Happy Anniversary 20UNDER40

A year ago today 20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and Arts Education celebrated the launch of its publication in the Boston area, and then three days later in New York before the publication took off on a West Coast tour. In the past year 20UNDER40 has been widely reviewed, discussed in national forums, and featured on a variety of course syllabi across the United States. As the anthology celebrates its one year anniversary, I’m curious to know—what’s your 20UNDER40 story? How have chapters in the book changed your thinking? What changes in the field have you seen as a result of the book’s release? What new conversations have been spawned by the publication, its authors, and its ideas?

It’s the Two Year Anniversary of 20UNDER40′s Call for Chapter Proposals

The original 20UNDER40 Call for Chapter Proposals

Today, June 15, 2011 marks the two year anniversary of 20UNDER40‘s historic call for chapter proposals. Two years ago, as the story goes, my good friend and computer whiz Margaret McKenna and I sat in the front room of my Somerville, MA apartment clinked our wine glasses and launched what would soon become a new movement to advance the future of the arts and arts education. After Margaret keyed in whatever mysterious code it was that launched the website, I then sent the 20UNDER40 call for chapter proposals to over 100 colleagues in the field, and likewise posted the call on at least a dozen list serves. Though we knew we had something exciting on our hands, neither Margaret, nor I, nor anyone kind enough to listen to me prattle on about this “idea I had” knew what was about to happen next.

Two years, 304 submissions, dozens of public appearances, and 1,000+ copies in print later, 20UNDER40 has become a phenomenon that is still gaining momentum.

It’s important for me to give thanks to everyone who has helped this project be what it is today. This includes all the brave young arts professionals who submitted their ideas for consideration, the wonderful authors who appear in the book, and all of the editors, supporters, marketing people, and 20UNDER40 fans out there who have cheered the project on, volunteered countless hours, donated funds, spawned deep discussion, and made the anthology a success. Thank you.

While it is important for me to express my gratitude to all of the people who have supported the project, I also want to tip my cap to all of the folks who have opposed the very idea of the anthology. I could have never known that a simple call for chapter proposals would incite so much controversy. I have always enjoyed the critical discussion where it has been conducted in a constructive manner, and I look forward to future debate. At the core of 20UNDER40 is the drive to add to field-wide discussions about the future of the arts and arts education. And while some conversations are easier to have than others, I do believe we need to talk about all of the challenges (and opportunities!) we face as a field. It is only through such healthy dialogue that our field can grow, change, and flourish in the decades to come.

A stack of 20UNDER40 historical documents lay buried deep in a closet at the project's Somerville headquarters.

As I ramble around the arts sector it always heartens me to meet people I have long admired and to hear that they have been reading 20UNDER40. As great as it is to be introduced to field leaders such as Carol Fineburg—who recently showed me a copy of 20UNDER40 on her Kindle device when I met her at a teaching artist convening in New York—I am also equally surprised at how few young arts professionals actually know about the project. While I agree that 20UNDER40 can always do more to market itself (as anyone who has ever tried to draw an audience knows, you can never do too much marketing), I feel that news of the project not reaching its target audience is less a symptom of an inadequate PR campaign, and more an exhibition of the field’s lack of connection, poor infrastructure, and spotty professional network. Overall, I still believe that the field struggles to develop and effectively disseminate literature. And while there are no lack of conferences to go to, and even no lack of journals to read, there is no central place, no one source for information the field relies on to share information, engage with ideas, and participate in generative debate. If there is one thing working on this project has taught me (and indeed, there have been many), it is that the arts sector is woefully fractured and does a poor job of educating itself as a field. In this regard we have a lot of work to do—and it’s time to start doing it.

But despite the challenges we face in the arts—we also have great opportunities in front of us, and an overwhelming supply of hope.

Though it has only been two years (and the publication has actually only been available for just over seven months), I already feel as though 20UNDER40 has made a significant impact on the arts sector. In the short time in which this project has been out in the world I have noticed a revitalization of the emerging arts leaders movement, an increasing presence of young people at our field’s conferences, an inclination towards including concepts and collaborators from outside the arts, and even new ideas (like crowdsourcing and participatory culture) entering into discussions that would have previously been restricted to traditional approaches to long standing problems. I think it is great to see these changes happening, and I am excited for the momentum that is building to help redirect our discussions and further adapt what we do in the arts to not only meet the needs of contemporary culture—but to define the very notion of what contemporary culture is.

One of the biggest questions I get when I am out on the road is “what’s next?” or “when’s the next call for submissions?” While I appreciate the enthusiasm expressed by young arts leaders eager to give voice to their ideas in subsequent editions of 20UNDER40, I still think there is a lot of mileage we can get out of the ideas already expressed in the current volume. I encourage you all to engage with those ideas, to spin them around, challenge them, and talk it up. And then when all of your talking is done—do something. Words are great, but only action will move our field forward.

Now More than Ever: Applying to the NEA is a Political Act

About two weeks ago I had the pleasure of engaging with Sarah Cunningham, the Director of Education at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), as she spoke with the students in the Arts in Education graduate program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I first met Sarah a few years ago when she was speaking at an Arts Education Partnership forum in Dallas. I didn’t expect her to remember our brief meeting over boxed lunches from back in the day (and indeed she didn’t), but I was very excited to hear that the 20UNDER40 anthology was on her radar, and that she felt the anthology was an important contribution to the dialogue on the future of the arts.

