Barry Strikes Again
Dunkirk NY – Barry Hessenius writes what I think is one of the best and most forward-looking blogs around. A former director of the California Arts Council, Barry is a tireless critic of the current models of arts promotion, fundraising and development, and his blog is a continual call to arms to artists across the country to begin doing the hard work of re-thinking and re-positioning the arts in America. He’s also critical of the lack of arts education in the K-12 area, but I think what he has to say about arts education is just as valid at the higher education level (college kids who are not artists receive no better an education in the arts at college as they do K-12).
Here’s a post which I think is terrific. It gets right at the heart of the matter and identifies the problems quickly, succinctly and efficiently. Some money paragraphs:
The models the sector has developed over the past four decades for its business and operational structure, its’ funding, governance, advocacy efforts, leadership development, and audience growth and marketing are all increasingly vulnerable, outmoded, and ineffective in dealing with the challenges of a changing environment and ecosystem. In many cases the default model is no model at all.
We are tooling around in the equivalent of a broken down old Edsel that wasn’t all that well designed in the first place. And yet we haven’t come up with alternatives.
If we don’t make the time to confront our weaknesses now, things may only get worse – perhaps much worse. The time is long overdue to engage in focused and serious conversations about fixing the old models or envisioning new ones.
The consequences of our failure to seriously consider how to revamp, re-invent, rethink, reform or replace the models on which we have for so long relied, but which are now failing us, will unquestionably impact how well we fare in the next decade. To think we can continue on as we have done for so long seems to now be a fool’s paradise.
I am sure you can take in the rest for yourselves. We need to find ways in our own spheres of influence to make these sorts of changes happen, or at the very least get the conversation rolling. -twl
