Leadership

Must Remember: Innovative, Not Creative

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I have been over at Artsjournal.com reading the entries in the Arts Education discussion. The entry that gave me most pause was one by Eric Booth today where he notes,

“people in business have asked me if we can just stop using the word “art” because they stop listening. They then confessed they are not really interested in the word “creativity” either–they kind of glaze over–they like the word “innovation” because it is the product that they really care about, getting new business-ready products as a competitive advantage.”

A Rose By Any Other Name Is Just As Fluffy
This is not something you want to hear if these same business people are the ones involved in the philanthropy decisions for companies. Booth makes some interesting points answering comments in that entry which expound on this idea. He says business people feel creativity is a “fog-sculpting word that fluffy artsy people use.” They prefer innovation because that is the result they seek. They see creativity as being on the path to innovation and they will tolerate the use of the word as long as we can trace the path for them.

I couldn’t help thinking that innovation is easily as nebulous a word and only derives its power from the fact they repeat it back and forth to each other. Recall these are the people who were tossing “synergy” around as a desired outcome a few years ago.

Direct and Indirect Arts Encounters
As I was reading the multiple entries on arts education, I was reminded of a locally produced show on the public radio station I heard early last month on the topic of technology use in the classroom. Now there are many options for including art in a student’s experience from a direct experience with a performance or having the students perform/create themselves. On the other end of the spectrum is including art in instruction of other subjects. Making those hand shaped turkeys while teaching about the first Thanksgivings, for example.

Focus on the Objectives, Not the Tools
What I saw as applicable from the radio show about using technology in the classroom is on the latter end of the spectrum. The people on the show talked about the importance of focusing on the learning and not the device. One of the guests who is involved with a local foundation said that they wouldn’t provide grant money for a project seeking to use cell phones in the classroom because the focus was on the technology rather than the learning. The example he gave of what they would be interested in supporting was a program that focused on how students learn and how to develop critical thinking skills. If the teachers decided to have students collect and record information as part of this process and realized that one of the best methods available would be by having students utilize cellphones since they always had them handy as they go through their day, the foundation would be interested in funding this sort of endeavor.

Given that I am in the business of offering live performances, my first vote is always going to be for live interactive experiences with art. Watching or participating in some sort of activity is my first choice when it comes to arts education for any demographic or age group. You will never achieve any real aptitude either in understanding or execution if your interactions with art is slipped in between the pages of some other subject. You may develop appreciation, comfort and familiarity which these days is not to be discounted. But I want people able to enjoy interactions with art.

Wherein I Contradict What I Just Said
Now all that being said, I am going to do a little reversal. What seemed to be the core of the discussion regarding technology in the classroom was the idea that you shouldn’t define what you need to be doing in the context of popular technologies, rather how the technology can facilitate what you really need to be doing. That is my basic point when I suggest people not jump on adopting every new technology that becomes vogue. I think there may be some validity in taking this approach when advocating for arts education.

Arts Prescriptions
Right now a lot of the arts education is promoted along the philosophy of “You must have Mozart or you brain will atrophy.” This is the case made for in utero exposure as well as arguing music will raise math and science grades. The prescriptive approach to arts advocacy doesn’t really benefit us in the long run. Saying that you have to integrate cellphones into classroom instruction is much the same approach. You don’t need to use cellphones, you need to teach critical thinking and the cellphones are a tool. You can use the arts to teach critical thinking. Heck, the arts don’t exist in a vacuum today and they certainly didn’t in the past. The subject can be used to teach literature, history, politics, etc,. I did well in history, but I would have been all the more interested had I learned that someone commissioned a work to tweak the nose of an enemy or rival.

I will admit I haven’t had a lot of experience seeing it implemented, but whenever I hear people talk about integrated curriculum whether it includes arts or not, it sounds so clunky and unwieldy. The way it is described sounds very prescriptive and evokes an image of alternative subject matter inserted in a textbook on handwritten sheets of looseleaf because an administrator decided that this was the new way it was going to be taught. I am sure there are very successful programs out there on which to model an approach but I am entirely unaware of them.

Everyone Is Happier With Shoes That Fit Well
What the arts have to do is convince educators and decision makers who aren’t familiar with our disciplines that their instruction does not necessarily have to be defined by a need to shoehorn the arts in but rather that the arts can be a tool that integrates smoothly into achieving their objectives.

Of course, if you see an opening to champion direct arts instruction and after school activities, push, push, push for that!

Rare Relaxing Residencies for Arts and Culture Managers

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Always on the look out for programs that benefit arts managers, I came across the following listing offering residencies to arts and cultural managers at a location in Key West. For some reason, they don’t promote the opportunity on their website. You need a subscription to reach the website on which it was listed. But such is my desire to make people aware of the opportunity, I am reproducing selected portions of the listing here. If you are interested, you can contact them and they can regale you with all the benefits of their facility.

Artists and Managers in Their Natural Environment!
I am aware of numerous organizations that provide residency to artists but this is the first I have encountered that offers them to leaders and administrators. Since you would theoretically go alone, it wouldn’t be a staff retreat where you engage in group strategizing or team building activities. It might be beneficial for administrators to mix with creative artists for whom they would have no responsibility. There would be no pressure to rein in, budget money for or contract the services of the creative artists. It is not often arts managers have an extended time in an arts environment free of these considerations. It might actually help managers and artists develop healthier attitudes toward each other. From my experiences in performing arts and from what I have read on blogs and articles, I don’t think there is an arts discipline where the relationships aren’t at least guarded.

Anyhow, here is the listing. Hopefully one of my intrepid readers or their friends will have the opportunity to engage in a constructive stay.

