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Money May Make The World Go Round, But Education Drives Participation

February 12, 2018

by:

Joe Patti

In a recent “Taking Note”, National Endowment for the Arts’ Director of Research & Analysis, Sunil Iyengar mentioned that in the coming year the NEA will commission some monographs exploring the role of taste and preferences in arts participation.

He later points out a study conducted in Spain that touches on this very notion. With the obvious disclaimer that the cultural norms of Spain differ from that of the U.S., I wanted to point out a couple interesting observations the Spanish researchers made.

They categorized study participants as either “absolute” or “recoverable” non-attendees. The absolute non-attendees were those who were “impermeable to cultural policy” and would not attend for any reason whatsoever. Recoverable non-attendees were those who had not attended recently but shared characteristics with people who did. Among the “recoverable” are people who might have had children and will become increasingly open to participating as their kids got older.

The researchers categorized willingness to attend across cultural events, visits to historic/cultural sites or attend cinema.

In all three cases, education works independently of income, in positively affecting attendance. Even the effect of income on arts participation is shown to be “more significant” for people at the higher versus lower education levels.

[…]

The researchers conclude that as education rises, interest in arts attendance grows dramatically. For example, changing a respondent’s education level from “primary education”-only to “higher education” would cut his or her likelihood of being an “absolute non-attendee” by 50 percentage points—for all three arts activities.

Again acknowledging that Spain and the US are different situations, I was pretty astonished to see a 50% reduction absolute non-attendance closely associated with education level. In the conclusions, the researchers suggest cultural policy should be more closely integrated with education policy with an eye to the way technology changes expectations and mode of content delivery.

What I also found interesting was that income level doesn’t seem to have the same impact on attendance that education does for arts events and cultural site visits. Cinema is more price sensitive.

At the same time, the category of “recoverable non-attendee” (that is, a person who just feasibly might have attended an arts event) remains inflexible when income levels are raised, for both cultural-place visits and live performing arts attendance. The authors thus remark on the “clear polarization” among Spaniards when it comes to either high demand or absolute non-interest in these activities.

The way I read this was that people with high levels of education are more likely to attend regardless of income level. Whereas people of low education level don’t take on the characteristics shared by “recoverable” attendees as their income level rises. The first section I quoted above appears to say people with high levels of education become more likely to attend frequently as income goes up, but people with high levels of education and low income will have a tendency to attend at some point.

I scrutinized the original research report (which is in English) for a plain statement either supporting or refuting my reading of this, but I didn’t find a statement that clarified the matter for me.

What I was ultimately hoping to find was something that showed preference (or lack thereof) shaped by education was a greater barrier to participation than price. This would resonate with recent research results from a number of sources that suggest price isn’t as large a barrier as has been assumed.

A caveat to my caveats: While I continue to assert the differences between Spain and the U.S., the Spanish researchers themselves say their findings match that of U.S. researchers so don’t read my disclaimers as a diminishing the validity of the Spanish research on U.S. behavior. I am just making it clear that I am not ignoring the distinction.

In the three activities, a very large group of absolute non-attendees is observed that it will be difficult to interest in cultural activities, especially in live performances and sites of cultural interest. This result is very general and similar to that obtained by Ateca Amestoy and Prieto Rodríguez (2013) for the United States.

Art(ist) Education, Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, Pricing, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas, Working In The Arts

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Creativity From The Land Of Ice and Snow

February 7, 2018

by:

Joe Patti

Via Marginal Revolution comes a study about the high levels of creativity in Iceland where:

….1 in 10 adults in the country have published a book, why playing in a band is considered a rite of passage, and why nearly everyone knows how to knit and sew…

“You have many people who don’t realize just how creative they are. I haven’t met a single family there that doesn’t have someone in a creative occupation such as the arts, innovative and technological sciences, writing, and new forms of creativity that technology has made possible like gaming and virtual reality,” Kerr says.

Icelanders credit their culture and education system and resist the more common explanation that the environment shapes them. That said, Barbara Kerr who was conducting the study cited,

The long, dark hours of winter lead residents to spend long periods of time indoors working together and the long summer days with little darkness lead to little sleep and uninterrupted periods of creation.

“I think of that as a perfect formula for creativity,” Kerr says. “Artists often have long periods of productivity followed by down phases of collaborative critique, editing, and reflection.”

I found this idea of a creative cycle somewhat intriguing. I am curious to know if Icelanders complain of creative blocks less frequently than other cultures due to this semi-forced period of inactivity. More specifically, do the cycle of the seasons make lack of productivity more personally and socially acceptable so people don’t feel pressured to produce.

The article also mentions that schools are focused around a process of hands-on problem solving and imaginative play rather than testing. There is a greater tolerance of behavior that deviates from the norm among children, at least as compared to the United States where children might be pressed to conform to a greater degree.

The article also notes that there are a lot of opportunities for creative expression in Iceland’s cities.

Reykjavik, the major city, abounds with makerspaces where creative people can work together, coffee shops, art galleries, and musical venues. And Icelandic cities have a good deal of public art, including people employed by the government as muralists, and many who have won government funding to support their art.

Not to diminish what is going on in Iceland, I am pleased to hear about the creative vitality of the country, I wonder how much of these findings are projected expectations. Basically, haven’t the people of Iceland found a system that works for the people of Iceland?

If we did a similar study in the United States, would there be claims of greater creativity in warmer climes like Florida and Los Angeles thanks to Disney, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Or would we find greater creativity in the northern areas thanks to activity in Seattle, Portland and Broadway or the cultural traditions of Minnesota and Vermont?

If we looked at Germany we could probably generate similar claims for various reasons. Different countries have their own dynamics borne of their history, geography, etc that manifest in interesting ways, strong by some measures and deficient in others.

