A New Arts and Cultural Alliance: St. Johnsbury VT

Several days ago I had the pleasure of visiting St. Johnsbury to attend, among other events, the centennial celebration of the Masonic Hall.  Fifteen years ago, the Masonic Hall served as the headquarters for the local Passumpsic #27 chapter of the Vermont Freemasons, and was known best for its charitable work and the phenomenal model train set in its basement.

Today, through a remarkable collaborative community effort, the Masonic Hall is now also the headquarters of Catamount Arts.  Therein lies a remarkable story.

For the past ten years or so, a slow reawakening has been occurring in St. Johnsbury.  The venerable cultural institutions that line Main Street, including the St. Johnsbury Academy (my favorite secondary school because the horizontal nav bar on their home page lists the Three As for all the world to see!), the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, and the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, have figured out, along with Catamount Arts, that there is safety in numbers.

During the centennial celebration, Charlie Browne, director of the Fairbanks Museum gave a brief talk on St. Johnsbury’s new Arts & Cultural Alliance on which they have all collaborated (reprinted by permission):

Catamounts Arts, with energy, momentum, and this splendid home, has taken its place as an extraordinary resource for culture and the arts in St. Johnsbury and beyond, alongside a world-class independent high school, St. Johnsbury Academy, a national historic landmark library and gallery, the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, and the venerable and beloved Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium.  No other community of this size can claim such rich resources for art and culture.

Culture is our shared experience, values, heritage, vision, and sense of place.  Art is that universal human imperative to creative expression - from needlepoint to garage rock, from digital design to expressive dance, from filmmaking to poetry, from a well-tended garden to a well-crafted novel, from nature photography to culinary delights, and from watercolors to a handsomely turned cherry wood bowl.  Art in all of its forms shapes and illuminates our shared culture by expressing our values, inspiring our thinking and contributing to our heritage – across our generations.

Together, these four institutions have formed the St. Johnsbury Arts & Culture Alliance, with a shared purpose: to nurture that imperative in us all, and to do so in close collaboration.  I thank Jody Fried and his team, Joe Healy and his Academy colleagues, Matt Powers and his Athenaeum team, and Anna Rubin and her Museum colleagues for breathing life into this organization. 

Together, they have defined and celebrate a St. Johnsbury Arts and Culture Campus, one without walls, but marked by beautiful student-designed banners that line Main Street from the Academy to the Museum and along Eastern Avenue and Railroad Street.  

Together, they are creating a new authentic learning experience for Academy freshmen: the Freshman Humanities Capstone that will bring students into working contact with these like-minded institutions and their resources.

Together, Catamount Arts and the Athenaeum are launching a new arts education program, and a community public sculpture project is in the planning stages.  And together, these four institutions are finally coordinating and sharing their respective calendars or community events!  

Collectively, the Arts & Culture Alliance is a unique community asset, one with a tradition of innovation, and one that is driving a thriving creative economy, from which we all will benefit.  Thank you, Catamount Arts and your beautiful facility for being a leading part of this effort.

It would appear that the next hundred years is off to a very good start in St. Johnsbury!  Now, if I could only find out what happened to that model train set…

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On Assessment

“The Arts Council should do something fun, cheap, and available to any man, woman, and child that wants to participate.  I’m recommending we do a project with an artist’s palette; send them all over the state to any community that wants a bunch.  Let everyone decide for him or herself how they want to decorate their palette.  It’ll be fun, and it will do more to raise awareness about our work than anything else we could possibly do.”

“But will it work?  How are we going to know if it does everything you claim it will do?”

“Trust me, it will work.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.  That’s how.”

[The above conversation took place between two Council trustees at our Annual Meeting in the summer of 2005.  The argument was regarding whether to undertake what became “The Palettes Project.”]

*     *     *     *     *

For the sixth time since arriving in Vermont I am working on the Arts Council’s Partnership Application to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).  It is, in the truest sense of the word, a labor of love. 

