Americans for the ArtsLast Sunday the THREADS exhibition opened at SOMArts as part of the 12th Annual National Queer Arts Festival, and the Queer Cultural Center had a fashion competition/fundraiser. I think this video looks pretty great, but it doesn’t begin to convey the craftsmanship and humor found in the details of Verasphere’s creations. This was one of those “live experience” events–you had to be there!
A while back I read a Theatre Communications Group chart comparing and contrasting the differences between artists and administrators. And it was … cute. There were some good points, but it was too simple and general to be of much use.
Truth is, artists and administrators working together can do great things But we often approach those great things from different perspectives. And we are not the only group out there who tries to achieve great things despite vast differences (politics, anyone?). In this case, I am thinking of another group of creative, passionate individuals whose work does not always have an immediate, practical application–academics.
Clare Potter, Professor of History and American Studies at Wesleyan University, has a blog called Tenured Radical. She has written a wonderful, nuanced post about collaboration. If you substitute the words “academic” and “professor” for artist, it is a rockin’ treatise from the perspective of a radical, demanding, respectful and compassionate artist (oops, I mean academic).
Here are the adapted highlights:
Be firm and clear when expressing objections, but don’t be abusive or accuse the administrator of bad faith out of hand.
Give people the benefit of the doubt: sometimes they lack knowledge for a reason.
Administrators are not failed artists.
You can’t always get what you want.
Administrators, like God, help those who help themselves.
The highlights don’t do her justice, and the comments are worth a read too. As Barry Hessenius would say, Don’t Quit!
Not long ago, the SOMArts website went “under construction.” Impending budget cuts and no full-time marketing staff have generated several interesting conversations about what form our website can take–and what we can maintain.
The most important goal, in my opinion, is to have the SOMArts web presence feel like an online extension of our physical organization. Since SOMArts is a hub for many cultural communities, more than 100 visual artists, and more than 50 Bay Area nonprofits each year, it makes sense that our website be a hub for these communities to connect and cross over. SOMArts patrons love the fact that in our building you can come for the Mongolian exhibit and stumble upon the Homeless Coalition’s art auction. But the website should also be a home for easy-to-find details such as directions, mission and building hours. Balancing and articulating these priorities has been a challenge.
That is why I was so interested to read Andrew Taylor’s Artful Manager post about the “lifestream.” Individuals (such as SOMArts staffer Rio Yanez) do a great job linking social networking to their personal sites, but I have yet to see an organization nail it.
Who knows … perhaps SOMArts will be one of the first! Here’s hoping.
I am back in San Francisco, looking forward to Carnaval this weekend and enjoying podcasts as I ride the 27 Bryant to work. This week’s selections included Scott Shafer’s Arts and the Recession interview, courtesy of KQED. My favorite quote was from Raelle Myrick-Hodges, who said that instead of “cut, cut, cut,” BRAVA! tries to operate with the goal of “make, make, make.” In a perfect world, arts leaders could say they did something to further these goals every day:
There are few good resources for thoughtful, specific writing about conflicts between artists and institutions. Plenty has been written about successful collaborations. But when things go awry, nobody wants to talk about how and why on the record. Often it’s very painful, everyone’s afraid of losing money and other support, and there are legal complications. I wish there were a book of case studies about collaborations-gone-wrong and what was learned by all parties. It would be useful, particularly for emerging leaders (on both sides) who know about best practices but have not yet learned from experience when to prioritize a gut feeling or a red flag, when to seek outside help, and when to compromise.
With that in mind, Claudia La Rocco’s New York Times article about negotiations between the 92nd Street Y and choreographer Pavel Zustiak is a fascinating look behind the scenes of a contract dispute.
I am back in Massachusetts purging and sorting as we prepare for Dan and Stella’s West Coast migration, but if I were in the Bay Area this week I would attend Joseph Smolinski’s opening at Swarm Gallery in Oakland on May 15. Am very curious to hear other people’s responses to Taking Back the Jetty (2009).
Almost exactly a year ago, Smolinski’s Tree Turbine debuted in the Badlands exhibition at Mass MoCA and I interviewed him for The Art Agenda. In the podcast, Smolinski talks about the work’s origins, and the process of working with students, curators and a fabrication team to realize his vision.
