Thursday, 3:30 p.m., when most students are on their way home from school, seven high school students from various Cleveland Metropolitan schools (John Hay, Promise Academy, Cleveland School of the Arts and John Marshall) gather at John Hay High School in University Circle to meet and work with internationally renowned Turkish playwright Özen Yula.

For more than two hours these bright young people, who volunteered for the program, are challenged to create characters and scenarios, and improvise scenes among themselves as part of the important background research into character development and the crafting of a compelling structure for a play.

Overseen by the district’s Director of Arts Education Tony Sias, these students will work with Mr. Yula two days a week after school for the next eight weeks and in the process write and perform in their own play. 

Their first homework assignment included researching important events in Cleveland, the U.S. and the world during the years 2007-09, which will be the time frame for the play. 

“But information is not enough.  Information is different than knowledge,” according to Mr. Yula.  It is not enough for a writer or an actor to have information about the people or the situations in a play.  “You need to know what the knowledge means – the ability to analyze is critical for the artist.”

The premise of the student’s play is deceptively simple: three characters, from different backgrounds, become friends in college and then go their separate ways, only to come together a year after graduation. 

But their diverse backgrounds and the different experiences each has after university will create the interest, the conflict and the resolution that will form the unique story of the play.  “Something happens to make a character more than just a person,” according to the playwright, and Özen helped the students understand that their play must have believable characters, not just stereotypes. 

I was privileged to observe this early developmental session for the play, and was impressed with the very important questions and choices the students began to wrestle with.  Simply deciding who the characters were – their ages, backgrounds, race and gender, economic status – raised very critical questions the students had to resolve.  Should they all be black?  How diverse should they be and still be both believable as friends and representative of Cleveland?  Where will each go after graduation and why? 

One question struck me as profound.  In response to Mr. Yula’s comment about how the playwright must like his characters; “If you don’t like them, you can’t write them,” he said, a student asked, “Do we have to like them at the beginning or can we grow to like them?”  This engendered a fascinating discussion about finding the humanity in people – and in the play’s characters, even when you do not like what they do in the play. 

This was not easy work for these students.  But I was very impressed with the seriousness of their engagement – and I can’t wait to see the play they make.  I will be following the development of this work as well as Özen’s engagement with the community via CSU and Cleveland Public Theater through October.  So stay tuned.

Click photo to see full size.

Scholars, Students and Suits mingled with artists last evening at a reception hosted by Cleveland State University to welcome Turkish playwright and director Özen Yula.  Mr. Yula is here through the auspices of the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion, a unique grants program that supports long-tern residencies for international artists. 

Mr. Yula will be in Cleveland through October this year, working with drama students at CSU, local artists at Cleveland Public Theatre, and with Cleveland Metropolitan School children through the CMSD’s All City Arts program. 

Students at CSU will create and stage an original play via Mr. Yula’s ‘devised theater’ approach.  The premiere is scheduled for this coming April at CSU’s Factory Theater.   He will then work with local artists at Cleveland Public Theatre to create a new work of his own which will receive its world premiere on CPT’s mainstage season this fall.  During this time he will also spend 10 weeks in the Cleveland schools working with talented students from across the district.

Özen Yula’s work has been staged at major theaters around the world and translated into more than a dozen languages.  The focus of his work aligns well with Cleveland Public Theatre’s social justice mission.  His plays dealing with human rights, social issues, and injustice have sometimes created controversy when performed in restrictive and conservative societies.  

At the reception at CSU last night, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Dean Greg Sadlek, and Michael Mauldin, director of dramatic arts, both commented on the power of the arts and theater in particular to ask the hard questions of society and push toward higher levels of human development.  Taking the opportunity to provide some instruction, Professor Mauldin noted that the Greek term ‘didaskalis’ which forms the basis for our own ‘didactic,’ in ancient Greece referred to the theater, specifically, the playwright as a teacher.

Özen Yula made some heartfelt remarks to close the formal part of the evening, talking about how glad he was to be here and to undertake this work.  He grew up in a small city in Southern Turkey, although he lives sometimes in Istanbul, a city of more than 15 million people.  He said he was very comfortable in Cleveland. “Cleveland is a small city.  My home is a small city which I carry with me always.  I will carry Cleveland with me always too.” 