All this being said, what really struck me about Sarah’s visit to Harvard was one simple message she left with the graduate students: think of applying to the NEA as a political act.

At a time when the NEA is at risk of experiencing massive budget cuts, Sarah makes a great point. As an advocate and policy maker for the arts, and specifically for the NEA’s funding for arts education, the more applications that come rolling across her desk seeking funding for arts education, the better Sarah can make an argument that there is an actual need for federal support for such services in the US.

Applying for an NEA grant is a difficult endeavor, not without its flaws, but the process of putting in an application can be a great experience for anyone who takes their work in the arts and arts education seriously. I know from my experience working on the 20UNDER40 anthology that many people who submitted chapter proposals—whether they were accepted for publication or not—said the process of just submitting an application was incredibly rewarding in that it helped folks to really solidify their visions and find the language to express abstract ideas they’ve long held important to them.

In addition, as Sarah notes, applying to the NEA is indeed a political act. Applications received are data. They express a need for certain services, as well as a need for support of the arts across the country. Again, to connect Sarah’s expression to my own experience with 20UNDER40, the overwhelming response we had to the call for chapter proposals served as data for me to fall back on when making my case for the importance of raising the voices of young and emerging arts leaders throughout the cultural sector. Essentially, the response to the 20UNDER40 call for chapter proposals, in and of itself, yielded an important work of advocacy. Every chapter proposal served as a political act. In aggregate, each of these solitary acts combined to form what Eric Booth has referred to as a new movement in the field of the arts and arts education.

I’m grateful to Sarah Cunningham for giving this concept language. And I agree with her: applying to the NEA is indeed both a process of personal growth and a political act. However you feel about the NEA, Rocco Landesman, #SupplyDemand, the recent proposals from Obama and others to cut the agency’s funding (or eliminate the Endowment altogether), if you want to make some noise about the importance of the arts in America, then apply to the NEA. While you’re at it, apply to any number of state, local, and foundation opportunities for funding in the arts. Applications received articulate need. It’s important data for people like me, Sarah, and many other advocates of the arts and arts education to have.

And it’s good for you.

It’s good for the arts.

It’s good for all of us.

Thanks Sarah…

A Simple Request

Since the launch of its call for chapter proposals on June 15, 2009, the 20UNDER40 anthology has been a source of much needed discussion throughout the arts sector. The 20UNDER40 project exists, as it always has, to promote the thoughts and ideas of young arts and arts education professionals—a voice within the arts sector that is often pushed to the margins of our greater cultural dialogue.

In the past year and a half the 20UNDER40 project has been the focus of debates that have at times sparked strong emotions from individuals throughout the field. Unfortunately, these discussions have sometimes turned hostile—as older arts leaders have cried “ageism!” and tossed unsavory epithets at the project’s purpose, and younger arts leaders have responded in an equally unflattering manner.

While inspiring much needed discussion throughout the field, the 20UNDER40 project was never meant to be divisive, nor to be a platform for name-calling amongst colleagues who should be working towards a greater common purpose.

While negative reactions against the project have long since cooled, there has been a recent up-tick in derogatory language used on the various social media platforms where 20UNDER40 has a presence.

As editor and project director of 20UNDER40 I invite criticism of the project, as I always have. But I also request that all such criticism be thoughtful, respectful, and without hostility or venomous intent. 20UNDER40 may be a controversial concept to some—and I welcome those individuals to critique the project intelligently. Harsh language does nothing to advance the debate—and an abusive tone only alienates would-be participants to a conversation from joining in the discussion.

You may use this space, the 20UNDER40 Twitter feed, the 20UNDER40 Facebook Group Page, and the 20UNDER40 website itself to criticize the project, but harsh language with an intentionally insulting tone will no longer be tolerated.

Up to this point I have chosen not to delete any inappropriate language nor block online users from participating in discussions. However, for the sake of productive discourse, going forward I will take steps to exclude negative influences and inappropriate dialogue from all 20UNDER40 platforms.

I have faith in the field that the common decency shared by all of us who work in the arts will not necessitate any such action.

Thank you all for your cooperation.

Rocco Landesman’s #Supply Demand and Arts Education—But Not Just Any Old Arts Education

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman

In his recent blog post #SupplyDemand, NEA chairman Rocco Landesman highlights the fact that there is currently a surplus of supply in the arts, and a deficit in demand. Landesman goes on to suggest that perhaps it’s time to prune the arts sector to more realistically address diminished demand. Suffice it to say, Landesman’s remarks have sparked a sassy debate across the arts blogosphere. But while many arts professionals have railed against the NEA chairman, few have posed clear solutions to the very real problem he has brought to light.

I think it is important to mention that three chapters within the 20UNDER40 anthology specifically address this issue—and offer possible new routes for the arts sector to take. But that’s a whole other story…

What I think is significant at this juncture is the fact that one of Landesman’s primary suggestions for bolstering arts participation is increasing arts education. It baffles me that in last week’s State of the Union Address president Obama called for an investment in education, and now this week Rocco Landesman is calling for an increase in arts education—but the arts sector has been slow to move on new strategies to capitalize on the potential of arts education to address our country’s needs. [See my previous post for an arts education response to the State of the Union Address.]

