Ah! Back from Vacation seeing my adorable nephew. I didn’t do much thinking about the arts at all during my visit, though I am quite convinced that my nephew’s drool patterns on my shirts are harbingers of his future genius in the visual arts.

Fortunately for me, a comment by a blog reader set me to contemplation upon my return so I am ready to write!

Indija Mahjoeddin, a randai scholar in Australia recently commented on an entry back in January on a Randai performance I had attended. I had essentially wondered if, for all the personal growth participation had accorded the students, would casting directors of Broadway and League of Regional Theatre venues see any value in that experience or would the students have been better off doing Chekhov?

Indija bemoans the fact that she has a hard time getting past the gatekeepers at theatres because randai is not avant garde enough for some, but not commercial enough for others.

In my email back to her, I basically pointed out the thorny problems with popularity. While appealing to a fringe audience doesn’t always pay the bills, there are some unsettling repercussions to having ethnic art forms become vogue.

When something becomes hot, people want to jump on the bandwagon and don’t want to spend the time to grasp the deeper significance of an art form. Instead they are satisfied with parroting the superficial aspects. Worse, there are people who sincerely wish to learn the true nature, but come in contact with instructors who are teaching the superficial elements.

I wasn’t in Hawai’i two days before I realized that Hollywood had done hula and Hawaiian culture a great disservice (I actually suspected that was the case before I arrived.)

Trying to maintain true to the cultural heritage of a group while trying to make a living wage educating the greater population about that culture has always been a narrow line to walk.

One of the strangest stories I have come across recently is an article that accuses popstar Gwen Stefani of exploiting a Japanese pop cultural trend. It is just difficult for me to see how a woman who borrows lyrics and music from Fiddler on the Roof for her songs is grossly misrepresenting a trend where Japanese girls dress in clothes from other times and cultures.

The unoriginal stealing from the unoriginal seems like a victimless crime as far as the principles are concerned (those who originated the music and styles they have appropriated might be another matter altogether.)

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has been able to successfully present cultural heritage without being, by and large, accused of exploiting that culture. Email me or comment below.

I’d also like to hear from anyone who might have some anecdotes about people who were accused of exploiting or undermining cultural elements only to later be praised as a great disseminator of the self-same material.

For instance, I have always wondered if Carl Stalling and Chuck Jones were vilified for belittling classical music by scoring Bugs Bunny cartoons with it. Today many people credit the cartoons as their first exposure to classical music and in some cases, the initiating incident in their love of the music.

My state arts council sponsored a meeting with a Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies yesterday on the topic of arts advocacy. The state arts council and the gentleman were working together on their presentation and this was the first time they had delivered it so it was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of value, but it had its high points.

Organizations were encouraged to have their board members attend the meeting, but it didn’t appear too many board members were there. I imagine the 1 pm meeting time might have been an impediment to attendance.

A person from the state discussed the process the government went through in order to fund the state arts council. Personally I prefer the Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law rather than the convoluted flow chart describing how it travels through committees, etc.

Mr. Katz pointed out that each of these stages was an opportunity to have a conversation with people about supporting the arts community. His biggest push though was to have decision makers/persons of influence, be they reporters, politicans, bankers, civic leaders, educators, tourism officials, etc., attend an event because that experience changes the whole context of discussing the arts with them.

He got into a discussion of using the value of the arts as part of the conversation with these persons of influence. Since he started talking about economic benefits, I asked him his views on the Rand report Gifts of the Muse – Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts that was recently discussed on Artsjournal.com.

His feeling was that the report didn’t go far enough in terms of suggesting how to integrate their findings into an advocacy discussion in practical terms. His feeling was that you do need to mention the economic benefits because the arts truly make contributions in that arena. But this discussion has to be balanced by the intrinsic value argument as well. It is just as important to bring recordings of kids chattering excitedly about their experiences to the table as it is to have financial spreadsheets at hand.

One of the most interesting statistics he brought to the talk was that between 1993 and 2001, taken as a whole state arts organization funding grew faster than state government growth. The combined state arts funding grew by 6.6% while state governments grew 6.5%. Mr. Katz’s point was that folks were making some pretty good cases for arts funding.

Mr. Katz also provided some interesting insight into the workings of state governments when it came to arts funding. He really reinforced the idea that advocacy can never stop. One of the things NASAA has observed is that the state arts organizations that made the biggest gains in funding also had the biggest losses when the time came to cut back.

The mistake people made was equating the increase in funding as a sign that the state finally “got it” when it came to the arts. The legislatures on the other hand were of the mind that the arts were the last ones to get a lot of money and now it was their turn not to have money.

They also found that organized advocacy groups were more effective over the long term than individual arts organizations advocating on their own behalf. At the same time, there has to be a single advocacy point person who is rallying the efforts of the group in an effective manner presenting a well-organized united agenda.

How do you do good advocacy you ask? Well, NASAA has some good articles on their website, including a survey that helps organizations and state arts councils evaluate their advocacy activities.

In addition to reaching the opinion leaders in the community, you have to employ the community leaders on your board to flex their persuasive skills on your behalf. They might be able to talk their friends into writing a hundred thousand dollar check, but talking passionately about their involvement with your arts organization will generally have greater yields over the long term.

Every board member has to be able to advocate to friends, family, business partners, etc and answer the question “why are you spending your time working them them?” It isn’t an answer that the staff can give the board members and they will sound more convincing if they can talk specifically about why they view organization as a worthy cause rather than to simply say it is a worthy cause.

Advocacy for your work is also more compelling coming from people not directly associated with the organization. If an educator, tourism official, business owner, etc., talks about how money for the arts helps them in their jobs, it goes a long way in convincing the holders of the purse strings.

This is the essence of the best advocacy efforts according to Mr. Katz — telling decision makers how helping you will help them. It will come as no surprise that public figures welcome any opportunity to maintain their position by helping their constituencies and increasing their visibility. Everyone essentially wants to be seen as doing good. If their help will help you to empower kids, then show them how it can be done.

People want to be loved so if they care about you or if you affect someone who they care about, then chances are they want to do something to sustain that affection.

One last lesson I learned from the talk–don’t just concentrate on your allies. Work on converting perceived enemies to your cause as well. This is particularly important when working in the political arena. The reins of power can change hands. If you have set one person or one political party up as your champion, there is an implied message that the other folks that are not-champions.

Converting them will take different messages than the ones you use for your easy allies and it won’t be easy, but in the long run, it can be worth the effort.