Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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Art and Vocation

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I always like to discover organizations that find a way to offer opportunities for people to realize artistic and “practical” pursuits.

In Providence, RI is The Steel Yard which “offers arts and technical training programs designed to increase opportunities for cultural and artistic expression, career-oriented training, and small business incubation.” So you can go there to pursue welding certification, learn how to weld for around the house chores or explore a new art form. (They also offer ceramics, blacksmithing and foundry casting.)

They also offer lectures, studio space, youth training partnerships and a locker in residence program where you can get access to their shop without being associated with any classes.

Sounds pretty cool. This is the one time I regret not being a visual artist cause they have an executive director position open. Sounds like an intriguing opportunity.

Another similar program is at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. They have an arts and industry program where artists take up residency at the Kohler Company which manufactures plumbing supplies.

This may sound strange, but if you think about it, the company’s products require them to work in ceramics, iron and brass foundries and work with enamel. They put their equipment and materials at your disposal 24 hours a day. Only 4 people are usually in residence at any one time so accessibility to the facilities is more limited than at the Steel Yard. But everything is free to those chosen for the program, including housing, round trip transportation, materials and technical assistance. Plus you get a weekly honorarium.

The most amusing part is that many of these pieces make it back to the washrooms at the arts center. According to the arts center website, there tends to be an invasion of the opposite gender’s washroom to view these works.

Explore the washrooms yourself. It is pretty cool stuff.

Perhaps I Need Not Have Worried

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A week or so ago I wondered if a radio ad rep was sabotaging his career at his corporate owned station by spending so much time working with me. I actually emailed him to that effect expressing my appreciation as well as my concern that he not lose his job. He wrote back telling me not to worry.

Today he came to meet with me for a 3rd time in 3 weeks. He has spent close to 6 hours just talking with me now. I feel a little better about his job security for two reasons- 1- He talked money today so he was no longer enshrouded by the aura of unconcerned benevolence and 2- He brought in a sheet from a Post-It self stick easel pad filled with ideas from a brainstorm session.

From the brain storm session I can assume that his company as a stronger customer-service focus than I thought. Ultimately, I think it worked for him. He suggested that I invest twice as much with them this year as last which means I will have to do less print advertising. I was going to anyway, but now it is a necessity since it will eat a big chunk of my marketing budget.

I felt uneasy about this but because of the relationship I have developed with him, I didn’t mind telling him that. However, because I was comfortable telling him that I was uneasy, I felt even more confident that this would be money wisely invested. As the objective part of my brain analyzed this reaction from the subjective part, I realized I was learning a lesson in just how powerful good customer service can be.

Later I got an email from one of my partners saying a group we are presenting in March wanted to know if their CDs could be printed in Hawaii rather than paying the cost to ship them. I called my guy at the radio station, (he is also a local musician so he knows a bit about the publishing side too), and within a fifteen minutes had an answer for me plus an to pass on to the group from a distributor to be their Pacific Rim distributor.

Yeah, I know it is called networking and good customer service, it is probably run of the mill everywhere in the business world. But having worked for non-profits that don’t have a lot of cash to toss around, I have rarely been on the receiving end so I will cherish it while I am getting it.

Meeting from Afar

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Alright! With Andrew Taylor’s Artful Manager blog in reruns this week, I get to talk about a technological gizmo I noticed. (I just hate it when I find an article and he already blogged on it. I mean, then I have to find something else interesting to write about that day! The pressure!! Guess that is the price of living 4-5 hours behind him.)

Anyhow, while reading over at Salon.com, I came across a story about a company that provides people with the ability to discuss and organize projects on the web.

The software is called Basecamp created by a company called 37 Signals. The software is web based and hosted so it doesn’t matter what platform or versions of software you have (other than up to date browser software). You can use Basecamp to organize everything from weddings to building skyscrapers.

The software provides a secure central site for people to plan and discuss projects. Everyone can be aware of due dates, to do lists and contact lists. They can share and get feedback on the progress they have made and start fitting things together.

So what does this have to do with the arts? Well if you are starting discussions on an opera, ballet or play, your directors and designers may be working in places hundreds of miles from each other and in turn may be thousands of miles from the theatre the production will take place at. With this service, designs and concepts can be shared at great distances enabling progress even though one person may be going to bed when the sun is rising in the window of another.

