One of the resources of San Francisco is the beautiful weather and the fact that there is some kind of race almost every weekend. So I was completely inspired by Sara Seinberg’s Run for Radar Productions. I want to do this. I want ten people I know to do this. I don’t really care if it’s for SOMArts or some other organization (okay that’s a lie). But really, I want this idea to catch on. Because Seinberg just did this on her own and look at all the good that comes of it:

-people talk about it, hear about her and discover her work
-RADAR gets $5k to continute building community through literary arts
-fabulous health benefits

Every now and then I get emails from my arts friends who are running a 5 or 10k for a cause—usually health related—and I always think, why not run for art? Training for a run is social, it’s healthy, and it is something that can raise money on a shoestring. These health people have their fundraising DOWN. Why do the arts organizations throw big expensive parties and auctions when if we do our jobs right, every single event we have is a chance to meet artists, be social, learn about and enjoy art, and it’s usually free?

Having big galas for small, grassroots organizations usually feels status-y and weird. The people you are selling tickets to are usually about 90% different from the people who use your services on a day-to-day basis, and because of both the similarities and the differences it is hard to create an effective fundraising event that like a true celebration of the work. Few organizations get it right, and the ones that feel right in SF are usually called fundraisers but described behind the scenes by staff as “more friend-raiser than fund-raiser.” (Aside: what is with this trend of calling every concert and performance a fundraiser? I don’t understand the long-term benefit of giving people a false impression that what they are paying is above and beyond the cost of doing the work).

Of course, I hurt my foot and I’m getting married in a mont so my own Run for the Arts may have to wait a little bit. But my lame excuses only serve to make Seinberg’s success seem all the more awe-inspiring.

Photo credit: 5k, woohoo!

Above title is a quote from Jason Schupbach, author of thecheesefreak.com but ALSO creative economy industry director at the Massachusetts Department of Business Development, and a major mind behind affordable artist space. What is up with all of my smartest friends and associates having food & drink projects on the side? Design writer Will Bostwick also covers beer for GQ. Gritmedia designer Fran Duncan (responsible for the Echoing Green website, which I love) started Plate to Plate, a blog about eating locally in the Berkshires.

As if anyone needs arm-twisting to consume food, cheese and beer. But thanks, all, for lending your minds to these worthy causes. I see a goofy cheese-tasting video in my imminent future.

photo credit: Taken on a trip to London. In retrospect, I deeply regret not tasting the best cheese in the world.

A coworker of mine who was a Wesleyan alumnus persuaded me to take a second look at the job, and within a month I was working there, because of one person: Pamela Tatge. Pam Tatge is the director of Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts and the embodiment of the term “artistic administrator.” During my time at Wesleyan, she helped create the Green Street Arts Center, orchestrated a citywide dance festival which danced its way up the hill and onto campus, broke the mold of the first-year-students’ common reading program and instead co-created a residency based on the performance “text” of Bill T. Jones.

Consistently, Pam Tatge challenges convention and asks where and how art can be a more essential part of everyday life and learning. I rarely saw her press a vision onto a project that excluded the ideas of others—rather, she created structures wherein artists could work with students, cultural groups, city leaders, neighborhood families, professors and the administrative team at the CFA to launch creative endeavors that included many people, in many ways.

Pam transformed my idea of what an artistic administrator can achieve, and how universities and communities can work together—which is why I was so excited to learn that this year she was honored with the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence from the National Association of Performing Arts Presenters. It is always thrilling to see someone get the recognition they deserve.

And speaking of recognition, the whole Center for the Arts team—Barbara, Adam, Camille, John, Kristen, Mark—are pretty incredible. Congratulations to all!

I can count the number of plays I saw last year on two hands: Evie’s Waltz at Magic Theatre, The America Play by Thick Description, Skin at Climate Theater, Culture Clash and Friends and Over the Mountain at Brava, You’re Gonna Cry at Red Poppy Art House. Overall, they were some of the most social, entertaining and educational evenings I’ve had at local arts events. And within this list there are major omissions, things I wanted to see but couldn’t, theaters I’ve been meaning to get to, even tickets purchased and not used because when faced with the possibility of a free evening, a good night’s sleep won out (according to Ben Cameron, that last one makes me a Yankelovich poll statistic).

