Tuesday, March 20, 2012

How to Get the Ones that Aren't Got

Cara Liguori, Development and Special Events Manager here at The Field, met with Community Liaison Safiya Raheem, from the office of Council Member Inez E. Dickens of Harlem’s District 9, to discuss Council funding for The Field and our programs. She walked away with a whole new bag of knowledge and some sparkly opportunity-ideas!

Council Member Dickens is particularly concerned with reaching District 9 constituents who are truly economically vulnerable and who may not have already established networking inroads or have associations with community organizations.

What does The Field have to do with this? A few things…

We too are curious and concerned about how to reach artists who have not already established a network of support or relationships with service organizations. We are interested in your thoughts and experiences. How did you find out about The Field or similar organizations? What pushed you to reach out for help? Where/when/with whom do you network? We want to hear your suggestions about how to reach vulnerable artists who don’t have the support they need. Email your thoughts, experiences and ideas to Cara Liguori at
cara@thefield.org. We’ll compile your notes and use this information in our efforts to secure further funding to better serve YOU and get to the ones that aren’t got!

And there’s more…

In our opinion, this may be a prime time to introduce your art to a larger audience and to get involved in a local community. Dickens is primarily concerned about the increasing street violence in her district. She’s interested in supporting her community organizations that run programs that enrich the lives of young Harlem residents and keep them engaged and off the streets. Dickens currently allocates funding to the
Harlem YMCA and Children’s Art Carnival to help these organizations fulfill her goal of decreased street violence. It’s just a hunch, but for any of you that have ever wanted to run a theater workshop/dance or music class/poetry lab for at-risk youth, we recommend reaching out to these District 9 organizations to see if they are interested in partnering with you!

How can we not only define, but also enact, a new set of ethics and values that could transform the way we share, organize, and create?

Most people already have curiosity, enthusiasm, and strong desires to speak truth, hone a craft, produce beauty, and connect with others. How can we practice sharing, organizing, and creating in ways that transform ourselves, our communities, and the world? Here are some ways I do this:

Create online tools for collaboration and exchange!
We are only twenty years into the internet-era. We are in a beautifully experimental stage of the information revolution. Since the internet reached a critical mass in 1990, many people have been asking online platforms to foster deep connections in real time and space. At OurGoods.org, we support the production of new work through barter, because resource sharing is the paradigm of the 21st century. OurGoods is specifically dedicated to the barter of creative skills, spaces, and objects, because we want to build tools for the communities we are part of.

Learn from elders in sharing communities
We are in a contemporary fumbling for sharing rituals at intimate-distance. I've been looking to 30-year-old intentional communities and collectively-run spaces and institutions for advice. I've been visiting the intentional community Ganas, in NYC, to learn about the relationships they've built to share money, cars, houses, and work for over 30 years. At Ganas, for three decades, a voluntary daily meeting is set aside for members to talk through their personal struggles with cooperation. Members of Ganas recognize that no change will happen unless we struggle to "become the change we want to see in the world." We are conditioned to compete, talk over, and gossip. We need more spaces to practice cooperating, listening, and working through conflict. Jen Abrams, a co-founder of OurGoods, has worked in the oldest collectively-run women and trans theater space for 13 years. She reminds me that, "you have to take time to check in with one another...emotions are not efficient... either you address your feelings together before the meeting, or you end up working through them while trying to have a meeting."

Vocalize your Values
At Trade School, we asked a facilitator to help us come up with our principles. We talked about why we were each involved in Trade School New York (there are now Trade Schools in over 6 countries) and brainstormed about the things that are at the core of our work (the things that probably won't ever be changed). After 2 hours, we made this rough set of working principles:

WHAT?
1. Trade School is a learning experiment where teachers barter with students.
2. Trade School is not free-- we believe in the power of non-monetary value.
3. We place equal value on big ideas, practical skills, and experiential knowledge.
WHY?
1. Everyone has something to offer.
2. We are actively working to create safe spaces for people and ideas.
3. We want more spaces made by and for the people who use them.
HOW?
1. Trade School runs on mutual respect.
2. We avoid hoarding leadership by sharing responsibilities and information.
3. We are motivated by integrity, not coercion.
4. Our organization is always learning and evolving.

Practice forever
We recognize that bartering is a way to experiment with value. Because value is subjective, some people may not value the work that you make as much as you do. After bartering for years on OurGoods.org, we've come up with these basic guidelines:

1. Be clear: Define the exchange. Articulate what constitutes a job well-done.
2. Do your homework: Read your partner’s profile and feedback. Meet before you agree.
3. Be accountable: Do what you said you were going to do, when you said you’d do it.
4. Communicate: Stay in touch. Talk about what’s going right (or wrong) as it happens.
5. Leave feedback: This is what makes our community work.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

No, but really: What is Fieldwork?

