Happy 4th of July, everyone. This corner won't be heard from much this weekend, but these great blogs will keep you busy if you're having trouble tearing yourself away from the computer.
Better Together
Grantmakers in the Arts, the national affinity group for arts funders, now has a second blog. This one, "from the desk of" GIA executive director Janet Brown, gives her perspective on fieldwide issues such as the impact of the recession, integration into community programs, and reflecting on the role that GIA plays for its constituency. GIA's other blog collecting interesting posts and stories from around the web, written by deputy director Tommer Peterson, is available here.
copper: Cultural Office of the Pike's Peak Region
I had the pleasure of meeting COPPeR executive director (and Createquity commenter) Bettina Swigger at the AFTA Convention last month. copper, the blog, serves as "an outlet for many discussions about our [Southern Colorado] local arts community, the intersection of politics, business, creativity and a sense of place." Bettina wrote an awesome four-part diary about the Southern Colorado Innovation Strategy Leadership Trip to Austin sponsored by the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce; the first part is here.
Design New Haven
Mark Abraham alerted me to this very thorough and well-written ongoing account of New Haven's "urban renaissance" following my post on arts policy in New Haven, which took a more cautionary tone. In fact, Design New Haven posted a comparison of the urban revitalization efforts in New Haven and Providence a month before I addressed cultural planning in the same two cities. A fascinating guide to a fascinating place.
Lubricity
A new blog from young trombonist and jazz writer Alex (W.) Rodriguez (Twitter handle: arodjazz), who riffs off of my recent Art and Sustainability post with this essay called Beyond the Starving Artist. Alex also contributes to jazz.com. Looks like one to watch.
July 4, 2009
New Blogs!
July 1, 2009
Microphilanthropy
My first post from the AFTA Convention a couple of weeks ago provoked several comments about microphilanthropy, based on Craig Dreeszen’s observation that “support for individual entrepreneurs” is a growing trend in creative economy efforts internationally. I’ve been interested in microphilanthropy for some time, but I recently came to the realization that I’ve never posted extensively about it here. Well, it’s time to fix that!
Microphilanthropy is not a new idea, though its application has been spotty up until now, with programs such as NYFA’s Strategic Opportunity Stipend, ASCAP’s Leonard Bernstein Fund, or Fractured Atlas’s microgrants generally limited in scope. One of the programs I like the best is Subito, from the American Composers Forum. The guidelines differ a bit in different cities, but perhaps the most generous version is in Philadelphia (where, incidentally, I worked as Chapter Assistant way back in 2002-03). Clicking on the “Subito Philadelphia” link on that page will download a Word document with three exceptionally varied scenarios for funding on the third page – there is functionally almost no restriction on what the funds can be spent on, as long as they are somehow in service of the proposed project. Now, platforms for aggregating small-dollar donations from individuals are starting to pop up as well, drawing inspiration from the likes of DonorsChoose and Kiva. Kickstarter is a model that looks promising—Jay Corless is using it for his Cities x Design tour with Sali Sasaki—and another Createquity reader, Kristine Maltrud, has written in to alert me to an in-development microfunding + social networking project called ArtSpark. It’s likely that such platforms will make it easier for small-scale art projects to reach new audiences and lower the costs of their fundraising, helping to equalize the playing field.
Nevertheless, I still think there’s some value to be found in setting up a microphilanthropy program at an institutional level. Online donation aggregation platforms are well and good, but by their nature will tend towards popularity contests that do little to help artists whose talents do not lend themselves to self-promotion. A diligently run, centralized microphilanthropy program, on the other hand, can potentially identify artists and projects with promising features but that lack the kind of social or technological capital necessary to mount an effective online fundraising campaign.
While a detailed exploration of what an ideal microphilanthropy program might look like will have to wait for another post, if it were up to me, such a program would take into account the following principles and assumptions:
Small amounts make a big difference.
