INFORMATION & RESEARCH
The Long Run: A Performer's Life
In this column, NYFA Program Officer Edith Meeks interviews performing artists about issues relating to their working careers. Here, Holly Sidford, Director of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a new organization designed to build on the findings of the Investing in Creativity study, joined Meeks and three performing artists to discuss what struck them most about the study and how it might be put to use.
What resources do artists need to make their work? Is there enough to go around? Is it fairly distributed? How do they cope with the limitations? What can be done to improve the system as a whole? Investing in Creativity is a study that presents the findings of a national research initiative conducted by the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Researchers looked at funding and employment patterns, availability of space and other material supports, ways artistic work is validated, and the existence of networks and communities in an effort to assess what is working and what is missing in the overall landscape of support for US artists today. The study presents an opportunity for artists to confront tough realities about the current environment for art, and to participate in imagining and advocating for change.
Phyllis Lamhut began her training with Alwin Nikolais in 1948 at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse on New York City’s Lower East Side. She has been a choreographer and professional modern dancer since the age of 15. Diane Vivona is the executive director of The Field, a service organization for independent performing artists. Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is associate artistic director with the Lark Theatre Company, an Off-Broadway play development center, and co-artistic director of Rasa Theater Company, a South Asian theater company based in New York City.
Holly Sidford: This study came out of a number of conversations I was party to almost four years ago, and a concern in the funding community that support for artists was stalled if not declining in the wake of the diminishment of support for artists at the National Endowment and state arts councils and in a variety of other places. So I put together a consortium of 38 funders from around the country who are interested in this issue, and we commissioned the Urban Institute to do the work, which involved looking at issues from a national perspective but also how it operates for artists in nine different cities around the country. The goal was to try to get a really comprehensive picture of conditions for artists and make some suggestions about ways we could improve things in the future.
Diane Vivona: I think it’s fantastic that we have something that’s as comprehensive as this, and as accurate, because it verifies the perception, certainly, in the community.
Rajendra Maharaj: I was thinking that with so many theater and dance companies closing their doors daily, the more we can flood the information out, especially to multicultural theater companies that have staffs of three or four, I think that’s vital. I think there’s still a concern that information is accessible only to certain people who have grant writers and people on staff to do that sort of thing.
If there are ways we can find to link between business and community, whereby the cost of space to create or present work is lowered, I think it would be a huge, huge step in terms of getting artists on board. Because, especially among artists of color, there’s lots of mistrust, which leads to questions such as, “What do ‘they’ want? What am I sacrificing to get money? What am I giving away?”
Phyllis Lamhut: There are certain cultural groups that are known for money. And the institutions themselves, the big ones—you get the feeling that supporting other cultures is cursory. You know it’s not about the art, and I know it’s not about the art. It’s always about either the color of a person, or now we should do this or that. There is something not good about that; as we say on the Lower East Side, it’s not kosher.
RRM: A lot of the major grants are given to playwrights and directors who have Tonys and Pulitzers. We award people who have been awarded. And the next generation that’s coming up and needs money to make art seldom gets awarded because it isn’t filled with “names.”
HS: What Investing in Creativity says about this is that everybody thinks they’re not getting their particular share. But the study also suggests that only 25% of all awards are targeted explicitly to career stage, which means that most of the awards are undifferentiated, and therefore are likely to go to artists who are more experienced, have more credentials. There need to be more opportunities targeted at the emerging, young, unproven, untried, because that’s how people get started.
DV: What you’re trying to do is encourage funders, or the bodies that give out these awards, to take bigger risks. To seek out the person who just came out of college, or somebody in their local community who doesn’t reach a huge number of people, but will influence the community, will influence the art form, will influence it in more subtle ways. The organization giving the award can help validate that part of the creative process, because of course those awards are profoundly validating.
PL: The devil in me says, “I would like all awards to be eliminated.” I find the process of choosing disturbing. There’s so little for so many, and we all go for it. It’s a gender thing, it’s a sexual thing. It’s all these things that come into the award-giving. And this is a Pandora’s Box.
DV: I thought the upsetting thing was that most of the grants are less than $2,000. I was hoping it might be more. I was thinking, you can go through $1,000 just writing the grant; then you get your first grant and it’s $500.
HS: In the funders’ defense, I think that’s an effort to reach more people. To take what portions of money they’ve allocated to artists and kind of share the wealth. I don’t know if it jumped out at you—the observation that in 1970, according to the census figures, there were 700,000 people in this country who were trying to make their lives as professional artists. That number in the year 2000 was close to 2.2 million. So there’s a 300% increase in the number of people trying to make their lives as artists. That’s why, I think, even if the resources have increased over that same period of time—which I actually think they have—the experience is that there’s greater constraint because there are so many more people vying for the resources that are there. And I think, whether it’s grants, or jobs, or space in the newspaper, or literal space, there are just a lot more people who are trying to survive, to pursue their dreams in this realm.
