Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Make artWORK: How to Survive in NYC as an Artist

By Liza Green and Claire Baum


This November we were invited to do a life and career guidance seminar for Barnard College dance students as part of the Dancer Empowerment Project. Our task was to take the (slightly daunting) topic of “How to Survive in NYC as an Artist” and make it manageable for these soon-to-be college graduates to have a career in the arts. The ninety-minute workshop aimed  to provide these young artists with useful tools, skills, and resources to help them jumpstart their careers. Hosted by Gibney Dance, we opened the workshop to the public and ended up with a fierce group of early to mid-career dance and theatre makers.

We broke down this large question of “How to Survive in NYC as an Artist,” into four main categories:
  1. Finance;
  2. Relationships;
  3. Marketing and;
  4. Enrichment/Training.


Because of the impending Thanksgiving holiday, we naturally asked them to draw a hand turkey, like the ones we made in grade school, on a piece of construction paper. The “feathers” on the turkey provided space for the four points of our lives as art makers We asked them to dress up their turkeys however they liked, beaks, tap shoes, etc. and to put their name and their artistic discipline/role in the center. For example, the center of Claire’s turkey read “Claire Baum, Dancer, Choreographer.”
Below is a condensed version of the topics we covered on our turkeys, complete with helpful tips and links to even more resources.


FEATHER 1: FINANCE

Finance can simply be broken down into earning and spending. Artists typically earn their income in three different ways: earning money from their art, having a flexible day/night job (i.e. babysitting, bartending, temping, etc), or by having what we’ve coined a “co-career,” meaning a job that is not exactly your art, but feeds your artistic practice (i.e. teaching artist, arts management, graphic design, etc.). When assessing how you are going to earn your living, here are a few key points to think about:
  • Weigh your values with your needs. How much will you need to earn to not only meet your basic living expenses (rent, food, transportation, etc.), but to also address expenses linked to your values (eating out with friends, taking classes, seeing shows, etc).
  • Earning money from your art is possible. Samples of this income might include: artist stipends, rehearsal pay and/or performer stipends. In addition, you may want to find a fiscal sponsor (like The Field) so that you can apply for grants, create crowdfunding campaigns, and write appeal letters asking others to help fund your creative work.


The flipside of earning is spending. Spending is easy for many people, but managing the spending is harder. Here are a some helpful tips:
  • Create a spending diary to help manage your spending. Over the course of the month write down every item you spend money on. Label expenses “personal” or “professional.”  
  • Use your spending diary to assess your spending habits so that you can adjust accordingly to meet your goals.
  • Continue tracking your spending with a budgeting app like Mint or Budgt.
  • If you have expenses that are falling in the “professional” column and you are producing your own work, open a new account to keep your art and personal expenses separate. Budgeting for your projects is similar to budgeting for your life.


FEATHER 2: RELATIONSHIPS

Building solid relationships is crucial for artists. Not only do relationships help you create balance and personal fulfillment, but your friends, family, and colleagues often become your first audience members and donors. Here are some tips on how to cultivate relationships:
  • Make a list of who you want to work with/what organizations you want to work for or get involved with (i.e. volunteering at a benefit, ushering for a show, or doing workstudy in exchange for classes, etc.)
  • If there is a person you want to get to know, or a position you want to know more about, we recommend asking that person for either an informational interview or just for cup of coffee. Be attentive, ready to listen, and able to about talk yourself in a clear succinct way (click here for more resources on how to talk about your work).
  • Thank yous, updates,and reminders can also be a great way to stay on peoples’ radar. Sending a reminder the day before your meeting tells the person you are on top of your game and sending a simple thank you note or email after a meeting keeps you in that person's thoughts longer. And be sure to add personal notes to your follow-up correspondence (a handwritten note can go a long way these days).
  • It is also really great to able to talk about something other than your field. It could be that you and the person you are having coffee with have more in common than just your art, and those connections go a long way both professionally and personally.


FEATHER 3: MARKETING

Being an artist means putting yourself in the public sphere and marketing yourself as well as the work you create. Creating a brand this way can be tricky. In the age of social media, we recommend being careful with what you broadcast on Facebook and other media. Here are some key ways to make your marketing materials work for you:
  • Start by creating a website. A few very easy to use website builders are Wix, Wordpress, and Squarespace. Be sure to buy your domain name. We also recommend buying your own name as a domain name as well, even if you are not going to use it.
  • Create a strong social media presence. If you don’t want your personal facebook and professional facebook getting mixed up, you can create a page for your art, or even create a whole separate account. If you start Twitter and Instagram accounts, be sure to stay active. Using a platform like Hootsuite can help you schedule all of your social media posts.
  • Thinking of starting a blog? The key to keeping a blog is keeping it up. Create a schedule and stick to it (i.e. post once a month, once a week, etc.)
  • Use a cost effective service like Vistaprint or find a local printer for business cards and postcards.
  • Work samples are also incredibly important for grant or showcase applications and your web presence. Photo and video work can quickly and succinctly tell your viewer what your work is about. We recognize that producing this type of media can get expensive so we recommend using skill trading sites to help produce high quality work samples while keeping costs down (try Our Goods or The Artsy Yenta).


