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Month: July 2014

ArtWashing Sounded Reasonable When I Suggested It

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Over the years I have written about the gentrification effect of artists in neighborhoods. While artists are often displaced as they make a neighborhood increasingly trendy, there have been cases where artists went into an area knowing their stay would likely be short term.

By and large, these voluntary arrangements sounded reasonable. Artists would occupy empty storefronts making them look less dismal, helping to lower crime rates and providing a little bit of revenue for landlords in spaces that would otherwise generate none. As long as no one was under the illusion that this arrangement would last long, everyone can be generally satisfied.

However, a recent story on The Atlantic’s CityLab labels the intentional use of artists by London developers to enhance property values as ArtWashing.

When a commercial project is subjected to artwashing, the work and presence of artists and creative workers is used to add a cursory sheen to a place’s transformation. Just as greenwashing tries to humanize new buildings with superficial nods to green concerns (such as wind turbines that never turn), artwashing provides similar distraction. By highlighting the new creative uses for inner-city areas, it presents regeneration not through its long-term effects—the transfer of residency from poor to rich—but as a much shorter journey from neglect to creativity.

The author, Feargus O’Sullivan, discusses a number of cases in which artists were welcomed in wholeheartedly and then either forced out or subjected to unfriendly lease terms when their leases were up. He expresses some resentment for struggling artists being displaced by trust fund kids who like the lifestyle but don’t really need the space. Though he notes that even these people are, in turn, being nudged out in favor of the next higher grade of tenants.

He acknowledges that the situation is a little murky at times leaving some artists semi-complicit in the whole process due to the way they receive support. He cites a group that is producing a work with a critical tone that “art institutions sit comfy in the pockets of big corporations” in a space provided to them by a big developer who is eager to be associated with an artsy group.

O’Sullivan also asks us to consider that while artists may be subject to displacement as a result of their success, in some situations they may be displacers themselves. Although in most of the cases he cities, they were economic peers of those they lived among. (My emphasis.)

In celebrating their role, we are allowing the process of displacement to be mystified, and thus masked. An attitude has arisen which says, “Before, there was crime and emptiness; now we’ve got galleries and coffee. You’re telling me you actually preferred crack dens?” This shuts down debate by asserting that art and cafés for incomers were the only viable antidotes to lawlessness and poverty, when in fact they merely shunt them elsewhere. It erroneously suggests that creative uses of urban spaces are an end point, and reveals the ugly undertone beneath much talk of neighborhood change: That these inner city areas are just too good to be squandered on the low-income people being displaced from them.

So while artist inspired gentrification has long been recognized to be a mixed blessing for artists at best, it needs to be recognized that this gentrification isn’t actually solving the basic problem that existed. It is bringing much welcomed renewal to the physical elements of the area, but those in residence when the renewal begins don’t really experience much benefit at all.

Best Leaders Are Internally Motivated

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There was a post on the Harvard Business Review blog site about a recent leadership study – Why You Lead Determines How Well You Lead.

According to the study, people with an internal motivation to lead are more effective than those with external motivations. More surprising, a person who has a mix of internal and external motivations, does very poorly.

“As one might predict, we found that those with internal, intrinsic motives performed better than those with external, instrumental rationales for their service — a common finding in studies of motivation. We were surprised to find, however, that those with both internal and external rationales proved to be worse investments as leaders than those with fewer, but predominantly internal, motivations. Adding external motives didn’t make leaders perform better — additional motivations reduced the selection to top leadership by more than 20%. Thus, external motivations, even atop strong internal motivations, were leadership poison.

Many believe that the best way to influence behavior is to incentivize it, and such external incentives certainly work with lab rats. In our study, however, adding external incentives clearly did not improve leader performance.”

and later

“If those we seek to develop as leaders adopt external justifications for leading well — such as an increase in shareholder value, better pay or perquisites, or increased profits — they are likely to be less successful as leaders in comparison to those who seek to lead for more internal, intrinsic reasons alone.”

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you probably can see where my mind is going here. These results made me wonder if non-profit leaders might not make the most effective leaders since internal motivation for doing the job is all but given.

Now remember, effective leader doesn’t necessarily equate to successful. This is a “if you are so smart, why ain’t you rich” situation. Non-profit organizations are notoriously underfunded and lack the resources to achieve the success they aspire to. Not to mention many are pursuing work which others won’t because there is no profit to be made.