Mull Management in Mango Tree House

IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A CREATIVE ISLAND ADVENTURE The Studios of Key West, an emerging creative community at America’s Southernmost Point, seeks cultural managers and innovative arts administrators for 1 to 2 week residencies in our Mango Tree House. This residency requires no work, no problem solving, no meetings or presentations, and no reporting of any kind. Directors, program officers, and Alliance of Artists Communities’ leaders: Tell us your dates, plan your travel, and think Zen.

A SHORT TROPICAL RETREAT FOR ARTS ADMINISTRATORS As a companion to our longer-term Artist-in-Residence program, this short-term stay in Key West’s Old Town can include project research, program planning, networking and collaborating; or it can simply be a retreat-like hermitage on a warm and libertarian island, away from the usual workaday environment. TSKW is currently considering the short-term residency needs of academics, cultural managers, critics, instituional officers, museum professionals, and other professional people involved in forging high, low, popular, and obscure culture. Time and space in Key West will provide new influences and fresh experiences, and an appreciation for life here in the Conch Republic, 30 leagues North of Havana, America’s Mile Marker 0, Cayo Hueso

[…]

The Studios of Key West is proud to offer a handful of 1 to 2 week residencies for America’s Cultural Managers and Arts Administrators each year. If you have time off to travel to the Southernmost Point, and are interested in a singular retreat opportunity, please contact us for details on how to proceed.

IS THIS A VACATION? Yes, but it’s also a new form of professional development, in a place that will welcome and honor your presence, at a new kind of creative community. Learn about us here www.tskw.org, then contact Eric Vaughn Holowacz Executive Director at eric@tskw.org

THE FINE PRINT Cultural managers, arts administrators, artistic directors and producers, program officers and curators who can get away from their busy roles for a week or two are welcome to express interest in the TSKW Cultural Manager Residency. Participants must be able to cover travel to and from Key West, as well as some living expenses while on the island. […]

Bullets and Hooks For The Arts!

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Amid all the press about the Obama victory last week and the extremely slim margin of votes separating Norm Coleman and Al Franken in Minnesota, you may have missed the news that Minnesotans passed a constitutional amendment to increase the sales tax 3/8 of 1% to fund the cleaning and maintenance of Minnesotan lakes, parks and wildlife areas and to fund the arts.

Arts Go Fishing And Catch Some Money
You may be wondering, as I was, how the arts and culture became a part of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. According to a couple sources, sport fishermen and hunters found a common cause with the arts. On the Pioneer Press website, Chris Niskanen writes (my emphasis)

“A small part of the general fund (about $10 million) goes toward arts funding (out of the state’s $34 billion budget), but about one-third was cut during the state’s budget crisis in 2003. The hunting and fishing community at first opposed arts being added to the amendment, but saw arts supporters had similar arguments for funding. The alliance ultimately helped the amendment pass the Legislature and, perhaps, will help it pass on Nov. 4.”


Bait Your Hook With A Powerful Lure-Arts and Culture

But the quote I really liked came from an article Artsjournal.com linked to in which columnist Jay Weiner writes,

“As it was, the pioneers of the amendment idea — the sportsmen with bullets and hooks — were wary enough of the arts being included … until they saw the political power of the statewide arts and cultural organizations.”

My first thought upon reading this was that if this is true, the Minnesota arts community should be the envy of the rest of the country. Every state should be lucky enough to have an arts community with enough political clout to help get a constitutional amendment passed. Of course, that influence didn’t magically appear, the state arts community would have been working on cultivating it over the course of years and probably decades.

If you have any ambition of trying something like this in your state, read Niskanen’s piece which addresses the arguments for and against the amendment.

You may also want to read Weiner’s article which addresses the apparently mocking suggestion that the Minnesota Vikings should have gotten on board the amendment so they could get a stadium. Weiner points out first that as fervent as sports fans in Minnesota are, they never seem to rally behind their teams politically. The other thing he mentions is that berating the arts and parks people perpetuates an environment which keeps sports fans from forming coalitions. Some interesting thoughts on the whole from a sports writer.

If The Pudding Is Really That Good, Why Don’t They Serve It?

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As corporate blogs go, I sort of like Southwest Airline’s. They do a pretty good job covering all sorts of topics from opening new facilities and showing pictures of their mechanics performing maintenance on the their aircraft to discussing the impact of hurricane’s on their operations. Of course, being Southwest they also indulge in goofy pursuits like sharing their grandmother’s banana pudding recipes.

I think the blog is pretty effective for them as a forum for communicating information about their company and answering customer questions about the choices they make.

One thing they did recently which I thought could be especially effective for arts organizations is have an entry and podcast on how to work for the company and what to expect once you apply. (podcast doesn’t have permalinks so you’ll have to find the 9/24/08 episode.) They talk about all the crazy stuff people did to get noticed but also note how long it took some of these people to get hired given that they receive hundreds of thousands of applications every year.

Arts organizations taking a page from their book could talk about what people might expect working for the organization and what the place would expect of an applicant. This could help strengthen and diversify the applicant pool. I am partially thinking back to comments Andrew Taylor made last January about how arts organizations shouldn’t discount people simply because they don’t possess skills that have an exact one to one correlation to the job description they wrote. It is great to hire true believers who have already invested their hearts in your industry but in the long run more dispassionate new blood might lead to a healthier situation.

If you don’t have the resources to maintain a running blog or podcast, it would probably still be beneficial to have a one or two recorded conversations with people talking about their experiences with the company posted in the Human Resources portion of your website. The emotion transmitted in a voice is certainly compelling than a lengthy text account of the same information.