FEATHER 4: ENRICHMENT and TRAINING

Building a balanced life between your artist self and personal self is what enrichment and training is about. What it really comes down to is an assessment of your values, and how these play out in each aspect of your personal and professional life. Some ways that you work towards balance may include:
  • Continuing to take classes attend festivals, and workshops for your field. See shows, performances, and visit museums and galleries. Consider seeing work that is outside your field for inspiration.
  • Take care of your body. It is your instrument. This care could include cross training, cycling, running, yoga, pilates or massage. And don’t forget about health insurance. We suggest looking at Healthcare.gov, Oscar insurance, and The Freelancers Union to get a plan or shop for a better one.
  • If community engagement or spirituality is important to you, allow for time in your schedule to participate.


GOAL SETTING
Once our turkey feathers were filled in, we asked these brave artists to set a three-year goal and a one-to-three month goal for the feather they felt was most challenging. The participants collaborated in pairs to come up with 3 realistic action steps for each one of their goals. You can do this for each of the 4 points we have covered in this blog. If keeping your turkey with your action steps on your fridge is a good reminder for you, then do it! If you’re more technically minded, make a spreadsheet that you can look at and update to check in on your goals and action steps. Ask a friend or collaborator to help you create action steps for your goals. They may have ideas you never would have thought of and bringing them into your goal-setting process will keep you on task. And finally, remember to make this kind of dreaming and planning fun!


Thanks to all of the artists who participated in the workshop. And best of luck with those action steps.


Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Eating the Big Apple: Self Producing Work In NYC, By Emilyn Kowaleski

This piece is late, unforgivably overdue. What excuse can I give? My computer dropped onto the subway tracks? A piece of scenery dropped on my head? I was consumed in tunnel vision, tackling a recent production of my work? Or most honestly, I am a young artist, mastered in over-commitment, but admittedly, not yet mastered in time management. “There is never enough time!” I cry, shaking my fists melodramatically to the ceiling. I was underwater trying to solve the myriad of artistic challenges in front of me and the financial and logistical ones that accompanied them. However, the unforgivable irony of the matter is that The Field is a buoy that I've found and clung to for support in those arenas after I dropped myself into what felt like the ocean-like task of making and self-producing my own work in New York City.
I graduated from liberal arts school in New York, a few years ago, from a program I loved that taught me many things about making theater and that whole-heartedly encouraged me to go out and start creating work. But what I discovered when I graduated was that; I didn’t really know how to do that on a practical level. Outside of college, rehearsal space didn’t exist for sign up on the third floor in front of the production offices.  I didn’t get to attend a class anymore where people were forced to sit and look critically at my work. I didn’t know proper grant writing language, or how to get a residency, or really how to convince anyone that I, a bright ideaed, starry eyed, post-graduate deserved time, money and resources to create that work, especially when I am one of thousands. I had no track record in the big bad apple, so I just started biting in wherever I could.
            Two years past graduation, in hungry searching of finding the existing remnants of my cushy college life, and building patterned practices of producing work, I found The Field. There, behold: cheap rehearsal space to be connected with, fundraising workshops, and people to meet with every week who would watch and respond to my work. I started with the later. I signed up for Fieldwork, where I could again, play, try, fail and build in front of an audience who would tell me what they were seeing. I had just begun the first stage of development on a piece called Root of the Rosebush that is based on a series of interviews I had conducted with people about their history with relationships from first crush to present day. I didn’t know what that piece would be, or how to construct it really. I just wanted a place to experiment and a chance to know how my words and images were affecting others; I found that in Fieldwork.
 Six months later, after I had built that piece into a first draft and was looking to develop it further, both financially and artistically, I knocked again at the doors of The Field. I signed up for Jumpstart and another session of Fieldwork, back to back.
             For Jumpstart, I was delighted to turn up at American Table, met by the smiling but serious face of Fran Krimser. “Ok,” she said handing us a packet of information on budgets, networking and fundraising that set off palpitations in my idealistic artist heart that was childishly screaming “But why?! I just want to make things!” My adult brain knows, of course, that this is part of that work.  Thankfully, she made it easy. “I’m not going to spend three hours of your time talking at you generally without applying this to your project specifically.” She breezed us through the packets, took us through some exercises and let us practice how to talk about our work.  Then, she sent us on our way with the homework of creating a budget, a project description, and development and potential sponsor lists. A week later, I met with her individually to discuss how best to proceed with my project. She told me how I could make the timeline more manageable, where I could slash the budget and bit, by bit where I could raise the money I need. She articulated the marketable strengths of the work and advised me on an application to present a workshop production at Dixon Place, which, in thanks to her, I ended up receiving.  My heart palpitations have not gone away, still staring at the gigantic apple in front of me, but they have slowed.  It was as if someone had sat down and helped me cut that apple into manageable pieces that I could actually start to chew.