Likewise non-profit leaders may make really stupid choices because there was never any time to properly develop and cultivate them throughout their careers. (Not that this type of grooming has kept their for-profit colleagues from making stupendous mistakes either.)

Yes, I am flirting with suggesting that for-profit corporations pull something akin to the movie Trading Places consider looking for effective leaders in non-profit organizations (sans the whole bet thing).

Yes, this regrettably will take talent out of the field, but it would put them in a place with greater resources to provide their leadership skills with more impact. Without maximizing shareholder value as a central goal, the general business environment may shift for the better. Though that might be as big a fantasy as the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjDbJQKDXCY

The Arts Are Enough of a Gamble Without Casinos

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When you do a S.W.O.T. analysis for your organization (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats), Opportunities and Threats were where you listed external situations that could help or hinder you.

When I worked at an arts center in southern New Jersey, one of the biggest threats was Atlantic City. While it might take you hours to get there in summer time traffic, Atlantic City was 45 miles away and therefore fell into the customary 50 mile exclusion zone that prevented performers from appearing within a certain time period before or after their event date. It frustrated the artistic director to no end because we would frequently be outbid and excluded by casinos in Atlantic City.

This is one of those situations where it is too simplistic to claim that arts organizations that can’t support themselves or serve their community ought to close. No one in the local community was going to Atlantic City to see these performers. There was sufficient community interest in seeing them, it was just that the organization was prevented from offering the shows which makes it difficult to generate revenue.

That is why I have been watching an effort by performing arts presenters in upstate NY to prevent the same thing from happening to them. Last October, a coalition of a dozen venues received “assurances from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration that potential private casinos in New York will be required to partner with local arts organizations rather than compete with them.”

Earlier this month, the coalition, Upstate Theaters for a Fair Game, came to an agreement with 10 of the 17 casino license applicants.

“While we were not able to reach agreement with a number (of casino applicants), the agreements we have reached are significant because they declare clearly the size and scope of casino entertainment plans, they have joint booking agreements that will guarantee access for the casinos and for Fair Game groups to touring performers, they support the Fair Game Fund for those same facilities and establish arts granting programs for smaller organizations in every region,” said Philip Morris, the CEO of Proctor’s in Schenectady and the chairman of Fair Game. “Finally, should the plans the casinos propose be significantly changed, each applicant has agreed to mitigate those impacts with additional support.”

According to another article, the state mandated that some sort of agreement be made. The agreements provide some funding for members of the performing arts coalition, keeping a fair bit of the money in the community.

Under the agreements, casinos will share gambling revenue with the coalition. Amounts will vary by casino and region. Of the distributed gambling revenue, 85 percent will remain in the region where the casino is located, with 15 percent going to the Fair Game coalition. Of the 85 percent that remains in our region, 70 percent will be split by the Bardavon and coalition member Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, on the Woodstock site in Sullivan County. Bethel Woods and the Bardavon will distribute the remaining 15 percent to local arts organizations.

But agreements haven’t been made with everyone, some like the Mohegan Sun have publicly stated they will refuse to do so.

As some members of the coalition say, the situation is still evolving. This situation will be a good case study for what to do if faced with casinos or some similar competitive threat in your area.

I Gave Away My Right To Vote

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A couple weeks ago, I encouraged others to take away my right to vote.

Why? Because I am an ex-officio director on a board by dint of my position and during a recent review of the board’s by laws, I discovered they did not specify that my position was non-voting.

In a recent repost of one of her blog entries, Ellis Carter clears up some common misunderstandings about ex-officio officers, one of which is that the term means they don’t have voting rights.

There is often a misconception that ex officio board members lack voting rights. The term “ex-officio” has nothing to do with voting rights. Ex-officio directors can be voting or non-voting; therefore, it’s important to clarify in the bylaws whether ex officio board members have voting rights.

No election or appointment is required. Also, it can be very confusing to make a position “ex-officio” and subject the ex-officio director position to term limits. Ex officio directors are not generally subject to term limits because the director position is tied to the office. What happens if the term ends before the director leaves the office the position is tied to? The better practice is to avoid term limits for ex-officio directors all together.

Other than the fact the original intent has always been that the person in my position not have a vote, one of the prime reasons I asked to have the by-laws changed was to remove any concerns about a conflict of interest that might exist. This particular board’s sole existence is as an independent partner in the presenting season of the performing arts center I run. Among the things they vote to approve are fairly significant transfers of funds in support of that partnership.

While I have never attempted to vote and my presence has never been used to establish a quorum, there is always the possibility my position technically having a vote might be used as a tie-breaker in a contentious situation.

