The Arts Org and The Pro-Am Can Be Friends

Arts Orange County Executive Director, Richard Stein, recently linked to a study his organization commissioned about how art organizations were acknowledging the rise of Professional-Amateurs (Pro-Ams). The study, Professional-Amateur Engagement: A Balancing Act in Arts Organizations, studies the literature and practices addressing people’s desire to become more involved with the arts, but not necessarily as a career path.

If you aren’t really familiar with Pro-Am concept, this is a good place to get up to speed on the topic. Especially the prickly topic of how to define “amateurs” without marginalizing or offending someone. The paper also provides some case studies of organizations who have created programs to involve their community.

Pacific Symphony placed 20 pianos around town and organized a number of on and off-line activities surrounding them. They also had a program called ““OC Can You Play With Us” which partnered community musicians with symphony musicians to rehearse and perform a concert performance with the Pacific Symphony. What I liked about this program was that Pacific Symphony used it to also call attention to the existence of other community orchestras as resources rather than keeping all the attention on their own organization.

The paper also mentions the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and STREB, both of which offer workshops and classes to help people hone the skills and knowledge for their own activities, be it a performance company or their own personal practice. RSC has also opened up their stage to 10 amateur regional companies to mount their own productions on the RSC stage.

The one program that really tickled me was Armand Hammer Museum of Art‘s Visitors Dream-In.

“the Hammer invited “dreamers” to make a $25 campsite reservation to “camp out in the Hammer courtyard and collect any dreams that occur during their stay.”67 The campers were treated to experimental dreaming workshops, bedtime stories and a morning waking concert; on the next day dreams were reenacted by Gawdafful Theater.”

I just thought this sounded like a cool idea and according to their blog, they had about 170 register to participate.

Is It The Mastery Of The Medium Or The Idea That Makes Good Art

Daniel Grant had a piece on the Huffington Post about a new trend in visual arts M.F.A. programs where training is tailored to students’ particular interests. He references the programs at New York’s School of Visual Arts which has a traditional program and a multi-disciplinary degree in arts practice.

“The traditional MFA is media-specific; you are a painter, you are a sculptor, you are a printmaker, and you study those processes intensely,” said David Ross, the chairman of the Art Practice MFA program. “The Art Practice program is for artists working in more hybrid areas, incorporating a number of different media or selecting the particularly medium based on what they are trying to accomplish at a given time. Many schools now see artists choosing to define themselves post-conceptually, in which the idea comes first and the medium comes second, and these artists are more difficult for the traditional program to accommodate.”

There seems to be similar programs at the Maryland Institute College of Art and at the Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University which has an MFA in Visual Art and Public Life. Grant describes the students in the Herron School program:

“Their focus is not so much creating something that can be exhibited in a gallery or even in a public square as it is developing projects in association with various business, community, cultural or governmental partners.”

I haven’t quite figured out what I think about these developments. My first thought was to wonder if perhaps these programs might be an outgrowth of the Pro-Am movement. If not directly related to or a result of Pro-Am, perhaps these programs are an expression of a general sentiment of people who are not complete experts but who are looking for a way to better express themselves.

Obviously, people who are seeking training at master’s level have a desire to be a little closer to the professional end of the scale. With a primary focus on the expression of an idea over mastery of a medium, there is much they have in common with the Pro-Am view of art creation and expression.

What I find encouraging is that these artists are looking to develop partnerships with different entities in the community. Their approach to art may result in people viewing it as more accessible and less intimidating. It looks like there is more inclusiveness in the process these artists use. It also appears as if these art students are being trained in business and social skills that can help with their careers upon graduation.

What contributes to my uncertainty is a concern that having a secondary focus on the medium will mean the students will lack the mastery to create truly innovative works. I know that the value of an art work is often more than just the adept use of materials. On the other hand, people wouldn’t value a Stradivarius if making a violin was just a matter of assembling wood well. Experimentation and understanding of how different materials interact when you combine or treat them in different ways can be a crucial to one’s development as an artist.

I am not suggesting artists be relegated to the solitary confinement of their studios. I don’t believe that is ultimately constructive for artists and their work. I also don’t think that the jack of all trades, master of none approach is valuable to artists in the long run.

I am thinking of a recent blog post by Tom Loughlin suggesting that BFA degree programs in Musical Theatre should be eliminated. In the post he points out that in the current state of the industry, those trying to train themselves to be a triple threat- someone who can act, sing and dance – will be beaten out by people trained to be specialists in those areas.

I am not saying that the generalist artist won’t create interesting works of artistic merit. I read the quote by Kenneth Krachek, director of the community arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art where he says, “all the programs are supportive of each other, but they each have their own momentum and solar system.” Other MFA fine art students at the school “don’t interact much with us,” and that didn’t sound like an ideal dynamic to be cultivating.

I wondered if it might not serve people in both the traditional and new degree tracks if they were encouraged as students to follow a process where the generalist is mentored by the specialist of a specific discipline in the creation of a project. If this was continued when the students graduated and went out to work professionally this collaborative arrangement could be beneficial to both. The specialist would bring experience and knowledge of working in a particular medium. The generalist would bring a the experience of working with community entities and creating work for them rather solely for a gallery.

Pro-Am Divide

Today I harken back to a time when the discussion of Pro-Ams as a term had yet to really take off, but people had started to get a sense something was going on in this respect that was worth talking about. In this entry, I make a tongue in cheek assertion that mismanaging arts organizations is best left to the professionals.