Designers may actually be able to take on more commissions because they don’t necessarily have to travel to oversee some stages of development when digital photos will suffice. And when they do have to travel, they can be providing input on the next couple far-flung projects with which they are involved.

Travel and housing expenses will be lower for all involved because designers need not move about so much and be present at the theatre for so long a time as they have in the past.

The cost of this service is very reasonable, spanning from $12 to $99 a month. Given that the $99 rate is for 100 projects, I imagine a theatre would find that they could coordinate their entire season of 12-15 shows for a very reasonable rate. The first 30 days are free which takes a little bit of the risk away. Actually, you can set up one project for not cost at all so an organization could conceivably use it to complete an entire production as a test.

Actually, as I look back at the Basecamp website, I notice there is a link to suggested uses. They actually list theatre applications. Among their suggestions are using it for auditions storing headshots, resumes and audio files. I hadn’t thought of that! A director could actually provide guidelines for casting to someone at a theatre, have them weed out those who didn’t meet the criteria and then upload video recordings of the promising auditions for him/her to review from hundreds of miles away.

Granted, a poor quality recording could cheat many a good actor of a chance at fame if not chosen far a call back. Certainly, a camera would blunt subtle skill and charisma that is clearly apparent in person. The casting director would have to be really insistent that they really thought an actor should be called back if the show director wants to pass him/her by. But again, if the auditions are Wednesday and the call backs are on Saturday, that is time and money saved.

I would really be interested to see if arts organizations start using this sort of service. I am sure there are applications of its use no one has conceived of yet.

Ignorance or Idiocy?

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Last Friday I had a stomach wrenching experience. I walked into the lobby of my theatre and saw what appeared to be a long scrape along the entire bottom of the 104 foot long Jean Charlot fresco mural adorning the wall.

The college maintenance crew had been painting the wall below the mural. In our work order to them, we specifically said not to paint the ledge below the mural for fear of damaging it. I initially thought the guy had used a wire brush or a sander on the mural.

However, when the tech director came out to inspect the mural, he pointed to the roll of 2 inch wide masking tape sitting nearby. The width of the tape matched the width of the damage. It appears the guy put masking tape directly on to the mural and unfortunately it wasn’t the low adhesive tape 3M puts out for the purpose of edging while painting. It was the regular sticky stuff.

As a result, when he removed the tape it took the paint and chunks of plaster off the wall.

I put in calls to his supervisors to halt further operations and notified the folks up the chain from me. The worst part was notifying the state office of public art which commissioned the work and has been responsible for restorations over the last 30 years.

Actually, I assume things will get more uncomfortable when they come out to survey the damage.

There were some questions that came to mind as a result of this incident. Was this guy a careless idiot or was he ignorant of the import of his actions?

My first impulse was careless idiot. Even if the mural had been painted on a cinderblock wall with plain old interior paint, chances are the tape he used was still going to remove the paint. The damage wouldn’t have been as bad, but he would still be defacing the work.

Also, when you start to remove the tape and chunks of the wall are sticking to it, why don’t you stop and reconsider what you are doing?

I honestly don’t have an answer for the second question, but the first I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt a little. When you are working in an institutional setting, there is more of a focus on the quantity of work you can complete in a day rather than the quality and precision of your work. If you aren’t familiar with the the fragile properties of fresco, you don’t know not to use the same tape you use everywhere else. Everywhere else, you remove the tape and a few flecks of paint come off, but the job looks decent enough and the scuff marks are no longer visible so it is a good job.

I also can’t help thinking this may be a result of the lack of arts in our schools. When faced with a work of art this size with detailed coloring and stylized figures, it is tough to equate it with a cinder block wall of institutional white. One should recognize that there are qualities about it that suggest approaching it with more care than usual.

I have a hard time believing that even a person who has not had formal arts classes hasn’t been enculturated enough to pick up on these cues, but perhaps I am mistaking my subjective world view as an objective reality.

Would more exposure to the arts in school prevented this from happening? I don’t really know the guy who was painting well enough to know. He may not have had classes in school, but there are strong cultural elements here on the islands that he could have been exposed to growing up that could give him a more intutive sense of beauty than a school could ever hope to.

He just might have just been mindlessly doing what he does every day of the week in building after building not considering that this instance was quite different.

I know this is getting into the whole “what is art” debate, but anyone have any thoughts?