PL: Community arts interested me a great deal, because I grew up in the time when if you were in the community arts, you were not a professional. And now community arts are being embraced—I think it’s great to see that. But I feel, too, that it’s important to nurture community arts to move into a professional sensibility by supplying them with the information that would inspire them to move one step forward.
RRM: I think the stigma has changed that “community artist” means you’re less than professional; and I know for people of color that this is their community, this is their world. If you go between 125th and 128th Streets, this is Harlem’s world. So how do you support the community artist and at the same time challenge her or him to be a global artist as well? We had the Black Theater movement, you know, the Hispanic Theater movement, and all the other movements that have come where it’s like, “This is my community and I need to help my people.” And now we need to know that we are citizens of the world.
PL: I find that even in the institution where I teach, the preparedness of graduates coming into the field is so weak.
HS: We have to address the educational structure: the fact that kids are coming out of many fine arts schools without any preparation for understanding the market, without any preparation for understanding how important space is going to be to their ability to make work, without a whole variety of kinds of information about how to navigate the landscape. It’s no wonder that we have so many artists that are underemployed. Because they’re not prepared to be employed, they’re not trained to be employed in a certain way.
DV: The way a lot of artists perceive professional development is that it’s going to be “step one, step two, step three.” A lot of them came from universities where other professions follow that mode. The emergence of “hybrid markets,” and the way people patch together their careers, shows that it isn’t a direct line, it isn’t like becoming an accountant. It’s much more creative and open, and that can be also a very positive thing.
PL: It’s an old show business word that in order to get ahead you have to “hustle.” And I think that’s lacking in our community in general. Especially for the independent artist and others that need to be able to be quite wily on how to get what they want to get, how to use things. They don’t have practice on using in a positive way all the elements their life has to offer them.
HS: What might you do, and what might you suggest other artists do? What small or large things do you think everybody can take up? I think artists themselves have the biggest role in trying to use the kind of information in Investing in Creativity to make changes in their daily lives and in the larger system.
DV: I think one of the ways to get the artists to embrace this is to say, “Okay, let’s rethink, for example, ‘art for art’s sake.’ Is this a model that works today?” As an artist, you’re doing certain things, and how does that integrate in the world? Without thinking of the models you’ve learned before, consider what are we dealing with now, in 2004, that people are interested in? What are their cultural drives, you know? As an artist, how do we work within that, and not think back so much in the past, or think, those guys, they had it so easy? I would try to do workshops in that light, sort of shift the mindset. Because artists are all creative thinkers, I think they could easily embrace that and come up with really fantastic strategies.
PL: I think they have to understand that creativity within their studios, or wherever they are in their art form, also goes into being creative with how they promote themselves. And that should be a constant.
DV: Networks seemed like such a huge part of the report, sort of flipping that aspect of, “Well, there’s only so much, and there’s 3,000 of us?” So how do we use networking in a positive way so that it isn’t about competitiveness, it’s about reaching out and sharing?
PL: I have this dream of a huge arts organization—like the telephone company buildings that have all these networks inside them—that you can say, New York City—go there. It’s like one big place. I do feel that we’re wasting a lot of money. That we could put our money into a great effort to bring it all in one place. I think having so many places is confusing. I think there’s a lot of duplication.
RRM: I think she brings up an interesting point. Is there a place that can be created in New York City—let’s start with New York—where all these service organizations that support artists can have a space, a person to talk to? I’m not saying that’s where their office is, their main office, but they have a representative there for these hours—say, Mondays between 12 and 5—in this building.
HS: We have that potential on the web. I mean, there could be one site that you go to that links you to all the various resources, and it would be open 24/7. NYFA Source is the beginning of something like that, although it can grow, and there are other things that can be added to it. But I’m taking from your comments that most of the artists that you know are not using the Web for their own purposes. They’re averse in one way or another.
RRM: Personally, I use it when I can; but I know, especially culturally speaking, a lot of people in the ’hood that are artists just don’t have computers—that’s a luxury when you have to pay your rent. I think that a lot of it’s also environment. That’s why I think that if there was a place where there were computers provided or there was open access for artists to come in.
DV: Can I say that we’re going to do that? We already received a grant to initiate something, a resource center for artists.
RRM: Just in terms of this report. I’d love to hear from you, what’s next?
HS: I think we can really actually transform the environment of support. First, we’re going to do everything we can to get this out and about and talked about as much and in as many places as possible.
In each of the nine cities where we did the local case studies, we identified funders to help support the study. We’re now going back to them and saying, “Okay, now you’ve got the results, what’s next?” In four of the nine cities we already have committees of funders, artists, and cultural leaders talking about and working on the high priorities in their locations. And we’re going to offer challenge grants to stimulate some specific changes. We’re hoping that that will increase awards, increase services, increase information exchange, a whole variety of things. It’ll be different in different places.