In talking about the opportunities presented by the Creative Fusion program he said, “I will be changed by this.  You will be changed too.”  

We hope so.

(Click images for full-size.)

Creative Fusion Director Kathleen Cerveny with Turkish playwright Ozen Yula

Raymond Bobgan, Ozen Yula, and Cleveland playwright Eric Schmiedl

Robert Eckardt, Michael Mauldin, Greg Sadlek, Ozen Yula, Ronn Richard, and Raymond Bobgan

I’ve been reading and writing a lot about sustainability in the arts recently.  This includes the sustainability of Cleveland’s arts sector as a whole and of individual organizations. 

But what does sustainability mean?  At face value it seems to imply that anything that currently exists should figure out a way to keep existing.  I’m not sure that is always a good idea – or even possible.  

Times change, economies change, people change and communities change.  Programs that worked well in the ‘90’s may not be filling the needs of a community or even an organization’s mission in the 2010’s. 

What?!  Missions should change?!  Maybe.  Sometimes.  If an organization is producing work for a narrow and shrinking audience of ‘appreciators’ eventually the art being produced will die with this audience. 

I think that’s what’s happened, in some cases, to classical ballet - an elegant but mannered art form and a necessarily acquired taste for a minority of individuals who were fortunate enough to have been introduced to it at an early age.  And the sense of entitled elitism that too often is associated with the arts – be it ballet, classical music, contemporary art or opera - does more than shut out new ‘appreciators.’  It keeps an organization from making the internal cultural shift necessary to seek and seed relevance beyond its own traditions.

Change is a required nutrient for the sustainability of a healthy arts sector itself.   Art is dynamic – it must be to be alive. An arts community or sector must also be dynamic if it is not to lose vibrancy and relevance over time.  While there is no barrier to entry into the nonprofit realm (generally a good thing) it is completely unrealistic to expect that new nonprofit organizations can continue to come into an already crowded field unless some others depart. This is particularly true in communities like Cleveland, where the supporting population continues to shrink.  

For existing organizations, the pressure to sustain their existence too often pushes them into unrealistic expectations for growth.  Bigger budget, new programs - sometimes even co-opting the programming of other organizations, or going off-mission just to attract funding.   Rarely do organizations look to right-size themselves within the funding and artistic capacity they know they can sustain. 

Funders too often add to this problem with the constant desire to fund new programs rather than providing steady and flexible support for organizations consistently doing a good job.  Recent Arts Journal blogs on this topic are worth reading.

So size matters – of organizations and of an arts sector itself.  And size, plus the ability to change with the times are issues intrinsically linked to sustainability.  In my view, the capacity for dynamic adaptability is far more valuable and desirable for individual organizations as well as arts sectors as a whole, than is the static and often misleading concept of sustainability.

Cleveland’s great jazz saxophonist, Ernie Krivda was eloquent in his acceptance remarks for his receipt of a Creative Workforce Fellowship this week.  He was one of 20 artists who accepted their fellowship awards at the December board meeting of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC). 

While jokingly thanking the county’s cigarette smokers for their obsession with tobacco – their obsession funds the arts and these fellowships – he also said that artists were similarly obsessed, “with this dark gift that sheds light” referring to the artist’s compulsion to make work. 

Each of the other 16 artists who were present (three could not attend) delivered their own heartfelt comments of gratitude and I was impressed with how each felt that the fellowship award also conferred an obligation to the community which made it possible.  Here’s a few that struck me as particularly poignant.

Conductor Domenico Boyadjin:  “I came from Europe because of the Cleveland Orchestra.  The plane landed and magic happened.  I never expected to find such a rich arts community.  Cleveland is my home from now on.  I will use the award to give free concerts.”

Actress Chris Seibert: “I started at the Beck Center when I was 10.  I went away for 10 years – forgive me.  I came back and found my ‘tribe.’ I just want to make you proud.”

Playwright David Hansen:  “There are challenges and opportunities in any time.  It’s a question of what we do with them.  The work I will do in this fellowship year will be my gift to the community.  I won’t forget it.”

