Arts Intranet

Michelle Paul

For the past nine years, I've been in the business of creating new technology systems for the arts, and teaching arts managers (particularly those in marketing, development, and box office roles) how to get the most value out of the tools available to them.

The world's technology landscape has changed dramatically in the nine years I've been at my job. Thanks to all the amazing developments that have happened since early 2005 (YouTube, iPhones, and Twitter ...just to name a few), today's arts patrons are more tech savvy, more connected, and more engaged than they were when I started working in this industry.

Many of today's arts managers are keenly aware of the opportunity that this presents, but there are some who look at these trends and sound alarm bells for the end of the arts world as we know it. With so many “high tech” entertainment options available, will people continue to value traditional art forms? If the very idea of "tweet seats" makes you shudder, it's easy enough to look at technological advancement as yet another challenge that's facing the arts.

Emiko Ono

Since I began working in the arts in 2001, there has been a subtle but constant pressure on the sector to transform that can be both distressing and motivating. I will never forget the time in 2003 when Mark O’Neill, then the Head of Museums and Galleries for the city of Glasgow (Scotland), described how a population of shipyard workers reported that they did not attend a nearby museum because the price of admission was too expensive. The nauseating twist was that the museum did not have an admission fee. Last week, this story came to mind again as I spoke with Susie Medak, managing director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre and an arts leader with more than 25 years of experience. Susie’s hypothesis—that the tacit social contract between society and arts organizations is changing—is one I have found to be incredibly useful. The premise of her theory is that it is no longer sufficient for arts organizations to provide distinctive work, attract an audience, and secure financial support—it needs to include wider swaths of people who are largely not involved. 

Teresa Hichens Olson & students

My morning has been spent with 26 third graders mummifying Barbies, writing in hieroglyphics, and learning about ratios in relation to an ancient Egyptian cure for stomachaches. (The cure, by the way, is a mixture of garlic and honey, which produces enzymes in the body to reduce acid. A cool fact no matter how old you are.)

I start each class, as I always do, with four words: I am an artist. And my goal each day, no matter which classroom I’m in or age group I'm working with, is to show each student that they are artists as well--which may seem a bit idealistic or naïve, but after 22 years of teaching, I've found it always to be true, because the definition of art for me is wide.

My favorite type of student is the Hater. The one who says he or she hates art, followed by either a wonderful eye roll or guttural groan.  It is this child who was taught early on that art is a flat thing which doesn’t break rules, that has to behave a certain way and is only good if the person standing in the front of the room says it’s good. We’ve all been in that class. And it isn’t the kind of art that builds bridges between creative thinking, innovation, and science. Art can be dangerous. And, I would argue, it needs to be. 

Joshua Rusell

It sounds like a superhero sequel: First there were arts leaders, then came emerging leaders and now, the 'mid career arts professional' movement is gaining steam. I mean Americans for the Arts is creating a pre-conference for them at the upcoming Annual Conference in Nashville. It has to be legit, right?!

For most of my arts career, I saw myself and was viewed as an emerging leader. I took great pride in participating in meetings representing the future of the arts. But recently that has changed. I took notice of it when the folks at genARTS Silicon Valley (our region’s emerging leader network) started calling me “the Godfather” or was it “the Grandfather”? I’m pretty sure it was the first one, but either way, the message was clear - I wasn’t really one of them anymore.

Ruben Quesada

 

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." - Reinhold Niebuhr

In thinking about the impact of art on society, and in my case the impact of literature, I look back to the poetry of Walt Whitman, who in 1855 self-published Leaves of Grass. Whitman’s determination and willful inclusivity put him ahead of his time. Adapting to the changing pressures of the world around him, Whitman took the subject of the Civil War to render with convincing appeal the volatility of his nature and time. He resisted existing poetics conventions and used candid language to more accurately represent the world around him; he showed the beauty and ugliness of the men and women in America on equal terms. The subject of his poetry was of the ordinary—the working class, drug addicts, prostitutes, the rich and the poor. The tradition of Whitman’s “barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world” continued to echo through most of the Twentieth century. It was subsequent generations of poets who sustained this idea (e.g., Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life, Carl Sandburg’s Chicago, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, Gwendolyn Brooks’ The Bean Eaters). Poetry for and about everyday Americans was born with Whitman and for most of the Twentieth century it became the standard. Readers like to see themselves in the stories they hear; they like the familiar. In many ways the stories found in literature help readers understand what is artful, beautiful, or good. As a poet the world around me informs the content of what I write. Often, as with any art, social and political movements influence its content and creation. Many social and political revolutions have been born through art because it has the power to make us question what is right and wrong. Take for instance the work of performance artists Karen Finley and Tim Miller, two of the NEA Four whose artwork led them to be denied an NEA grant because of the content of their artwork; the content of their work led lawmakers, artists, and art lovers to question what they considered to be art. Where do we draw the line between pornography and art? What is art?

Molly Uline-Olmstread

Museums go with schools like peanut butter goes with jelly. It is a beautiful symbiotic relationship built on a variety of interactions including field trips, distance learning, traveling artifact programs, and teacher professional development. While I have worked with all of these programs in the past, I have been living in the teacher professional development neighborhood of the museum world since 2009. I work with K-16 teachers and other museum educators on projects meant to support and enhance teaching in the humanities through my job with the Creative Learning Factory at the Ohio Historical Society (the Factory).

Lately in conversations with teachers and museum colleagues, we have been talking less about content and more about learning. We have been asking the question, “How do we make learning an inextricable part of life?” Educators in formal and informal learning environments are bombarded with resources, regulations, and tremendous responsibilities. We struggle to find balance and time for exploration and reflection amid testing, lesson planning, and classroom management. Peter D. John articulates this frustration well in his 2006 article about non-traditional lesson planning, "The model of planning and teaching represented in this minimalist conception develops as follows: aim > input > task > feedback > evaluation. It reflects an approach to teaching and learning wherein reflection and exploration are at worst luxuries, not to be afforded, and at best minor spin-offs, to be accommodated.”  As cultural organizations, we are in that unique “third space,” which allows us to facilitate those crucial habits-of-mind that lead to life-long learning. I think of this as looking at the “whole educator” in the same way the education field has championed the “whole child.”