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Kiss Your Local Librarian

October 9, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

So this week I learned that it is really a good idea to create a good relationship with your local librarians. Google may provide you with a lot of information, but it still ain’t got nothing on the librarians when it comes to pulling the information together and providing it in a relevant form.

We are doing The Miracle Worker this year and I inherited the start of an attempt at a “One Book, One Community” type program. When I reached out to the working group that had been formed prior to my arrival, the public library responded by asking, “Was A Book Selected?”

I responded by saying I assumed it would either be the script or Helen Keller’s autobiography. I wasn’t aware of too many other texts. Certainly, there were other texts but there didn’t seem to be many that were age appropriate for younger children.

Au contraire, both the campus and public libraries metaphorically responded, providing me with a large list of books, videos and other materials with summaries notes on age appropriateness and how they fulfilled state and Common Core standards.

Over half this media didn’t appear on a Google or Amazon search and certainly those results didn’t include anything about recommended age groups and state standards.

I have every library card I have ever owned since I was a kid so I am no stranger to the stacks, but I have to say that I have apparently been underestimating the powers of my libraries.

I look at this list and I begin to think about all the effort putting together educational packets for shows that could have been reduced by working more closely with the local library.

Don’t discount your library!

General Musings, State of the Arts

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Audience Development As Disagreement

October 8, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

In a post Seth Godin made today, he says:

The easiest way to disagree with someone

…is to assume that they are uninformed, and that once they know what you know, they will change their mind. (A marketing problem!)

For a long time that was the mode in which arts organizations operated, believing that once people were exposed to the arts, they would fall in love with them forever and ever.

I really never thought of that view as “disagreeing” with a potential audience member, but I guess in a way that is what it is.

It wasn’t until I read Godin’s post that I realized that the view people would fall in love with the arts once they were exposed is probably based on a longstanding sales philosophy that being told “No” simply meant that people didn’t have enough information.

I don’t know how many jobs I had where I was told that. I always thought it was a pile of baloney because there are plenty of reasons for not wanting to buy something other than lack of information. I suspect it was just a semi-manipulative way of making the sales person blame themselves for not making the sale.

Godin has a couple more levels of difficulty for disagreeing with someone. However, he says (my emphasis)

The hardest way to disagree with someone is to come to understand that they see the world differently than we do, to acknowledge that they have a different worldview, something baked in long before they ever encountered this situation. (Another marketing problem, the biggest one).

There actually are countless uninformed people. There are certainly craven zealots. And yes, in fact, we usually hear what we want to hear, or hear what the TV tells us, or hear what we expect, instead of hearing what was said, and the intent behind it. Odds are, though, that we will make the change we seek by embracing the hard work of telling stories that resonate, as opposed to dismissing the other who appears not to get it.

So while Godin’s answer does sort of embrace the idea that the problem is a lack of information, that deficit isn’t solved by delivering a spiel*. Rather the most effective approach will likely be a long term communication process based on an understanding of the other person–the audience and community in the case of most arts organizations.

(*Mahagonny-Songspiel might work, but I doubt it.)

Advocacy, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR

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Oh, You Want Us To Teach It, Too?

October 7, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Last month on Americans for the Arts’ Arts Blog, Elizabeth Laskowski, wrote about how she welcomed standardized testing for the arts because it was making her school finally take her seriously.

My first thought was that she was basically embracing the philosophy of the kid who always acts up in class–even attention in a negative context is better than no attention.

Because students will now be tested in the arts area, Laskowski will now receive regular evaluations of her teaching, attending her class will no longer be a “carrot and stick” privilege afforded well-behaved children, students will get up to 135-180 minutes a week with her instead of 30 and the grades in her class will actually count.

It probably goes without saying that I think it shouldn’t take the threat of testing to create a situation where a music teacher is thrilled that:

“We will no longer be simply a prep time for general education teachers, or a way for the kids to blow off a little steam before they get back to work. The arts will be full fledged, real, and valuable subjects, worthy of time, money, and respect.”

Elizabeth Laskowski’s post illustrated for me that it isn’t enough to just advocate for arts in the schools, requiring that they be treated seriously and taught is also apparently necessary.

Parents may have to scrutinize claims of arts classes being offered. It appears all classes are not created equal and one should not assume that three years of music class provides roughly equivalent instruction hours as three years of French.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, creativity, State of the Arts

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Little Points of Pride

October 2, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

I didn’t know what to write about today. I have a bunch of articles bookmarked, but I haven’t read enough of any of of them to do them justice. I have a bunch of stories I want to draw instructive points from, but they involve people who work with me or rent from me so if I talk about them at all, it will be after some time has past.

What I have decided to do is talk about something I am not responsible for but I feel a great deal of investment and pride in. Talking about what other arts people are doing well seems like a good topic for a Wednesday.

Last week the gallery in my building opened a show by the artist Jimi Jones, and I have really been pleased with the whole experience.

The artist was great at the opening, taking people around to talk about the pieces, asking them questions about what different elements made them think about, telling them that their feedback would help guide his future work. I appreciated that he introduced the concept of interactivity between the artist and the viewer since many of the attendees were students.

He also showed up early the next day to talk to another class before running off to his next show. I got a chance to speak with him and ask him questions about his work and he was just as gracious and engaging as he had been the night before.

I got a little bit of an ego boost the evening of the opening when the directors of the local museum commented that they had tried to get the very show our gallery was presenting at a museum they previously worked at but met a lot of resistance from the board and staff.

You have to admit, there is always a little thrill with even the illusion that you are a bit more progressive than someone else.

What I also appreciated was that despite the reputation that young people today aren’t really engaged with the arts as much as they are with their phones, there were a large number of students who walked around with the artist for the better part of 90 minutes while he moved to and fro between the different works. I think he tired out before they did.

One of the visual arts faculty has brought at least five different classes into the gallery that I have seen and gotten her students engaged in a conversation about the art.

There is furniture made from a lightning struck tree in the lobby just outside the gallery and I often sit there and read during lunch. The best conversation I have heard the classes in the gallery have so far included the students’ disbelief that the artist is in his mid-50s rather than a 20 year old based on the contemporary subject matter and feel of the works.

None of this may seem like a big deal to some of you, but I have never worked in an arts center with an active gallery and so many interesting pieces of permanently installed visual art. We don’t have a large gallery, but its presence contributes to the vibrancy of the whole building.

As I said, other than unlocking the door and making sure audiences to our shows could see the sign directing them upstairs to the gallery, I haven’t been involved with any of the decisions that lead to the presence of this work. But I do take a lot of pride and ownership in it being here.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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