Avoid the Artistic Purity Test

So I'm having a conversation with a colleague.

We were having the sort of nerdy conversation arts administrators have.  Fundraising strategies, ideas for building arts infrastructure, etc.

Then she did something that stunned me.

She did one of those "dancer stretches".  She basically balanced on one leg and pulled the other one to near her ear.

Did I mention this woman is in her 50's?

It reminded me that this woman, who had served on various Boards, ran numerous arts organizations and would appear to be a prototypical arts administrator had within her the spirit and skills of an artist.

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I've talked before how all too often in the arts we draw completely artificial and often harmful lines between "artists" and "administrators".

We treat these two factions like they are the classic Tom and Jerry cartoon characters, natural adversaries trapped in a situation where they need to fight it out for control.

Then a lady balances on one leg and reminds us that often our distinctions between artists and admins are complete BS.

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It's like we have this purity test in our field where artists have to see the world a certain way to be "authentic" and arts administrators have to see the world in nothing but numbers and spreadsheets because that's what they do.

It's ridiculous.

And I truly believe that this faulty, antiquated idea that the art happens "over here" while the administration happens "over there" threatens our field as much as foundation endowments drying up or not having enough young people in the audience.

The art you choose to present, the way you market it, the Board you build to support it, the way you fundraise for etc . . . they ARE NOT SEPARATE DECISIONS!  They are one decision and if they don't live in harmony with each other then trouble is pretty much inevitable

 

Comments

[Christina]

Thank you for articulating this so well.

I often feel we categorize our arts organizations the same way we've categorized the brain. Artists on the right. Administrators on the left.

But the reality in our brains is that those two hemispheres talk to each other all the time -- and actually the more conversation that goes on between them, the better the artist (and presumably, the better the administrator if my theory holds).

Did anyone see that music brain documentary where they mapped the brains of some pretty amazing musicians? I only saw a small portion of it, but it was when they told Sting that he had very well-travelled routes between the two sides of his brain and the researcher said that this is often what they see in the brains of advanced artists.

So maybe that's how we grow the organization's brain. More conversations between art and adminstrator. Less separation.