A Wisconsin take on Generation X and the arts

From many years ago I remember Bill Dawson of ACUCAA (now known as APAP) once sharing the results of a test audience survey that was done solely on arts administrators. It was on the value of the arts. The administrators checked off words like "educational," "informative," and "enlightening." When the same survey was given to a sample audience they overwhelmingly checked off -- "fun." My point: who said educational couldn't be fun? I believe the best education is, indeed, fun. And that starts a long discussion in many different arenas. For this point, however -- I guess I want to respond to your readers that I attend a concert or exhibit for enjoyment and good program notes or a quality gallery talk invariably end up educating me. But I attended for the enjoyment factor.
A second point to consider: the reason for all the attention to arts education is multi-pronged. (1) If you follow the sports analogy you acknowledge that professional sports in America is only viable at the level it is because of the early exposure children get to sports with little league and school sports. We in the arts seek to -- and must -- adapt that model to work for us. (2) We can only value what we've experienced. If we don't provide arts experiences to children they will never know what options are available when they are adults. (3)Let's be truthful that we chase the funds and its easier to write a grant for a children's educational program than a no-frills concert series. (4) Its not always so easy to implement that funded arts ed program! (5) We can follow Bob Gard's lead (THANK YOU for reviving that important man's work as a role model)and think seriously as individuals and institutions about WHY we go the work we do; then we must put aside seriousness and be genuine, lighthearted and joyous about implementing that work and sharing the arts.

Two points:

1) The focus on kids through the arts comes from the utilitarian obsession that the arts first and foremost must be justified (and most easily resourced) through more comprehensible frameworks, e.g., education. So art for education's sake becomes a plea for self-justification, rather than simply one honorable application of the artistic process and enterprise.

2)There is a legitimate and fast-growing concern among artists with intergenerational work, i.e., work that targets and affects audiences of different ages simultaneously. That means not getting to adults through their children, but getting to both simultaneously on what might be different cognitive tracks. So an adult without kids in the picture should be just as important a partner to the artists.
It is be a holistic rather than a compartmentalized view of the arts in community experience, rather than a slice-and-dice of predetermined audience development.

A few examples of "adult arts education" I've seen from local events targeted at adults or young adults:

1) "V-Day" style theatre fairs of local charities who equate political activism with being loud and passing out flyers with sourceless alarming statistics. These have an unclear relationship with the political drama they tend to accompany and tend to polemicize or turn off audience rather than educate them.

2)Talkbacks after performances with bored actors who don't want to be there and poor moderation on the part of the theatre company.

3) "Reader's guides" to plays that are meant to encourage book-club style reading and discussion for playgoers, yet have questions about as deep as your average 8th-grade reading comprehension quiz.

These are a few examples from my home artform. We need more fruitful dialogues about successful means of adult education instead of reliance on a few fallback forms that often fail when poorly implemented. I hope these clarify my point.

Robert Gard's ideas are fascinating and very much to the point: You inspire people to get interested in the arts by making the arts part of their daily life. Do so requires radical steps, a radical re-think of what art is. What I don't like about the "get 'em while they're young" approach is that it just skims the surface of the problem.

Hello habeas: You mention that "a danger of adult arts education is that it often borders on the insulting in terms of assuming ignorance within its audiences." Elsewhere, you mention "denigrating the knowledge base of the people you're targeting." Can you offer a specific example or two of that? I'm not sure how to respond to this without knowing what you have in mind.

I agree that we shouldn't "write off" Gen-X adults in favor of their kids. However, a danger of adult arts education is that it often borders on the insulting in terms of assuming ignorance within its audiences. A lot of us aren't looking to be "educated" on our nights out, perhaps, even when we want to encounter serious, thought-provoking drama.

How would you structure an adult arts education program that is NOT participatory to appeal to Gen X'ers?

Participatory workshops in creative writing/ acting/ painting are comparatively easy to market, but they don't sell season tickets or ensure big museum donations. How do you connect a theatre production or museum exhibit with Gen X'ers through "adult education" without denigrating the knowledge base of the people you're targeting?