blog by arwen

Calling all lovers of downtown theatre and performance!

Prelude 09: Ecologies, Economies, and Engagement is currently looking for a few good hands to volunteer for festival outreach and hospitality. Prelude 09 is an amazing opportunity to get involved with New York’s downtown theatre and performance scene, and is chock full of fantastic parties, symposia, and more. Prelude 09 runs September 30th-October 3rd at the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 Fifth Avenue b/w 34th & 35th St.)

Greeters/Ushers!
The festival is looking for 2-4 persons available Wednesday-Saturday (or a portion of those dates) for greeting people, directing them to the Segal and Elebash venues, and, in several cases, acting as the guide between the lobby and other on-site event spaces.

Hours: 2pm-4pm; 4pm-6pm; 6pm-8pm; Each day of the festival.

Hospitality/Runners!
The festival is looking for 2 persons available Wednesday-Saturday (or a portion of those dates) for space and hospitality services for Prelude 09 Artists, liasing between event Producers and participating artists, panelists, and Stage Managers.

Hours: 2pm-4pm; 4pm-6pm; 6pm-8pm; Each day of the festival.

Neighborhood Do-gooders!
The festival needs your help in our marketing efforts. We remain a totally FREE festival at a time when everyone is feeling the pinch – can you think of local haunts (coffee shops, performance spaces, educational institutions) who will display our postcards? Can you commit to taking a stack or two around the city with you in the coming weeks?

Hours: Own.

If you are willing and able to help, please send an email with your interest and availability to volunteer@preludenyc.org.

I have spent the last few weeks writing, researching and editing a chapter proposal in advance of an Aug. 31 deadline for a writing contest about the future of arts in America. From the Call for Entries:

20UNDER40 is in search of essays demonstrating the most innovative and unique perspectives on the future of the arts and arts education from artists, teaching artists, researchers, administrators, and cultural activists under the age of forty.

This anthology will provide a unique arena for new ideas by formally gathering the thoughts of young artists, teaching artists, administrators, researchers, and other arts and arts education professionals—legitimizing the talent of young leaders by bringing their ideas out of the margins and into the forefront of our dialogue.

If you are interested in submitting something, I encourage you to move quickly as the deadline is now less than a week away. All you need to submit is a two page proposal (double spaced – yikes!)  outlining a need/problem that you see as a big deal and your proposed response/solution. Full details are here.

I just learned that two friends/colleagues have lost their jobs due to budget cuts and belt tightening at their respective nonprofit arts organizations. I am close to one of the orgs and I know how hard the loss will be on remaining staff. No surprise given the way our economy is shedding jobs, but painful to hear nonetheless.

Both jobs were leadership positions which have now been eliminated. While it is likely the positions will be reinstated if the budget woes subside (no guarantee they will),  it brings up the question: how will these organizations cope with the loss of key players at a time when they are more important than ever?

I think we know how they will cope. Current staff (and perhaps a few Board members) will pick up the slack to the best of their abilities, people will work longer hours, produce status quo results under more stressful and challenging situations and likely experience burn-out earlier than normal. The question in relation to coping is not how, but how long it can last.

I suppose the question really is: how can these organizations SUCCEED when dealing with the loss of key players, especially in the face of unending budget cuts and a resurgence of the culture wars?

While I don’t think it makes the strongest case, I do agree with this op-ed piece published last Thursday in the LA Times.

It inspired some early Saturday morning discussion over email between a few of NYC’s cultural wonks. I had additional thoughts that I wanted to make available here since it really got me thinking.

The questions posed were:

1. How do we get the arts disentangled from HHS (health & human services), Environment, and other Social Justice goods, so that we don’t have to compete against them for the same funding/grantors’ attention? Should the arts be disentangled? or Should the arts be posited as an integral part of the solution?”

2. What are we asking the arts community to value? And by inference, what are we asking audience members and a larger culture to value? What values are we evincing in our work? Should we even be evincing values? Talking about them?

My responses:

1. There is no way to compete against them given the current economic conditions, especially with rising unemployment numbers and bankruptcies, and I think we will lose in the long run if we position the argument that way. I think integration is the only way; however, to accomplish it will require buy-in from everyone in the NFP sector as a whole which might be in the impossible dream given how polarized and resource starved all the different factions are…

If I had the power, I would require artistic components to be integral to most of the other nonprofit sectors programs & services rather than being a separate faction, like an ugly orphan who gets fed last and only if there are scraps. I’ve seen studies that suggest using drama to rehabilitate prisoners lowers recidivism rates, children who learn classical music develop better math skills, and cities with lots of well maintained public parks have higher quality of life indexes for residents.

Why doesn’t a homeless shelter offer entertainment with their free meals? Why doesn’t every public park contain a work of art that engages the local community in the process to select?

We are soaking in endless opportunities to revolutionize the cultural sector alongside the other social systems that are broken – health care, education, criminal justice to name a few – we should be leading the integration charge, not creating further divisions by reinforcing the notion that the arts need or deserve special treatment.

The IRS doesn’t recognize “art” in granting exempt status determination, so every one in the art world has to make the “literary, scientific or educational” argument to get federal exempt status for a NFP arts org. Maybe we should stop hacking our way through the NFP sector, for-profit commercial world and all the gray areas that live in between and just become part of everything else that is charitable instead?

