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!

I’ve blogged before about my frustration regarding media coverage of the arts. It’s an ongoing theme, but this week was a catastrophe. I wish I could send every so-called objective news journalist a copy of Artists in the Workforce, and take every parent who discourages their child’s participation in the arts to a 10-year reunion of my BFA Theater class, because we all still have our jobs! Which is unfortunately more than I can say for all of my friends with MBAs right now.

Anyway. Getting mad isn’t the solution. We need to get  really smart and really loud and frequent about communicating the value of the arts. Barry’s Blog offers some suggestions in today’s post.

On a tangential note, I attended a performance by Culture Clash on Friday night. They were hilarious. I laughed, I learned, and I enjoyed the wonderful and rare live-ness of the experience. There was a moment when one of the actors was poking fun at hipsters in the Mission District, and all of the sudden he stops and says “hey, we bash hipsters but really this night wouldn’t have been possible without all of the hipsters who worked to make it a success.” And someone in the audience hissed! And the actor shrugged and said “hey, you hiss but I don’t see you at CalArts!”

I am paraphrasing, but the dialogue made me wonder about the demographics of our BFA, MFA and other fine arts training programs. I wonder if these demographics need to change. I wonder how we can change them, and what impact that might have on media perception of the arts and arts funding. And I know that unless we work to change media perception of who participates in the arts, and of what it means to participate in the arts, the backlash will continue.

I think I broke one of the cardinal rules of blogging by skipping town and blogging on another site without warning. And now, I have just returned from four days in Philadelphia, where I attended the 2008 Annual Convention of Americans for the Arts.

What did I learn? First and foremost, to REGISTER EARLY. Staying at an overflow hotel makes it hard to blog, power-nap, or pace ones’ self throughout the days.

What can I use? Within hours of my Career 360 session with Dewey Schott of Next-Step Consulting, he forwarded me an article about high-functioning teams that I hope to utilize at our next staff retreat. The advance workshop on Better Program Evaluation will be useful in consensus-building with board members and teaching artists about how (enrollment numbers? student testimonials? mission relevance?) to define programming success.

Who did I meet? As Ruby Classen noted on her earlier blog, I traveled far from home to meet some people in my own backyard: Maren Brown of the UMass Arts Extension Service, Brian Hornby from New Haven’s Office of Cultural Affairs. A slightly awkward and rushed meeting between the Emerging Leaders Council and the State Arts Action Network resulted in one of my most enjoyable conversations of the Convention, when Anne Katz and I discovered that we both got early career breaks at the O’Neill Theater Center (many years apart, and many shared memories nonetheless). And, near the end of my stay, a chance meeting with Susan Pontious of the San Francisco Arts Commission revealed that the Hestia Mural, which I enjoy daily in my hometown of Northampton, was her very first public art project, in 1980.

Where will I go? Perhaps the better question is, where won’t I go? Members of the Seattle emerging leaders network were so compelling with their visions of next year’s UNconvention, I might head west in the fall for Bumbershoot or another long weekend. Tucson would be an exciting addition to my list of travels. And the Public Art Year in Review was a reminder that I should drive down to New York, see the waterfalls, and check out fellow emerging leader Marisa Catalina Casey’s new Starting Artists space in Brooklyn.

But for now, it is good to be HOME! Big thanks to everyone who made this convention inspiring, challenging, irreverent, and unforgettable.

Lex

p.s. I am also back to my “home” blog, http://www.lexleifheit.com.