When else does one have the opportunity to cram what could easily amount to a 150-page discourse on programs and services offered to artists, arts organizations, schools, and communities  into a mere 11 pages?  When else do we in this very limited field (there are only about 60 state, territorial, and regional arts councils in the USA) get to brag to our peers about the incredible work that, in some small but meaningful way, we have helped bring into existence within the borders of our small state?

Writing these applications is joyful.  It gives me a “5-hour energy boost” that lasts for months. It makes me incredibly grateful for the outstanding staff that works with me at the Council.  Their labors and those of our constituents nurture Vermont’s creative workers; engage our children in positive, collaborative pursuits; identify and preserve our most precious cultural landscapes; and in countless other ways improve Vermont’s quality of life.

There is, however, one aspect of applying for a grant (not just from the NEA) that has always perplexed me.  It is the inevitable question about evaluation/measurement/assessment.

While it is important for any non-profit, public-benefit corporation to be able to articulate why its work is worthy of public support (including tax-deductible contributions from private citizens), the degree to which “accountability” has crept into our daily lives is a diversion from the real arguments in favor of supporting the arts.

As a result of the conversation recreated above, the Palettes Project was approved unanimously by the Council’s trustees, all of whom trusted the gut instinct of a very experienced trustee (and their own) over the “cost/benefit-” or “risk/reward-”based arguments that staff was asked to present. And yes, it accomplished everything the trustee expected and much, much more.

How many times are we asked, sometimes in multiple ways, how we will know that our programs and services are successful?  For many of the things we do, the answer is quite easy.  We ask for reports from grantees and people who have participated in our Breaking into Business Workshops, and they simply tell us how great (or not!) the program or service has been.

But for the bulk of the money we spend on creation grants, operating support grants to organizations, project grants and arts education grants, the answer is often far more difficult to articulate.  We get a lot of responses like, “the smiles on the faces of the kids as they left the auditorium, were priceless.”  And, oddly enough, I completely know what the grantee is telling me when I read a statement like that.

The truth is really that there are no metrics  to help us ascertain the degree to which a visit to the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts had an impact on the development of a 5^th-grader from Island Pond.  Nor is there a measurement tool that captures the unique causal relationship between the economic vigor of a community and the degree to which that community embraces its arts sector.  Perhaps some university-backed psychologist with a $500,000 grant to do a longitudinal study in these areas might reveal something concrete that most of us already know instinctively.  But to arrive at the positive conclusions about the impact of such activities on people’s and communities’ lives is something that ALL of us working in the arts know.  We have experienced it.  But getting concrete, incontrovertible, third-party evidence at a price we can all afford is, in my experience,a waste of money.

I have borne witness to literally hundreds of so-called “economic impact studies” (which, more often than not, are about activity not impact); served on dozens of panels that expound on the value of collaborations, of marketing, of professional development; participated , collaborated, and advocated for public and private arts support, using every argument in the book, from Cultural Heritage Tourism to the Creative Economy; and written literally a thousand blog pages urging people to value and support the arts.  But it all comes down to a series of simple statements.  Feel free to add your own:

We support the arts because they inspire us to lead a better life.

We support the arts because they reflect profoundly on the human condition.

We support the arts because they provide the emotional, subjective anchors that are at the root of community.

We support the arts because they engage our young people and allow our elders to share their wisdom.

We support the arts because they allow people from different backgrounds to gain respect for, and insight about, each other.

We support the arts because they allow us to work, to play, to rest, and to recover.  Homo sapiens have known this for 40,000 years or more.  We don’t need a longitudinal study of any kind to tell us this.

The bottom line is that I am completely satisfied that the programs and services we provide to Vermont’s arts sector and the programs and services the Vermont arts sector provides to the general public are neither more nor less exemplary than those provided by every other State Arts Council and their arts sectors.  We all have been doing this for a long time, and shall continue to as long as people can dance, speak, sing, hold a brush or camera, and write.   It’s important work, and it matters. How do I know?

I just do. That’s how.

