I was talking to a friend yesterday and he happened to mention how great a mutual acquaintance in the arts was at her job. It just so happened that I had been talking to her earlier that day and she had mentioned that her parents didn’t think her profession was suitable for a proper woman and that she should come home and get serious about her life.

This is a woman in arts administration whose steady paycheck is accompanied by pretty good medical, dental and vision. She doesn’t get paid much, but she manages to sock some away. Much to my envy, she easily impresses people with her personality and professional skills within 5 minutes of meeting them.

I could understand from previous conversations why her parents might think acting was improper for a woman. The computer and business skills she has developed would be respected in most industries so I can only think that they don’t quite understand what she does.

The threshold for my male friend’s parents was a little lower. They grudgingly stopped nagging him when he started getting a steady salary and health insurance.

I had a friend in grad school from Canada who characterized the prevailing attitude in her country (or at least British Columbia) as theatre was fine for other people’s kids, but not your own. People who would think nothing of driving three hours one way, she said, would give her father a pitying look when they learned she was studying theatre.

It is easy to claim that the lack of arts education in schools is creating generations who don’t have any appreciation for the craft. While this may be true, I have seen and spoken to people whose parents spent hundreds of dollars each year to send their kids to acting and dance classes and then rounded up family and friends at $15-$20 each to watch them perform.

Heck, some of best rentals come from these schools. Most renters come in for a day or two, these guys rent for an entire week to allow for construction and rehearsal time.

Then I have seen these kids enter college and tell me their parents want them to quit their major or stop hanging out with the drama kids. I wonder at the dichotomy. Undoubtably in some cases it is due to the child leaving the discipline of home and having their grades crash. In many cases it appears to be a situation of “When I became a man I put childish things behind me.” What was fine to support for years suddenly becomes frivolous.

Now I will be the first to admit that it is a damn tough path in life to follow. Heck, I have tried to dim the stars in the eyes of some in the hope of allowing them to see the rough road before them a little more clearly.

Just like teaching, it is a life of low pay, long hours and respect in low proportion to expectations and effort expended. People often try to dissuade friends and family from becoming teachers for this reason.

But they never say teaching isn’t proper. Teachers are useful, after all.

We have all had that conversation. An internal dialogue at the very least. What are we really contributing to the world? When it all hits the fan, will my words/movement/painting help restore and set things aright? Personally, I take consolation in the fact I can pickle, can, bake bread from scratch, make candles and spin flax into thread. And I am not something totally useless like a lawyer.

I have no easy insight for solutions to offer here. I just wanted to introduce the topic in the hopes of spurring a conversation. Quite a few of my posts and news stories you read deal with arts funding being cut for organizations and schools. We talk about getting funding restored, attracting grants and audiences and doing a better job for less.

We often don’t talk about, at least that I have seen, is dealing with the self-doubt we experience or the subtle/overt messages we get from family and friends about our choices. It is one thing to watch a sitcom with the periennially out of work actor who moves from sleeping on each of his friends’ couches in turn and another to be living it.

Starving artists can’t afford career counseling from anyone who doesn’t think they are a bum or isn’t starving themselves. They either get told to find a new line of work and start paying rent or to hang in there, they will make it one day because their fellow starving artist wants that hope for themselves.

I have never heard of the service being offered, but have any artists who have done well for themselves (besides college professors) turned around and given career advice to the starving ones? If they have or ever do, did anyone listen to the advice? We have all heard the story of the one person who was rejected by 99 arbiters of taste only to earn the belief of the 100th and become fabulously rich. Nevermind this was the 1 case in 100,000 and the 99 arbiters were wise to reject the other 99,999. Slim hope tells us we are the 100,000th case.

In any case. Thoughts? Ideas? Addresses of starving artist support groups? This is the place to express your mind.

You occasionally will read a story about organizations going through Founder’s Syndrome where the continued involvement of an original founder or group of founders of an organization are inhibiting growth and evolution.

What I had never heard about, until fairly recently, was a case* where the decision to form a non-profit corporation resulted in the formation of a board that acted the shrink the organization rather than work to expand it. I was wondering if anyone has come across similar instances.

What I chalk it up to is poor board recruitment. Even though the board is apparently comprised of many successful business people with excellent social connections, I have wondered if they weren’t properly briefed as to their role as board members.

The back story is this. A guy I have been acquainted with for a number of years had a little performance troupe that was modestly successful with the infusion of a lot of love and energy and money, but he wasn’t reaping what he sowed. When last I saw him, things were growing to a point where he needed more help and funding to continue and he eventually made the decision to incorporate as a not-for profit.

To some extent, his decision was a good one. He had no desire to micromanage and turned over many responsibilities to his board. The board’s connections brought greater recognition and funding to the organization. He is still working his butt off, but at least the burden he bears is somewhat less.

What is rather perplexing though is that the board is urging him to roll back his activities to approximately the place it was before they were recruited. My friend seems pretty much resigned to the fact that it was his decision to subsume his will to that of the board. Indeed, it seems the board is of the same general mind and there is little chance an opposing faction sharing his sentiments will emerge. The good news, I suppose, is that there is great stability and little rancor.

What also seems strange is that the board seems to be acting unusually conservative so early in its organizational life cycle.

I almost wonder if the board members fully comprehend the whole funding concept for non-profits. From what I can tell, they seem rather risk averse to the necessity of looking to unpredictable sources like grants and donations to make up for earned income shortfalls. I think they may proprose limiting activities as a way of limiting deficits.

My friend talks about how young and energetic the group is in administrative, advocacy and event planning roles. I wonder if the group suffers from not having older heads who have experienced fiscially tight times on non-profit boards. From what I can tell, the organization hasn’t experienced any significant losses at the end of their fiscial years.

I think my friend is caught in a bit of a quandry. He has essentially given up control of a brand he established to other people who had no hand in creating it. He is frustrated that the organization hasn’t grown to reach as many people as much as he dreamt it would when he decided to incorporate. However, I think he finding it easier sleeping at night now that someone else is worrying about finances and his own savings are no longer vulnerable.

I was curious to know if anyone had come across a similar situation or had some advice on how to productively effect change. Patience may see the board grow more comfortable or transition favorably as terms expire but there is no guarantee a passive approach will be successful.

*Some non-critical details have been changed to obscure identities.