Our assistant theatre manager put a small mirror on his desk facing the door. I have no idea where he got it or why he put it there. As a bit of a joke, I put a piece of paper printed with the classic zen koan, “What was your face before your mother and father were born.” When people came in to buy tickets or meet with us, they look into the mirror and read the paper and often decide there is some great statement being made. It makes me reluctant to admit that I was making fun of attempts to manufacture profound statements like that.

But there is also the assumption that since we are an arts organization, we will surround ourselves with profound and nuanced statements. Even though we might get called out as elitist for attributing deeper meaning than is readily apparent, we still have permission to do nonsensical things in public and have it generally acceptable. I dare say it is expected.

I worked for an organization that ran a residential arts and music summer camp. Every year the kids would come in and let their hair down–many times quite literally– and include the liberal application of colored dye. During the rest of the year they felt like they had to subsume these impulses while in school and around their families. At camp, they were part of the normal group rather than the outsider.

That sense of permission to experiment and play is probably the biggest gift the arts can give people. I am still all for keeping the arts in schools and instilling people with the discipline and discernment to practice and experience the wide variety of arts in all disciplines. But failing that, if we can get people to realize they can have permission to express themselves, then there may be a small victory in it. And right now, we gotta take those small victories when we can find them.

Getting people’s butts in the seats is a short term solution to our problems, but I suspect that the arts needs to replace “if only they would come see our show, they would love it” with “if only they would try to create and express, they would love it.” The latter option is a lot more time and resource intensive a proposition though.

Confidence to step out and express oneself even in a formal setting is going to spring from increased mastery of one’s discipline. But most people probably aren’t going to have the time to devote to that. I have to think a shorter term hands-on encounter with creating art that teaches people that they have permission to experiment is going to be an important part of arts advocacy, especially if they spread the word and get friends involved. How do you present that in a balanced way? The usual approach with a lot of arts disciplines is that you have to master the rules before you can break them. It might be challenging to encourage people to have fun experimenting while instilling an understanding that there is still more to learn.

Actually, the best example I can think of is skateboarding. There is a lot of falling involved but the very people who are occasionally snickering at you when you fall are those providing you with the incentive to improve. I am not suggesting that derision be part of the approach an arts organization takes. But there may be something to an approach that creates informal cohorts of colleagues who are learning the “tricks” together. In such situations the gap in ability between members can often serve to motivate rather than intimidate, perhaps because everyone is enjoying the experience together.

No program is going to convert a large proportion of the population. Online content creation is produced by only a small percentage of people with a much larger proportion consuming it. On the other hand, that small proportion still accounts for a lot of people and the consumers for an even larger number. It could be that knowing you could create and participate if you wanted to even if you don’t, is empowering enough a concept to remove some of the intimidation factor of attending an arts event.

Of course, the expression is most accepted when a certain context is created. I don’t know anything about visual art, but my silly little display with the mirror is accepted in the context of an arts building. People working in the arts understand how to create that context regardless of the setting by manipulating mood and environmental factors. Perhaps greater success is to be found in teaching people how to do that along with formal performance techniques. By which I mean, give them the tools to create an environment in which self expression is acceptable.

As to how to accomplish all this as a practical matter, I don’t know. It may start with offering classes but ideally will expand beyond that in order to underscore the idea that expression can happen outside of a formal setting. You may dedicate your organization to creating opportunities now but not really feel that the concept has been realized in its fullest for 10 years. And at that point, people may decide that their favorite mode of expression doesn’t include your organization.

Yeah, I am not doing the best job of selling this, huh? But really, this is what we are asking of schools when we advocate for more arts education. We want them to create fallow ground in which we can cultivate patrons. Our mission statements say this is what our purpose is too, but really we want them to stick around. The most effective arts education programs in schools schools involve students in the arts experience rather than providing an experience. Perhaps where arts organizations have gone wrong is not providing enough opportunities for people to continue to be involved once they have left school.