{"id":749,"date":"2024-02-06T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/?p=749"},"modified":"2024-02-04T06:42:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T06:42:00","slug":"your-addiction-to-artistic-vision-means-diddly-squat-to-your-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/02\/06\/your-addiction-to-artistic-vision-means-diddly-squat-to-your-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Addiction to Artistic Vision Means Diddly-Squat to Your Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

But let\u2019s tax poor people anyway and send the money to nonprofit arts organizations instead of direct aid to artists.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(“36\/365 ~ Adictivo, fulminante, enfermizo.” by Verano y mil tormentas is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The book has been unleashed\u2026save yourselves (by buying it)!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My new book, Scene Change: Why Today\u2019s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact<\/em><\/strong><\/a> is now on the shelves, be they internet shelves or real ones, in the UK and the US. If your bookstore isn\u2019t carrying it (yet), please let them know that you want a copy and that they should stock up. Just give them this ISBN: 978-1-80 341-446-1<\/a><\/strong>. If it\u2019s still not listed, contact me directly at alan@501c3.guru<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are connected with an arts management program, an arts school, or want to buy a group purchase for your board of directors and staff, contact me directly (as others have) by clicking here<\/a>. There are substantial discounts starting at 25 copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seattle Rep<\/a> is hosting a launch event this Saturday, February 10, an interview\/reading in the lobby rotunda at 5:15 between the two performances of Quixote Nuevo<\/em>, currently on stage. The emcee will be local, award-winning acting legend Allen Fitzpatrick. (Psst: it’s free.) More events are coming soon \u2013 please check the website: https:\/\/501c3.guru<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, to this week\u2019s column. First, let\u2019s talk about addiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addiction, according to Healthline<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>is \u201ca chronic dysfunction of the brain system that involves reward, motivation, and memory. It\u2019s about the way your body craves a substance or behavior, especially if it causes a compulsive or obsessive pursuit of \u2018reward\u2019 and lack of concern over consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you knew that. What you may not have discovered is that one can become addicted to one\u2019s school of thought in the same way. The \u201ccraved behavior\u201d can be the establishment of a set of norms \u00ad\u00ad\u2014 whether they actually work for you or not \u2014 and utilize them in such a way as not to accept that they may be wrong, or at the very least, someone using old societies to justify toxic behavior. Either via privilege (no one questioning authority) or via segregationist tendencies (and this does not only apply to White people), a school of thought comes to the surface, is believed wholeheartedly, and applied, even when the circumstances do not call for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This addiction is at the firestorm causing the implosion of our current political system and ceding democracy for authoritarianism \u2013 but then again, it could be said that addictive qualities surround nearly all elections. And those who cover them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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An addiction to one’s own school of thought inevitably leads to undeserved, authoritarian tendencies, in politics, the media, and the arts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It’s akin to that 1966 quote from Abraham Maslow (yes, that <\/strong><\/em>Maslow, as in Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs<\/a>): \u201cI suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.\u201d But not all solutions are hammers. And sometimes, that nail might be a salami<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such addiction is relatively prevalent in the nonprofit arts community: the addiction of artistic vision worship<\/strong>. Similar to the kind of vision worship found in televangelism, artistic vision worship is a key reason too many large nonprofit arts organizations have become elitist, inessential charities that do no quantifiable work for the community in which they serve. It also feeds into why the public does not buy the notion that an arts organization might be anything but a sham attempt at vanity.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sex addict\/Preacher\/Billionaire Mike Murdock (left). How different from his vision is your artistic vision? (Image by Cottonbro Studio on Pexels)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Televangelists (corrupt, criminal, or otherwise) answer real-life problems with the hammer of manipulated Bible vision and use their literal pulpit to do so, often at the expense of their poorest parishioners. Nonprofit arts organization leaders answer them with the salami of artistic vision, only at the expense of the wealthiest White people in the community. The arts productions may be of excellent quality, but excellence is irrelevant for a charitable organization when no measurable community good comes out of it. If your impact on the community can\u2019t be strictly measured, it does not exist. You can\u2019t cull data out of \u201cnurturing the soul,\u201d a common phrase used to support artistic work. \u201cNurturing the soul\u201d isn\u2019t measurable. It\u2019s a cop-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No data? No relevance. Unworthy, especially for large nonprofit arts organizations considered \u201ctoo big to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you have to ask: what is the purpose of supporting the arts? Is it to support art? Artists? Both of those items deserve tons of support. As we\u2019ve discussed in earlier columns, art is essential, in the literal sense. It exists, like air and water. Even the most inartistic item you can imagine \u2014 say, a grain of sand or a Styrofoam cup \u2014 is artistic because everything is. Artists are magical. Only artists can take disparate items and ideas and transform them into something else. Whether that something else is beautiful or ugly is immaterial (that\u2019s a subjective judgment), but it is always art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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