I think "arts passion" is very much understood and already romaticized enough. For the members on my symphony Board, the orchestra they worked to support was essentially and fundamentally a low-level business activity with a high-level budget which sold tickets to events and looked for supportive grants. We musicians ourselves were nearly completely invisible except as an Expenses line on the budget We were thought of as replaceable parts, emotional innocents who blew, bowed or hit things with passion, activities unrelated to the orchestra as institution, and accordingly to the practical values and activities of the Market. The value we musicians work at and which concerns us -making and perfecting the language of live music- wasn't on the stock exchange and didn't appear on the bottom line of the budget. Few Board members actually attend our concerts or were amateur musicians. Almost no Board member knew the qualifications or histories of the musicians playing or the many reasons for their fees. They didn't include our names on the orchestra website. They were there because volunteerism, in our medium sized university city, is a kind of moral duty. The need I perceived while serving on this Board was to show Board members that musicians' passion -like the passion they might have for horses or golf- is just the start of a musicians' life work, and a private part of our own daily work. For us to cultivate and shape this passion is our undending job 8am to 10pm, within a miniscule income. I think administrators really need to gain respect for the work-related side of the artform rather than to get involved with trying to experience artists passion. That after all, is what we offer when we actually perform. We musicians need to be seen as WORKERS. The arts need to be known and revealed as a real complex working world which lives alongside and within a working market economy. At the centre of the world's Market is the $dollar. At the centre of culture is "Art". I think "arts passion" is understood and already romaticized enough.

Once when I was consulting with a small art museum, the Board was having a fairly difficult discussion about costs. Someone got particularly exercised by the huge (to the Board member) amount of money spent on shipping cases. I suggested that we take a break in the meeting and go down to the shipping area to look at shipping cases. Once the Board members saw the complex construction of a case that would be used for shipping a painting -- and realized, for the first time, that this was not simply four pieces of wood nailed together -- the worry about that particular cost was gone.

The difference between the product side and the business side isn't necessarily about "estrangement"; it can also be en erroneous assumption that we all know what goes into the work and -- perhaps most important -- we share a common understanding of the language we use.

I'm all for removing those kinds of veils.

AMEN! We arts administrators got into this field for a reason, right?

We've done this same thing for our board members. At every meeting, we invite a member of the orchestra to talk about their instrument and their lives as musicians (we're per service). It's usually the most memorable part and it makes the part about asking them to raise more money much easier. Veil, schmeil, it's about the mission, silly.

I appreciate what you're saying about these small changes, but I think that the veil between passion and business can be useful. We're in the workplace together regardless of personal passions. If we lift that veil, we should be careful since we do not know how personal passions will mix. A modicum of dispassionate behavior is required.

Excellent. So true. How is it that such "estrangement" has grown between the product side and the business side? The passion and the business structure? The current nonprofit governance model is so outdated. Shouldn't we all be "lobbying" for changes????