On the other side of the coin, there may be decisions the board makes that neither I nor the university will want to be entangled in. Closing an admittedly small opening to claim I might have voted on the decision is a good step to take.

It occurs to me to wonder if ex-officio board members are covered by board insurance depending on whether they have voting privileges or not. Are there any lawyers reading who might know?

If Other People Can Make Money At What You Do…You Might Not Be A Non-Profit

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I almost passed by a recent post by Lucy Bernholz on Philanthropy 2173 blog titled What Are Non-Profits For?

I’m glad I didn’t because her news that health clubs were challenging the YMCA’s non-profit status based on the idea that they were competing for customers left me a little incredulous. (my emphasis)

In both cases above the challenge comes because of who the organizations serve – in the YMCA case the membership is very similar to those folks who join commercial gyms, so why does one get tax privileges over the other. The argument raised in the case against free software is that such a resource might be used by commercial enterprises – so where’s the public benefit?

The nature of these challenges focuses on who might be benefitting from the services, not whether the services themselves are a public benefit. This is ironic from a nonprofit standpoint. For decades nonprofit managers and funders have been trying to build sustainable revenue sources for nonprofit organizations so they can survive. So much so, the Red Cross recently argued that its spending practices are trade secrets! BUT, at least in the logic of the two headlines above, if the organizations might serve those who can pay (one source of sustaining revenue) then they may not be nonprofit.

The other case she refers to is a situation where the IRS denied non-profit status to an open source software company because for profit companies might use their product.

While it doesn’t apply to all non-profits, one of the basic reasons often given for why we need non-profit organizations is that they often provide necessary and useful services that other entities won’t, in part because the opportunities for profit were low to non-existent.

In my experience growing up in the 1970s, the YMCA was offering services like swimming, exercise classes, weight rooms and summer camps long before health clubs and specialized exercise clothing were even on anyone’s radar.

The idea that the YMCA is a competitor with an unfair advantage in a niche they pioneered now that businesses can make money running yoga and kettlebell classes, is a little appalling to me. Rather the fact that these challenges have gained traction in different places around the country is what appalls me.

Does that mean that a gallery can open near a museum and challenge the museum’s tax exempt status because they are a competitor in art sales?

Or that if a movie chain notices that a demographic shift in their city has created a substantial demand for foreign films, they can demand that the a venerable art house movie theater be required to pay taxes?

I can understand the skepticism about the non-profit status of organizations like Roundabout Theater, but the vast majority of non-profits haven’t been competition to other companies–until apparently societal views shifted to make what they do worth pursuing.

I wondered if anyone was hearing similar rumblings in other lines of business.

Info You Can Use: Who Owns An Artist’s Booking Data?

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A very interesting question regarding the relationship between an agent and artist was recently broached on the Musical America blog. An agent who has an artist leaving their representation for another company asks who owns the leads and contacts they have cultivated on behalf of the artist.

However, the question has come up as to whether we are obligated to give the artist all of the leads and contacts we have been pursuing on his behalf that have not been booked yet. That doesn’t seem fair. We have been working on some presenters for years, have invested a lot of time, and consider that to be our proprietary information. If we turn all of that over to his new manager, that’s just going to be a gift to the new manager who will follow up on all of our work and take the commissions.

Now you may think the agent is correct. It doesn’t seem fair that the new manager will benefit from the efforts of the company that the artist is leaving. However, lawyer Brian Taylor Goldstein answers that under the law of agency, representatives, a term which applies to people like attorneys, realtors, accountants, artist agents, etc, work for a principal party and all the work they do belongs to that principal. (my emphasis)

…there are four key concepts:

(1) An agent works for the principal and, while the agent can advise the principal, the agent must follow the instructions and directives of the principal.

(2) An agent can never put his or her own interests above that of the principal.

(3) All of the “results and proceeds” of the agent’s work on behalf of the principal belongs to the principal.

(4) Any contractual provision, written or oral, that contravenes rules (1) – (3) is null and void.

In short, when a manager represents an artist, the manager has no proprietary information. In other words, those aren’t your leads and contacts, they are the artist’s. While your leads and contacts may start out as your own, once you contact someone on behalf of an artist, the artist is legally entitled to know anyone you have spoken to on his or her behalf, including the details of such conversation. Moreover, unless there is an agreement to the contrary, the artist is also free to contact anyone directly on his own behalf.