            Fieldwork, on the artistic flipside, operates in much the same way.  Every week, artists meet and present roughly ten minutes of work for feedback. By showing chunks of a larger piece that I was building, I was able to test flavors, and focus on fine-tuning particular moments as I wove them into a whole. Jumpstart was a process of learning how to market my work. It was all about finding the most captivating language with which to articulate what I was doing.  Fieldwork was a process of discovering what about my work itself was intriguing to an audience. Fieldwork is magical.  It a safe space for creative trials, with caring eyes to greet it with observations that fuel the work. It is easy for me to view Fieldwork as a delicious treasure, and Jumpstart as a necessary chore. However, what doing the two programs in tandem taught me, was that this all of it actually feeds same important skill set that is necessary to develop as an artist—Learning how to articulate descriptions of my work and make it in a way that engages people.


Wednesday, September 24, 2014

To fail and fail big: In Action: F*ck You Money (or how to build a Working Capital Fund)

In mid-May my partner and I adopted a beautiful newborn girl.  We named her Miranda.  I went on maternity leave the day she was born.  I was out for 3 months.  Sort of (e.g., I’m a control freak).
Six weeks of my 3 month maternity leave were paid by The Field.  2 weeks were vacation.  This means that for one month I wasn’t paid.  I have now come back to work ¾ time.  (My partner and I have some personal savings to support one month unpaid.  My partner works in tech and he also got paid parental leave.  We were both able to be with the baby for three months while working very intermittently and remotely.  Amazing.  Unheard of. We are privileged.)

How did The Field pay for my maternity leave?  In 2008, The Field strategically set aside unrestricted surplus money in a Working Capital Fund for “special initiatives, cash flow needs and financial challenges.”  We used it for the first time in 2013 when our first staff member went on maternity leave and we had to move offices.  We used it for the second time for my maternity leave.  Success! The Field has money to support staff leave!

Now how did we save that money in the first place? 1) We committed to saving. Every year, we included an expense line item in our budget for $2-$5k for our Working Capital Fund - right alongside traditional expenses like rent, salaries and paperclips.  And then we fundraised and earned income toward meeting this and all annual expenses.  We were transparent with all of our stakeholders and donors that we were doing this for our resilience, innovation and nimbleness.  No one questioned it. In fact, we were applauded for being “capitalized” unlike many of our peers who were undercapitalized.  2) We committed to ending every year with an unrestricted surplus  that we could then allocate to the Fund.  (How? We grew our earned income and unrestricted individual giving.) 3) We paid strong attention to our expenses.  We probably scrimped at times. (I wouldn’t necessarily do that again.  I would rather push income than scrimp.)

How can you do this in your life? At our “to fail and fail big” APAP session last January one of our guest speakers, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, told us that they always have a small pile of “f*ck you  money” so that their projects are not vulnerable to the vagaries of funders and producers.  You too, dear reader, should have a Working Capital Fund or f*ck you money for cash flow, medical needs, dream projects etc.  Don’t tell me you can’t.  Don’t tell me you are already hand to mouth. I know.  But even you, dear reader, can save a dollar a day.  Yes, you can.
So can a leader of a small non-profit really go on maternity leave?  Yes.
I have three Executive Director friends who are pregnant right now. They are all a bit nervous about maternity leave.   One of them also has a Board of Directors that is anxious about her leave (“what will happen without YOU?”).  The Field Board was incredibly supportive of my adoption plan and I gave them little to no reason to worry about my absence. 

Here’s what I learned on my maternity leave, some failures and some successes

1)      Give people an opportunity to lead (and then really let them lead): Instead of hiring an outside interim Executive Director I promoted two senior staff to “Interim Co-Executive Directors”.  They each brought different skills to the table and different energies.  The rest of our small staff and Board trusted them deeply. Success: They did a stellar job.  They became closer as colleagues.  They seemed to feel more empowered and invested in The Field.  Failure: see #3 below. 
2)      Check-in: I did weekly check-ins with my Co-EDs on any major projects or decisions to be made.  Success: They felt supported.  I felt connected and that I wouldn’t come back in 3 months to an unrecognizable situation, project or decision.
3)      I am a control freak:  This has definitely served me at times (i.e., success: I’ve gotten a lot done the way I want it done) but not for the long haul.  Failure: I worked more during my maternity leave than just weekly check-ins. I spent some time on a few grant reports and proposals that I just felt I had to do myself.  It wasn’t terrible for me (and my family) but I am sure it would have been fine if I had NOT worked on them.  Failure: the staff felt a tad confused (who is doing what? when?) and maybe less empowered.