This value meshes not only with my own experience but with those of countless other artists I know. It never ceases to amaze me what artists are able to accomplish on absolute shoestring budgets, sometimes even losing money on the work they present to the public. But just because they make it happen on such lean terms this time doesn’t mean that they will be able to next year, or that they couldn’t benefit enormously from an influx of capital. To an artist trying to scrape together a living from dozens of sources, a few extra hundred or a thousand here or there means a lot. Sometimes it’s the difference between art happening or not.
Fewer restrictions promote innovation.
Startup, temporary, and very small-scale projects are already at a disadvantage in that they are ineligible for most mainstream grant programs that require a minimum operating history, paid performers, or a minimum budget. Even grant programs that ostensibly serve “community groups” will often have eligibility requirements that prevent organizations with budgets of less than $100,000 from applying. In that kind of environment, then, it’s counterproductive to set excessive limits on who can apply or what kinds of things the money can be spent on. The whole point of supporting small, under-the-radar groups is to support innovation, and no one sitting in an office writing up guidelines can adequately anticipate the kinds of uses a burgeoning community of experimental artists will want to put money to. Moreover, the widespread adoption of eligibility criteria (especially if it's the same eligibility criteria) can often lead to massive gaps in the institutional funding framework—like, for example, the horrible dearth of opportunities available to independent jazz musicians.
Better to help lots of people when possible.
We haven’t yet talked about the fact that many of the artists applying to a program like this (and even some who will be funded) simply won’t be very good. That’s okay. In my view, a microphilanthropy model should adopt a venture-capital-like approach – spreading the risk across a number and variety of investments, in the hopes that a few will break out and be so successful that they cover the failures or mediocre performance of the others. In this case we’re talking about artistic success rather than financial success, but the principle is the same. That argues not only for spreading grants across a fairly wide proportion of applicants, but also for selecting applicants in part on how much their project helps other artists besides the people applying for the grant. So a musical ensemble that selects scores via an open-call process and performs an eclectic mix of repertoire, for example, provides more value to the artistic community than one that exclusively performs the music of the founder. I’m not saying the latter kind of project should never be funded, but in my mind the bar for evidence of artistic potential has to be raised considerably in order to justify it.
There’s a difference between growth and institutionalization.
Helping a project to happen in the first place or increase stipends to performers is one thing. That’s growth of an artistic variety. Helping to fund the hiring of full-time administrative staff or rent office space is something else entirely. That points to a more institutionalized, professional—and potentially less nimble—future. While certainly appropriate in some instances, a lot of small-budget organizations don’t really need to get drastically bigger. Many artists just want to be able to make enough to live on and do their thing (or, failing that, at least pay their colleagues), and have the flexibility to shut it all down later if they want to. I believe in microphilanthropy that is as supportive of organizational death as it is of organizational growth.
Quick to give a chance, slow to give second chances.
In keeping with the “risk pooling” concept, I support keeping eligibility requirements as open as possible and applications as simple as possible. But once that money is granted and a commitment is made, the gloves need to come off. Flakiness, dishonesty, and sloppy reporting should not be tolerated. Since this may well be one of the artist’s first grants, it might have to be a learning experience for them. Teach them how to keep accurate books and manage a budget. Teach them responsiveness and task management tools if they don’t already have them. Reporting requirements should be as strict (not burdensome, just strict) as eligibility requirements are loose. And hey, if people don’t want to put the few hours it takes into telling you how they spent your money, you don’t have to give them any more of it in the future.
Overnight success doesn’t happen in a year.
On the other hand, if grantees are respectful and wise with the handling of the funds, the default approach probably shouldn’t be one-and-out. Sourcing stable, renewable sources of capital is one of the biggest challenges for fledgling arts organizations, which is yet another reason why people with access to independent wealth have a leg up. Now, presumably after three or four years the organization will either be on the rocks or will have found other (bigger) supporters, so there should definitely be some turnover around then, but a one-time injection risks leaving the beneficiaries on no more stable footing than before.