In my opinion, the field of arts education is well poised to make an argument for its worth in our economy now more than it has been in decades. But I also believe that just saying “we need more arts education” is not enough. In  significant ways the field of arts education is just as ossified and out-moded as many of our professional arts organizations are said to be. Public opinion of arts education is lagging because the cliched image one has of arts education are, as 20UNDER40 author Bridget Matros notes, handprint turkeys and the cotton ball snowman. Hardly sexy.  Hardly innovative.  Hardly 21st Century. In order to make a strong argument for arts teaching and learning, arts education professionals need to re-invent their field and rebrand themselves in a manner that proves their worth.

A common banner waved by the field of arts education is that arts teaching and learning enhances student creativity—a “21^st Century Skill.”  I think this is a pretty shallow argument to make, first, because so few people have a clear definition of what “creativity” even means. Second, because—should we even come to a common definition of creativity—what clear, causal evidence is there that arts teaching and learning experiences yield increased student creativity?

Creativity theorists rarely agree on specifics, but most would generally concur that creativity can be loosely described as that which is both novel and useful. And this is an important point. Those of us in the field of arts education need to ask ourselves: what is new, and what is useful about arts teaching and learning?

Are there too many fish in the arts pond, as Landesman and Diane Ragsdale suggest? Yes. Do we need to think of alternatives to traditional arts models as Rebecca Novick suggests? Yes. Should arts organizations be downsized, merged, and even eliminated as Brian Newman suggests? Yes. And should arts organizations also consider limited lifecycle models rather than cling to ambiguous mission statements as David J. McGraw suggests? Yes, yes, yes.

But we must also take very seriously the important point made by Landesman—that the best way to increase arts participation is through increased arts education. But not just any old arts education will do.  We must be innovative in our approaches to arts teaching and learning, reassess what is being taught and learned in the arts, and pursue arts teaching and learning experiences that do indeed have utility—not just in building the arts audiences of tomorrow, but in meeting the needs for more innovative thinking that president Obama called for in his State of the Union Address.

Attending to the supply/demand crisis in the arts is imperative. Arts education experiences that are relevant to the increasingly plugged-in, globalized, and media saturated world we live in may very well be the key to this conundrum. But it will take the support of the entire arts ecosystem to advocate for the reform, implementation, and proliferation of arts teaching and learning experiences that will best serve students today, tomorrow, and in the decades to come.

Dear Arts Educators, Your Faith in “Creativity” hath Forsaken You: An Arts Education Response to the 2011 State of the Union Address

If you and your friends hung around the TV watching the 2011 State of the Union Address planning to yell “DRINK!” and knock one back every time Barack Obama said “arts,” it’s likely you went to bed sober. However, if your prompt to clink glasses was either the word “education” or “innovation,” you were probably hung-over the next day.

With all the talk of “belt tightening” across the government leading up to the 2011 State of the Union Address, I don’t think anyone in the arts sector really had high hopes of the president calling for increased funding of the NEA.

What’s curious though, is that with such a focus on innovation and education in his speech, many people in the cultural sector may have wondered why the president didn’t place an emphasis on the importance of arts teaching and learning.

Enhancing innovative (mentioned eleven times) and inventive (mentioned six times) thinking is what arts education is all about, right?

Wrong.

For the past couple of decades the field of arts education has banked on the use of the word “creativity” (only mentioned once) as its primary benefit to students. This is problematic because the word creativity is an ambiguous term that can mean both everything and nothing all at once. It is no surprise that Obama therefore called for a greater investment in the more concrete notion of innovation over creativity.

It should also be no surprise that the president did not highlight arts teaching and learning as an avenue to such innovation—after all, that’s not how arts education markets itself. More importantly though, arts education has done a poor job of proving how it can achieve the sort of innovation that Obama is calling for in this, “our generation’s Sputnik moment.”

Is this "the Sputnik moment of our generation…" really?

With so much Space Race language in Obama’s speech, it follows suit that the president has made it his priority to “prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.” In the past, when such an emphasis has been placed on STEM subjects, arts teaching and learning has suffered.

But I don’t believe history is repeating itself in quite the same way.

It would be too easy for arts education professionals to sit at home with their heads in their hands feeling further victimized, further marginalized and ultimately snubbed by Obama’s prioritizing of STEM subjects over arts education. “Here we go again…” they might say—with a defeated sigh.

Instead, I’m calling on arts educators to take responsibility for the president’s dismissal of the importance of arts teaching and learning.

In order for arts education to be taken seriously in the decades ahead, it must reinvent itself to meet the needs of students living in an increasingly more plugged-in, globalized, and media saturated world. Aside from isolated efforts to incorporate media arts into the curriculum, the popular notion of traditional arts education is, well—pretty traditional.

The recent anthology 20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21^st Century takes the first steps towards challenging these traditions. In her essay “Handprint Turkeys and the Cotton Ball Snowman: Is There Hope for an Artful America?” Boston Children’s Museum educator and program designer Bridget Matros argues that we need to provide children with less structured, more exploratory experiences with materials during early childhood to plant the first seeds of innovative thinking. Meanwhile, Indiana University learning sciences professor Kylie Peppler describes how “creative coding” can serve as the new fundamentals of student learning. Fulbright Scholar Jennifer Groff further provides us with a look at student potential through the lens of neuroscience in her discussion of how modern technologies and video games can be fused with arts education to diversify and enhance student cognition. And Bronx River Arts Center’s Rebecca Potts suggests that a fusion of the arts and the sciences (beyond the now historic notion of traditional arts-integration) to create a “fourth culture” is the key to addressing such momentous issues as global warming and climate change.