So what’s the end result? I feel valued by an organization and a Board that supports me as a rounded human being with a growing family.  I feel like it’s possible to be an Executive Director and a Mom.  I leave work on time now.  I work 4 days a week.  I don’t work 80 hours a week.  I feel efficient and effective.  So far.  So good.


But I’ve been warned by Mom/artist friends to not talk about my baby.  “No one wants to hear it.  Everyone is working 80 hours a week for too little money. This is what we value.  Not family.”
Bullsh*t. I disagree.  I want it to be different. For me, for The Field, for others.  I’m working in my small ways to make it different.  At The Field at least and by being transparent, vulnerable and active in my work and in posts like these.

My question to you dear reader is: where do you want the arts to be different?  How do you want your life to be different? And what are you doing to make it different?

P.S.  I love the Artists Raising Kids compendium from Headlong!  Check it here http://static.squarespace.com/static/53767189e4b07d0c6bf4b775/t/5388abffe4b02f7f94909052/1401465855677/Artists%20Raising%20Kids%20Compendium.pdf

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Are you afraid of failing?

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Are you afraid of failing?

I am the mid-career, middle-aged leader of a mid-sized, mid-career arts service organization.

I am afraid of failing.

I do many things to protect myself and my organization from failing.

Some of these things are super strategic and 100% in line with how I want to be in the world.

Some of these things are less than 100% in line with how I want to be in the world.  For instance…

I try not to piss of funders.  I hold my tongue.  I go to events when I am too tired but there is someone there I have to schmooze.  I go after grants that aren’t totally appropriate to our mission.  I underbid our work because maybe that will make our bid more competitive.  I squeeze general operating money from every project and every nook and cranny.

Where there is money, there is power.  I am afraid of not having power.  I am afraid of being on the outs.

But I can afford to fail. Here is some full disclosure:

I have a salary and health insurance.  My partner makes more money than I do.  My parents are healthy.  I own my apartment. I have no education debt.  I have no kids.  I will inherit some money.  I have an IRA.

I have financial stability and familial resilience that can protect me from falling off the cliff.  

Still, I am afraid of failing.

Here’s the rub:  I am beginning to think that the ways I protect myself and my organization from failing actually hurt me and us in the long run.

They hurt us because we just keep it all status quo, humming along, everything’s fine and dandy. We aren’t honest about what’s not working.  So no one ever really knows the truth.  We stagnate.

We never really have enough.  Not enough time or money.   Everything is under-resourced.  

We get some things done but never really as bold or big or transformative as we hope.  Good enough, but not HUGE.  Not unbelievably forceful pushy radically HUGE.

The longer I am in this non-profit arts business, the longer that an organization exists, the harder it seems to push against these fears.  Maybe because I/we have more to lose now. Maybe because no one wants to be the one that pulls the plug.

But we all have something to lose, always.  So maybe it’s more about our perspective, or our relationship to losing, or failure, or gain.

What would YOU do if you weren’t afraid of failing? 

What would YOU do if we were unabashedly fearless?

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Let's Get Married!

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Our recent blog posts talked about the Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” that we hosted last fall 2013.  There’s a lot to share about that event; so here’s Part Three.

One of the topics we unpacked at the Funders’ Edition was Project Funding (i.e., money that supports a specific artistic project).

Page 24 of “to fail and fail big” suggests that artists can risk more artistically if funders give them multi-year grants that are artist-specific and not project-specific.  What does that mean?  It means that funders should give gen op grants to specific artists/companies for several committed years. What does “gen op” mean? Gen op grants are ones that can be used to pay for your general operations – essentially everything from artists’ fees to rent to health insurance to design fees to your accountant.  Project grants, typically, can only be used for direct project expenses (artists’ fees, space rental, props, costumes, etc).

Gen op grants are kinda like being in a committed stable relationship.

Project specific grants are kinda like dating.  (Ok, stick with me here.)

In dating there can be these big moments of dinner and dancing and moonlit walks. You are wooing and being wooed! It’s huge and thrilling (or sucky and ego-killing).

But in dating there’s nobody at home to help clean up the cat vomit; no one to hold the chair when you change a light bulb in the ceiling lamp; no one to lie in bed with you and talk about your hopes and fears and kids and dying and politics!

Project grants tend to support the BIG SEXY STUFF (the premiere! the original score! the uber talented actors!).

Gen op grants help support the whole shebang of YOU and your art-making world.   They are an investment in you.

Project grants tend to support the artistic product.

Gen op grants support the artistic process. Like a committed partner, a gen op grant invests in you and your vision, your being.  They are there for you when the going gets rough.

Now, why can multi-year gen op grants help artists risk more, be more resilient, feel more supported and ultimately, maybe, produce “better” work?