I’ve been thinking about what it would take to ensure that theater gets more time and space between work, family, friends, visual art, readings, live music, et cetera. I’ve been thinking about who participates in Bay Area theater, after a brief but provocative talk with a colleague whose local theatergoing experience—particularly, observations about who is in the audience—has been very different from mine.

And, I’ve been wondering … do so-called “community nights” encourage misconceptions about who likes theater and decrease dialogue by surrounding us with a sea of ourselves? How much does this take away from the overall theatergoing experience? Is this balanced by an increase in attendance and other benefits?

I think a bad night at the theater can often be redeemed by the civic aspect—the opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions with other audience members. A good night of theater can become life-changing. How do community nights shift the civic aspect?

Another reason this is all stirred up in my head is that last night I was reminded, via Twitter, of a theatergoing experience that changed my life.

So the story is, I was just out of college and had moved to the Twin Cities to pursue my dream of being an actor at the Guthrie. I auditioned for a play at Pillsbury House, a professional theater that is part of a larger nonprofit network of community centers—they didn’t give me the part, but they gave me a free ticket to see a play called Dutchman, written in 1963 by beat poet and black activist LeRoi Jones. Pillsbury House was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. The play was disturbing. The post-show talk was uncomfortable.

Upon experiencing the same production, journalist Anne Ursu  wrote the following in a CityPages article:

“[cast & director]Goranson, Remington, and Blagen smile and look out at the audience with       welcoming expressions. There is silence. After a while, a white man speaks in general terms about the language of the play, accompanied by the sound of shifting in seats. Then, silence again. The troika onstage looks as if they want to be somewhere else. So does the audience. Finally Rohan Preston, theater critic for the Star Tribune, raises his voice. ‘I don’t know if I should be speaking, but I’m really struck by how uncomfortable everybody is, by how difficult it is for us to have this discussion.’ Everybody breathes in.”

“Everybody breathes in” … and then, at the performance I saw, they couldn’t stop talking.

For me, the civic aspect of that experience—different people in the same room together, sharing ideas about what they had just seen—opened the door to a place where people were making an effort to understand and appreciate each other better through art, and pursuit of that experience has defined my most significant personal and professional choices for ten years. The performance was electrifying. The quality of the discussion, once it got rolling, had everything to do with the fact that some harsh truths had been laid bare onstage before an audience with differing experience, knowledge and opinions.

Getting back to the question of seeing more theater now, that intersection of art and ideas is what I am looking for, and it is hard to find within the calendar listings, advertising and marketing for most theaters. It is easier to stay “close to home,” rely on the recommendations of friends and colleagues, attend arts events that aren’t as high-risk as theater, where once you walk through the door you are pretty much committing yourself to 2+ hours.

But when all’s said and done, I love theater. And it was a play, not an exhibition or a reading or a dance class, that changed my life. The tweet that got me thinking about this was from Howard Sherman, my former boss at the O’Neill Theater Center and now director of the American Theatre Wing. ATW is holding a Play That Changed My Life contest. Interesting to see how theater has changed the lives of others!

Last 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!

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.

To that end, I was seriously excited to drop by hygienic.org and see that they have adopted a new ning website! I’ve had a few discussions with emerging arts leaders about whether or not ning is the way to go (requires users to become “members” to use many features–too much commitment?). But now I can see that for the Hygienic, this is perfect. The Hygienic is all about participation, and doesn’t it make sense for an organization to embody its real-life essence online? This is done to brilliant effect with the Hygienic’s new site. AND, as an added bonus, Hygienic expats like me can participate from afar. 

XOXO, Hygienic, and happy XXX!

One of the benefits/drawbacks of growing up near Minneapolis was taking for granted the beautiful sculpture garden at the Walker Art Center. I always thought of it as a Claes Oldenburg installation, but it turns out his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, was very involved in what she called “The Large-Scale Projects.” Spoonbridge and Cherry (obscured here by a goofy vacation photo) was an icon of my youth.

Thanks to the Walker’s Off Center blog for the tip.