What Matros, Peppler, Groff, and Potts advocate for are new approaches to arts teaching and learning that will benefit students by equipping them with the skills and cultural acumen necessary to be more innovative and successful in the decades ahead. Without the variety of paradigm-shifting overhaul that these authors suggest, it is my belief that the field of arts education will continue to fall under the radar of Obama’s education agenda. As the 20UNDER40 authors exhibit, innovators in the field are out there, but the barriers to their innovation must be overcome.

Clearly, the 2011 State of The Union Address should stand as a wake up call to the field of arts education. Not only does arts teaching and learning need to re-brand itself to shake off its wishy-washy focus on creativity, it also needs to re-invent itself to be more novel and useful to students—and to country.

It’s So, So, Sooo Sunny in San Diego: 20UNDER40 at the San Diego Foundation

There is a widely accepted myth that summer is a relaxing time full of BBQs and lazy days at the beach.  Not so for the 20UNDER40 project.  After a hectic May, June, and July peppered with conference presentations and a rigorous editorial process, the completed manuscript of the anthology was officially shipped off to the publisher on August 11, 2010—only ten days behind schedule (not too shabby).  A few days later, after a brief appearance at the ICA in Boston, it was off to San Diego for the last leg of the unofficial 20UNDER40 pre-publication book (sans book) tour.

 

Only the basics. A room with a view in San Diego.

 

On Saturday, August 14 I checked into a hostel/hotel in San Diego.  The room I had was austere to the nth degree—just enough room for a bed and a place to hang some clothes.  I loved it.  It made me feel like a beat poet trying to make things happen sometime back in the day.

At 8:45 a.m. the next morning—a Sunday—I presented a paper on creativity at the American Psychological Association Convention with Dr. Michael Hanchett Hanson.  Amazingly, about 16 people had rolled out of bed to come to our session. Not a big turnout, but hey—it worked for us!

After breakfast with Dr. Hanson (followed by a high five and a hug good bye) I had the rest of the day to explore San Diego.  My tramp around the city was full of surprises—paramount among them a free out-doors organ concert held in a massive amphitheatre designed specifically for just such a purpose.

 

How many cities can claim they have a "civic organist?" San Diego can. The Spreckels Organ Society's amphitheater, where guests enjoy free outdoors organ concerts under colorful umbrellas.

 

Sun burnt and weary, my romp around San Diego complete, just before the sun set arts consultant Victoria Plettner-Saunders swooped me up from downtown and whisked me away to a whole other part of the city. Victoria and I had connected about six weeks prior at the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit in Baltimore.  Victoria had heard I was coming to San Diego to present at the APA conference and had asked if I would be able to extend my stay so that I could speak about the 20UNDER40 project with the Emerging Leaders of Arts and Culture Network in San Diego.  Not one to pass up an opportunity to talk about the anthology, my response was an affirmative: “why not?!”

For the longest time I had been a fan of Victoria’s writing about the issue of generational change of arts leadership, and now here I was, sitting in her little two-seater car zipping over the freeways of Southern California.  Any sense of weariness passed.  This was cool.

In no time Victoria and I arrived at her terracotta roofed home on a palm-tree-lined street.  There I met her husband David (also an arts consultant) and their cat Iris.  Unlike the box I had crashed in the night before, the Plettner-Saunders had a swish guest room waiting for me.  After putting my stuff down and getting settled, Victoria, David, and I walked to a nearby restaurant to meet Felicia Shaw, Director of Arts and Culture at the San Diego Foundation, and her family.  Now a gang of seven, we weren’t quietly having dinner—we were having a party.

The following afternoon Victoria and I headed over to the San Diego Foundation for a 20UNDER40 “Lunch and Learn” session designed to benefit the Emerging Leaders group.  Victoria was looking forward to the session because it would be the first time that a young leader had come to talk to the young leaders.  I felt privileged to have had this opportunity, and was excited to see about forty people show up for the interactive 20UNDER40 presentation. Despite the event being for young arts leaders, I was particularly happy to see that people of all ages were picking up the sandwiches and soft drinks provided by the San Diego Foundation—and taking their places at the tables set up around the room.

 

The 20UNDER40 presentation for the Emerging Arts and Culture Leaders Network at the San Diego Foundation.

 

Throughout the session I introduced the assembled crew to the 20UNDER40 project in a manner I had never done before: starting at the beginning and going all the way through to what I had learned from over a year spent advocating for young arts leaders and conceptual change in the arts sector.  I was heartened by the intergenerational dialogue that ensued. Stand out moments in the discussion included testimonials from young arts leaders suggesting the importance of “mentoring up,” especially as it concerned gleaning knowledge and expertise from younger stakeholders in order to drive an organization forward.  I also recall the push back that some more experienced arts leaders had towards the notion of providing young arts leaders with the opportunity to experiment, explore, and play at work (or, “time to waste time” as I colloquially say) in order to be more artful and creative in one’s practice.  There was then push back on this push back from a younger arts leader who suggested that at her organization every once in a while they had to take dancing breaks to spawn new thinking—and another young arts leader who suggested that by watching TV for fifteen minutes at work, her and her colleagues had to work doubly as fast and be more productive to make up for the time they intentionally lost.  All very cool stuff, and only small samples of the interesting dialogues that took place.