You can risk more when you know that someone is in it with you.   
You can risk more when you feel stable. 
You can risk more when you know the rent and health insurance bills can be paid. 
You can grow more when you know that someone trusts you and your process.

So what did the funders at our Funders’ Edition table say about when we asked them if they could get married (i.e., give multi-year gen op grants to artists)?  Not so much.

“We can’t really do that… We can only do one type of grant…..our bylaws, our mission, our Trustees, our processes, etc are strict…..We just can’t.”

Aha?  Change is hard.  The status quo is easy to maintain. Getting married is scary.  Don’t rock the boat.  Just do what you’ve always done.  Then you don’t have to go out on any limb.  You don’t have to risk critique or judgment.  

Aha again!  Funders are people too!  They are just as afraid of failing (or risking) as the rest of us. They have bosses and Boards etc who can fire them or make their lives difficult.  

But some funders push against this fear and push for change in the grant-making system.  At our Funders’ Edition the perspicacious Ben Cameron of Doris Duke Charitable Foundation reminded funders that they can go HYBRID!  They can offer project grants with some gen op money attached!  MAP Fund does this already!  Duke does it too of course.  The Pew in Philly is doing it now it seems!  http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_detail.aspx?id=22

Can more funders do it?  Yes, they can!  Or at least they can assert in their applications and budgets that 15-20% expenses should/can be gen op-related.

Now, of course, sometimes dating is key.  You need to test things out, meet lots of people, see who you are in different scenarios.  You need to learn who you are and what you want and feel confident.

And sometimes getting hitched is key.  But when the world is only dates and no committed relationships it seems really hard to move yourself forward.

So dear reader, our question to you is this: where do you feel like you can grow most? In dating or in a committed relationship?  What’s working for you?
Tell us on Facebook!

Friday, February 21, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: Funders’ Edition Part Two; Can I tell you honestly about our failures?

by Jennifer Wright Cook

Our last blog post talked about the Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” that we hosted last fall 2013. There’s a lot to share about that event; so here’s Part Two.

My aha moment: can artists really tell their funders that they failed? 

I doubt it.  (I know I can’t.)

Most of the time we all pretend that everything worked perfectly.  We hit all the marks.  There are no problems.  Oh, maybe there are some “challenges” or some “opportunities.”

But rarely, if ever, is there a flat out, full force failure.

Or maybe we bend or soften the truth.  We say that we will raise twice as much from individuals this year in our sexy new kickstarter campaign.  We say that we have a “deficit reduction plan” that will reduce that ugly negative number.  We say that we will hire extra staff to do that big project (rather than just ask current staff to take on more work and stay late).

And we keep saying how busy we are and how excited we are about the next big thing and how tired we are.  Because if you aren’t busy, excited and tired, then you must be a failure.

Aha #2!  All this spinning of reality doesn’t help. In fact it makes it worse.

Funders start thinking that it really does only cost $15,000 to put up a new play with an Equity cast of 10 with live music.  And donors start thinking that you don’t need money for “overhead” to cover office rent or paperclips or health insurance.   That gets covered elsewhere right? And other artists start feeling like everyone else is getting all the gigs and grants and they are getting nothing.  And funders start thinking that artists really do it just for the love of it and they don’t need to be paid for their creative work.

And all these secrets and lies keep perpetuating the same old under-resourced, destabilizing paradigm that is the arts in America.

If we tell the truth, we might just shift the paradigm.  We might shift the system to have MORE resources.  MORE partnership.  MORE good work being done. MORE clarity.  MORE empowerment.

So here I go.  Here are some of my current fears and failings:
If I push myself to tell you that I think I failed at APAP with our presentation of “to fail and fail big”, will you think less of me?  If I tell you that actually I am a bit lost right now, that I am not fully satisfied at work, that something’s missing, that I just want to watch Battlestar Gallactica (again). Will you run far?

Or, do I trust that you don’t need me to lie?  Do I trust that you actually want to see the full and whole messy picture?

Dear reader, where do you lie about your work? where do you hide your failures? And why?  Tell us on FaceBook!

P.S.  Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that we have to tell the whole truth nothing but the truth so help me ________ in every situation and to every person all the time.  That would be inappropriate and ineffective.

P.P.S. But I do mean to suggest that we can and should be strategic about our sharing our failures and our challenges.   We can be solution-oriented too!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: The Funders’ Edition (Who is at the table and how did they get invited?)

by Jennifer Wright Cook

In late September we co-hosted a rabble rousing Funders’ Edition of “to fail and fail big” for 30+ lead arts funders at Mertz Gilmore with our colleagues from Booth Ferris, Lambent Foundation and the New York Community Trust.  All the heavy hitters were there.  It was intense and thrilling.

