Long time readers know that I resist the use of economic impact as a measure of value for arts and culture for many reasons. The late potter-philosopher Carter Gillies was really effective in calling attention to the myriad ways in which using inappropriate measures of value would result in meaningless data and incorrect beliefs and … Read more
Looking back at past entries, I came across a post I wrote about educator Jane Remer’s thoughts about arts in education. I had read and written this post years before I began corresponding with the late Carter Gillies about the problematic instrumental view of the arts so, as they say, it hits differently now. In … Read more
Nina Simon was recently a guest on a podcast hosted by Culture Reset. As always, I find anything she has to say increases my contemplation about the way arts organizations, including my own, operate and interact with the community. There was one part of Nina’s commentary about her career that caught my attention because it … Read more
Last week in reaction to my post about Colleen Dilenschneider’s suggestion that cultural non-profits continue their marketing efforts during the Covid-19 shutdowns with a shift in focus, Carter Gillies made a number of comments on my post warning about making the marketing all about the organization rather than outwardly focused on the needs of the … Read more
Joi Ito who serves on the boards of both the Knight Foundation and MacArthur Foundation wrote a piece for Wired on the importance of finding the right metrics for measuring non-profit effectiveness. He notes that if you use circulation as a measure, public libraries have been failing for years given that circulation has been continually … Read more
Last week Doug Borwick wrote a blog post saying it wasn’t enough to tell people that the arts have value in their lives. As I started reading his post, I agreed with this sentiment because we have long acknowledged the argument that the arts are good for you isn’t really that compelling for people. I … Read more
So 2009 was long before ArtsMidwest started their Creating Connection initiative and before I started my correspondence with Carter Gillies regarding the value of the arts, but I found a blog post that made me think the underlying philosophy behind Creating Connect was already entering the collective unconscious. Writing on a blog post by The … Read more
Four years ago, I wrote about how the government of India, in an attempt to end public defecation by 2019, was building over 1 million toilet facilities in households around the country. However, due to a general belief that it was healthier to defecate outdoors, most people receiving government constructed toilets were using them for … Read more
Friend o’ the blog, Carter Gillies recently had a piece appear in the Arts Professional UK noting some of the problems with focusing on the instrumental value of the arts. One of the issues he raises is the danger in making general claims about the value of the arts based on individual examples. One thing … Read more
I recently experienced a confluence of reminders that not all experiences with arts and culture result in positive responses people anticipated. I am not talking about works of poor quality or offensive works. Friend of the blog Carter Gillies sent me a link to a National Institute of Health case study on Stendhal syndrome where … Read more
After long correspondence (both in years and text length), I finally had an opportunity to meet with Carter Gillies over Thanksgiving weekend. On at least one occasion I dubbed Carter “potter-philosopher,” because he has studied and practiced both disciplines. Carter has been a big proponent of measuring the value of the arts on their own … Read more
It is no news flash to even casual readers of the blog that I am involved with Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection program to build public will for arts and culture. Last week, they ran a webinar just to present the basic research and program. In recent months they have been featuring two case studies where … Read more
Last week I linked to the unabridged version of Carter Gillies’ article for the Arts Professional (UK). The shorter print version has since appeared on their site. In his response in the comments section of the Arts Professional article, Carter employs some evocative imagery to support his contention that just because you can measure something … Read more
Carter Gillies shared the unabridged version of a piece he wrote for the Arts Professional UK on his website this weekend. As Carter is wont to do, he examined statements about quantifying and measuring the value of the arts made by Simon Mellor, the deputy chief executive for arts and culture at Arts Council England. … Read more
Lest you think Carter Gillies and I are lone voices arguing against the use of economic impact of arts and culture as a measure of their value to society, in March the Global Education and Skills Forum had a panel address the question “Will We Still Need The Arts & Humanities in 2030?” A member … Read more
Over the last few years, I have frequently written about the problem with using metrics as a measure of value and performance. As long as we continue to be told that use of quantitative measures are important, I am gonna keep pushing back and reminding you it ain’t the be all and end all of … Read more