This information was surprising to me. I knew that this relationship existed with one’s realtor, but didn’t realize it extended to artists and agents/managers as well.

Goldstein goes on to explain that the law is set up this way to protect the agent from liability for any breach by the principal. The agent isn’t liable if the artist fails to show up for a performance, for example.

(Of course, since the agent will be the first to receive an emotionally fraught phone call if the artist doesn’t show, they will bear a lot of non-legal responsibility.)

He also enumerates a number of aspects of the agent-artist relationship that people may assume are a matter of law, but are merely a result of traditional practice, and perhaps due for a change.

Talent Is Only For Artists and Athletes

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You may have seen a number of articles out in the last day or two debunking the idea popularized by Malcolm Gladwell that we need 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery. A New York Times article quoted a researcher who contributed to the results of a new study who said,

“We found that, yes, practice is important, and of course it’s absolutely necessary to achieve expertise,” said Zach Hambrick, a psychologist at Michigan State University…“But it’s not as important as many people have been saying” compared to inborn gifts.”

One thing I noticed- despite the fact the article starts out talking about a kid kicking a soccer ball and a man learning Japanese and goes on to talk about mastery in the areas of language, sports, chess as well as music, the majority of the comments reference talent versus practice in artistic pursuits. Out of the 260 comments to the article at the time of this post, only about 10-15 talk about athletes and there isn’t really any mention of achieving mastery in any other area.

Perhaps it is due to the influence of the title of the article referencing Carnegie Hall and the fact the pictures are of dancers and musicians. However, I wondered if the artistic orientation of these comments revealed an underlying belief that we only need to consider talent versus practice in relation to artistic achievement.

No one mentioned the impact of talent or practice on writing press releases, analyzing business plans/financials or installing electrical wiring. Yet no one coming straight out of a training program can automatically do any of these things masterfully. It takes time to develop a proficiency and for many, there is a level of quality beyond which they can not advance no matter how much effort they invest.

I wondered if this belief that practice and talent are important to be successful in artistic pursuits might be contributing to the idea that the arts are an elitist pursuit that only a few can participate in.

The reverse of this plagues school teachers and professors. Students and parents who might acknowledge that hard work will never allow them to be a pro-athlete will insist that an A grade or admission to a honor class be granted because a student had worked hard. Other than Lake Woebegone where all the children are above average, there exists a level beyond which some students can’t be successful academically.

So while everyone may believe they achieve academic excellence due only to hard work, the belief that you need to be blessed with innate talent to achieve artistic excellence may contribute to the idea that only an elite few can become artistic masters or have the capacity to understand art.

Of course, people are damned by the inverse assumptions: If you are not succeeding academically, you aren’t working hard enough. If you are a rich and famous artist, you must be talented.

All this occurred to me as I was reading the article so I haven’t really tested this theory with a few days of thought. What do you think?

Movie Theaters and Demand Pricing

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A few days ago, NPR’s Planet Money ran a story asking why there isn’t demand pricing for movies where you pay more for blockbusters and less for the stinkers. Among the suggestions the correspondents made were having some movies free with a two popcorn cover.

They spoke to a movie theater owner who expressed concerns about low prices signaling that a movie was bad. Not to mention he worried that people would pay for the stinker and sneak into the blockbuster.

The biggest impediment to demand based pricing, however, is the movie studios. As the reporters mention, no studio wants to invest tons of money into making and advertising a show only to have a movie theater price it at $1.

If you are not aware, something similar occurs with many of the big Broadway touring shows, especially those that are getting a percentage of the gate. Theaters have to submit proposed ticket pricing and a marketing budget for the production company’s approval.

One interesting fact that came to light was that the term “B-movie” actually refers to an early practice where movies were graded A, B, C, etc and had corresponding pricing. The practice has fallen by the wayside, but the B movie term stuck around in common parlance.

One of the problems live performances face is the ability to provide such transparency in its pricing for audiences. The price for single perform doing a solo acoustic set might be low because the cost to the theater for one person is low. On the other hand, if that single performer is Eric Clapton, the ticket price is going to be commensurately high.

But a ticket price may be low because the theater has good funding, or will take a loss to encourage people to attend or because the quality stinks. The audience member doesn’t know why prices are the way they are and there isn’t really an elegant way to communicate it, should the arts organization so desire.

As I listened to the reporters asking if movie theaters weren’t foolish not to institute demand based pricing, I wondered if we might be approaching a place where audiences would be psychologically ready for arts organizations to implement similar pricing strategies for their own events. The whole question of demand pricing has been hotly debated by arts organizations and the fact that the subject is popping up in various forms indicates the topic isn’t going away any time soon.

