Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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Info You Can Use: In House Professional Development

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I came across a piece by the Bridgespan Group about creating professional development opportunities for non-profit organization staff members when you don’t have the money to send them to conferences.

Some of their suggestions included cross-training, job shadowing and stretch assignments which give people responsibilities outside their usual scope so that they can begin to develop in areas they are lacking.

One thing that caught my attention was the suggestion that employees be given the responsibility for organizing internal gatherings. In addition to having employees take turns organizing and running staff meetings, the article discusses companies where the staff arranges for speakers and other activities for in house professional development, training and team building exercises.

As I was thinking about this idea and who might the staff invite to speak or provide training, it occurred to me that this practice might be helpful in promoting greater understanding between non-profits, their boards and the community.

One of the first thoughts I had was that board members might either attend or be speakers at these events. The experience might either be very informative and help the organization move forward or reveal the gaps in understanding.

This is where things might get tricky. In the best possible situation, board members might come to an understanding of how the organization is run and the challenges it faces. Staff might learn new practices for the way forward.

On the other side, people may realize there is a huge lack of understanding. Staff may realize that a board member presenting a talk has no concept of the business model non-profits follow as they encourage the organization to embrace practices to move them toward greater profitability. How to approach them diplomatically and clarify matters may not initially be clear. However, it may provide a realization that a better board education program is needed.

The same thing can happen involving the public sphere. Staff may become aware of new trends applicable to their organization. Using these talks as an example, the non-profit staff could turn around and create/join a speakers bureau to raise awareness about their organization.

Finally, having read many excellent arts social media postings and blog entries by arts leaders, it is clear there are many very intelligent, well informed people out there in the non-profit world. If they are able to get up in front of their own company and speak objectively (rather than with a subtext about where the staff is failing to live up to expectations) about general philosophy and practice in their industry, I would bet those they work with would see them in an entirely different light.

It is so easy to get bogged down with the day to day details of running the organization, few in the organization may be aware of breadth of knowledge and passion their colleagues have. People may suddenly realize they have a unexpected source of expertise and inspiration readily available.

Of course, no matter what you do, you run the risk of he internal development/training sessions being entirely inappropriate and boring. But you can get that at a conference you pay to attend, too.

Price Higher Than You Are Prepared To Pay?

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Angry White Guy in Chicago, Don Hall, recently re-printed a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to an aspiring writer. It made me think a bit about the definition of the professional vs. amateur both in 1938 and today.

Quoth Fitzgerald: (my emphasis)

“I’ve read the story carefully and, Frances, I’m afraid the price for doing professional work is a good deal higher than you are prepared to pay at present. You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner….

[…]

The amateur, seeing how the professional having learned all that he’ll ever learn about writing can take a trivial thing such as the most superficial reactions of three uncharacterized girls and make it witty and charming — the amateur thinks he or she can do the same. But the amateur can only realize his ability to transfer his emotions to another person by some such desperate and radical expedient as tearing your first tragic love story out of your heart and putting it on pages for people to see.

That, anyhow, is the price of admission. Whether you are prepared to pay it or, whether it coincides or conflicts with your attitude on what is ‘nice’ is something for you to decide. But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the ‘works.’ You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

[…]

P.S. I might say that the writing is smooth and agreeable and some of the pages very apt and charming. You have talent — which is the equivalent of a soldier having the right physical qualifications for entering West Point.

One of my first thoughts was to wonder how Fitzgerald might react if he were alive today when it seems that the public will accept and reward the work of artists who haven’t paid the price and have really only committed to half measures. While people won’t become invested in the soldier who is only a little brave, flash can be substituted for substance.

I am sure Fitzgerald would have said the same about some people during his time and maybe we would like to think that back in his day, even the worst would possess better qualities of some of the most highly acclaimed today. We don’t know if that is true or not.

I do think that regardless of the time, we can all agree like Fitzgerald that a professional has honed his skill that she makes everything look easy because they have internalized their skill. Amateurs are left trying to replicate the outer appearance of what professionals do.

But if the audience can’t discern between the two or aren’t bothered by the difference enough not to reward the lesser quality? Does the difference matter?

I am not just referring to what is produced by experienced and inexperienced individuals. Music played over an iPod loses a lot of the qualities that can be experienced with a bigger sound system but people are willing to sacrifice quality for portability. Now we have music being intentionally recorded so it sounds good on iPod that is bereft of the subtleties that made past compositions intriguing and exciting.

