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APRIL 2005

Scott Noppe-Brandon

Those Who Can, Do!

By Scott Noppe-Brandon

Please indulge me and take the following test. Say “silk” five times quickly. Go! Silk. Silk Silk. Silk. Silk. Now quick—what do cows drink? Most of you probably said milk. If you said water, I extend my heartfelt congratulations. Everyone knows, even the seven year old who told me the joke, that cows produce milk but drink water. So why do most of us (including me) answer milk? Obviously because we are tricked into saying milk. Thankfully, the stakes in this test were low.

I asked you to partake in this experiment because I am intrigued—and, frankly, alarmed—by how easily we can be made to believe something that has been hammered into our brains often enough—be it by media, inherited prejudice, or unscrupulous politicians—even though, deep down, we know and have always known it was wrong. In my last column I proposed penalties for glib political candidates who deceive us deliberately in order to receive our votes. The topic I’d like to address now is not that distant from the smooth-talking politician. Somehow, somewhere along the line, many of you have been convinced that an artist is not an artist if he or sheÉworks for a living instead of waiting for grant money!

Recently, I was a presenter at a conference where the panelists were asked to discuss the relative health of funding for artists in NYC and the United States. Most of the discussion focused on the ever-changing landscape through which individual artists and arts organizations seek funding to support creating and presenting their art. The discussion fluctuated between hope and despair with a focus on determining whether these were good times or bad times. In the end, most everyone concluded that artists need to be imaginative in their attempts to secure financial support, even though many are not necessarily good at the business side of making and presenting art. It also goes without saying that everyone thought that more public money should be available to support artists, in effect allowing them to be fulltime working artists. Yet public money is hard to get. Several examples were provided that proved this fact, such as one panel process where the total amount of money allocated by the granter allowed for funding to go to only 40 artists out of an application pool of more than 3,000.

This is a given in my mind. It is what it is. But I keep thinking that there are other ways for artists to make a living as full-time working artists besides grant money. I think we need to expand our viewpoint regarding what it means to be a working artist. The term is often meant to include only the time spent by an individual actually making or presenting art. I wish to add a new spin on the topic. I believe that artists, like everyone else, must work in order to make a living. What I am concerned about is the tendency to define that effort through art production side alone. But an artist who teaches, whether in a studio, a school, a university, a health club, with private students, or in any other fashion, is still an artist. We must think about what it means to be a full-time artist in the broader context of those who attempt to make a living full-time in the arts, including the professionals of education, health, or any field they choose because it keeps them within their artistic discipline. Then, maybe we can finally destroy the stigma attached to the status of teaching that seems to permeate the arts, by acknowledging the value of the self-sufficient artist who uses his or her art as a teacher. Most major conservatories have concluded (through surveys of their graduates) that over 90 percent end up teaching in one form or another. But are there teaching opportunities for artists in New York City, you wonder. Lincoln Center Institute, as well as other institutions, offers its teaching artists just such an opportunity. Teaching artists never have to abandon their art—in fact, they are enthusiastically encouraged to pursue it, while earning a living bringing the arts to metropolitan area classrooms. It all works out very well, it seems to me: artists can be full-time artists, and our classrooms get something that we consider absolutely essential.

Now quick! Say five times, those who can, teach, and those who can DO, teach people to teach. #

Scott Noppe-Brandon is the Executive Director of the Lincoln Center Institute.

 

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