We asked two artists and two presenters to participate as well: choreographer Yanira Castro, art-maker Miguel Gutierrez, Chocolate Factory Artistic Director Brian Rogers and 651 Artistic Director Shay Wafer.  These four folks were amazingly courageous, honest and generous.  I don’t think they knew how intense it was going to be.  But it was.  And they were stunning.  I am honored by their forthrightness.  (Just imagine that you are sitting at one big 10’x15’ table with all the big arts funders.  What would you say? How would you behave?  What would you be afraid of?)

Thomas Cott, of You’ve Cott Mail, facilitated the conversation.   Funders in attendance included: Ben Cameron (Doris Duke Charitable Trust), Moira Brennan (MAP Fund), Lisa Robb (NYSCA), DCA, New Music USA, Andrew W. Mellon, LMCC and more and more.

Did I say it was intense?

I realized quickly that, ironically enough, The Field and I were poised on a risky ledge. The event itself aimed to challenge the system.  But we are beholden to this system too.  Many of these folks at the event fund us or we want them to fund us.  So if our event “failed” then these gatekeepers had the power to lock us out of potential funds in the future.

Or just ignore us. And we could wither away.

But we have to push against that fear of failure.  We have to step into our vulnerable spot and act out of integrity, courage and transparency.

So, as counseled by Thomas Cott, we asked this intimate group to tackle three core recommendations from “to fail and fail big” specifically related to the funding community.  (see pages 24 -25 of “to fail and fail big”):

  • Invest in the Artist: multi-year artist-specific funding
  • Transparency and Privilege
  • Failure

There were so many huge moments for me but one of my favorite takeaway issues grappled with Transparency and Privilege. Essentially it asked WHO IS AT THE TABLE AND HOW DID THEY GET INVITED?

This is an ongoing question.  Who adjudicates grant panels? Who gets invited to curate? Who speaks on panels? Who gets the shows and the awards?

It often feels like the same ten people.  And whoever is hot at the moment – is everywhere.

Why them?

So who was at our Funders’ Edition table and why? Miguel is in “to fail” and it’s important to us to have at least one study member at every event as appropriate.  Brian was on the Advisory Council for our study and his provocative quote led to the title “to fail and fail big”.  We asked Shay to be on the Advisory Council but she was very busy; so we asked her to be at the Funders’ Edition.  Plus we are committed to gender and racial diversity.  Our 4th participant was Yanira Castro.

Yanira, for me, is one of the smartest, most resilient, savviest and ambitious NY artists.  Her body of work pushes her artistically, she takes risks, she pushes against failure.  She is articulate, generous and rigorous.  She is a mom in a city and a sector that makes parenting challenging.  She’s been a member of The Field for eons and done many events with and for us.

For sure, Yanira gets some decent funding, residencies, gigs and press. For sure.  But I think she should be getting more resources, and more folks should know her work.  So we asked her to participate in the Funders’ Edition to get her in front of more powerbrokers who could move her resources up a notch.

Part of our actionable work with “to fail and fail big” is specifically to push for more equitable distribution of resources. Part of how we can do that is to have a “less visible” artist present at every “to fail” event that we host.  This is one of our “to fail” action items: to give opportunities to artists who don’t get them, to give the non-it kids a chance.

Now we are not naively suggesting that you just ask whomever, whenever, however to do your grant panel or show or whatever.  For sure we have an agenda and we act strategically – but we do it with transparency.  We tell you why we chose someone and how we did it.

When you know how something happens for someone, then you can work to make it happen for yourself too.

When you don’t know how something happens (e.g., “Why did she get that grant?” How did he get on that panel?” “Why did she get that teaching gig?”) you are left to devise your own self-abusing, inflammatory, defensive reasons.

And you may get really bitter really fast.

Oh but folks will say, “Finding new, non-it kids is too hard, it takes too much time! And if an artist is so hot it’s for a reason!  They must be the best!  I don’t have time to explain things to folks.”

Yes, it’s harder and yes it takes more time.  Yes, it involves stretching yourself and your organization farther and harder.  It’s risky to work with folks who aren’t hot.  It involves working with the unknown.  It involves taking a stand and saying “this is why we chose this person.  This is why it’s important.”

It’s so much easier to go with the herd.  And pick the same ten folks.

It’s even more limited with diversity.  It’s as if the sector suddenly decides that this one Asian-American playwright is the one for 2014.  And this one black choreographer is the one for this year.  And this one xyz artist fills this check box and this one….…… And as long as we have one of every “kind” of person then we are good to go.  We are done with diversity.

Ridiculous.

Who is at the table changes the nature of the room and the work of the world.

Who is at the table changes us.  For the better.

Yes, we have to start somewhere. So here some things you can experiment with: allocate more time to find panelists and staff members. Yes, you can, if it’s important to you, you can. Cast a wider net.  Use all your social networks and search more broadly.  Clarify the “why” underneath your actions and your choices.  Be prepared to say “why” you chose someone.  Be transparent about it.

And then keep going.  Push harder.