June 30, 2009
Public Policy and the Arts: Syllabus and Summary
As regular readers are aware, I completed an independent study on public policy and the arts for my business school program in the second half of the spring semester. What you might not have realized is that four of my recent mega-posts on this blog were actually written as assignments for that class: Deconstructing Richard Florida, On the Arts and Developing Communities, Reconstructing Florida, and On the Arts and Sustainability. Forcing myself to read the wealth of background material that went into those posts was an incredibly helpful, if challenging, exercise, and it’s one that I hope to continue in the future (more on that later this week). In the meantime, here’s a summary of my most important takeaways from my studies so far:
- The most robust evidence for the economic impact of the arts appears to be the relationship between the density of artistic activity and rising real estate prices in an area.
- There is some evidence for a connection between concentrations of artists and overall urban economic growth, but it is much weaker and the causal relationship has not been firmly established.
- Almost everyone who does or researches community cultural development for a living seems to think that networks of small, community-based arts organizations are more effective in building social, civic, and economic capital in cities than mammoth, flagship institutions. I have not seen much research to back up this opinion, with one exception: two studies show that community-based organizations, especially those with culturally-specific programming, appear to do a much better job reaching very poor neighborhoods than flagship institutions.
- Generally speaking, the more that the arts can be brought out of their shell and into broader, ongoing community stakeholder discussions, the more that both the arts and the community will benefit.
- The internet, while making it possible for more people than ever before to reach an audience and establish a public identity, may at the same time be making it harder for artists to make a full-time living from their work over the long term. Reconciling these two impacts might well be one of the major challenges of policymaking in the 21st century.
SYLLABUS
Unit I: Exploring Creative Class Theory
Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, chapters 1-2, 5, 12, 16-17
Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Michigan Cool Cities Survey: Summary of Findings
Unit II: Creative Class Theory Revisited: Critical Responses
Rise of the Creative Class, chapters 4, 13-14, appendices A-C
Ann Daly, "Richard Florida’s High Class Glasses"
Florida, "Revenge of the Squelchers"
Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, Knight Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI) Evaluation: Final Report
Stern and Seifert, From Creative Economy to Creative Society
Assignment: Hyperlinked essay on Richard Florida
Unit III: Cultural Palaces vs. Watering the Grassroots: Two Conflicting Strategies
Rise of the Creative Class, chapter 10
Hilary M. Ballon, “How the Arts Transformed an Urban Landscape,” New York Times 6/8/03
Gene Sloan, “Lighting the Way in Kansas City: Modest Metropolis in the Midwest is Undergoing a Mighty Renewal,” USA Today 8/17/07
Stephen C. Sheppard et al., Culture and Revitalization: The Economic Effects of MASS MoCA on Its Community
Stern and Seifert, Cultivating “Natural” Cultural Districts
Unit IV: Art and the Community
Robert LaLonde et al, Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago
Stern and Seifert, Philadelphia and Camden Cultural Participation Benchmark Project
Anja Wodsak et al, Building Arts, Building Community: Informal Arts Districts and Neighborhood Change in Oakland, California
Michael Powell, “A Condo Tower Grows in Brooklyn,” Washington Post 2/21/07
Assignment: Hyperlinked essay on Community-Based Arts Development
Unit V: Cultural Facilities and Creative Solutions
Duncan Webb, Demand Analysis of Small-Scale Cultural Facilities in San José
ERA Architects Inc. et al, A Map of Toronto’s Cultural Facilities: A Cultural Facilities Analysis
Jeffrey Spivak, “The Artist Dividend,” Urban Land July 2007
Simon Houpt, “Artists’ Home Finds Unlikely Saviour,” The Globe and Mail 3/24/08
The Reinvestment Fund, Crane Arts: Financing Artists’ Workspaces
Webb Management Services et al, New Haven Cultural Facilities Master Plan (hard copy only)
Unit VI: The Economic Context of the Arts
Ann Markusen et al, Crossover: How Artists Build Careers across Commercial, Nonprofit, and Community Work
William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, chapter 7
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, chapters 2, 8
Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller, The Pro-Am Revolution
Kevin Kelly, “1,000 True Fans,” The Technium blog 3/4/08
Assignment: Hyperlinked essay on the Arts and Sustainability
Unit VII: Towards a Healthy Arts Ecosystem
Julia F. Lowell, State Arts Policy: Trends and Future Prospects
Susan Christopherson, Creative Economy Strategies for Small and Medium Size Cities: Options for New York State
Mt. Auburn Associates, Utilizing Tax Incentives to Cultivate Cultural Industries and Spur Arts-Related Development
Tom Borrup, The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook, chapters 2-3
Assignment: New Haven Arts Policy Brief
June 29, 2009
Around the horn: Thriller edition
Welcome to all the new readers this month - it's a pleasure to have you on board! And thanks to Darcy James Argue, Barry Hessenius, and Leonard Jacobs for the very generous shout-outs this past week (and to Jodi Schoenbrun Carter for her epic cheerleading a little while back). I'm honored to have you all in the audience.
