Interesting public art leadership training program

Today's Post has a story, "Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser hit the road for 50-state 'Arts in Crisis' tour," about the Kennedy Center arts organization promotion and development initiative. From the sidebar, "A sense of direction: Michael Kaiser's advice during his 'Arts in Crisis' tour":

In his book "The Art of the Turnaround," and on his 50-state "Arts in Crisis" tour, Michael M. Kaiser espouses some guidelines for economic recovery and stability in the arts. Among them:

-- Do not reduce programming. Trim behind the scenes on discretionary items, such as staff travel.

-- Plan ahead for four or five years, and then let the public know what's on the drawing board so it will be clear that the organization plans to be around.
-- Planning should be done by both large and small groups.
-- Develop collaborations with local artistic groups, museums and schools.
-- Find and train entrepreneurial managers.
-- Develop new streams of revenue.
-- Make the board members ambassadors for the work being presented, as well as fundraisers.

I do say in response that what is really needed is arts and culture plans for communities, including a focus on arts production and development. This is something that Arts USA is doing in the US (Institute for Community Development and the Arts), and there are many such initiatives in Canada (cultural planning and cultural mapping toolkits).

In the paper/presentation I gave last summer to a dramaturgs organization ("Art, culture districts, and revitalization"), I wrote:

1. Create your own discipline-specific cultural plan

Many communities have cultural plans. Usually these are broad documents covering many issues including facilities, funding, disciplines, education, and community building. Some cities may have sub-plans within their cultural plan for facilities or public art. Seattle and Chicago are discussing the creation of framework plans to support the music industry within their communities. But it appears that no city has developed what we might call a “theater plan.” Not New York City, where Broadway is central to the city’s identity and to tourism and where the theater industry is a key component of the region’s creative industry. Not Chicago, which is known for the most thriving theater scene between the coasts, ranging from neighborhood and repertory productions to “national” plays and musicals at Downtown theaters.

The plans must be multifaceted, and address the needs of artists and cultural organizations, not just the economic or community building concerns of various constituencies. And, the plans must focus on matters concerning cultural production equally with the promotion of cultural consumption, arts-oriented tourism, etc.

Write a theater plan for your community.

2. Come up with a sustainable facilities plan for your community

Part of your theater plan should include a sub-plan on facilities. Communities should develop holistic facilities plans that maximize use and revenues, and reduce overall costs, especially the demand for rent, so that arts organizations can achieve a relatively sustainable cost basis.

Washington, DC and nearby Arlington County in Virginia have two very different methods for supporting arts organizations. Arlington prefers to support a wide variety of organizations, and chooses to develop government-owned or controlled space in ways that support cultural initiatives in addition to other objectives. The County provides space (at low or no cost), access to a shared costume shop, and the use of a costume library to many theater organizations. The county has developed some facilities, including the Shirlington Library, which includes the Signature Theatre Company, and the Thomas Jefferson Middle School, which contains a large auditorium supporting a resident theater company and other productions, in ways that most communities do not. Arlington calls this approach their “Arts Incubator.”[3]

DC provides money to organizations for the acquisition or rehabilitation of facilities, but not in the context of a broader cultural plan focused on consensus priorities. In the past few years, many of the organizations that have received this support, including the Source Theater and the Lincoln Theater, have either ceased operations or have been pushed to the brink of financial solvency. In the broader cultural program, certain arts anchors have been pushed out of the city in favor of the baseball stadium, while other organizations, depending on their relationship with the Executive or Legislative Branches of Government, enjoy preferential earmarks. These grants are made without regard to a vetted set of priorities or through an open and competitive grant process.

3. Create anchoring institutions

Artists, advocates, and organizations need to build their capacity to plan, organize, develop, and execute. Markusen and Johnson[4] found that the arts best contribute to regional economic and social development when there are “dedicated centers where artists can learn, network, get and give feedback, exhibit, perform, and share space and equipment. “

In their paper on creative infrastructure[5], the Creative City Network of Canada outlines six types of creative space, and four of the six: multi-use hubs; incubators; multi-sector convergence projects; and production habitats; are anchors, a set of either cross-disciplinary or discipline-specific facilities and programs that support the development of art, artists, partnerships, networking, connections, and cultural production.

Building the capacity of artists and organizations through these types of investment supports local economic and community building objectives, and improves the likelihood of success for all types of cultural initiatives.

There are many examples of these types of facilities across North America (just not in DC) that serve as examples that you can consider for your own communities.

4. Networking

In addition to artistic centers and anchors—support and capacity development entities—arts organizations need to engage in some rethinking about how to work together to develop the arts community as a component of the community’s cultural infrastructure and as a force to represent artists and artist organizational interests in land use, capital investment, public finance, cultural, tourism, education, and other local policy matters.

Another matter to consider is whether or not organizations can share and maximize the value of audiences. What best practice examples of arts marketing and membership can be adapted to your community, both for individual organizations as well as to build the success and identity of the theater community as a whole?

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I doubt that creating that kind of program is part of the new Ilead program in Chattanooga (see "Program fuses business, creative concepts" from the Chattanooga Times Free Press), but you gotta start somewhere. From the article:

Bridge Consulting International, Hunter Museum of American Art and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s College of Business have teamed up to create iLead, a two-day series that will fuse art and business concepts.

“The curriculum is really to encourage critical thinking and awaken and develop leadership skills,” said Mike Owens, assistant dean of graduate programs at UTC. “And through the use of art objects, I think that’s an interesting way to do it. I’ve never seen anything done that way.”

Several UTC faculty members will serve as guest speakers during the series, and Owens said the business school will advertise the opportunity to its graduate and undergraduate alumni.

The curriculum was developed by Bridge Consulting, and the Hunter Museum will host the series.