The Back Track to Art

…who help themselves.

This idea, which I believe strongly, was posited in a recent article in the Mankato Free Press, called “A career in art means marketing yourself.” This article describes the typically gloomy-doomy atmosphere that most artists inhabit.

The [recently published] ‘Economic Impact of Minnesota’s Individual Artists’ showed artists in southwest Minnesota have difficulty finding a market to sell their work.

While 26 percent of the artists in the Twin Cities work full time on their craft, only 6 percent do so in south-central Minnesota.

When the study was released, Kevin Kroeber of Mankato said he’s one of those struggling artists. He said he worked four part-time jobs to help support his family and had little time to paint. Even if he did have more time to paint and show his work more often, he doubts it would make much of a difference in this market.

“There’s not a big enough clientele in Mankato,” he said. “I just think it’s the rural mentality. Most of the artists that can support themselves off their art live in the metropolitan area.”

Brenda Flintrop, executive director for Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, said Kroeber is not alone. Many artists in southern Minnesota struggle not only to sell their work, but also to find places to show it.

Still, despite the difficult local art market a number of Mankato artists have found ways to make a niche for themselves. The key? According to the story, artists simply have to be willing to get out there and do the work themselves to establish a market and an audience.

I’ve written here on this blog a number of times about the Northfield Arts Guild’s commitment to helping artists help themselves. The main initiative that I have started here at the Guild to address artists’ needs is the Artists Resource Center. In coming days, I’ll be writing about some of the recent developments with the A.R.C. and about some recent donations that will be of help to artists.

I’ll also be soliciting artists–yet again–to do something to contribute to their own welfare by contributing to the A.R.C. Stay tuned!

The question Tracy Davis posed in the midst of a local controversy over the Northfield Arts Guild’s decision to produce “Sex with Seven Women” —”What’s art for?”—has caused me much reflection over the past few days.

And since I’m closing in these days on the one-year anniversary of my start as director of this organization, I’ve also been pondering this question: What is the Northfield Arts Guild for?

How I’ve come to an initial answer to this question has been colored by comments offered by the originator of this controversy, Beth Benson, first in her original letter to the Northfield News:

We have turned into a society that seeks to be enticed rather than inspired. The things we watch on T.V., the books we read, even the plays we attend have been debased appealing to the lowest common denominator rather than our sense of decency. We seek entertainment that appeals to the lowest common denominator rather than learn to appreciate the finer things… You have an opportunity as a Guild to bring out the noble and beautiful in society. Why waste your time on highlighting the perversions of society? Use your organization to inspire greatness and not sink to a level that only intends to shock with debauchery… Help people to love beauty. Fulfill the calling of your guild to create and support the creation of beauty.

And also in comments she wrote afterward in the midst of discussion on Locally Grown:

…the reason I published [my letter] in the public is because it’s easy to dismiss one person’s opinion. It’s harder to dismiss a community’s opinion. You have a community arts guild. When you put the name Northfield in the front of your organization, you are representing a community. If you want to produce works that need warnings on content, the community has a right to respond. I also wanted to motivate the community to inspire you to do better which you will find in my original letter.

Why did I right [sic] this letter?… I am watching a community I love go down a slope into moral relativism where there is no foundation with right and wrong. It honestly grieves me. But this time it was different. I believe that the Northfield Arts Guild has a calling to be great… I wanted my very public letters to try to get community pressure to expect greatness from our Northfield Arts Guild.

If Beth Benson’s sentiments were our guide, the purpose of the Northfield Arts Guild would be to “inspire”, “to bring out the noble and the beautiful in society,” to be “great,” to “represent a community,” and to provide “moral instruction.”

While I think that these are great purposes for the arts in general, and arts presenters like the Arts Guild more specifically, to aspire to—and I also think the arts often do achieve these things—the reality of how an arts organization like the Arts Guild operates is much different from how Beth seems to perceive.

At the risk of getting too technical about this, the Northfield Arts Guild is a private, mission-driven, nonprofit arts organization that is supported by membership and charitable donations. This means a few important things. Foremost, the Guild is not a public institution in the way that, say, the Northfield Library or Northfield Public School District are. We receive no local public funds whatsoever—none from the city, none from the county—to do our business or to pay our bills. (*We do receive a bit of money from the state, and I’ll talk about that in a moment.)

In practical terms, therefore, the Northfield Arts Guild does not “represent” the community. (Having “Northfield” in our name is likely a condition of location, more than anything else.) While we strive to take into account community feedback about what we do, since the community does not pay for what we do its actual impact on our operations is negligible. Instead, we are much more accountable to the systems and structures that support us and help us pay our bills.