- Isaac takes on the Pro-Am predicament and writes about the delusion plaguing the theater world:
And here's the thing: most of the artists working in the Pro-Am circuit have very very little chance of crossing over [to mainstream success]. They are, essentially, pursuing a delusion as a result of a category erorr, namely that the Pro-Am circuit and the LORT/Institutional circuit are part of the same system. They are not, or at least, it's more helpful to think of them as two sepearate systems. The path to working at LORT/Institutional theaters lies not in the Pro-Am circuit. it lies (largely, i know there are exceptions) in the institutional circuit, in interning at Humana, Apprenticing at Williamstown and going to UCSD or Yale (there are other paths out there, but this one is the clearest). Why is this? Because as theater has professionalized over the last fifty years, it has also adopted a Shadow Professional Certification System. It's a shadow system because it's largely social in nature; you don't have to pass a writing bar exam to be a playwright, but if you want to make a living doing it, you probably need to have gone to one of seven graduate programs. And I'm not going to say there's no relationship between Shadow Certification and Quality... there is, it's just not 1:1.
The same could certainly be said for classical music, though that's starting - starting to break down a little bit, at least for composers. But the shadow system is definitely there. - Gotta love this title for an academic research paper: It Is Okay for Artists to Make Money…No, Really, It's Okay.
- There are now 1.9 million nonprofit organizations in the United States.
- Not sure when the last time an undergraduate thesis received this much attention, but last week, budding economist (and Freakonomics' Steven Levitt protogee) Emily Glassberg Sands released a study to much media fanfare about gender issues in theater. She's even going on Colbert July 2. Meanwhile, Thomas Garvey isn't convinced. I'm inclined to wait and see.
- And where do Levitt's Harvard classmates live now? Surprise, surprise! The top five destinations are New York, San Francisco, LA, Cambridge, and DC. Doesn't this look an awful lot like the list of most walkable cities in the US?
- A not-insignificant increase in the NEA's budget has been brewing for a while, and now the House has approved a budget of $170 million for 2010. The conference process will have the final word. This is still far below what the agency deserves, but it would represent a $45 million increase from 2007.
- The Serve.gov initiative is up and running, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy has mucho coverage. ASCAP is leading its own initiative to get participation from the music community. Meanwhile, leave it to Sean to state what should be obvious, but isn't: some volunteers are better than others.
- Speaking of the arts in government, Doug McLennan of ArtsJournal somehow got a moment with Bill Ivey when he was in Seattle for the Americans for the Arts Convention, and asked him what he really thought about the prospect of a cabinet-level culture czar. (Answer: not much.) Make no mistake: this is why that initiative did not move forward.
- Culture czars at the local level, however, may be a trend we'll start to see more of. Via Innovation Philadelphia, here's an interview with that city's new chief cultural officer, Gary Steuer.
- Leonard Jacobs points us to a new small business law under consideration in New York that could affect arts organizations and firms.
- Crazy stuff: Bernie Madoff just got 150 years in jail, but his client Jeffrey Picower (whose foundation went down in flames in the fallout of the scandal) may have netted more.