Art and Athleticism

Nothing draws me to the television faster than the Olympic Games.  It’s not grandeur or the pageantry; it’s not the magisterial music written by John Williams (although I am a HUGE fan), and it certainly isn’t the treacle that passes for “biographical sketches” of hometown athletes overcoming some gargantuan struggle.

No, it’s the competitions themselves.  Whether table tennis or judo, indoor cycling or synchronized diving, I just LOVE to watch finely tuned athletes compete at the highest level of their sports.  Last night I watched one of the most incredible games of soccer (football? what?) between Canada and the US and there was hardly a player left standing at the end of the match.  They’d left it all on the field and it showed in their faces—some grim and disheartened, and others joyful but exhausted.

Early last week several stories were served up on NPR about how the modern Olympics under the leadership of Baron Pierre de Coubertin had included poetry and art competitions as well, starting with the 1912 Stockholm Games.  They stopped them after the 1948 London Games evidently because no one cared and, based on the few samples that I heard, the poetry and art was really amateurish or, to stay in context, “not of Olympic caliber.”

Why, I wondered?

Some art forms lend themselves very well to competition. Why isn’t there an Olympics for dance, for instance?  Fox has figured out, with the genius of Nigel Lythgoe, a stunningly successful formula for “So You Think You Can Dance?”  Why can’t that competition be adapted for an international stage?  The dancers on that show are probably as close to committed to their art as Olympic athletes are to their sport.  The entertainment value is just as strong, if not stronger.  And sharing multicultural experiences on a grand scale has to be at least as important to the world’s psyche as sharing the 100-meter dash or the marathon, doesn’t it?

Baron de Coubertin’s foray into an Olympic Art competition sounded doomed from the start.  First, in his world-view, nothing was more grand than the gifted amateur, sacrificing everything in the pursuit of Olympic excellence.  The fact that this attitude towards sport doesn’t work as well for painting and poetry seemed lost on him.  Gifted amateurs can still put up a spirited and entertaining sports competition.  But for the most part, art and poetry requires a much more nuanced approach, a level of sophistication on the part of the creator and the audience that is probably not going to be found in the broad popular context of an Olympic Games.  And let’s just say that except for Poetry Slam competitors most poets, like painters, tend to shy away from competitions.   Listening to the NPR report I had to admit that  nothing could have sounded more pompous and self-conscious than de Coubertin’s own  “winning” poem (anonymously submitted!) that began, “O sport!...”

Ugh.

But what if we COULD pull it off, what then?  Judging play writing couldn’t be any better or worse than judging gymnastics or figure skating.  Same with singing, dancing, acting, playing the bassoon or a myriad of other artistic pursuits, right?  Some countries might dominate in some areas for years at a time.  I bet Great Britain, for instance, would be a dominant player in play writing competitions, much like Jamaica seems to be dominating the sprint competitions.  What’s the matter with that?

It would be entertaining.  It would be exciting.  It would be worthy of an Olympian effort.  And it might just change a whole lot of people’s attitudes towards the arts…

Why not?

A Study in Contrasts

As part of my ongoing travels throughout the State, I frequently witness startling contrasts.  Most have to do with views or weather. After all, this is Vermont, and we have plenty of varieties of both.

But my recent travels have brought me into contact with two communities, in very different parts of the State, each of which are remarkable in terms of what they offer from a cultural perspective (or don’t), and more importantly, how they view the role of art and culture in their community’s future.

The first community, which I shall call “A,” has for years suffered from the manufacturing flight of the past couple of generations.  Hundreds of thousands of square feet of former factory/mill real estate has lain empty for a long time, and several attempts to “bootstrap” an economy have met largely with mediocre (if that!) success.  Community “A” has not, however given up.  In the past few years they have converted some of the space into a community health center, and looked at what other communities have done that have resulted in new public/private investment.

It seems to be working.  Last week I attended a public opening at a new (re)development in the heart of the downtown, and it was clear to me that the town and the developer of the property had their priorities squarely in the right place.  As Mayor Richard Riley of Charleston SC famously said, “If you want to build public value in a community, give the best parts of the community to the public!”  This community, this developer took the centerpiece of the property and turned it into an open gallery/community use space, taking advantage of the nearly perfect lighting that the clerestory windows drew from outside.  They had invested time and energy into selecting works of art that both captivated the viewer and reflected back the town’s new-found energy and commitment to its future.