About half of our support comes from charitable sources—either foundations or individuals. These foundations or individuals generally determine their giving based on their affinity for our organization’s mission. As I wrote in my last post, the crux of our organization’s mission is to “stimulate artistic activity in the greater Northfield area” and to “organize, support, and promote the efforts of the community in expressing, developing and appreciating art.” You’ll notice this says nothing about “representing” the entire community. It says nothing about “inspiring” anyone, about providing “moral instruction,” about bringing out the “noble and the beautiful in society,” or about being “great.” It does speak toward supporting and developing arts in the community, which is partially why we’re producing “Sex with Seven Women,” a local production by local artists. (Another reason we’re producing it? To raise money to support our operations; we have to make up for that gap in public funding somehow!)

(*Note: The Minnesota State Arts Board gives the Arts Guild its only source of modest public money based not on how well the organization represents the community, morally instructs, etc, but instead based on criteria similar to our mission. By the way, you might like to know that the Minnesota State Arts Board’s mission reads: “The Minnesota State Arts Board is a state agency that stimulates and encourages the creation, performance, and appreciation of the arts in the state.” Sound familiar?)

If I were suddenly to suggest, as an administrator, that the Northfield Arts Guild should turn its attention to the moral instruction of our wayward society by jettisoning its longstanding commitment to art made by local, living, working artists and instead producing nothing but medieval morality plays, illuminated manuscripts, and madrigals, I’d likely—and rightfully—be run out on a rail by the members and supporters who pay the NAG’s bills (and my salary).

It’s actually quite encouraging and uplifting that members of the community should feel such a sense of ownership of the Northfield Arts Guild that they are compelled to issue challenges and directives about what the Guild produces and presents. It’s great that people like Beth Benson still care enough about art and the role it plays in Northfield to issue challenges and make protestations about productions and programs they personally are not inclined to appreciate.

However, the sense of ownership that a community has for its arts organization is worthless without its providing, in turn, practical support for that ownership. If you really want to have an influence on what the Art Guild does, how it operates, what it produces, then being a community member and making comments from the wings is not enough. Because our programs are produced by a dedicated (volunteer) membership who believe in and support our mission (through membership, donation, and volunteer hours), the Northfield Arts Guild listens to them carefully and actively seeks to produce what they want in art. Indeed, we have been growing increasingly committed in recent months to doing just that.

That all said, we are not an exclusive club. Any one can join. Indeed, community members can best affect the Northfield Arts Guild when they are active participants and supporters (members) of the Guild. And rest assured, we do need all the participation and support we can get! We welcome any and all participants and supporters from every segment of the community.

To go back to the original question, I guess in a real way that’s what the Northfield Arts Guild is for. It’s for everyone—every person in the community—who wants to participate in and support the arts. If you really want to have a practical hand in the Arts Guild’s programming into the future, perhaps you should consider becoming a member today.

I read with interest the comments of Beth Benson regarding the upcoming production of “Sex with Seven Women” at the NAG theater. Allow me to respond wearing my NAG director’s hat:

The mission of the Northfield Arts Guild is to “stimulate artistic activity in the greater Northfield area.” The Northfield Arts Guild strives to “organize, support, and promote the efforts of the community in expressing, developing and appreciating art.”

Part of the reason we decided to produce “Sex with Seven Women” was because it fit in well with our mission. It was written by a talented local writer, whose growing skill has been increasingly lauded by the community (Brendon Etter is the writer, among other things, of the popular Jesse Jane Jamboree productions). It is also being acted by local actors, developed by local theater talent, performed in a local venue, and, above all else, its subject is relevant to a large portion of the community, many of whom are men and women who are familiar with sex and sexual issues.

That said, the Guild recognizes the right of adults to avoid attending productions that make them uncomfortable or that they find objectionable. That is why we included strong disclaimers–that this show was for mature audiences only–in all of our advertising for the show, a likely reason the newspaper was asking that question of Brendon in the first place. It’s a delicate line. There is so much in the play that isn’t objectionable, yet we still have to make the disclaimer for the small bits that might make small portions of the audience uncomfortable–and of course it all gets blown out of proportion.

The Guild recognizes the right of any individual to voice objections to material that may make them uncomfortable or that they may deem objectionable–even when they haven’t seen the materials. Still, owing to our mission, the Guild is of the opinion that all art–whether it be uplifting, depressing, shocking, soothing, challenging, enlivening, or objectionable–will always find the audience it was meant to find.

