of experiencing the work of others. The process of offering feedback is generous and rich for both the artist sharing AND the artist witnessing and offering feedback."

Fieldwork is a unique forum for artists to share developing works and exchange feedback, peer to peer. As a method for giving feedback, Fieldwork reveals how each piece is perceived by others and fosters a detailed information exchange. Incisive and stimulating critiques are guided by an experienced facilitator. Participants will meet weekly to share their developing works. To learn more, or sign up, click here.

Edward McKeaney: JumpstART 2013 Teacher

2013-09-12T13:16:00.000-04:00

EDWARD MCKEANY, who is teaching The Field's arts management intensive, JumpstART, moved to New York City in 2003 and has served as the Director of Development & External Relations for Elevator Repair Service Theater since September 2011.

Ed worked as the General Manager of The Wooster Group from 2008-2011 and the Director of Special Events at BAM from 2005-2008.

He's also been the Managing Producer for PearlDamour and Banana Bag & Bodice, and Director of Development at Abingdon Theatre Company. Before moving to New York, he spent many seasons at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV.

We asked Ed how our Fall theme of Resilience connected to his curriculum for JumpstART,

"Resilience is the key to surviving today's cultural environment; whether having resilience in your creation process as an artist or in your management style as an administrator. I am thrilled to participate in The Field's JumpstART workshop this fall and continue a conversation about effective uses of resiliency in world of performing and visual arts."

JumpstART is a 3-part intensive that will cover fundraising, budget creation, contracts, production management, marketing and press, and how to plan for the future life of your production. To sign learn more or sign up for this program, visit us here.

A letter on social practice by Caroline Woodard

2013-07-11T12:30:00.000-04:00

This guest-blog comes from Caroline Woodard, a Brooklyn-based artist and organizer. The following was a letter written to MacDowell on supporting social practice . For more information on Caroline, please visit carolinewoolard.com.

Dear John,

MacDowell was my first major residency, so I am thrilled that you are expanding your understanding of contemporary art to include long-term, process-heavy, socially engaged art. When I made a project for other Fellows, I felt a bit out of place, so I want to humbly offer the following suggestions for supporting what are now called social practices, as I think this working style deserves the time and commitment that MacDowell offers.

To clarify the types of projects that might get support, I have outlined 3 types of social practices as I see them today, from short-term engagement to long-term engagement, with recommendations tailored to these approaches.

1. The Stranger Approach: this is where an artist/group act as a catalyst for unconventional interactions and/or conversations. The artist serves as an “excuse” for otherwise difficult partnerships, meetings, or actions. The artist remains separate from the group, community, or site that s/he interacts with. For example, the Ghana Think Tank connects groups in conflict by creating platforms for dialog and action: http://ghanathinktank.org/

To support the Stranger Approach, you could ask artists to submit a Letter of Inquiry, and then ask the top 5 artists to submit site-specific proposals. If you want to lead the field and model this after architectural proposals, you should pay these artists to submit well-researched, site-specific proposals.

2. The Embedded Approach: this is where the artist/group work in contexts that are not sanctioned or codified as art-contexts, where s/he slowly builds relationships or has previously established relationships.

To support the Embedded Approach, you could solicit artists who are interested in doing a weekend, week-long, or month-long retreat with the group that they s/he is already embedded within. This would mean housing the group as they visit MacDowell together. Alternatively, you could ask artists if they are interested in embedding themselves in the Garden, Kitchen, Administration, or other existing social format at MacDowell. For example, Maureen Connor embedded herself in the Queens Museum and Ukeles is artist is residence in the Sanitation Dept of NYC: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/ukeles.shtml

CUP option: ask Peterborough groups what kind of artists they might want to work with, or what their issues are, and then make a call to artists based on what your local groups actually want.

3. The Lifetime Approach: this is where the artist/group build long-term projects in/with/for participants, often blurring the line between art/life completely. These artists are so embedding in the location and/or group they work in/with/fpr that there would be no way for this artist/group to do the project at MacDowell. Often, their projects become housing options or institutions of their own right. For example: http://messhall.org/ or http://tradeschool.coop/ or http://rhizome.org/editorial/2010/dec/15/elements-of-vogue-a-conversation-with-ultra-red/

To support the Lifetime Approach, you could offer the artist/group a residency of a weekend, week, or month to reflect upon the work done so far. Clearly, they cannot do a whole project at MacDowell or in NH (unless they are already from the area), as these are lifetime projects, not short term interventions. Outcomes might include a publication, sanity and clarity for improved work, and group strengthening (if it’s a collective or participants, non-organizers can be invited). For example:http://www.temporaryservices.org/booklets.html#91to100

General recommendations:

- TIME: Social practices take time to develop. Do not think you are going to get a Lifetime project if you invite someone for a month. A month will give you a Stranger approach only.

- LOCATION: If you house this artist downtown in an apartment, rather than in a space away from the community they are working in/with/for, chances of deep relationship building will be improved.

