ARTSblog

When I began working at Drexel University earlier this year, one of the most interesting developments that fell on my radar was hearing of College of Engineering’s Professor Youngmoo Kim’s directorship of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center:

Professor Kim’s background in music includes performing with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and Boston Symphony Orchestra coupled with his Ph.D. degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and Music (Vocal Performance Practice) from Stanford University.

The mission of the ExCITe Center focuses on harnessing the talents of professionals working in the fields of research, education, civic engagement, and entrepreneurship as interdependent ingredients for creating transformative regional development. Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Jones

I used to believe that my role, and that of my teaching colleagues, was to ensure that we gave to our art majors our full measure of knowledge, skills, and understanding. I like to think that we took every opportunity to sharpen their critical eyes and guide them to more enriched sensibilities as they aspired to be artists, art teachers, and art historians.

That was what college was all about, and I thought that if they worked hard and gave it their “all,” then we’d applaud them at commencement and wish them well (while, among ourselves, we knew full well that many, perhaps most would not “make it”).

While I don’t think I ever said it straight out, I do believe that my message to graduates at every commencement was, “We’ve done our part; now it is up to you.” I now am embarrassed to say that implicit in this thinking was the notion that we in higher education need not assume any responsibility for what happens later, after our students leave. After all, we gave 100 percent to all of our students—so we thought—who were with us for those four, five, or six years. What they did after graduation was unquestionably up to them.

The national discourse about the value (or lack of value) of higher education is making it quite clear that there is a greater (or new) expectation that we in higher education now provide a bit more—perhaps a lot more—than a “discover yourself” curriculum that results in nearly half of arts graduates dropping out of the field before the second anniversary of their commencement (see Strategic National Arts Alumni Project that has been tracking the lives and careers of arts graduates in America). This, of course, is not a desirable result; therefore, we must change the way we’re doing things or we will continue to get the same result in years to come.

What has become obvious to me is that artists are entrepreneurs too. Artists have to network, have to market themselves as well as their work, they have to take risks and have to profit from failure not unlike those we recognize as the most successful entrepreneurs. Whether a designer or painter or sculptor or even art historian and art educator, there is a benefit to being additionally prepared with the tools to manage one’s career and apply one’s creativity to ensuring success. Read the rest of this entry »

Tara Aesquivel

Thinking about the economy can be rather depressing. For many people, it can seem like a volatile god: a mysterious force that affects everything and we mere mortals have no control over its whims.

Let’s start with a basic idea of what I mean when I write about “the economy.”

Economic analysis is often an attempt to make the complex world of interconnectedness more comprehensible by quantifying everything, usually through monetization. In other words, the world is complicated so we make charts.

The “economy” is everything that happens. Economics is a (left-brained) method of analyzing everything that happens, and it’s mostly focused on measuring everything in dollars and euros.

This focus on monetization is problematic for the arts because the value of artistic products is not always calculable by how much it cost to make them or by how much people are willing to pay for them. In fact, we often strive for the opposite—to give away the arts for free and know that they are priceless.

The subversive tack accepts economics for the way it is and uses the system to our advantage. In order to do that, we need to know the basic principles and be able to speak the lingo: quantification.

The arts sector is getting much better at quantifying the value and impact of the arts. Here are three great examples:

• National Endowment for the Arts report on arts education
• The Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region
• The Cultural Data Project

I took my first economics class in graduate school. I had no idea what to expect. As it turns out, the heart of economics can be summed up in a phrase: “supply and demand.” This is something we already understand in the arts. Read the rest of this entry »

Jaclyn Johnson

Actors like to make plays. I feel most comfortable and alive in rehearsal. All artists presumably feel this way, within their own genre.

You see it in books—the artist as a mysterious neighbor locked away in his workshop for hours or living in an artist colony and never associating with the “outside world.” Perhaps this mystery served us well for a time. But that day has passed.

In my first post, I proposed that if what I see in my peers is any indication, the next generation of arts leaders will be incredibly unique and will have a few common characteristics—who we are, how we work, and why we will do it.

How will we work? Not as mysterious neighbors locked in studios and rehearsal rooms. When not busy with DIY projects, these arts entrepreneurs are engaged, active citizens.

The Nashville songwriter is the best example. Let’s call him Bill.

Bill works in his community garden, teaches a class at his church, watches the Titans down at the local bar with the guys, and hangs out at Dragon Park with his kids. And everywhere he goes Bill shares proudly about songwriting—his publisher, his process, new songs, and upcoming gigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Ebony McKinney

This post is part of a series on emerging trends and notable lessons from the field, as reported by members of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Council.

Increased creative freedom, autonomy, and flexibility have come with a more precarious work style. This is becoming the new normal, even outside of the creative realm.