At The Field we try in fits and starts to do these things. We make mistakes for sure.  We try again.  It’s ongoing work. We keep trying.

Our question to you dear reader: How do you cast a wider net? Where do you stretch yourself to include folks who aren’t part of your usual table?  And if not, why?

Thursday, January 30, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: APAP failure: a crisis of courage

by Jennifer Wright Cook

On Sunday, January 19th The Field was privileged to curate (oh yes we did!) a session at APAP on failure, success and privilege with 10 stellar artists and presenters/producers.

I had many aha moments but the one that is still sticking with me came from the unbelievably smart Kristy Edmunds of UCLA.

There’s a crisis of courage.

It takes deep courage to make art.  It takes crazy courage to put it up publicly and risk critique, opprobrium, humiliation, disdain and even boredom.  It takes courage to ask friends, family and strangers for money to support your art.

It takes courage to present artists too.  It takes courage to say to your Board, your boss, your audience “Yes, this work is important to see.  It’s not easy, it’s intense, it’s smart, it’s odd, it’s provocative – and yes, we will present it.”

It even takes courage to run an arts service organization like The Field.   Every choice we make is based either in courage or in fear.  And every choice, one way or another is a moral choice.  Meaning, for instance, I put a line item in our 2014 budget for health insurance for our staff (and me!).   Our current health insurance is mediocre at best.  And it’s going up 20% from $567 to $682 a month per staff member.  We can’t afford this.  We just can’t.  After all, our funding hasn’t gone up 20%.  Nor have our fees.  So in order to afford this increase, we would need to cut other expenses (like rent? like our audit? Nope.  They don’t budge down either).

So I get afraid.  As a leader.  How can we do this?  Do we choose (again) mediocre health insurance for our staff (and myself!) or do I ask staff (and myself) to pay a higher percentage of it (currently staff pay 10%)?

These are moral decisions.

A budget is a moral stance.

A presenter’s season is a moral offering.

A funder’s grant is a moral relationship.

When we say yes to one thing, we say no to another.  And this says something about us and our values.

I have crises of courage on a daily basis.   But I try hard to push myself, and The Field, toward courage, toward abundance, toward transparency.

My question to you dear reader: what’s your crisis of courage?  Tell us on Facebook.

P.S.  There has been a huge conversation online that brings up questions of courage in the arts.  I am not commenting yet  but if you haven’t read it, you should, with a glass of whiskey perhaps. http://www.culturebot.org/2014/01/20493/considering-alastair-questioning-realness/

Friday, January 17, 2014

Steve Gross: Prison Psychology and the Arts

I've always been the type of person (and artist) who imports from one arena/discipline/set of experiences into the other - and find that there's often a synergy that can happen as a result.  The series of talks I will be doing through The Field is my first formal attempt to bring my experience of working in the prison setting back into the community and community of artists. 
During the past five years, however, I haven't been idle regarding this cross pollination...I've been doing most of the importing in the other direction, from my Field experiences into my work as a psychologist, therapist, and supervisor.  I wrote the following short essay for the newsletter that is disseminated among the psychologists who provide mental health services in prisons throughout New York State.
When I practice, one of the experiences I refer back to on a regular basis is facilitating feedback groups for choreographers.  In these groups, called Fieldwork, artists show their work in progress before putting it in front of the public.
The basic rule for showing work in Fieldwork is that the artist can't talk.  She can't tell the group what came before the section she is showing.  She can't say the intended meaning of the work, what influenced her choices, or what artistic tradition served as inspiration.  She can't describe the music or the lighting to come.  She can't say how unprepared she is because the heat in the studio where she rehearsed was out.
Not only do artists showing work have a boundary – viewers do as well: don't ask questions, don't make suggestions, just tell the artist what you get from the work.  “Get” covers an enormous range, well beyond what actually happens on stage.  “Get” includes what meaning the viewer thinks the artist is trying to convey, what rings true (or doesn't) onstage, what seems to be going on under the surface, what comes across as meat and what comes across as filler.
As therapists, we are both artist and audience.  As the artist, we don’t really talk about our work.  We don’t announce our interventions (unless that is part of the intervention, which it can be).  We don’t ply our patients with explanations of how they should feel or think (unless that is part of the intervention, which it sometimes is).  We don’t convince patients of our effectiveness.  Instead, we do – we embody the work, through modeling, through interaction, through our relationship with our audience.  If we mess up, we don’t provide all kinds of excuses, we own them and weave them into the work: (“I feel like I went down the wrong track with you during our last session – did you sense that?  What was it like for you?”).
We are also the audience.  We “see” what’s on stage – our patients show us themselves all the time (in session, in groups, in the bull pen, on the walkways, in notes they send us and poetry they share).  Their explicit words and behaviors are only one stream of information – ideally we are set to receive on all channels, ranging from our “gut,” to historical patterns, to familiarity with inmate dynamics in our facility.  In fact, what our patients display is rarely the critical part, the part that leads to the most effective interventions, whether that’s a crisis unit admission or placid, steady attention.
Seen in this light, treatment is a dance, an interplay of seeing and being seen, no matter what the costume or lighting.  The most powerful art usually translates, whether robed in the red velvet of an opera house or the zigzag of cinderblock.