Community A still has a long way to go.  But they now have a significant cultural entity with which to draw visitors, to attract workers and their families, to attract entrepreneurs, and to attract additional investment.  The positive energy was palpable, and the community’s sense of pride and achievement is well-deserved.  [And I should also add, the next town over also recently installed a new art center so now each community can build on the strengths of the other as they look to bring people into Vermont!]

Contrast this with my encounter in community “B.”  This town has a storied history, wonderful cultural entities who have been serving as the primary draw for visitors and residents for well over a century.  Their cultural assets include several buildings (museum, library, performing arts facility, and theater), and a school with a strong national reputation for educating well-rounded, culturally aware students.  There is a thriving population of artists and craftspeople whose work is visible in many locations throughout the community and whose combined interests support multiple arts and community festivals etc.

The difference between community A and B is the level of engagement by their respective elected or appointed community leaders.  Community A’s leaders, especially the business leaders, are totally behind the new efforts to establish use this new arts facility as a calling card, a beacon of light to attract new life-blood to the community.  Community B’s leaders seem content to quietly ignore the considerable cultural assets in their midst.  On a recent trip there I stopped by community B’s visitor center, having previously attended many meetings there to discuss how to kick-start their “creative economy,” only to find that the visitor’s center had been moved at least three miles out of town, past “the strip” and its large contingency of car dealerships, fast food restaurants, and mall shops.

What visitor to community B is going to want to find his/her way three miles out of town and then turn back again?

The point here is simply one of perception.  Community A perceives this new art venue as a draw, as a catalyst that will help turn their town around psychologically and, eventually, economically.  People in community A have committed themselves to the arts, and placed one of the most valuable new pieces of real estate in the hands of curators and artists to carry their community spirit forward.

Community B perceives the arts as something very different.  Perhaps the community leaders have grown up with these incredible assets and their stately familiarity is simply not something they see much value in.  Lucky for community B, the people who manage, who perform in, who visit, or otherwise attend these cultural entities are loyal and committed to the work that is presented.  They carry on despite their local community’s leaders’ apparent neglect.

This is a pity.  Community B will have a much more difficult time, despite its significant cultural advantages, in attracting new audiences, new visitors, new investment, and new blood than community A. 

It’s an interesting contrast.

Education and the Arts: Vermont

[Taken from the annual State of the Arts speech, given at the Annual Meeting of the Vermont Arts Council, June 5, 2012 in the Vermont State House, Montpelier, Vermont]

In the middle of my sixth grade year my family moved from upstate NY to Brooklyn and enrolled me in a highly progressive experimental school called St. Ann’s.  Not quite 11 years old, and wearing a Nehru jacket that my mother assured me was all the rage, I walked into the school on my first day, with my heart pounding in the back of my throat.   

The very first impression I had was that, compared to the sedate western Massachusetts school I had said goodbye to the Friday before, this was complete chaos.

First there was the noise.  The hum of Brooklyn’s streets, gave way behind the school’s front door to shouts of glee from young children rushing to their homeroom; crashes from the dining hall as early arrivals finished their snacks and vied with each other for the honor of clearing their dishes the loudest.  Then there was the smell: a combination of industrial paint, disinfectant, chalk dust, fruit cocktail and overcooked green beans.  And of course there was me, smelling of fear and damp, woolen, Nehru jacket.

Most astonishing was the two-story carpeted grand staircase which led past the admissions offices on the mezzanine up to the first level of classrooms on the third floor.  It was a stunning visual introduction to a school I’d barely even heard of a week earlier.   

On this grand staircase, kids of all ages congregated; some to chat or gossip, and others to compare notes prior to attending their classes.  