Fitzgerald’s post script gave me a little chuckle. Being a little talented and charming like being in good physical condition is rare enough to be recognized. But not so rare that like those admitted to West Point, there aren’t 1000 or so others possessing the exact same qualifications.

But as we know, diligence and talent isn’t enough to set you apart, nor does the lack guarantee obscurity.

Still, Fitzgerald’s letter reminds us there is a difference even if it isn’t recognized and so a reason to remain a little humble and continue to hone our skills.

Religion vs Arts, Who Wins The Battle Of Orthodoxies!

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Since the very beginning of the blog, I have been keeping an eye on the intersection of performing arts and religious communities. A recent NY Times article seems to include quite a number of places where this occurs.

It starts by describing a warehouse space that has the

“trappings of a revitalization project, including an art gallery, a yoga studio and a business incubator, sharing the building with a coffee shop and a performance space.

But it is, in fact, a church. ”

If you look at the website of this art gallery-cum-yoga studio-cum-etc-cum church, it might take a couple glances to realize it is a church.

You can say a lot about the importance of adhering to propriety and doctrine that should be part of sacred institutional practices and how the approach of many organizations isn’t invested with appropriate due seriousness.

But you can say the same thing about churches, too.

Oh wait, I mean arts organizations. Wait, which one was I talking about? This is so confusing.

You may be surprised to learn that not only has church attendance been falling lately, but there is a churn rate of about 40% annually.

Sounds a lot like the plight of arts organizations, eh?

Not only that, there is a real bias toward entrepreneurship

“For new leaders coming out of seminary, “the cool thing is church planting,” Mr. Bird said. “The uncool thing is to go into the established church. Why that has taken over may speak to the entrepreneurialism and innovation that today’s generation represents.”

Sounds a lot like the sentiments of performing arts kids coming right out of school that want to start their own company.

Like arts organizations, there is a push to connect with the communities in different ways, some going so far as to remove references to “church” and “services” in favor of “gatherings” and “communities.” One group has seen some success with centering their spiritual communities in coffee shops and is preparing to franchise their coffee concept.

As strange as a chain of spiritual coffee houses sounds, the trend seems to be away from the huge mega-churches, many of which have been foreclosed on, toward smaller multipurpose spaces that can be turned toward earning revenue rather than being empty six days a week.

In some respects having a church be the center of community center is a return to old practices. Chartres Cathedral was a bustle of commercial activity both inside and out.

One of the prime questions that emerges for me as I read this article is how religious/spiritual groups, which I believe stand to suffer much more from embracing the trappings of popular culture and entertainment than arts organizations do, seem to be a bit more nimble than the arts community at experimenting with new approaches?

I realize that many trends reported on by the NY Times are often not as widespread as the paper makes it appear, but as a person who rents a facility to religious services, I can attest that the article isn’t many degrees different from my experience.

It amuses me to think that the arts community self imposed idealism about selling out and becoming too commercial might actually represent a more inflexible orthodoxy than those embraced by religious communities possessing texts containing rules of behavior.

Though it isn’t as if the arts community isn’t having this same conversation. This is what Creative Placemaking is really all about. What these churches are doing may provide some interesting models and even potential collaborators in the pursuit of placemaking.

Our Stories

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My mother has been doing some hardcore genealogy research for years now. There was a trip to Ireland a few years back, last Christmas we were in FDR’s Presidential Library, this Christmas I got a calendar with pictures and stories from my maternal grandfather’s side of family all over it.

But she isn’t alone, with shows like Who Do You Think You Are tracing celebrity genealogy, the increased use of DNA testing for various ends and Ancestry.com’s growing subscription rolls, show that people are increasingly interested in their heritage.

From what I have read, interest in genealogy usually increases as people enter retirement which is what a lot of baby boomers (including my mother) have started doing.

It occurs to me then that it might be meaningful to many communities if arts organizations made an effort to help them tell their stories through performance, exhibitions and participatory activities.

The one type of show that has pretty consistently done well for my theatre are those that resonate with groups that maintain a fairly strong cultural identity. Some of it has been related to ethnicity, but others have crossed ethnic lines and been more about the shared experience of place.

Even if you don’t have the capacity to produce/commission/organize a performance, I think there are plenty of opportunities for involving the community in interactive experiences.

By default, I think of those Nina Simon does at her museum, but something could easily be organized around a big 4th of July picnic where everyone sits around and tells family stories about the immigrant/frontier experience. Those stories can be collected/recorded/interpreted in some way and displayed.

My intuition tells me these activities that might even abet community building during a time where electronic devices are making people a little more insular.