Fieldwork is for any artist who is interested in learning about how his/her work comes across to audiences.

Fieldwork is like no other place or format for showing work. You hear honest, direct feedback about what you’re making, not from friends or family, but from a group of people who will closely mirror your audience – people who aren’t connected to your work necessarily.

In Fieldwork, it doesn’t matter who is in the group with you – even people whose work you may not admire are able to give you feedback that will help your work develop.

In Fieldwork the direction of the work lays in your hands – since you don’t explain what your intent is, instead letting the work speak for itself, you remain the guardian of its development.

Often in Fieldwork, people find after they show their work, they are again energized about it, find new angles or ideas that are inspired by the feedback. Sometimes just showing the work in front of others gives the maker fresh eyes.

Most artists who do Fieldwork find that giving feedback is as important as showing their work. By participating in the process, you will learn to become much better at seeing work, putting into words how it is coming across to you, and verbalizing this information in a way that the maker can hear.

People often develop lasting bonds with their peer Fieldworkers – people find collaborators, performers, and audience for their work by participating in the workshop.

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We reached out to Susan Oetgen who will be facilitating the upcoming Guest Artist Fieldwork with Brian Brooks, to ask her what she gets from Fieldwork:

Sharing work in Fieldwork always gives me useful information about whether my intentions are coming across successfully or not. Also, I like to practice performing as often as I can, and Fieldwork groups are great opportunities to actually get up and do something in front of an audience, with slightly lower stakes than in a public performance.

Try it for yourself!
Click here to learn more about this season’s Guest Artist Fieldwork (March 20 – May 8).

Monday, March 5, 2012

Saying Goodbye to '25'

As we say goodbye to our 25th year, a parting note from former Executive Director, Steve Gross…

I worked at The Field from 1987 until 2006, when I left to begin my practice as a psychologist. I now work at a maximum security prison for women, and the point I’d like to make is that working with independent artists and working with convicted felons isn’t all that different.

Let me explain. Fieldwork, The Field’s oldest and core program, is a place where artists show their work as it’s developing. There are no costumes, no polish, no fourth wall – just the work itself, and after it’s shown, the artist sits down with his or her peers and gets feedback about how the work has come across. What I learned through participating in Fieldwork all those years is how to look at work, how to make sense of what is coming across, and find a way to talk about it so that the artist can learn about the work, find out how it impacts and audience.
At the prison, my job is much the same. The inmates’ “work” in this case is their behaviors, and my job is to take in what they are doing – how they behave – and make sense of it, and give them feedback, all in an effort to help them change, help them grow, so that when they’re released, and most of them will be released, they’re in better shape than they were before.

So you can see that the skill of being able to watch, synthesize, and give feedback is one that has served me incredibly well. I’ve had a lot of training…four years of graduate school, three externships, an internship and a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale (yes, I will even name drop in service of The Field!), and yet the best training I’ve ever gotten is at The Field. It’s a kind of training that all The Field’s artists and staff receive, and my experience is that it prepares us not only to make better art, but to be better people.


Here’s to 25 more years of making better art and becoming better people!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Board Members or Bored Members?

Whether you have (or are building) an Advisory Board or official Board of Directors this group of individuals can seriously build resources (cash and human) and visibility for you—or be a lethargic, disengaged gaggle of needy folks.

Jennifer Wright Cook, our Executive Director, and James McLaren, Field Board Member, were panelists at today’s Devos Institute of Arts Management Seminar “maximizing Board productivity” for 200+ NYC arts organizations. Fellow panelists included Carol Ostrow, Producing Director and Jamie Harris, Board Member, from The Flea; and Gail Nathan, Executive Director, and Natalie Jeremijenko, Acting Board Chair and artist extraordinaire from Bronx River Art Center.

Top tips and takeaways:

1. It’s a relationship. Build it over time with trust.


2. Your Board is often your biggest donors – treat them as such!

3. Personalize it! Find something for each individual Board member to engage with you on. Something they enjoy too (not necessarily have your CPA Board member only do finances with you! She/he is with you for art joy too!)

4. Keep the Board excited! Communicate well and share the good news often!

5. Leverage good news for all it is worth (use your 5 year anniversary as an opportunity to celebrate in many ways; use it to up your give/get numbers and then maintain the $ level!)

6. Have an alignment element every year to ensure that Board and staff are aligned on mission and service delivery. Do we all agree to what we are doing? What is expected of you? Can you provide it? What can you provide? Etc.

7. Have an Advisory or Transitional Board (if you are in a transition!) to build your circle of influence, stakeholders and possibly money.

8. Have clear and forthright conversations with Board (and staff) about expectations, goals and desires. Spend time talking!