Does this make artists and creatives “new economy pioneers” prototyping the workstyle of the ‘conceptual age’? If so, what advice can we offer? Can we create a roadmap for resilience?

In this post I’d like to consider how arts incubators play an important role in not only supporting innovation and risk taking, but also by cultivating our most important assets — social and human capital.

BAY AREA VIDEO COALITION (BAVC)

In 2007, Bay Area Video Coalition’s (BAVC) Producers Institute for New Media, began in San Francisco. The institute was developed because BAVC recognized that traditional cinema didn’t inspire people to take action. Also, new media was becoming more prolific and gradually more accessible. Read the rest of this entry »

Neil McKenzie

There is a lot of buzz right now about how the U.S. is in a creativity crisis. Even businesses are getting into the act as a result of the poor economy and an uncertain future.

In a recent study conducted by IBM, executives cited creativity as the key to success, “chief executives believe that — more than rigor, management discipline, integrity or even vision — successfully navigating an increasing complex world will require creativity.”

My guess is that businesses are looking for people who can think “outside the box” while being able to work in a team oriented and collaborative environment. Most organizations require or even demand conformity and the shift to developing a creative business atmosphere may not come easily.

When things are going well in a business the problem is fulfilling demand and increasing productivity to get more goods going out the door. Today the problem seems to be to grow demand in a slow economy and create new products and services for today’s global economy. The days of achieving a good bottom line through cost cutting are probably over.

I wonder if Apple has a creativity crisis? Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Sparrow

Some of the greatest growth in formal arts institutions has taken place in the last 40 years. Why?

As we look at budget growth, sustainability, and growing gaps in earned revenue vs. contributed, was something flawed in this growth?

The Rockefeller Institute report on the performing arts from 1961 identified trends that sound eerily familiar today. Decreasing audience and demand, continued struggles with aging infrastructure, need for increased revenue, and new earned income were all outlined.

Ironically many of the traditional arts organizations used as baseline examples in 1961, had guaranteed weeks and production schedules that were much less then they are today. There were no 52-week orchestras nor were there guaranteed contracts, production or administrative staffing at levels that are even close to today — even with adjustments for today’s inflation.

So why have we grown in many cases without apparent demand, but in spite of it?

The recommendations from that report advised focus in key areas, growing access and infrastructure to build appreciation and understanding and using foundations such as the Ford Foundation for growth as part of a Great Society vision for the arts. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Borrup (center) and friends

I’m writing this post on the return flight to Minneapolis from Seoul, South Korea following a whirlwind three days after speaking at an international symposium billed as: Artist, Enterprise, and Industrial Complex.

This half-day symposium was part of a larger effort by the mayor of Seoul to transform old industrial spaces into creative engines of innovation, to cross-pollinate urban regeneration, technological innovation, and the emergence of a new Korean culture.

Known as Seoul Art Space, this network of nine centers serve as catalysts to bring a growing and changing city and its emerging creative economy onto a world stage. As part of its charge, Seoul Art Space works to forge productive dialogues across sectors and constituencies–largely among people who have seen no need to converse, and who barely have a language to do so.

During the day before the symposium, I traveled with my interpreter and guide Kyuwan (pronounced, he said, like the letter Q and number one) via subway and bus across the vast city. He warned me that Koreans are always in a hurry and not to take it personally if someone pushed me on the subway. I saw the characteristic playing out at multiple levels. Read the rest of this entry »

Ian David Moss

(This three-part post is the first of a series on emerging trends and notable lessons from the field, as reported by members of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Council.)

The three enterprises discussed in Parts 1 and 2 are hardly the only examples of conservatory musicians or classically-aligned individuals shaking up the classical world with innovative ideas.

Here are a few other notable instances of classical music entrepreneurship that I’ve come across:

•    The Wordless Music Series burst on to the scene in New York five years ago, presenting a head-spinning mix of programs combining first-rate classical ensembles with esoteric indie rock bands on the same bill. Founded and curated by a former Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center staffer, Ronen Givony, Wordless Music bills have included Godspeed You! Black Emperor, composer Nico Muhly, and the United States premiere of a string orchestra piece by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. In many cases the events happen at unusual venues, such as churches, that are totally alien to the participants from the popular music realm.

•    The International Contemporary Ensemble has pioneered a remarkable hybrid structure that combines elements of performance group, presenter, and producer across multiple venues and even cities. More centralized than the grassroots chapter network of Classical Revolution, ICE is ostensibly based in Chicago and New York, but its network of ensemble members is spread out across the country. Founder Claire Chase, as well as many of the musicians, graduated from Oberlin Conservatory. Read the rest of this entry »

Ian David Moss

(This three-part post is the first of a series on emerging trends and notable lessons from the field, as reported by members of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Council.)

For Judd Greenstein, founder of New Amsterdam Records, explorations across genre aren’t just about bringing popular music into a classical context.