One kid named Peter proclaimed loudly to anyone listening that he could descend the entire staircase in fewer than six leaps.  After skipping four steps on his first leap, he realized he’d have to skip even more in order to reach his goal.  So his second leap he cleared five steps.  It was his third leap, now trying to clear six steps, that misfortune struck.  Upon landing, his feet came out from under him and he thrumped his way down the entire rest of the staircase on his ass.

Unhurt, he popped up onto his feet, saw that I was looking in fear and admiration at his extraordinary fall, and said sagely, “that was a dumb move.” It was years before it occurred to me he was referring to my Nehru jacket, not his fall. 

St. Ann’s was and still is a truly arts-integrated school.  It didn’t give grades, just comments.  It placed you in classes by ability, not by age.  In this school, I sang my first solo, drew my first nude, wrote my first and only play and starred in it as Spock with a stunning classmate improbably named Davina opposite me as Capt. Kirk, all by the end of my ninth-grade year. 

In this school I discovered that despite my initial fears, a country boy who liked nothing better than digging in manure, fishing with night-crawlers he had gathered himself, and building forts in the woods with his brother, could survive and thrive in an arts-rich, urban environment all while learning the requisite materials in science, math, history, literature, and foreign languages.

I tell this story because the Arts Council has spent a great deal of time this year putting together a strategic plan, and one of the most significant “aha” moments came  last fall when we realized two things:  One, that far from gaining any traction in this post-911, NCLB, STEM-oriented world, the arts were, in fact, facing ongoing, and ever-increasing deficits in our schools; and two, that if we are to “stem” this tide (so to speak), we have to have a radically different vision for Vermonters and their access to the arts going forward.

So this year, our Strategic Plan in addition to calling for a greater emphasis on evaluation of programs and accountability, also calls for a renewed emphasis on arts education—particularly on the pre-K through 12 cohort in which young boys and girls transition into young adults, test societal mores, and make decisions that can profoundly impact their future for better or worse. 

Our vision is for all Vermont students to have access to a thorough, integrated, sequential, learning plan or program that includes instruction in the arts as well as instruction through the arts.  We believe this can only happen when communities demand that their schools turn STEM-only mandates in to “full STEAM ahead”-mandates in which in which the arts and creativity play a central role; in which professional arts instructors, in addition to their teaching duties, help integrate the arts into other areas of the curriculum and supplement this work with local artist- and arts organization-resources. 

Our role is to support schools in this work through showcasing successful models, providing networking and convening opportunities, and collaborating with the Department of Education and the Agency of Human Services to ensure that ALL Vermont students, especially those in difficult or constrained circumstances, have equal access to these vital programs as well as the research that justifies this type of dynamic approach.

Another much longer-term vision and thus much more difficult to develop evaluation metrics for, is for Vermont to develop a reputation for graduating young adults from its secondary and post-secondary schools who are not only well-educated, but whose ideas about the importance of civic engagement and self-awareness are informed by their knowledge of and appreciation for creativity and the arts. 

Statistically, nearly half of all students who graduate from college leave the state their school is located in and settle elsewhere.  We want those students to value their own Vermont education experience so much that either they are compelled to return when they’re ready to start their own business or raise a family, or they do everything in their power to recreate it wherever they happen to live—even if it’s in a place like Westlake, Louisiana.   

Last week Governor Jindal proudly announced that Louisiana has “privatized” its entire public school system.  Now tax payer-funded vouchers are available for parents want to send kids to schools like Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake which teaches a “Creationist perspective of Science” with no mention of the Theory of Evolution because (and I quote its Principal) “we try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children.”

Art can certainly be confusing. But isn’t that in part the point of knowing something about it?  Unpacking the meaning of a painting, or a poem, or a song—exploring its deeper, universal meaning—isn’t that kind of what life is all about?  Studying the arts is the nearest substitute we have to studying life itself.  In fact, take out the word substitute.  Art is life.  But then, if you’re reading this, there is a good chance you already know it.

About a month ago I paid a visit to the Arts Integrated Academy in Burlington’s North End.  As the door closed behind me and I climbed the stairs to the main floor, I was struck at the overwhelming similarity to my first arrival at St. Ann’s more than 40 years ago.  Even without a Nehru jacket, the sounds, sights and smells were nearly identical.  I could tell instantly that this school is Vermont’s future. 