What I was surprised not to experience (especially with such an intergenerational group) was the original cries of ageism, bias, or exclusion that the anthology had originally been accused of.  When I discussed these ideas, the audience just sort of nodded their heads as if to say: “well—don’t some people just get upset about the darnedest things…” In no small way, I feel like over the year+ journey of the 20UNDER40 anthology, the dialogue in the arts really has changed, that there is indeed a whole new awareness (and sense of urgency) around the issue of fostering the next generation of arts leaders.

The 20UNDER40 presentation at the San Diego Foundation ran five minutes over time and could have gone on—easily—for another hour.  But alas, all good conversation must come to an end—and these folks needed to get back to work!

After a quick tour of an old military training camp repurposed as an arts space (very cool), Victoria and I hopped back into her zippy little car to debrief and continue our own conversation. I was pumped full of adrenaline (and no small amount of coffee and Diet Coke) from the discussion, my head was spinning.  Rather than hit the town, Victoria and I went back to her home where we spent the afternoon casually working together, dipping in and out of conversation. I had to pinch myself from time to time.  Here I was sitting in the home of a field leader I had admired for years, petting her cat, exchanging dialogue, trading literature references—and it all felt so natural, as if we had been friends and colleagues for years.

All in all, San Diego was great.  The Plettner-Saunders were incredible hosts, I can’t express my gratitude to them enough.  I also need to thank Felicia Shaw, Melanie, and Jessica at the San Diego Foundation, and all the great people, young and less young, who turned up to join the conversation.  What I learned from this trip is that, as far as we’ve come in our move towards promoting the next generation of arts leaders and working towards a new arts sector for the 21^st Century, there are still so many rich conversations to be had, and rich connections to be made.

Let’s have ‘em.  Let’s make ‘em.

Back in Baltimore… 20UNDER40 at the Maryland Institute College of Art

MICA graduate students wrestling with their ideas about the future of the arts and arts education.

The City of Baltimore has never been a town I thought would generate frequent flier miles for me.  Nonetheless on July 1st, just four days after I returned from the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit in Baltimore, I was back on a plane—to Baltimore—to present a session on next generation arts and arts education leadership at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). And I was glad to be back!

Baltimore is a cool little town—quirky, arty, funky—it reminds me a lot of where I went to art school in Providence, RI—just bigger. So when  Barry Schauck, president of the National Art Education Association, Head of Arts Education at Boston University, Professor of  Administration, Leadership, and Supervision at MICA, and long time Baltimorean asked me to come back down to Charm City to lead a class on leadership in arts education, I quickly said, “hell yeah!”

Barry teaches MAED 5022: Leadership in Art Education, as part of MICA’s Master of Arts Education program. In October of 2009 Barry had seen my colleagues and I lead an interactive workshop on the future of the arts and arts education at the Arts Education Partnership Forum in Cambridge, MA.  In the spring of 2010 Barry contacted me to see if I could replicate the session for his students at MICA.   I was eager to spread the word about the 20UNDER40 project and engage a new group of arts professionals in a dialogue about the future of our field, so I was happy to sign on to be one of the six guest lecturers Barry had scheduled for the summer.

I was told by Barry’s assistant Katie that I would be meeting Barry in a plain brick building next to a new modern structure that looks like an iceberg.  I relayed that information directly to the cab driver who picked me up at the airport—and that was all he needed to know to get me where I wanted to go.  Once at MICA there was the iceberg, the plain brick building—and Barry.  Sharp, honest, candid, authentic, and perfectly Baltimorean—I knew I was gonna like this guy right away.

After breakfast we hopped into Barry’s car.  A black Taurus or Mercury sort of thing.  ”A rental,” he said, that still had that new car smell.  We arrived at an old warehouse looking place and a student let us in.  The cool thing about the MICA arts education Master’s degree is that it emphasizes arts practice just as much as it does theory and pedagogy—and aside from the iceberg, a lot of the school’s buildings are restored old industrial buildings repurposed as arts spaces.  In the studio Barry and I were in we made our way over creaking wooden floor boards and through a labyrinth of arts-worn work spaces to find the block where his students were spread out, toiling away in their studios.  Each student’s work was different—found object assmeblages, boats made of tree branches, bird art by a self-described ornithophobe, massive 3-D drawings and sculptures of French bulldogs, even an experiment in intentionally killing things (vegetables, nuts, berries, acorns) and making them a medium all their own.  ”God I love art school!” I thought as I engaged each student in their studio space.  But what amplified the coolness of these art students was that each one of them was also an educator.

After touring the students’ studios Barry and I made our way back to the main MICA campus, grabbed some lunch, and then set up in his classroom.  In no time the students had arrived and, for me, it was show time.  I briefly discussed the genesis of the 20UNDER40 project before cracking the corks on two bottles of sparkling cider I had brought with me from Boston (and carried around in a borrowed cooler all morning long). I wanted to gain the students’ perspectives on the future of the arts. And so—I put on some lounge music, poured drinks, and asked them to imagine they were at an  arts education cocktail party twenty years into the future—a workshop concept I conceived with my colleagues Ann Gregg and Nancy Kleaver some years back.

Student generated ideas from the session on next generation leadership at Maryland Institute College of Art.