- Whoa - Malcolm Gladwell lays an epic smackdown on Chris Anderson's new book Free, which trumpets the economic benefits of not charging for anything. Ironically, Anderson was caught following his own advice by lifting a number of the book's passages from Wikipedia. I say ironically because Anderson, in fact, charges for his book (though he claims it will eventually be distributed in its entirety on the 'net).
- Speaking of smackdowns, Seth Godin takes on the the business wisdom of radical transparency.
- A Johns Hopkins survey has some scary thoughts for arts organizations:
Only 13 percent of the respondents said they were concerned about their nonprofit organization’s survival. But those numbers rose significantly among people at theaters and orchestras, which were the hardest hit of all charities in the study. Twenty-four percent of orchestra leaders and 33 percent of theater officials reported concern about their groups’ fate.
There's also this tidbit about the importance of government support for the arts:Mr. Salamon said that midsize organizations — as well as cultural charities — were perhaps suffering the most because they received less government support than larger organizations and human-services groups.
Government money has provided somewhat of a buffer against the downturn, with 35 percent of charities in the study reporting declines in that type of support compared with 53 percent who said they had seen a drop in donations from individuals.
- New study alert: TDC looks at capitalization in Philadelphia's nonprofit cultural sector. One of the co-authors is the former executive director of Yale SOM's Program on Social Enterprise. Short version: arts orgs have weak financial health, but demonstrate strong financial literacy; they know what they're doing but are having a hard time anyway.
- New technology alert: a cool tool called Mapumental will help you find where to live in a city (London, for the moment) based on commute time, housing prices, and "scenicness." Courtesy CEOs for Cities.
- Bet we'll see more of this in the future: Netflix crowdsources its R&D function, awards $1 million to team that improves its recommendation algorithm by 10%.
- Greg Sandow posts a wrap-up of a great classical music event as organized and envisioned by students. When he says the students "loved this concert," I believe it.
- Awesome.
- Okay, we're going to try something new here at Createquity: an embedded slide show. This is from Andrew Taylor's lecture in Austin last week, "Considering the Creative Ecology." (Original link here.)Considering the Creative EcologyView more presentations from Andrew Taylor.
- Trista Harris, executive director of the Headwaters Foundation, recently posted some job search tips for next generation leaders looking for program officer positions, a subject near and dear to my heart of late. Her first piece of advice:
Don’t ask, don’t tell policy for your age- If you are a younger applicant, please take your graduation date off of your resume. Regardless of how much relevant experience you have, many hiring managers will write you off as a youngster if your undergraduate or graduate degree was received after Y2K.
To which my response is: seriously? You can get away with that?
June 28, 2009
Creative Providence
On Friday, I attended the unveiling of Creative Providence, a cultural planning effort conducted primarily by Dreeszen & Associates over the past two years. A nice-sized crowd came out for the catered event at the Hotel Providence to see the Mayor of Providence, David Cicilline, Craig Dreeszen, Robert Leaver of New Commons, and Lynne McCormack of the Providence Department of Art, Culture and Tourism explain the plan's strategies and action steps.
I was impressed at the level of public engagement with the plan, and so was Craig Dreeszen, who said that there are "many more things that are right than wrong" with Providence's cultural community. The plan involved the participation of a staggering number of residents: ten people on the planning team, a 33-member working group, a 20-person steering committee, 200+ attendees at the first Claiborne Pell lecture at which a progress report was given, 200 people involved with six planning "studios," 150 participants in two community forums, 275 faces in 25 focus group discussions, 18 one-on-one interviews, and more than 2000 respondents to a joint online survey with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. (Apparently this level of collaboration between a city and state agency on a cultural plan is unprecedented.)