I have been cautioning the non-profit arts community about citing the economic value of the arts for over a decade now. The first time was in 2007. I wrote about it a few times in the interim, but I didn’t really start to devote time and space to the idea until the last 2-3 years. … Read more
If you feel like you don’t have a clue how to run a successful non-profit and are just winging it, you probably know that you are in good company. If you are wishing there was a book someone could give you for Christmas that explained the process to you, according to a recent piece on … Read more
When I was writing my post last week about research suggesting that creativity is often a choice people make, I kept seeing citations referencing an article written by Howard Becker. So I followed up on those citations. It was actually Becker that pointed out many times creative practice involves executing repetitive tasks. In his article, … Read more
You haven’t been working in the non-profit arts and culture sector long enough or you haven’t been paying close enough attention if you haven’t heard/read someone say that an arts organization shouldn’t exist if it can’t be self supporting. If you have found yourself at a lack of response to this argument, you might read … Read more
This week Diane Ragsdale wrote a piece addressing the difficultly people have with the idea of Art for Arts Sake. She says when she conducts workshops and asks arts administration types to fill in the blank in the phrase, Art for ____________’s sake, they never say “art.” In discussions, people aren’t able to really define … Read more
Carter Gillies emailed me a question this morning relating arts with sports which set off a whole cascade of thoughts. First of all, we often talk about how arts organizations and creators need to behave in relation to the frame work of other professions and industries, does anyone ever talk about how other industries need … Read more
In the comment section of yesterday’s post, Carter Gillies warned about succumbing to the temptations of survivorship bias and only holding up a few successful cases as examples to emulate. The tales of college dropouts that became millionaires as an argument against education, for example. On the other end of the spectrum, I wonder if … Read more
Back in November Slover Linett released the results of a multi-year study on creative placemaking. The study was primarily focused on the impact that music pavilion and band shells that the Levitt Foundation has constructed or renovated across the country. In the process of discussing the results of the study, the study authors made some … Read more
Harvard Business Review had a short piece about a study that found that having a back-up plan often undermines one’s motivation to succeed. The interviewer specifically uses an example of having a back-up plan to an arts career in one her questions. (not to mention the first image you see is a dancer en pointe … Read more
I frequently write about why arguing the benefits of the arts based on their instrumental value (e.g. improves economy or test scores) is a bad approach because it depends on an absence of a substitute which is effective at accomplishing the same ends. The alternative is to talk about the intrinsic value of art, or … Read more
Since I seem to have started on a philosophical kick this week, how about we consider Richard Feynman’s “Ode To A Flower” commentary in the video below? You can also see it illustrated in an awesome Zen Pencil’s comic. Like Feynman’s friend, I remember being in my high school science class and thinking that it … Read more
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the important thoughts Carter Gillies had about the concept of the intrinsic value of the arts. In light of that, I wanted to look back at where the idea of intrinsic value of the arts all began. Well, at least for me. The first attempt to measure the … Read more
In addition to responding to comments he makes on the blog, I have had some email exchanges with artist Carter Gillies. Many times in the course of our correspondence, he will say “I think we are talking about the same thing, just in different words.” I am not always sure that we are, but I … Read more
Hat tip to Carter Gillies who spotted a wonderful congruence between the posts both I and artist Whitney Smith made yesterday. Reading Whitney’s post, it almost feels like she wrote it to provide practical illustrations for my ponderings about how the arts community views worth and entitlement. Where I end my post with a quote … Read more
I was going to hold off featuring this in the blog until a later date, but Carter Gillies comment on my recent Distract Me From My Distraction post decided me. Maria Popova recently assembled the thoughts of many luminaries on Brain Pickings, In Defense of Boredom. Years before the internet, video games, cell phones and … Read more
Wow! I didn't know that there were places forcing the use of smartphones. You'd think theaters would want to encourage…
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