After our cocktail party simulation, students were asked what the difference was between the field of arts education they envisioned in the future, and the field as they know it today.  Many students had radical ideas about what the future would be like, while others envisioned a world where they would largely be doing what they are doing now.  Some of the big differences between then and now included an arts education sector that was not lacking in resources, that was more highly valued by society, and that was incorporating a broad range of new technologies (including holographs!) as well as traditional techniques in its implementation.  There was also an increased focus on spirituality and international community building amongst the future work of the students. The push and pull between new technologies and traditional techniques didn’t surprise me—it is a common tension I often hear expressed in healthy ways by arts professionals engaged in these sorts of discussions—as is the inclination to be more internationally minded in our more globally connected future.  The interest in spirituality, while not unique to this discussion, is indeed something that intrigues me.  As our world becomes more technologically oriented, as social networks move from being in the flesh to online communities, are we becoming more starved for a spiritual connection?  What does that mean—and what’s arts education got to do with it/going to do about it?  After kicking around some of these questions for a while, having identified a better future for the arts, the students were then asked what it would take to get there—a much more difficult task.

Following the workshop session with arts education students, Barry and I grabbed a bite to eat before heading over to the Kramer House for a visiting artist’s reception.  When we arrived at the Kramer House—a former local sculptor’s home turned visiting artist residence/cool hang out place—only a handful of students were at the “party.”  Before long, however, a whole crew arrived with each person bringing a new homemade dish.  I discussed the ins and outs of the 20UNDER40 project, the advent of new technologies in the arts, and other philosophical matters with a visiting illustrator from Portugal before heading into a long conversation about mentorship in the arts with Dr. Karen Lee Carroll, dean of the Center for Arts Education.  Right about when the party was at its peak, I decided it was time to make my leave.

An early morning shot of N. Lafayette Avenue in Bolton Hill, from the steps of MICA's Meyerhoff House.

I headed out into the night and walked the streets of Bolton Hill, the tranquil historic neighborhood where MICA is located.  The students I had met at the Kramer House party had suggested about two weeks worth of things to do at night in Baltimore, but instead I just knocked around the neighborhood for a while before heading back to the nearly vacant dorm where I was staying.  I was one of the only people in a massive building.  I felt like a ghost, haunting the halls of an arts school student residence—an entirely different experience from that of a week before at the AftA Half Century Summit held in a towering hotel less than two miles away.  There was no bubbly singer or big band to croon along with, but that was all right with me. I was happy to have had these more laid back and personal encounters with so many MICA students, artists, and educators. And to top it all off, it was sweetly self-indulgent for me to have the opportunity to reflect, to engage in those deeply nostalgic feelings for my own time at art school in a similarly quirky, funky, arty town that was likewise part historic, part future-focused, and all about possibility and experimenting with new ideas.

The Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit, aka: Bubbles in Baltimore

Candy and Natty Bohs at the Opening Reception of the AftA Half Century Summit.

There’s a 1920s-style, white tuxedoed, big band playing in a room full of art and candy. I’m with my good friend Andrea Sachdeva from the Cloud Foundation drinking too strong/too sweet watermelon flavored cocktails when a woman in sparkles named Zsa Zsa, or Lu Lu, or Tootsie bounces up to me and asks if I would mind coming on stage with her to blow bubbles while she sings her next song.  Sounds like a trippy dream or snippet from a John Waters film, but it’s not—it’s the Opening Reception of the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD.

Somehow women like Zsa Zsa, or Lu Lu, or Tootsie always find me in a crowd.  So when Zsa Zsa, or Lu Lu, or Tootsie pulled my hand from my pink drink, flapped her inhumanly long eye lashes and asked me to join her on stage, I wasn’t entirely surprised.  Baffled, but not surprised.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Great!” she exclaimed with an unexpected squeak followed by a series of giggles.  “But I need two men, one on each side,” she said with a sort of pout. “Do you have a friend?”

“Hold on a minute,” I said.  “I know just the guy.”

Edward Clapp and Dewey Schott blowing bubbles on stage with their new friend at the Opening Reception for the AftA Half Century Summit.

In two minutes I was back with NAMAC’s Dewey Schott—the editor of the recent publication A Closer Look 2010: Leading Creatively. When I grabbed him from across the room, Dewey was drinking a Natty Boh wearing a short sleeve shirt that showed off his tattoos.  I first met Dewey a few months back in San Francisco and have been a fan of him and his work ever since.  I knew right away—if anyone would be up to the task of blowing bubbles for Zsa Zsa, or Lu Lu, or Tootsie, Dewey would be the guy.  And so, for the next five minutes Zsa Zsa, or Lu Lu, or Tootsie gave us the run down on how best to support her during her performance (basically, as long as we didn’t blow bubbles directly into her face, anything else we wanted to do to enliven the performance was fair game). The bandmaster waved his baton, a smarmy rendition of “I Want to Be Loved By You” started to play—and we were on!

And so began the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit…

It’s events like the AftA conference that remind me just how many committed people there are to the arts in the US, how diverse our sector is—and how important it is for everybody in the field to get together now and then and have a party.  In just the first night alone I spent hours mingling with folks from all over the country, young people and more veteran arts leaders alike.  The AftA conference was like an arts Woodstock for me—everybody seemed to be there.

But the morning after the Opening Reception it was down to business.  The AftA Half Century Summit was officially underway.  The theme of the entire event was “Building a Vibrant Future for the Arts in America.”  Everything about the conference was forward thinking—especially the population of young people in attendance.  In the hallways in between sessions, or at the several social events in the evenings I high-fived arts leaders such as Ebony McKinney from the San Francisco Bay Area Emerging Arts Professionals, Marc Vogl from the Hewlett Foundation (who later received the AftA Emerging Leader Award), 20UNDER40 author Ian David Moss from Fractured Atlas, and my old friend Ebonie Pittman from the Wallace Foundation.