Why aren’t the bulk of nonprofit artistic programs produced by social sector nfps – aren’t they at their core social programs? If these orgs introduced such programs, they could then start hiring the millions of artists that live in this country and are looking for ways to put their creativity to good use. Maybe they could deliver the emerging/community based arts programs and the commercial sector could take over where they leave off with those who want to play in the big leagues.

Is it possible to combine artistic programs (for professional and emerging levels) in the same space as literacy development, affordable childcare, after-school & head start programs, community supported agriculture groups etc?

2. Value is a question I keep coming back to – usually when I am speaking to artists about valuing their work, time, IP, audience’s opinion & critical response etc. I think too often we worry about what we are (or aren’t) valuing instead of investigating what our audience values (or doesn’t) and responding to that – that is part of how the system is failing.

Cultivating and fostering a sense of value for the arts outside our community is possibly our biggest challenge as far as sustainability is concerned and where artists should focus our attention as much as possible in the coming days. To me, it seems that our national psyche is also wrestling with the question of value – quite literally (Madoff victims, slashed 401Ks and depreciated housing values) and more philosophically given the massive bailouts of the corporations at the expense of the taxpayer.

Who better than the artists to raise this question in the broadest sense: As the nation we are NOW – what do we value? Is it corporations over people? Is it health care over art? Is it status quo over revolution?

The artists I know personify many of the values now absent in our society – integrity, hard work, self-sacrifice, commitment (yeah I’m talking to you Sarah) – isn’t it time we lead by example and help fix the mess that’s been made at the hands of others who lack our character?

inspired by a few conversations online and in person with various colleagues, i wanted to throw out an idea i’ve been contemplating to more accurately measure the “professionalism” of artists…

the first step is to remove the word “professional” from our vocabularies once and for all. can’t remember where i heard it (maybe the Field’s Economic Smackdown event last month?) but folks smarter than me have made the point before that other professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) never feel the need to qualify what they do by saying “i’m a professional X…”(imagine what you’d do if a new surgeon you consulted for an operation started out with an introduction like that…not exactly a way to build confidence in your client) and i heartily agree.

instead of this loaded word, maybe we could describe ourselves or the work we do as either “commercial” (i.e., working for institutions on broadway, at major venues for classical disciplines, in union film & tv, as advertising, promo & entertainment talent, at commercial design firms) or “independent” (i.e., do-it-yourself art making in all disciplines that aren’t sponsored by an institutional or commercial entity in a work for hire situation) – is that not a more accurate representation?

the second step has to do with income and valuation. since so many artists are often paid so little (if they are paid at all), we can’t use income as an accurate measure of acheivement in the field or to deem who is a “professional” or not.

{i know the IRS would throw a hissy-fit in response to this idea but this is philosophical post, not a practical advice post, and while i am well aware of them, i am going to ignore their requirements regarding income qualifications, deductions, profits and losses related to a business vs hobby for now.}

so, what if we start using years and define an artist by the time spent studying and pursuing your craft as a measure instead? isn’t that the truer measure? trust fund or not – are you still doing it after 10, 20 or 50 years?

this dovetails nicely with an idea advanced by a friend & colleague who asserts that one way to support the ongoing career development of artists is to bring back the apprentice-journeyman-master system, which is an idea i love.

what do you think about these thorny issues of time, money, commitment and self-identification as far as how to represent and define your artistic career to the masses?

Can someone tell me why The New York Times published this bullshit story about “artists” living in Williamsburg who are no longer subsidized by mommy & daddy?

F*#! YOU New York Times – your article is completely out of touch.

First – It IGNORES the reality and effects of rampant gentrification on local residents and the artists role in the process. this is a gigantic issue threatening MANY neighborhoods across the city (including mine) that the author is clearly IGNORANT of in every sense. the real story is that NYC is losing its working class neighborhoods because of people like this are inflating the market and the Times totally missed it. It’s really quite obtuse and offensive.

Second – How dare you hold these wanna-be’s up as “brooklyn artists” worth writing and reading about? it is disgraceful reporting and breeds anti-artist sentiment. how about profiling artists making critically acclaimed work for 5+ years in NYC while living on $15,000 annually? their resourcefulness could teach MANY in the C-suites of major corporations a thing or two…instead we get a piece about entitled, spoiled brats who evade the natural selection process that deems which artists CAN survive and manage to thrive here (does this clueless author not know the lyrics “IF I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere”?).

Third – It is  insulting to the artists in this city who are part of New York’s heart and soul by being productive members of the  MIDDLE CLASS for the long haul – not just as long as someone else pays for it. cultural production gives a place its identity, its character and its voice because it represents the people that inhabit the place. as I’ve heard they say in statistics: garbage in, garbage out.

check out the reader recommended comments if you get the chance – they are worth it.

i feel a letter to the editor coming on.

I started blogging about issues affecting the arts while working at Fractured Atlas.

I invite you to peruse my very first manifesto, originally published in the Fractured Atlas newsletter and republished by The Association of Teaching Artists.

Here is a sample menu of posts.

The question of relevancy

Shoestring budgets & demographic diversity on off-off-Broadway

when art falls apart

All arts organizations are NOT created equal

Fiscal Sponsorship can change the world!

Value vs measurement

Pleased to partner with National Performing Arts Conference

Pass the bailout, please.

Changing of the Guard

I plan to continue writing about arts related issues. I also hope to write about other topics that occupy space in my consciousness, including sustainable agriculture, independent theater production, financial and economic policy, thoughts on frugal living, recipes I like…you get the point.

Open for comments and discussion 24/7 – welcome to my blog.