The six goals of the cultural plan are as follows:
- Position the Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism as a leader in creative economic development
- Build community and foster neighborhood vitality through increased access and diversified cultural participation
- Educate and inspire the next generation of creative thinkers
- Foster sustainable [there's that word again] cultural organizations
- Create conditions for creative workers to thrive in Providence
- Raise public awareness of the creative sector
- Reorganize the Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism to focus on economic development issues
- Push branding of Providence as the Creative Capital
- Explore the possibility of creating a Downtown Cultural Authority
- Strengthen neighborhood vitality by increasing public access [not sure what the exact target is here -IDM]
- Develop policies toward the preservation of public art
- Partner with arts educators to enhance current collaborations
- Develop youth summer employment porgrams in partnership with Workforce Solutions
- Continue to work toward fostering sustainable cultural organizations by networking with local and national stakeholders
- Develop affordable arts spaces
- Appoint a Creative Providence Leadership Council
The full planning document (along with a huge number of other resources) can be downloaded here.
June 25, 2009
New Haven arts policy study
I've mentioned previously in this space that I was working on a policy memo for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven as part of my independent study this spring on public policy and the arts. Today, I turned in the final version. I won't bore you with the details, but here are the highlights of what I wrote.
In the late 1990s, the Wolf Organization (predecessor to the company now known as WolfBrown) completed a regional cultural plan for greater New Haven. The plan was extraordinarily ambitious, recommending a total of 27 strategies under ten general goal headings. While some of the recommendations were followed, including the completion of a cultural facilities feasibility study by a group including Duncan Webb, the establishment of more robust communication channels between different city agencies and entities, and the establishment of the Greater New Haven Arts Stabilization Project, the substantial cumulative investment required (totaling an incremental $2.2 million a year) proved too big a challenge for many of the biggest ideas. (The cultural facilities plan, meanwhile, called for an investment of $261 million, including the construction of a new 2300-seat performing arts center downtown.)
In my paper, I argued that three key factors held back the further development of New Haven's arts resources in the decade since the completion of the plan, factors which are now exacerbated by the current recession. They are:
- Undercapitalization of philanthropic resources. Looking at Foundation Center data, I found that more than half of private foundation support for New Haven-area arts activities came from outside of Connecticut in 2007 and 2008 (mostly from New York). Furthermore, 88.5% of these grant funds were concentrated with just five institutions out of more than 100 arts and culture organizations I identified in the area: the Yale Repertory Theater, the Long Wharf Theater, the New Haven Arts & Ideas Festival, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Neighborhood Music School. With no anchor private-sector employer to collect and distribute wealth to the local area, the mechanisms for increasing the level of local philanthropic support for the arts are limited.
- The Yale factor. New Haven is blessed with having one of the greatest research universities in the world in its midst, including its four professional arts schools, but the city's arts community does not benefit from this resource nearly as much as it could, due to low visibility of non-Yale cultural events on campus. Furthermore, when graduates leave the area (as most do), New Haven loses the opportunity to benefit from their wealth-generating potential. In short, its best prospective engine for opportunity creation keeps leaving because of a lack of opportunity.
- Living in the shadow of New York. Having America's largest city a commuter train ride away makes it hard for New Haven to compete on its own terms. This applies to artistic talent and audiences every bit as much as employers. Artist networks organize around star economies, which means that non-world-class cities find themselves at a disadvantage.
- Conduct aggressive outreach to university communities. Two benefits to this: in the short term, it drives more ticket purchases and participation from the student community in local happenings; in the long term, it helps develop a cultural connection to New Haven that might be influential in convincing some of them to stick around after their studies are finished. For the universities (especially Yale), it makes sense to play along because of their interest in promoting New Haven to prospective and current students as a fun, attractive, interesting place to be.
- Work to build cultural capacity in underserved communities. Right now, most of the mainstream cultural activity going on in New Haven, as is true in many places, is concentrated downtown and in the affluent suburbs (but mostly downtown). New Haven has a very complicated history of class and race relations, and the arts are by no means separate from that legacy. There are, however, a few organizations in the area (such as our friends at Music Haven) that work to integrate town and gown in meaningful ways. By encouraging greater concentration of resources in such directions, the New Haven arts community could build a broader base of political support over the long term for public support of the arts, which at the moment stands at a meager $25,000 for the local office of cultural affairs. Not to mention that it's a good thing to do in general.