The Future of Leadership Panel. From left to right: Russell Willis Taylor, Edward P. Clapp, Phoebe Eng, Leslie Ito, and Andrew Taylor. Photo by Mara Walker.

I was brought down to Baltimore to moderate the “Visionary Panel” entitled “The Future of Leadership.” My co-panelists included Phoebe Eng, the founder and Creative Director of Creative Counsel; Leslie Ito, the Program Officer of the Arts for the California Community Foundation; Andrew Taylor, the Director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and; Russell Willis Taylor, the President and CEO of National Arts Strategies.

Russell was first to arrive and immediately engaged me in conversation about her recent interest in the television series Glee.  As Andrew walked in, she came up with a plan to suggest to Andrew that we had all agreed to begin the panel by singing a 1980s power ballad.  After Andrew said his hellos Russell presented the idea and the rest of us all nodded in agreement.  Andrew seemed cool with it, and for a moment, I considered this as a way to actually kick off the discussion.  The tone was set for our session—never mind moderate, I did all I could just to keep up with the wit of my co-panelists!

That being said, our conversation got down to business as soon as it started.  A big point of discussion, largely brought up by Phoebe Eng, was the idea of flattening hierarchies of arts organizations for greater impact.  Other topics of discussion included the plurality of talents and professional interests of younger arts leaders, the idea of developing arts organizations with attainable mission statements, and the little discussed topic of working with board members to instill institutional change.

I noticed lots of faces in the crowd of about 100, but there was one woman out there whom I recognized, but I wasn’t sure who she was or where I had met her.  Somewhere towards the middle of the session it occurred to me that the woman I was looking at was none other than arts consultant and emerging arts leader advocate Victoria Plettner Saunders.

Though we had spoke on the phone once before, I had never met Victoria in person.  For years, however, I had an intellectual arts researcher crush on Victoria and her work.  Her hallmark articles such as Boomers, XYs, and the Making of a Generational Shifts in Arts Management had long served as beacons of scholarly hope bobbing in a sea devoid of literature on generational change in the arts.

After the Future of Leadership session, my co-panelists and I had our final group hug and said our adieus and then I went over to speak to Victoria.  We spent the rest of the afternoon together, seeing Dewey Schott and Marc Vogl present their work in a session on “Leadership and Influence” that was moderated by AftA’s Stephanie Evans.  Throughout the session Victoria and I shared notes and whispered commentary to one another.  Afterwards, she suggested that I connect with her and the Emerging Leaders group in San Diego during my trip to the area in August.  It was very cool to connect with one of the researchers I had long looked up to in the field—not to mention be invited to meet up with her in California!

Statuary at One-Eyed Mike's in Baltimore, MD.

Following the daytime events at the AftA summit, the Emerging Leaders Council held a cocktail reception at nearby Maryland Art Place.  Again, I got to hang with Andrea Sachdeva, Marc Vogl, Ebony McKinney, and the ever-present Ian David Moss.  After the reception, Andrea and I headed over to One-Eyed Mike’s for a 20UNDER40 happy hour.  One-Eyed Mike’s is a pirate themed bar on a little cobblestone street that oddly has an affiliation with Grand Marnier—tons of Grand Marnier bottles were all over the place.  Regulars even had their own personal bottles of the stuff kept tucked away on official looking shelves.  I tried a shot neat—not bad, but I suggest that when in Rome—stick to the crab cakes.

Andrea and I were soon joined by the Wallace Foundation’s Ebonie Pittman.  A young arts leader and a dancer who has some of the same arts admin battle scars as I, Ebonie told me she just got her first article published.  I was psyched!

After the AftA night came to a close, I was in a cab and headed back to the airport the next day.  Baltimore is a wacky little town with a lot going on.  AftA couldn’t have picked a better spot for its fiftieth anniversary.  I’m glad to have met up with so many people during my brief stay, and I’m grateful to Stephanie Evans and Mara Walker for bringing me down there. Oh—and Zsa Zsa or whatever your name is… thanks for the bubbles!

Sing Your Hearts Out Young Arts Leaders

Young leaders gather for a special luncheon at the 33rd Annual Chorus America Conference in Atlanta, GA.

I want to make a few things clear: first, in no universe do I consider myself an avid sports fan.  Second, while I currently live in Massachusetts and have a more than casual affection for the six states of New England, I identify as a New Yorker—specifically a Long Islander (Strong Island in the house!) before anything else.  So, in a world where, perhaps I have sports allegiances, they likely fall with New York teams.  Nonetheless, living in the Boston area, it’s hard not to get swept up in the fanaticism pertaining to the local sports franchises.

On June 17th, the day I flew to Atlanta to participate in the 33^rd Annual Chorus America Conference, the Boston Celtics entered game seven of the NBA play-offs facing their long time rivals, the LA Lakers.  Suffice it to say, that night when I met 20UNDER40 authors Ian David Moss and Casey Lynch for drinks in a downtown Atlanta bar full of televisions broadcasting the final game of the NBA championships—I was a little distracted.

It’s weird to be in another city when you know that a few hours away, the entire town you live in is riveted to their television sets or packed into pubs, sloppily cheering on the home team.  In Atlanta, the bar I was in was largely indifferent to the game going on.  The few vocal drinkers who had an interest in the game were rooting for LA.  The waiter who was bringing us drinks, however, was a full-on Celtics fan.  He was with me.