Steve Gross began making dance/performance art in the late 1980s. His work was shown at various downtown venues including Performance Space 122 and Dance Theater Workshop and supported by various funders including the NEA, NYSCA, and Art Matters. Simultaneously, he transformed The Field from a fledgling performance space into a service organization for performing artists. Having been spoiled by 19 years with the best arts administration job on the planet, he went back to school to become a psychologist. He currently is the Chief Psychologist for Corrections-based Operations of Central New York Psychiatric Center - the organization that provides mental health services to New York State's 56,000 prisoners. He also practices privately. 

Click here to sign up to attend any of Steve's three talks at The Field! 


Thursday, January 9, 2014

"to fail and fail big" In Action: the revolution will not be funded?


by Jennifer Wright Cook

In September 2013, I met twice with the superb folks from the Brooklyn Commune to talk about our study, “to fail and fail big”. From this point of view, they interviewed me about the funding landscape and the challenges therein.  In November I attended their opening night event and participated in a rousing, discussion about MFA debt and its huge impact on artists, the onerous structure of the 501c3 model and the lack of transparency about money in the arts.   Stay tuned for their white paper that tells it all.  



One big aha that strikes me hard with the Commune and over the past few years: “can the revolution be funded?”  (Terrible to admit but I’ve only read the reviews and summaries of the 2007 book that pushed this question forward for me, “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex” – but it’s on my list and I think I get the basic jist.  It scares me.)

The non-profit sector can be a dirty world. You have to work with honed clarity, great governance and nuanced reflection to keep focused on your mission and its delivery in an ever changing and über competitive world. You can easily be pulled off mission and off integrity.  Sometimes, taking charitable dollars can pull you down a rabbit hole where your politics and your work are worlds apart.  

In our regular lives, however, many of us make strategic life and consumer choices based on fair trade processes, green choices, humane labor practices, etc.  We align our politics with our actions and our purchases.  We aim to stay on mission and on integrity. It’s not always easy and it takes more time but we try.

What if we did the same in our non-profit work when offered philanthropic dollars?  Could we, for instance, say no to a grant from (Insert Questionable Company here)?  Some folks did just that back in the day when Philip Morris was one of the biggest NYC arts funders.  Some folks said nope, no thanks. I am not okay with tobacco money.  Other folks said yes, my work is worth it and the money can be put to good purpose now.  And one group right now is having an amazing conversation about funding from Exxon/Mobile and their dilemma about accepting money from sources they find questionable.

Do you know where your money comes from? Are you ok with how it was made?  Can your work remain “clean” if the money to fund it is dirty?

On top of all the “dirty money” that can stall a revolution, the revolution won’t be funded because the non-profit machine grows so fast and mission delivery is often left behind.  Fundraising begets more fundraising begets more fundraising…and which requires more administration of stuff and people and things.: Yyou have to hire more development staff to keep up with all the grants you have to write; you have to pay them competitively because they are expensive; you have to hire more admin staff to fill out even more paperwork for all the oversight and compliance you have to do for all that money.  And there are scandalously few grants to pay for any of these things because they aren’t very sexy. 

So suddenly you are squeezing money from YOUR MISSION WORK to pay for for the administration of it all its management.  

So the revolution you aimed to start is dead. 

Now Now maybe the play you are working on or the dance you are creating is not a revolution per se.  Maybe it’s just a play or a dance.  your art work may not be aimed at starting a revolution. At The Field ours isn’t. But it is aimed at changing an artist’s life and the artist’s landscape for the better. 

And money has changed us over the years. And The Field, our work, is not really a pursuing a revolution either. 

As the crazy smart Diane Ragsdale wrote in her September Jumper blog “…what happens in the psyche of a grantee when a little bit of money comes in and when it, inevitably, goes away. In response to the question, Would it have been better not to have received these grants than to have received them and lost them? I find[ing] myself wanting to shout back at the page, “Yes! You would have been better off never having received the money!” 

I love this idea.  I fear it. I love it.  Taking the money changes you. It forces you to comply with larger systems you might not agree with. It creates dependency. It forces you to compromise to survive. 

But I am not sure I am courageous enough to say no to money.  

Our question to you: Are you funding your revolution? 

P.S.  I am not at all a hater of in full support of hiring amazing development or administrative staff (to write grants and fill out all the paperwork).   I do think we need, ironically enough,But, I think we need more unrestricted grants that FUND the administration of and fundraising for programs and the general operations that undergird all of this non profit machinery.  Lastly, the ongoing frustration: why are artists often paid way less than administrators?