The Northfield Arts Guild hopes that while you may not want to attend, for your own personal reasons, a performance of “SWSW,” you may still consider attending future NAG productions that are geared toward other audiences. In coming months, we will be producing the musical “The Pajama Game,” the post-war comedy “The Lady’s Not for Burning,” the children’s tale “Holes,” and Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor.” And I’m not even mentioning the 10 art exhibitions we put on every year, the wonderful art by local artists that we sell in our shop, the dance classes for kids and adults, the CVRO concerts, etc etc.

As per our mission, there’s truly something for everyone at the Northfield Arts Guild!

Now, if I may, for just a moment, remove my director’s hat and comment as a citizen commenter:

I read a chunk of “Sex with Seven Women” when it came through the office (though I was careful not to read all of it–because I didn’t want to spoil my seeing it), and I have to say, it’s funny. And really good. While the situations are mature, Brendon’s writing is, as always, spot on–clever, witty, and full of sharp, unexpected observations about a subject that we all (may think we) know something about.

In the end, “Sex with Seven Women” has something for every mature adult to think about, chuckle over, and ponder–even as they might be grasping their armchairs to keep from falling out of their seat from laughter!

The arts need support in this country, on that we can all agree. But the tough question is how can a community ensure a stable source of support for the arts through the varied and ever-changing winds of politics, the economy, and simple social trends?

One community’s solution? Use a sin tax to support the arts! Apparently Cuyahoga County in Ohio (read: Cleveland an environs) has put in place a 1.5 cent per cigarette tax to fund the arts. Thus far, the tax has generated $500,000 that will be doled out in grants to individual artists by late 2008.

Pass me the smokes, wouldya? It’s for a good cause!

The Carleton College Advisory Council on College and Community Relations will hold a community gathering on Wednesday, December 12 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Boliou Hall, room 104, on the Carleton campus. The purpose of the gathering is to provide updates on emerging plans for the development of the former Northfield Middle School and on the construction of a new student residence hall.

For more information, visit the original post on Northfield.org.

Make no bones about it, the Northfield Arts Guild needs your support. Without the generous support of members, donors, business supporters, institutions, and other funders, we simply cannot continue offering all that we offer to Northfield in the way of arts activities, events, classes, and entertainment.

Before you decide once and for all how much you’re willing to support the arts in Northfield, please consider the following six key reasons that supporting the Northfield Arts Guild is a good thing:

1. History: The Northfield Arts Guild has long been an important part of Northfield’s culture. We’ve been here, in fact, for nearly fifty years–though not always in our current prominent location on Division Street downtown. The Guild was founded in 1959 and presented its first event that year, a successful stage production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah Wilderness.” In the early 1960s, the Guild was able to buy its first building, a church on West 3rd Street (where it still houses the Guild Theater), and in the early 1980s, the Guild was offered the opportunity to purchase its present building, which had formerly been used as a library, as City Hall, and as a YMCA. The Guild has been the place were thousands upon thousands of Northfielders, current and former, got their first taste of art. For instance, a list of Guild members from the mid-1960s included many prominent community members of the time, such as the Schjeldahl family, whose son, Peter Schjeldahl, grew up and moved to New York to become perhaps the most prominent art critic of our time. In 1967, the Minnesota State Arts Council (the precursor to the State Arts Board), in a survey of regional arts centers, held up the Northfield Arts Guild as a model for providing diverse activities to the community on a minimal budget (which, in my opinion, we still do). You can’t think of the culture of Northfield without also thinking of the role the Arts Guild has played and continues to play here. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild helps us continue this history.

2. Artistry: The Northfield Arts Guild has always been all about providing a quality arts experience for the community. This dedication to excellence begins with early-childhood arts classes–in visual art, theater, dance, and so on–and continues into its many programs for artistic adolescents and adult artists. The Northfield Arts Guild theater offers the opportunity for local performers of all ages to get up on stage in high-quality productions of every sort–from comedy to drama, from musicals to kid’s theater. The dance program presents age-appropriate, non-competitive (but highly artistic) classes in dance for both kids and adults. The Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra presents four or five yearly concerts each year, giving regional musicians an opportunity to play together for their communities. And the gallery and shop at the Guild’s Center for the Arts on Division Street offers local and regional artists numerous opportunities each year to display and sell their work. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means you are supporting great arts and artists.