Don’t get me wrong, the story about Iceland’s situation makes me a little envious. Maybe there is something intrinsically inspiring about Iceland. Led Zeppelin apparently wrote “Immigrant Song” after visiting the country.

There are absolutely elements of Iceland culture and society I think we need to strive for. There are just a lot of conclusions and statements made in the story that appear to lack sufficient support of data and careful observation to draw and any lines between cause and effect. I can’t write a post about responsibly reading and interpreting research and then engage in blind adoration two weeks later.

Again, that said, even if it is an idealized representation of Icelandic creative life, it is an ideal we probably all want to strive toward. (Creativity as a cultural value and practice, not necessarily the long dark nights.) Absent Iceland, we would probably be talking about an Icelandic situation as a goal.

creativity, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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But Will A Framed Canvas Fit Through The Book Return Slot?

February 6, 2018

by:

Joe Patti

Thanks to a partnership between the Akron Art Museum and the Akron-Summit County Public Library, not only can you get a book to place on the nightstand beside your bed, you can also get a painting to hang over your bed.

According to a recent article, the museum is creating the Akron Art Library in the Akron-Summit County Public Library Main Library. Patrons can view the art and then use their library card to borrow a work for four weeks and renew it up to five times if no one else places a request for it.

“We want to show we can trust the public with works of art,” said Art Museum Director of Education Alison Caplan. “We want people to have that moment of ‘are you sure we can take this out?'”

Even so, the fine for not returning a borrowed piece is $500 and late fees run 50 cents per day, she said.

All the art available to borrow — paintings, drawings, photos and other two-dimensional work — is created by professional Northeast Ohio artists, many of whom have been featured at the museum.

“We tried to highlight artists that came from Akron and the region and have gone on to do great things,” Caplan said. “It’s a really good mix.”

If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it might be because four years ago I wrote about how Oberlin College has been lending out priceless works by Dali, Picasso, Chagall, etc to their students since the 1940s.

Oberlin says they haven’t had anything damaged or stolen in all that time so the risk of allowing people to take art works home with them might not be as great as you might imagine. The museum’s focus on circulating works by regional artists can help cultivate an awareness and appreciation that there are well regarded creative people perusing produce at the supermarket and laughing too loudly behind them in the movie theater.

Not to mention the Art Library program reinforces the idea that your home is an appropriate place for art that appears in a museum and that access to such work is within your reach.

I wonder if they have/will start a children’s section so kids can follow the example of their parents and check out something to hang on their walls as well.

Art(ist) Education, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, creativity, New Initiatives, State of the Arts

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Artists Are The Only Asset Found In Every Community

February 5, 2018

by:

Joe Patti

The video of ArtPlace America’s CEO Jamie Bennett’s keynote at an Invest Health convening came across my feed recently. What I found valuable in his speech was that he laid out an argument for the value of the arts that didn’t pivot to economic statistics.

Around the 6:50 mark he starts to talk about the factors that influence those who move into a community in making the decision to stay: social offerings; openness to new ideas and people; and aesthetics. He says arts and culture bring all those things and helps people feel rooted in a community.

His definition of art and culture is inline with that expanded definition embraced by everyone from the National Endowment for the Arts and respondents to the recent Culture Track survey. It is the parks and food trucks as well as the opera houses.

He talks about arts and culture as a facilitator of social cohesion citing the observations of drumming circles and informal arts by an anthropologist working at the Field Museum in Chicago. Bennett said that the anthropologist found that the act of “…art making, doing and experiencing art together, acts as a master identity.”

He goes on to say that this was based on observations of immigrants and first generation Americans living in Chicago who participated in drumming circles. As each performed drumming particular to their own cultural background, the group bonded. Bennett says this observation is important because it potentially illustrates that arts and culture is a pathway for integrating society that doesn’t involve assimilation–“I don’t have to become more like you to become more closely bonded.”

The a-ha moment for me came around 9:15 when Bennett mentions that artists are the only asset that exists in any community. Not every community has a waterfront to develop, transportation infrastructure or an anchor institution (i.e. higher ed, medical) around which to build industry. You can count on those who practice and participate in the arts being in your community. With some investment, those people/groups can form the basis around which community cohesion can be cultivated.

He talks about the process of Creative Placemaking as something that has to be particular to each community -“resident centric, locally informed and holistic.” You can’t copy what works somewhere else and expect it to work in your community.

While the local arts community is well-placed to respond to the needs of their community, the challenge to them is to shift their perspective to focus on creating solutions for challenges in their geographic community rather than thinking about responding to their community of donors, subscribers and peer institutions.

As an example, he cites the efforts of Springboard for the Arts in helping to mobilize 600 artists to help mitigate the negative impacts of two years of light rail construction on residents and businesses in St. Paul, MN.

Bennett says the success of this project ran contrary to many of the assumptions and expectations people have. He points out the solution came from artists who already lived in the community. No one was brought in from outside to help save the neighborhood. All the positive associations about arts and culture the project inspired didn’t require the construction of an arts center, nor was it dependent on a physical arts oriented facility or cultural district. The focus was on the human beings involved.

His comment that really intrigued me and I hope is true, is that many of the businesses in the area who benefited from the 150 events the 600 artists created have started diverting promotional money to commissioning work because they saw the events brought in more business than advertising did.

Bennett’s thought process might not immediately satisfy a government official or policy maker that wants the promise of quantifiable results. However, there is something compelling in the argument that the arts and culture community is an already present asset that can be mobilized to effect. If they are soliciting support employing this rationale it will be incumbent upon many arts and cultural entities to start focusing on addressing the challenges in their region rather than doing more what they have done in the past.