Will Zoning Laws Make Us Love The Arts More

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I am back from my trip to Germany. Part of my trip was devoted to helping my mother do some genealogy research. In the process, I came to a realization I think we have all have suspected- The relationship Europeans have with the arts can never be replicated in the United States. There are just too many fundamental differences in the lives we lead and the the way we interact with the arts as we develop from children to adults.

I have traveled fairly extensively in China, Japan, Mongolia, Ireland and Germany and in my view, the arts seem most present in the lives of Japanese and Germans. Though in Japan it manifests more as a pursuit of general excellence while in Germany it seems to manifest as the intentional creation of artistic work.

No matter where I went in Germany from large cities like Frankfurt and Munich, to smaller towns like Obernburg and Volkach and the university town of Heidelberg, there were dozens of notices of concerts, recitals and plays everywhere we went.

Now granted, Germany has the benefit of churches and castles as well as theaters in which these performances can take place.

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Stage in Heidelberg Castle Courtyard
Stage in Heidelberg Castle Courtyard

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stage outside Heidelberg Castle
stage outside Heidelberg Castle

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stage in courtyard of Aschaffenburg Castle
stage in courtyard of Aschaffenburg Castle

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Germany also has a “percent for art” program where a percentage of the construction project cost is set aside for a work of public art. The wife and daughter of our host in Obernburg had both had works selected for public buildings. (I apologize, I neglected to make note of the names of Marianne’s works.)

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by Marianne Knebel
by Marianne Knebel

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by Marianne Knebel
by Marianne Knebel

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Die Tore Sind Geoffnet (The Gates Are Open)by Petia Knebel
Die Tore Sind Geoffnet (The Gates Are Open)by Petia Knebel

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I did some research to see whether the German percent for art program pre-dated the United States. It does by a decade, though it is a policy rather than a matter of law. According to my research, this has produced some inconsistent results in terms of quality.  I have to admit that my first impression was that Petia had obviously copied ideas from her mother.

Questions of quality aside, what impressed me was that an effort was made to use the work of local artists. Marianne’s work is a half hour drive from her house. Petia’s is about 2-3 miles from the house as the crow flies.

And from what I understood, there is something of a infrastructure to support artists with foundries and factories setting aside space for the artists to work on these pieces.  It sounded similar to what the Kohler Company does in the U.S. Even if the quality of work and the selection process is uneven, this seems to be an environment which encourages and enables artistic expression.

It isn’t just concert notices and public art by local artists that a German sees as they go about their day. There are other reminders that aesthetics are valued. The old part of every town we visited had stone streets. In both Obernburg and Volkach, the streets had been dug up for construction and then the stones were cut and laid back down. This wasn’t just a narrow strip for a sewer pipe, it was the whole width of the street.

Obernberg street
The street only looks narrow until you have to put all the stones back

 

Germans also apparently devote a fair bit of time bringing beauty to death. We went to three cemeteries in the course of our genealogy research and they all looked like this:

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I don’t think it is a matter of Germans being better artistic human beings as it is a reflection of the fundamental differences in the activities of our daily lives. I had a bit of insight during my travels that lead to this hypothesis.

My mother’s side of the family came from Obernburg Germany and founded the town of Obernburg, NY. While in the German town, I learned that until around the 1800, it wasn’t permitted to build outside the walls. From the way other towns we visited were structured, I am guessing this was the case in many places. Even now that people are building outside old parts of town, most of the infrastructure for daily life from grocery stores, banks, churches, government buildings, restaurants, are all located in the old town centers.

These areas still have very narrow streets where the speed limit hovers around 15 mph and is better suited to walking and biking than driving. Whereas in the U.S. old buildings might be demolished to make way for a modern building, if any building has been replaced in these German towns, the new construction has conformed to the general dimensions and style of the surrounding buildings.

As a result, people’s lives are centered in these very communal places where they walk past notices about performances and speak to their neighbors about events around town. (Not to mention walking by the venues multiples times a day.)

Remember, I don’t speak German so I didn’t read any newspapers, watch television or go online to learn about local events. Every performance I became aware of was due to walking past a poster, banner or marquee. In this particular environment it was an effective method of communication.

One thing that we know about my ancestors in Obernburg, NY from letters and diary entries was that they didn’t have the opportunity to replicate these community towns that they had left. This was a little disorienting for them. Because land was parceled off in patents that had to be occupied in order to hold it, people were forced to live on their land miles from each other rather than next door.