Ian and Casey weren’t with me.  They weren’t with anybody.  At least not in the basketball sense.  Their thoughts were focused on more substantive matters.  Of course, in between peaking over their shoulders to see the score of the Celtics game, I also had substantive concerns on my mind (Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!).  In our conversations we addressed some of the themes of the 20UNDER40 publication, focusing on the concept of quality for a while—how the traditional notion of quality in the arts will change as a more, more, more mentality of consumption overtakes the sphere of arts and culture.  We also talked about money.  Casey expanded upon his experience being offered different awards, fellowships, and other honors, and how little money actually backed these honors.  Ian supported this by calling to mind instances wherein professional organizations had offered to honor particular individuals in the field, but not offered to pay for the travel and accommodation costs those people would have to shell out to receive their awards.  “What’s wrong with this sector?” we thought—as the Celtics lost their half time lead and continued to miss even the most rudimentary of field goals.

Before long Ian had the prudence to call it a night, while Casey and I dug deeper into a philosophical conversation on the state of the arts.  The Celtics got within 4 points of tying the game, as Casey and I brought our discussion of the future of the arts to a more personal level, even more philosophical than before.  Just as we finished our beers, the last seconds of the NBA finals had ticked away.  While glasses clinked at a nearby table, I knew that 1,000 miles away an entire city was shaking off its adrenaline and going back to being second best.

No matter.  Because the next morning I was ready to attend Chorus America’s 33^rd Annual Conference—and wow, what an event!  Never before had I been to a professional conference that began each day with a “morning sing.”  Imagine it: a massive ballroom full of choral professionals starting their day off with song.  This wasn’t anything like hearing that table of twenty-somethings at Applebee’s clumsily sing “Happy Birthday” to some guy named “Vinnie.” This was the real deal.  Hundreds of people who’ve made a career out of providing services in the choral sector all reading sheet music together and singing in unison.  It was like drinking coffee from a paper cup in a roomful of angels.

The morning sing was followed by a plenary session entitled “Envisioning the Choruses of Tomorrow.” 20UNDER40’s Ian David Moss was probably the youngest person featured on this panel.  The panel’s moderator, Matthew Sigman, poked fun at Ian’s alternative views on the future of the field, asking him if the future of choruses involved aliens.  The crowd chuckled politely.  I rolled my eyes.  Other than panelist David Howse’s (Boston Children’s Chorus) suggestion that the future of choruses needed to be more responsive to other cultures and be accessible to people of color, I was surprised how a conversation on the future of choruses was so rooted in tradition, in maintaining classical works.  Ian made a great point: what incentive is there for new composers working in a field that is so hung up on the music of the past?

A couple of hours after the choruses of tomorrow panel, it was lunch time.  In addition to inviting me down to facilitate a workshop session on mentorship in the arts, Jonas Cartano, Chorus America’s ever effervescent Director of Programs, had also asked me to host a luncheon and community building event for emerging leaders.  I thought this was a great idea.  While it’s wonderful for young leaders to have the opportunity to attend professional conferences, I know from experience and anecdotal evidence how alienating attending a conference for the first time can be.  The emerging leaders luncheon provided a space for younger choral leaders to mingle in a cool, relaxed environment full of their peers.  And mingle they did.  Both Jonas and I were surprised when 20, then 25, then 30 young choral leaders showed up for the catered lunch.  Who knew there were so many young leaders here?!

As exciting as the emerging leaders luncheon was, I had to skip out early to set up for my next workshop.  Across the hall I was greeted by Susan Knight of the Canadian Council for the Arts.  Susan was there to introduce my session on Omni-Directional Mentorship, the notion of exchanging knowledge and expertise in the arts within and across generational age cohorts.  As people strolled in for the session, Susan informed me that Chorus America had awarded financial support to attend the conference to 15 young chorus leaders.  Very cool!

Once things got rolling, about 25 people attended the mentorship session and wrestled in small groups with what strengths and weaknesses they had as a team, and where their group would go to fill any gaps in knowledge or expertise.  In my discussion I had stressed the importance of understanding different kinds of knowledge, largely differentiating between technical knowledge (how to do something) and cultural knowledge (the more nuanced understanding of why or when to do something).  I was again surprised to see the group getting stuck on issues involving technical knowledge rather than cultural knowledge.  Many small groups noted they lacked people who knew how to use technology—and therefore suggested that they needed younger people in their ranks to show them how to make up for this lack.

Chorus America conference goers engaged in the Omni-Directional Mentorship workshop.

I reminded the group that much more than being shown how to use technology, arts leaders needed to better understand why and when to use technology.  It’s my belief that, in order for our field to progress, we must go beyond the technical aspects of the problems that confound us, and instead look at the more nuanced cultural aspects of the challenges that face the field. It’s not about just using Facebook—it’s about knowing when and why to use Facebook.  About knowing how other people use Facebook and then employing the use of this technology in a way that best meshes with the culture of users who regularly engage with it.

If we better understand this cultural information, it is my hypothesis that the arts sector (including our great choruses) will be more applicable to a broader swath of people—and that technical expertise will fall into place.

Not 24 hours after I had landed in Atlanta, I was back on my way to the airport to head home.  Although I was leaving behind a community of arts practitioners that started their days off singing to head back to a city that had just narrowly lost the highest title in professional basketball, it was good to be going home.  Thanks to Jonas, Susan, Casey, Ian, and all of the other young leaders I met for such an interesting Atlanta/Chorus America experience.