More Czars Than There Are in Heaven

I had thoughts similar to Nihar's - while we may want/need a more centralized voice, will it just be seen as more big government liberalism, perceived as creating new regulations and restrictions even if it's commenting on new policies or proposed changes? Not that that should be a reason not to, but it is definitely something to consider in framing how such a thing could be done.

Until we have that go to think tank, we'll have to continue to spread things organically to our networks. As such, I'm passing along this blog link that makes a very compelling case that the jobs bill President Obama mentioned in the State of the Union Address should go to arts, culture, history and heritage organizations because it would not only support/create jobs, but help improve the quality of life of a wide variety of people. I hope you'll pass this along to your State Senators and Representatives as well as the President: http://artsmarket.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/a-modest-jobs-proposal-to-congress-and-the-president-arts-culture-history-and-heritage/

All week I've been trying to pin down why this conversation -- as thoughtful and valuable as it is -- seems a little airy and has occasionally made me impatient. I think it's because the topic here is (pardon the oversimplification) what the arts say about themselves rather than what they do. Not that framing and language are unimportant. But no message about the traditionally-defined arts speaks louder than what happens, or doesn't, inside a concert hall or art museum, etc. Whether we're talking about advocacy at the level of the field or marketing at the level of an individual organization, those overt messages we spend so much time and care articulating are only a small part of the total signal we're sending. And sometimes there's a disconnect between what we say about our value (and values) and how our offerings actually look and feel to the audiences and communities we're trying to engage.

So advocacy and framing are, I would argue, arts management challenges, innovation challenges, even artistic challenges. When we find better, more intimate, more participatory, more colloquial, more diverse ways of connecting with people, the arts will half frame themeselves. Then a conversation like this one can do the rest.

In the meantime, maybe we should think about a parallel conversation about how best to advocate for new ways of presenting the arts and construing our audiences. And the target audience for that framing effort would be ourselves.