- Partner with other creative economy initiatives in Southern Connecticut. Rather than trying to be in competition with NYC, I suggested that New Haven try to be in symbiosis with it - the northeastern anchor of the metropolis. I theorized that New Haven would benefit from the (meaningful) rebranding of the stretch of Connecticut shoreline from Greenwich to Union Station as a "cultural corridor," due to the beneficial clustering effects of creative economies. Unlike in New Haven, there is a lot of private wealth concentrated in places like Norwalk, Stamford, and Westport, but unlike those places, New Haven has a head start on cultural infrastructure. Finding a way to combine forces, then, would probably help New Haven's arts community more than hurt it.
- In the meantime, lower costs. Given that we're in a recession and steps to increase the supply of resources available to the arts will all take time, the arts community should take a look at ways to increase efficiencies and thereby lower the costs of making or presenting art for everybody. The main techniques that have caught on in other areas include the creative use of tax incentives to drive clustering and innovation, reappropriation of unused space for temporary or permanent artistic use, and collaborations such as sharing mailing lists or office space (or back office functions altogether). I also suggested instituting a micro-granting program for individuals or very small organizations with the goal of encouraging continued activity in the sector during the recession.
June 22, 2009
Around the horn: Solstice edition
I briefly caught a performance of Henry Brant's Orbits for organ, soprano, and 80 trombones at the Guggenheim on the way back from Seattle yesterday. Totally wild stuff. I only really dug isolated moments of it, but those moments were killer. Saw blogmaster Alex Ross in the audience as well, scribbling notes as he is wont to do. We just barely got in to the first set after waiting in a line crammed full of young adventurers in the rain for about 35 minutes. The people who got there a few minutes after us had to wait another hour for the second performance, due to capacity limitations. Who knew that late '70s avant-garde noodling would prove so popular three decades later?
- Andrew Taylor published a commentary on amateurs vs. professionals a few days after I explored the same subject with On the Arts and Sustainability. The money quote is this:
To my mind, this is one of the core and vexing questions of the on-line world for the arts (and for other industries...but that's not my table): what is the role of the expert and the excellent in a distributed world? How do we preserve space and return value to those who are extraordinary (by whatever measure you pick)?
I can get on board with that, although the issue as it relates to the arts goes beyond the question of returning value to people or not. After all, there are certainly excellent, high-profile artists who capture quite a lot of value. The question is about the excellent but low-profile artists who capture a mere fraction of that value, and how to match the value returned in exchange for excellence with the costs (including opportunity costs) of producing it.
I don't think that's a professional/amateur question -- although that's the frame we tend to use. In fact, I think the professional/amateur debate in the arts is clouding the deeper conversation. - Looks like there's now an emerging arts leaders' journal: 20Under40 is soliciting essays on the future of arts administration and arts education. (h/t Connie Chin)
- Speaking of submission solicitations, the Geospatial Revolution Project wants your ideas on how geospatial data (mapping projects, GPS, and the like) will change our lives forever. Here's the blog and the facebook page.
- The Annals of Radical Transparency continue with what must be the first-ever Twittered foundation board meeting. (h/t Sean Stannard-Stockton)
- More good stuff from Guy Yedwab (are you reading his blog yet?): this time, a unique idea for sourcing designers, writers, and directors for theater shows from the audience. You'd have to figure out some mechanism for gracefully turning unhelpful people away, but this is basically the model on which Obama campaign operated, and that was only one of the most successful enterprises in history.
- BusinessWeek reports on the L3C phenomenon, going over a number of different hybrid models for organizations straddling the line between nonprofit and private enterprise. Apparently there are now 53 L3Cs registered in Vermont and several in other states.
- NYFA has shared office space available for $200/mo for affiliated arts organizations.
- Nice: the Irvine Foundation has a new initiative for providing risk capital to arts organizations.
- Via the Clyde Fitch Report, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs budget has been cut, though not as badly as originally feared.
- Greg Sandow laments the decline in arts participation as shown by the recent national NEA study, but Laura Zabel of SpringboardArts wants to know why comedy shows (among other things) weren't included.