Another big issue that came out in the study is space. Imagine if we could effect some change in the zoning regulations, or the tax policies, or the financing mechanisms for space in New York City that would facilitate greater access to space. But what we need to do is pull together the information about what’s already been done and what could make a difference. So we’re going to be working on that and trying to partner with some of the big national organizations that have a role in this field. For example, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Fannie Mae, which is a big financer of housing projects around the country. If we could insinuate the interests of artists into these organizations so that there would be an artist advocate, for example, at HUD who’s thinking about how HUD’s policies could better support artist housing. The point is that we want to work on policy as well as actual projects.
We’re going to do something similar in the area of insurance. Health insurance is prominent in this report; but life insurance, retirement insurance, business insurance—artists thinking of themselves as businesses—is something that I think really needs to be a priority.
We’re just starting. The idea is sort of a ten-year campaign, if you will, to try and effect change in some of the most strategic areas, as well as pull together people who’ve really been dispersed and aren’t working effectively as a group. With the right combination of people picking this up, thinking about something they can do tomorrow, and something they can do with their friends, or something they can do in a discipline, or something they can do in a community, it will really change things over the course of the next ten years, and the report we write ten years from now will be quite different.
Outer Spaces
In this column, NYFA Program Officer David C Terry showcases artists and arts organizations that produce provocative public performances and art projects on the fringes of the mainstream art world. This issue’s installment profiles Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.
Who is Reverend Billy?
"Reverend Billy is a revivalist preacher who leads the Church of Stop Shopping, an anti-consumerist communion devoted to putting the ‘Odd Back in God.’”
What are the beliefs of the Church of Stop Shopping?
"Buying is not nearly as interesting as not-buying.”
"The product needs you worse than you need it, remember that.”
"Not buying is a brave thing to do. At first it may induce vertigo, identity weirdness, and a desire for an unwanted pregnancy, but most often a new believer will have an abnormal kitsch-acquisition fit.”
Tips on not-buying:
"When you lift your hand from the product and back away from it, a bright, unclaimed space opens up. Consumers think it is a vacuum. It is really only the unknown—full of suppressed ocean life, glitterati from Bosch, DNA twists, and childhood quotes that if remembered would burn down the Disney Store.”
"This behavior could appear odd, like an American who didn’t go west, who didn’t go into space, who had sex without a car.”
"Life without shopping is something that takes years of practice.”
Reverend Billy warns us to watch out for these churches:
"The most powerful church in the world is the Church of the Stupefied Consumer. This is a fundamentalist church run by famous telegangelists.”
"The Church of the Hypnotized Consumer. This new branch of the church has taken notes on the successes of Catholicism and other imperial god-systems and has done very well with their little confession booths called Texaco, Starbucks, and the Gap.”
"The Church of the Final Consumption promises us, like all religions, a full, rich life—and the trained actors who are paid to grin happily on the packages and flickering screens are sexily persuasive—but it turns out that the opposite is true. Products actually compete with real life.”
How can I see Reverend Billy and join the Church of Stop Shopping?
Go to www.revbilly.com for performance dates, bookings, godsightings, and much, much more. You can also order (online) his book What Should I Do If Reverend Billy Is in My Store?
Amen.
SERVICES
Fiscal Sponsorship
Artist Update
NYFA’s Fiscal Sponsorship program supports projects by over 500 artists working in all disciplines. Here are a small handful that have recently been in the news.
Featured in the last issue of NYFA Quarterly, Nathaniel Kahn’s My Architect, a film about his father, architect Louis Kahn, was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature.
David Licata’s short narrative film Tango Octogenario, a stylized portrait of an elderly couple and their unique way of reconnecting with each other, was selected for the New Directors/New Films showcase this year.
Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky’s documentary film Hiding and Seeking opened at the Quad Cinema following its world premiere as the opening night film at the New York Jewish Film Festival. The film explores the Holocaust’s impact on a faith in God and fellow human beings. Filmed in Jerusalem, Brooklyn, and Poland, Hiding and Seeking tells the story of filmmaker Daum’s struggle to ensure that his children and grandchildren never use their religion to demean others.
Three NYFA fiscally sponsored projects recently received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts: Maureen Fleming’s Decay of the Angel, an evening-length, multi-disciplinary work loosely based on the myth of Hagoromo; Bill Shannon’s currently untitled new work, a solo, evening-length piece combining dance, spoken word, video, and theater; and Peter Friedman and Roger Manley’s Mana, The Power Of Things, an experimental documentary film examining the meaning of the word “belief” as it applies to religion and everyday life.
The New York African Film Festival, which introduces African film to American audiences, will take place in April at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater and BAM Rose Cinemas. Through panel discussions and post-screening events where audiences and filmmakers meet, the African Film Festival offers opportunities for increased awareness of and interest in African culture through film and the development of new channels of distribution for African cinema throughout the US. For a full festival schedule, please visit www.africanfilmny.org.