- PARTICIPANTS: Social practices must incorporate ethical considerations. Please ask artists engaged in social practices to submit recommendation letters from prior participants, and consider bringing in participants of past projects as part of the reflection process or retreat for the Lifetime Approach. Please read Ben Kinmont’s work with Laurel George and students: Towards Ethics in Project Art (a free PDF is available online)

- INTENTIONS: If you are looking to work with social practice artists as a kind of community outreach for your institution, please enumerate your expectations and goals in advance. Artists are not necessarily going to fulfill your goals, and you can be more clear about this if you have a direct conversation about it.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration,

Caroline Woolard

2008 MacDowell Fellow

http://carolinewoolard.com/

Recap: Special Events Career Workshop with Zanetta Addams-Pilgrim (May 30, 2013)

2013-06-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

by Susan Oetgen, Interim Program Manager, The Field

Working late at the office is not usually something I look forward to, but three weeks ago, on a balmy May evening, I was pretty psyched to stick around to host The Field's Special Events Career Workshop. As the rest of the Financial District was emptying out and shutting down, I was gearing up to spend a few more hours in The Field's sweet new conference room, taking notes from fundraising and special events consultant Zanetta Addams-Pilgrim, along with a similarly jazzed group of fellow go-getter artists.

As even a quick glance at her bio will attest, Zanetta's track record as a fundraiser and special events planner is impressive, to say the least. Equally important, however, she's an experienced and adept teacher, so those of us in the workshop definitely got our specific special events questions answered. While she dropped plenty of pearls of wisdom here and there, she also had a straightforward, well-conceived methodology, which you can find more of in the Special Events Toolbox she authored with Laura Goldstein, during her tenure as Program Director at Cause Effective, a business development and management consultant firm for non-profits. Meanwhile, I'll do my best to recap some of it here.

After a round of introductions so we could all meet and greet each other as colleagues, the first thing she did was to break down the definition of a special event. Basically, any event outside the purview of your regular programming is a special event, according to Zanetta. Let's say you're a dancer. That means pretty much anything that isn't a dance performance you put on for the public. It could be an open rehearsal that you invite potential donors to. It could be an ice cream social on your best friend's rooftop that you invite all your friends to in order to raise $1,000 for your latest self-produced project at Dixon Place. It could be a dinner party at your new Board Chair's fancy apartment where you and your entire Board of Directors are celebrating and honoring your outgoing Board Chair. In other words, if it's not a straight-up performance, it's a special event.

Next Zanetta introduced three practical tools that are indispensable to producing a successful special event: OBJECTIVES, TIMELINES, and BUDGETS. Since you might have many good reasons to throw a special event, it's important to know what your primary OBJECTIVE is. Maybe you're inviting potential donors and Board members to your ice cream social. Is the event first and foremost a fundraising event, a cultivation event or a recruitment event? Using a worksheet, Zanetta walked us through a process of determining all of our potential objectives, and then we discussed as a group why it is important to have consensus and clarity among the special events team members about the primaryobjective. By the way, what if you don't have a 'special events team' because your organization has a 'staff' of one, a.k.a yourself? The lesson still applies. Even if it's just you on the 'team', best practice means listing out all the possible objectives for your special event, and choosing the most important one.

With that clarity around objective as your guiding light, you can turn your focus to creating a TIMELINE, the second of the tools Zanetta offered us. This tool is about information-sharing and accountability. Producing a special event is exactly like producing a performance: there are weeks and weeks of advance work that go into it. Zanetta's timeline tool is a spreadsheet that breaks out each step you need to take, when you need to take it, who is accountable for it, and what the status is, so that at any given point in time, you know how the event planning is coming along. Seems like a lot of work to create this timeline, rather than just diving into the steps you need to take, but according to Zanetta, you will be glad you have it when it comes time to evaluate your special event after the fact.

But there's a BUDGET to develop. Most of us typically draft budgets that simply list income and expenses. Zanetta encouraged us to take this third tool further and make low, medium and high projections on both the income and expense side. That way, we cover the bases as far as what we can expect to gain (or lose) financially from our special event and in the process of laying it all out on paper, we can make an informed decision about whether the special event is even worth doing! That's right! Zanetta stressed the importance of deciding againstproducing a special event if it isn't financially feasible! Or if you can meet your primary objective in a more cost and time-effective manner.

If your budget looks good and you decide to go forth with your special event, Zanetta emphasized the importance of making time shortly afterward to EVALUATE the success of it. Did you meet your objective? Why or why not? Having a detailed reflection session on what you would differently or the same next time is the best way to build your capacity to meet your special events objectives in the future.

It was so worth staying late at the office to benefit from Zanetta Addams-Pilgrim's excellent workshop, and I hope the above is a helpful recap for those of you who missed it! Probably the biggest take-away for me personally was the notion that you can use those three tools (OBJECTIVES, TIMELINES, BUDGETS) to assess the feasibility of the special event you're planning before you even decide to host it. Drop a line to susan@thefield.org if you have questions or comments, or post them below! And keep your eye on this space for upcoming posts about the Career Workshops we have planned for the fall…

to fail and fail big: A Study on Mid-Career Artists, Success and Failure Part 5

2013-06-13T14:05:00.000-04:00