No, there wasn’t a grand staircase, but there was art on every wall, notices about music, field trips, teaching artist visits and the like.  Most importantly, there was a full class of multi-ethnic, non-English speaking students of all ages working on a group puppet show.  This was their introduction not just to the English language and the American education system but to life in America itself, and I was so so proud of them and of the good people at the Academy and the Flynn whose diligent stewardship has turned this school into such a dynamic learning environment in just three short years.

This school is the antidote to what is happening in places like Louisiana where public policy makers have essentially given over their responsibilities to the next generation completely to the private sector.  It is today what all Vermont schools should be like tomorrow.

Our job—the Arts Council’s  job—is to make it so.

Tropical Storm Irene’s Unwanted Offspring

In the nearly nine months since Tropical Storm Irene ravaged Vermont, much has been reported about the outpouring of support for those impacted and the speed and efficiency with which communities and state agencies (particularly the Agency of Transportation and Commerce/Community Development) responded to the destruction of roads, bridges, neighborhoods, and foliage/holiday-season tourism.  Those efforts were truly outstanding, and continue to be so for the foreseeable future.  Looking at the huge swaths of Rte. 107 along the White River that were affected and rebuilt within a few short months gives anyone driving a sense of awe about what Vermonters accomplished.

One of the particularly gratifying responses came from the arts sector.  Final numbers may be impossible to pinpoint but within a few months of the disaster, at least $2 million had been raised and deposited in various funds at the Vermont Community Foundation mostly from artists, notably Phish and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, stepping forward and offering their services.

There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of events and activities that have supported the Irene Recovery effort—most in the form of community concerts, arts and crafts auctions, house concert parties, and a very successful graphic design (“Vermont Strong”) that, as a license plate, has raised several hundred thousand dollars for the State’s long-term recovery efforts.  Artists of all genres and abilities have participated in this outpouring of support and their efforts have been greatly appreciated, whether they netted a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

Here we are, however, nearly nine months later contemplating what I fear may be an unintended (though perhaps not unexpected) outcome of this magnificent response to Irene: the disappearance of contributions to other charitable-purpose organizations, specifically arts organizations.

In the last few weeks one of Vermont’s pre-eminent cultural institutions has been turned down flat by its second long-standing business supporter in a row.  The reason?  Those businesses are focusing all their charitable giving to the Irene recovery effort.  This isn’t really an example of “Donor Fatigue.” This is more like “Donor Abandonment.”  And it should be nipped before it buds.

It would be extremely short-sighted for arts-friendly corporations to abandon their support for cultural entities in their zeal to “set Vermont back on its feet.”  First, most of those cultural entities were, and continue to be, at the forefront of raising funds to support the same effort.  Second, individuals were able to dig deeper than ever this year to put a few extra dollars towards the Irene Recovery effort, so why can’t businesses be expected to do the same without compromising their other commitments?  Third, and perhaps most important, Vermont’s cultural organizations tend to live pretty much hand-to-mouth even in years where the economy is good and people are gainfully employed.  Simply saying no because of a single natural disaster does nothing more than reveal how much, or little, those businesses value the presence of art and culture in their lives and communities.  Is this really the message business wants to convey?  What kind of Vermont will be set back on its feet if it doesn't include the arts?

We are already seeing that in our zeal to repair many of Vermont’s waterways we have removed all the large rocks and downed trees from many riverbeds, thus (ironically) exacerbating the damage future flooding could cause.  Are we ready for similar consequences should it turn out that in our zeal to support the near-term Irene Recovery effort, we do permanent, long-term damage to the cultural sector’s financial sustainability?

It is probably true that no single decision that any one business makes about whether to support an arts organization it has supported for years is going to make too much of a difference to the health of Vermont’s arts sector.  But before two “Nos” become a trend, I want to make sure the good people in charge of making corporate funding decisions understand that their actions could have grave consequences for a field that adds so much to our way of life.