Of course, one can’t really “smell” murals. But, there are so much gorgeous public art in San Francisco that is easy to take for granted. I was reminded of this via Klick, an iphone app that allows users to post their photos and also see what other people are posting near their geographic location. I find myself using the “near me” feature to discover new places of interest around the city. This week, on my bus ride to work, a whole collection of mural images popped up in the Mission. If you search for “mural + san francisco” on Flickr, you get a variety of mural images from the whole city.
And, if you have a little more time, Precita Eyes offers a walking tour of murals–more than 60 murals in 10 blocks–for $12 to $5.
Last Saturday, I went to BRAVA! for Women in the Arts for the final night of Brian Thorstenson’s Over the Mountain. The play, directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges, is hard to describe, as so many truly compelling plays are. But it takes place in a war-torn country, our country, and the characters are linked by their relationship to a poet who is eventually jailed and likely killed for her insistence on continuing to write and be read, despite all odds.
In BRAVA’s lobby, the playwright had posted photos and biographies of wartime poets who inspired him. Looking at that wall of photos, it struck me that I knew and loved poems by most of the male poets on the wall, but could not quote or name the title of any poems written by the women.
After all this time, women writers still aren’t in our canon. Do we think about that as often as we should? Journalist Laura Collins-Hughes does. I recall a conversation we had when I was working at the O’Neill Theater Center … she noticed that the O’Neill had selected a majority of women playwrights for the Playwrights Conference, and wrote a story about it. Now, she has written an article about the significance of a Pulitzer shortlist “bursting with women.”
Given the scarcity of arts features these days, it is even more significant that Collins-Hughes seizes upon this subject matter. Here’s hoping it is linked far and wide.
Not long ago, I spent a few days drafting a grant application for marketing support. A big part of me loves marketing, which–when done well–is simply finding the best way to share news of an experience with the people who are most likely to enjoy it. But after ten years as a Communications Director/Press & Marketing Coordinator/Marketing Manager, writing an eight-page grant narrative for the privilege of attending two long sessions of ”Marketing Boot Camp” seemed about as appealing as paying the dentist for the privilege of a root canal.
But a funny thing happened on the way to submitting that grant application. I started getting excited about marketing again. Specifically, the potential for breaking open a tired old myth (Full-Time Marketing Director + Hotshot Publicist=Stellar Attendance) and doing things more efficiently and effectively. I used to scour the newspaper and online listings for interesting things to see and do, but here in San Francisco, that means sifting through 435 listings on a lazy Sunday, and those are by no means comprehensive. The grassroots innovators rarely show up in the newspaper anymore, and the most compelling invitations come from artists, curators and collectives.
I get dozens of Facebook invitations each week and I’m still not sure I know a single person under forty who can entice even fifty people to an arts event where there’s not free booze. How large is the disconnect between new technology and true relationship building when it comes to arts participation? I hope the gap is narrowing, but I fear there is a schism that puts small and mid-size arts organizations at a disadvantage.
As a friend reminded me this weekend, going to the theater (or any arts event) is an adventure that requires effort and risk … and in an era of empty pockets and full schedules, the best publicist in the world can’t compete with word of mouth when it comes to filling a room. Logic would say that facts and accuracy count for more than opinion, but science is proving that wrong.
So … whether or not I attend Boot Camp, I am left with a few questions:
And, on a very micro-level … what does this all mean for my organization’s database, website, budget, et cetera?
Any answers out there? Advice, links, book/study recommendations welcomed.
The Black Hole from Zachary Schomburg on Vimeo.
After a busy week of San Francisco culture and discoveries that included an exhibition opening, an exhibition closing, and a play at SOMArts; the Exploratorium After Dark; Sodini’s in North Beach; Swan Oyster Depot; and Third Thursday Blues at the Bay View Boat Club; I was ready for a quiet Saturday night of listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and surfing the interwebs. Sometimes staying home opens a door to great discoveries as well, for example … the discovery that Zachary Schomburg has a blog, and has created a batch of poem videos, and has a new book of poetry coming out via one of my favorite East Coast purveyors of such things, Black Ocean.
I don’t know how I feel about the poem videos, but this (above) is my favorite of the ones I’ve seen so far. And the night is young.