Greenstein and his NewAm co-directors, Sara Kirkland Snider and William Brittelle, have classical pedigree a-plenty—they’ve done time at the graduate music programs of Yale, Princeton, and CUNY—but see their work as part of a mission to launch the music that they and their colleagues write into the same stratosphere with other forms of indie music.

“One of the points of NewAm is to move around and beyond the historicism of the classical community and the self-reflection that pervades it,” Greenstein says. He points to the label’s appearance on top-10 lists and charts from multiple musical worlds (such as the NPR and New York Times Classical lists, the iTunes jazz chart, and the College Music Journal 200) as evidence of its success at positioning music that comes (at least in part) from the classical tradition as something that people who don’t think of themselves as classical lovers can enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sam Horn

I’ve talked about how having FUN and using LINKS contributes the F.L.A.I.R. that motivates investors to care on my own blog, but what comes next in F.L.A.I.R.?

A = Alliteration

Say these words.

Best Purchase.

Dirt Vacuum.

Bed, Toilet, Etc.

Kind of clunky, eh?

Now make those words alliterative. (Alliteration is when words start with the same sound.)

Best Buy.

Dirt Devil.

Bed, Bath and Beyond.

More musical and memorable, right? Read the rest of this entry »

John Abodeely

I started getting my MBA this month. Most of the individuals I know professionally have asked me why.

I’m surprised at how clear I am on why:

1.  Innovation is a product of diverse knowledge.

I figured that I’d experience greater improvement in my professional performance if I earned an education in things I know little about. Applying new and different ways of thinking, tools, and professional contacts to existing work is likely to yield huge benefits. Learning about arts education or nonprofit administration may deepen my knowledge, but it would change my work less than an MBA. Productivity experts call this “breakthrough performance.”

(Yes, I know this assumes that improvement through differences is preferable to improvement through refinement. But I believe that our field as a whole will benefit from difference more than it will from refinement. If you care to, leave comments about this distinction. It is a fascinating debate, no?)

2.  You don’t know what you don’t know. Read the rest of this entry »

Sally Gaskill

In his post, Ron Jones takes on the topic of career development for art and design students. I thought I would check in with Angela Myles Beeching, author of Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music, for her perspective on the performing arts. As she says, “It takes more than talent to succeed in music.”

Beeching, who has a DMA in cello performance, is the former director of the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory. She currently directs the Center for Music Entrepreneurship at Manhattan School of Music and maintains a thriving private consulting practice.

Q (Sally): I once heard the dean of a prominent school of music say that typical undergraduate music students do not start thinking about what they might do after graduation until the spring semester of their junior year. Then they panic. What’s your response to that scenario?

A (Angela): Part of it is a developmental process: undergrads are so busy fulfilling their degree requirements and figuring out how to become adults, that the reality of graduation does not start to get real until junior year. However, students at every stage have entrepreneurial project ideas. So, the earlier you can engage students in developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills, the easier it is for them to think about longer-term career goals and the action steps needed to fulfill their dreams. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Murr

In Tony Wagner’s book The Global Achievement Gap, he writes that “the Global Achievement Gap is the gap between what our best schools are teaching and testing versus the skills that all students will need for careers, college, and citizenship in the 21st century.”

Wagner based this book on extensive interviews not with educators, but with corporations.

Those interviews led Wagner to develop the “Seven Survival Skills…people need in order to discuss, understand, and offer leadership to solve some of the most pressing issues we face as a democracy in the 21st century”:

1.    Critical thinking and problem solving
2.    Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3.    Agility and adaptability
4.    Initiative and entrepreneurship
5.    Effective oral and written communication
6.    Accessing and analyzing information
7.    Curiosity and imagination Read the rest of this entry »

Jaime Austin

ZER01 is an arts organization based in Silicon Valley, a place renowned globally as a hub of entrepreneurship and innovation. So lately I’ve been pondering the questions: How can the arts more visibly contribute to this culture of innovation? And how can we as an arts organization better reflect the area where we are based?

One of the main projects I work on is organizing the ZER01 Biennial. The fourth iteration of the biennial will take place in September 2012. Any organization that plans a biennial should always ask the question “why another biennial?” each time they embark on another planning cycle.

Recently, biennials are a dime a dozen. There are the longstanding biennials like Venice and Sao Paulo, and then there are a growing number of new biennials that are often used as vehicles to put non art centers on the map.

In my mind, one key to a successful biennial is that it reflects the location and history of where it is based. For example, the ZER01 Biennial in San Jose is a relatively new biennial. San Jose isn’t Venice or Istanbul or Sao Paulo. It’s the capital of Silicon Valley. Being situated here has inspired me, as the curator/organizer, to experiment with models outside of the arts so that the structure of the biennial more closely reflects the modes of operation that thrive here. Read the rest of this entry »