In a moment of insight, I wondered if this basic difference between being forced to live together in Germany versus being forced to live apart in the U.S. may have been a major factor in the differences that developed in the way each country experiences and views their relationship with the arts. Can land use policy be as, if not more, important than education and direct funding when it comes to participation in the arts?

If nothing else, as far as I was concerned, walking around these picturesque towns were a great argument for the benefits of mixed used neighborhoods.

Paint Your Way To A Better You!

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Some time back I was involved in a project that put me a table with folks from the local YMCA.

I was interested to learn that at the time, the YMCA as well as other athletic facilities were trying to develop memberships by offering starter rooms,

“where people can work out under specific direction with a small group of others with whom they share some connection (gender, age, ethnicity, weight).

These rooms and others like it (i.e. aerobics studios) no longer have mirrors in them. There used to be a focus on monitoring ones form and thus the mirrors. Many people didn’t want to see how bad they looked in the mirror so out the went. There has also been a shift in focus from fitness to well-being.

Once people have been working out for awhile and refined their physique and technique, they move out under their own motivation into the familiar bigger room with the mirrors where they can monitor their form and progress.”

Back when I first wrote this entry, I was trying to think of some small group programs that might replicate the same general dynamics for the arts. Since then, I have had some fun ideas, but have been faced with the problem of finding a compelling argument for people to participate in them.

Even with a lot of public messages about exercise being good for you, gyms see interest taper off after 3 months. There aren’t similar general messages about the value of the arts (2 hours a week -just 30 minutes every other day!) that motivate people to even aspire to make a resolution to participate or create.

One Person’s Passion Is Another’s Indifference

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If things are quiet for you over the summer, it might be a good time to evaluate your interactions with donors and customers. A few years back, I brought attention to a number of interesting findings about customer interactions.

One was that

“perceived indifference by a company causes far more people to sever their relationship with a company than cost and quality issues.” and “It’s important to note here that indifference only be perceived. People cannot know other people’s motives; they can only deduce them from the actions they see. So you can care passionately and still be perceived as indifferent.”

I linked to another entry on Donor Power blog that asked the provocative question –“What are you doing to persuade your donors that you aren’t human?”

The third dealt with using industry standard language in materials for customer/donors that not only have no relevance to these groups, but can ultimately be alienating.

Ain’t Nobody Made Up Nothin

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With the 4th of July just past, I am reminded that as bad as we may things are these days, the United States as served as an exemplar other people have sought to emulate.

I use that as a really weak pretext and segue to recall a video I posted some years back of an excerpt from the documentary Detours – An Experimental Dance Collaboration.

As I posted, the documentary:

alternates between B-Boy and dance/movements that preceded and inspired them from ethnic dancing, martial arts and films. Some of the sources have been obvious, but it was intriguing to see some of the more obscure origins of some of the moves.

While B-Boy dance has always been impressive to watch, viewing this video segment has increased it in my estimation as integrating that which is best of human physical expression.

Be warned there Strong Language in Interview Section at Start and End. But I think the guy at the start says it best when he notes no one has made up a single new move, “All we are doing is manifesting shit at a different time.”

About 4 years after Detours came out, Kirby Ferguson released his excellent series, Everything’s A Remix which delves into the concept a bit deeper.

Law of Conservation of Artistic Energy

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Seven years ago, I made a blog post that included Scott Walters’ ideas about actor training, Seth Godin’s idea about “conceptual dip” and my observations that history shows us that the manifestation of the performing arts go through transitions.

As I re-read the post, I thought about Braddock, PA mayor John Fetterman quoting former Senator Alan Simpson who said it takes around seven years to effect significant change.

To my perception, in the last seven years there hasn’t really been significant change in the way arts students are educated. Nor does it appear the arts community has made much progress powering through the conceptual dip or started to transition to a new manifestation.

I think most everyone agrees the time for these things to occur is nigh. I read a whole lot, but still these changes may have escaped my notice. If the change hasn’t started, is it the case of there not being enough unity of will to make it happen?

Never A Better Time To Write To The Future You

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Seven years ago, I experienced something of a convergence of events.

Not long after I finished reading Peter Drucker’s Managing Oneself in which he says,

“Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations,”

.

I heard about a service that will deliver notes to your future self.

I didn’t use it at the time, but now that I am seven years wiser, I can see a lot more value in Drucker’s suggestion.

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