3. Stability and consistency: The Arts Guild has been a centerpiece of arts activity this town for an amazingly long stretch of time, and it will continue to be so for many years to come. This consistency is indeed our strength. While we may not offer the most novel or trendy types of arts activities, you can always know we’ll be here doing what we do year after year after year. We will present six or more regular theater productions each year, as well as a number of smaller, more lively, and more locally created theater events. We will teach hundreds of kids each year the joys of theater, dance, music, and art. We will exhibit more than twenty unique art shows each year in our gallery spaces. We will sell beautiful art objects in our shop and support working artists. We will support the work of a regional community symphony in producing 4-5 concerts each year, and we will have a hand in helping to organize local arts festivals and events that the entire community can enjoy. In our constantly changing, ever mutating world, isn’t it nice to know there’s someone you can always count on? Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild helps us continue providing consistently great arts programs in Northfield.

4. Community: The arts are important to communities—not only for the effect they have on life-quality, but also because they provide economic benefits. A 2006 report, The Arts: A Driving Force in Minnesota’s Economy, provides strong evidence that the nonprofit arts and culture industry are a significant economic incubator across the state. Further, due to the nonprofit and community focus of these organizations, the vast majority of this economic activity filters directly back into the communities—providing pay for working artists, purchasing ads in community publications, buying materials and supplies from community businesses, paying local workers for services, and so on. Supporting nonprofit art organizations epitomizes the economic idea that a “rising tide lifts all boats.” When we support the arts we not only enhance our community’s quality of life, we invest in our own and our neighbors’ overall economic well being. The Northfield Arts Guild is a downtown anchor, providing programs and services, and developing support and appreciation of the arts, and spreading arts-related economic activity throughout the community. For these reasons, the Northfield Arts Guild is a key contributor to the quality of life and economic vitality of the community of Northfield. For nearly fifty years, the Northfield Arts Guild has been a place where community members committed to and interested in the arts come together. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means supporting the community of Northfield.

5. Opportunity(s): With all of the Northfield Arts Guild’s history and its consistent production of quality arts programs, the organization has long had time and space to offer opportunities for artists to try new things, give a project or program a whirl, and get themselves involved in something creative. In recent years, the Guild has supported the production of new programs and projects like the Very Short Play Festival and the Under Construction workshops for playwrights. Guild artists are showing art work in a new venue, the local Allina clinic, and we are always bringing new artists and art into our shop. The Guild is your place to try out new things in the arts. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild supports new arts projects in Northfield.

6. Fun and frivolity: While all of the above reasons make a lot of statistical sense, we can’t forget the idea that, even though there’s no way to quantify it, the arts are fun! In some respects, there’s no other reason to support the arts in Northfield. The arts make people happy, and who can’t use a little extra happiness in their lives? Plays are fun events to watch, symphony concerts are fun events to listen to. It’s fun to walk the town and stop by our gallery during an Art Crawl. It’s fun for children and adults of all ages to dance in our studio. Supporting the Northfield Arts Guild means you are a supporter of fun and happiness in your town!

Today is essentially the end of my eighth month as director of the Northfield Arts Guild. It’s been, at times, an enjoyable ride; it’s also been hectic and draining and all the things you’d expect in an organization that does so much for so many people on such a tight shoestring.

I wrote about some of this activity in this week’s Progress section of the Northfield News: “It is through the Arts Guild that this community often shines and creates great beauty,” I wrote. “Visual art on display and for sale, fabulous symphonic music, wonderful dance programs, arts festivals and so much more!”

But I also wrote about how important it is for everyone in the community not to take this activity for granted, and to support it in practical ways: “…though the Northfield Arts Guild is not in danger of being overrun by revolutionaries any time soon, it is still vulnerable to the ravages of time and neglect. The Guild suffers when the community overlooks the arts and underrates what the arts can do through us. The arts suffer when people, institutions, businesses, organizations, and the government forget to support it in practical and tangible ways: through membership, donations, volunteer service, and so on.”

To be more explicit about this last point, you should know that the Northfield Arts Guild is struggling to continue providing all that it does for this community. Much of the reason for this is because, in addition to the organization’s chronic budget shortages, the Guild has taken a double funding hit in the past eight months.

First, this summer the State Arts Board cut its biennial funding for the Guild in half–giving us an additional budget-hole to fill on top of the traditional deficit. Among the reasons cited by Arts Board panelists for the cuts: A concern over our chronic budget woes; a concern over the lack of local city/government support of the arts; and a concern over the very breadth of programs offered by the Guild (that they suspect scatter our attentions and reduce our viability).

In addition to this cut in governmental support, the Guild has also seen, after nearly four hard months of work by me and numerous volunteers, a 50% reduction this year in financial support of the Arts Guild. The most often cited reason for this is business-owner concern over current economic conditions. Businesses who have long been supporters of the Guild have unceremoniously let their sponsorships and other forms of support lapse.

They tell you in arts management text books that these sorts of hits to arts organizations–shocking as they may be to the organization and its membership, and damaging as they can be to programs (that may need to be cut)–are to be expected. Business and governmental funding (when it even exists) can be prone to cyclical ups and downs–causing disruption to organizations and hard decisions about what programs and offerings to cut.

The key to weathering such ups and downs, say the experts, is to foster a dedicated and stable pool of individual and family supporters–people who will make sure that cuts by institutional funders can be endured, and who will rise to the occasion when an organization has need.

Well, supporters of the arts in Northfield, I’m here to tell you, your Northfield Arts Guild has need. If you ever had a reason to step in and lend your energy to helping the arts survive here in Northfield, this is it.

We welcome support and involvement from any and all lovers of the arts.

Last week, I was visiting Tom Proehl, the director of the State Arts Board, on Guild-related business. (More on this visit will be discussed in future posts.)

On the round coffee table next to his desk, I noticed a copy of a study about rural arts involvement published by the Montana Arts Council. I glanced at it quickly while Tom went to get coffee, but I became intrigued enough by the publication to later contact the Council and request a copy. And they actually sent me three publications: Building Arts Participation in Rural America: Learning to Increase Participation and the Return on Investment, Fundraising Ideas That Work in Rural America, and Building Arts Participation in Rural America: Learning from Montana’s Arts Organizations.

Now, I realize that Montana and Minnesota are completely different states, with unique demographics, political situations, social makeups, and cultural traditions. But already, in just skimming the first book (the one I’d seen at the Arts Board), I’ve learning something important.

It is this, from page 48: “Buy-in and community involvement (in rural arts organizations) come in response to concerted efforts to serve a target market.”

In other words, give the people you serve what they want above all else and you will be more successful.

A beautifully simple idea, and one that matches some changes that I’ve thought necessary in the Guild’s institutional philosophy: that we need to be less of a top-down programmer of the arts, but more of a service to a community hungry to develop arts programming that matches their needs.

More to come on these changes at the Guild, as well as regarding these studies of rural arts participation.

OK, so that’s probably not a very historically accurate quote. But I’m sure it’s what Jesse James would yell today if he were to come to Northfield while the festival named after him was going on.

That’s because I’m guessing Jesse James  probably wouldn’t much care to watch a reenactment of his defeat. Nor would he likely care much for Dippin’ Dots and deepfried brats. If Jesse James came to town today he’d probably pass his time looking at the lovely arts and crafts items on display down by the Cannon River at the Riverfront Fine Arts and Crafts Festival.

This Festival, a tradition in Northfield for more 40 years, will be held rain or shine, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday, September 8 & 9, 2007.

More than 75 artists and fine craft artisans will show their work on the stone walkways hugging both sides of the Cannon River. Find wonderful photography, pottery, paintings, fiber art, jewelry and more by artists from all over Minnesota and the region.

“Get yourself down to the river!”

I’m going to date myself here, but the NAG Theater reminds me (and I mean this in the best possible way) of Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Stymie, Buckwheat, Porky, Froggy, Butch and all the other youthful members of the Our Gang/Little Rascals series of shorts from the 1930s.

Whenever the gang confronted a seemingly insurmountable problem (”You mean you lost all of the gang’s money?” “Gosh, how can we help pop save his farm?”), someone would eventually come up with a resolution by saying: “I know. Hey gang, let’s put on a show!” We would then be treated to a long variety show– with Alfalfa, the consummate artiste, croaking Barber of Seville, Spanky mimicking Cab Calloway, Darla crooning “Head Over Heals in Love Again,” and the whole gang singing “Old Brown Jug.”

Why does this remind me of the NAG Theater? You ask.

Well, between you and me, this little gang called the Northfield Arts Guild sure has seen it’s share of troubles of late (”you mean you’re cutting our funding in half?” “you mean you really can’t renew your long-standing sponsorship of this essential program?”). But ever-enterprising, the NAG Theater committee has responded yet again by saying, you guessed it, “Hey gang, let’s put on a show!” (Namely “Jesse Jane’s Jamboree II: Kitten Kaboodle,” a fundraiser to benefit your Northfield Arts Guild.)

This rollickin’, roilin’, downright rivetin’ variety show was written by Northfield playwright Brendon Etter, directed by our own Rachel Haider, and it involves a host of local technical and performing talent all intent on helping the Guild!

Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday, September 6 - 8 at 7:30 pm, with an additional show at 5:00 pm on Saturday. Tickets are only $8.00 and are available by calling 507-645-8877 or online at the NAG website.

Hope to see you there!