Percussionist Neil Chastain:  “I see this as a tremendous obligation to continue my work and share it with children in the Cleveland schools.  I will finish my book for teachers and kids so that any teacher can begin to have a way to make music with children.”

Poet Sarah Gridley: “I work with words and I’m having a hard time finding the right ones.  I will have to reflect carefully on how to use this gift responsibly and responsively.”

And finally, there was choreographer David Shimotakahara who, after stating he did not come prepared with a speech, burst into a joyous, spontaneous dance of celebration that said as much if not more than words could ever have.

This was a great day for Cleveland and its county’s creative community.  While I have not done the research, and risk being wrong, I do believe that these Artist Fellowships are among the most generous given by any city in the country that uses locally generated public funds to support the arts. 

Good for us.

Two weeks ago I logged in to a live webcast of a Cultural Workforce Forum held by the National Endowment for the Arts. (View the webcast here.) Its purpose was, broadly stated, to explore the condition and role of the artist in America’s real economy. 

Last week I attended two days of deliberations by seven external arts experts who awarded the second round of Creative Workforce Fellowships to 20 Cleveland-area performing and literary artists. This was the second round of artist fellowships awarded this year.  Visual arts fellowships were awarded earlier in the fall.

All these events provided revelations, validations, and raised questions.  Here’s what I’ve been thinking about as a result.

Is everyone (or could everyone be) an artist?  Workforce data is collected by the Office of Management and Budget and updated every 10 years.  Occupations are self-reported and anyone can declare themselves an artist whether they are paid for their work or not, whether they belong to a professional association or have had professional training or not.  The number of Americans who self-report their profession as ‘artist’ is astounding and growing as Baby Boom retirees leave the office and the machine shop and take up photography, needlepoint, pottery, as a hobby.

How does this inflate or distort the perception of the professional artist sector in the eyes of the public?  I think a lot.  Especially when we hear too many advocates for arts education declaring that all children are ‘born artists’ and every human being has inherent creative abilities that are lost without ongoing opportunities to express themselves in school. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I passionately support arts education.  I firmly believe that we all have the ability to think and act creatively and that having hands-on experience in the arts will make us all better, more productive human beings: just as hands-on experience in doing geometry and algebra problems will make us better able to manage our financial and physical lives.  But just because we can solve an equation, we don’t call our selves mathematicians. And just because we have the inherent ability to vocalize and move our bodies, few of us would claim to be singers or dancers when asked what we do for our living. 

The mistake that is made by too many arts education activists is in not championing the fact that some of us, frankly, have a level of given artistic ability above and beyond the normal, and that these individuals deserve the right to have these talents developed.  And that those who have subjected themselves to rigorous training of their abilities deserve the same level of regard and respect as do experts in any other field. 

Not everyone can be called an ‘artist’ in the same terms of skill and accomplishment.  We easily acknowledge that doctors, lawyers, machinists, mathematicians, chefs, race car drivers, scientists, etc., are professionals in their fields by virtue of some natural ability, an affinity for the work they do and the highly specialized training they have undertaken to become experts.  We should define and acknowledge artists the same way and expect a demonstrated level of skill and accomplishment before we confer or assume that title.

Thankfully, one place where the perspective on and the respect for professional training and accomplishment in the arts is well understood and regarded is right here in Cleveland. 

We know about our professional training academies: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin and Baldwin Wallace Conservatories, dance, art and music programs at local colleges and universities.  So we understand and support the professional training of artistically talented individuals.  But now we also acknowledge the accomplishments of the most promising and experienced artists among us through the remarkable fellowship awards made possible through the public funds managed by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and administered by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Just as fellowships in science, medicine, engineering, etc. acknowledge the stellar accomplishments of individuals in these fields and help these experts advance their work, so too, now,  Cleveland has acknowledged the value of the accomplished artists among us and is supporting the advancement of their work on behalf of an ever-more-robust creative workforce and innovative cultural climate. 

Few if any local municipalities provide the level of public recognition and support that Cleveland now does with these remarkable fellowships.  Congratulations and Bravo/Brava to the 20 newly named Creative Workforce Fellows.

I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge the 50 year-old Cleveland Arts Prize, founded by the visionary Martha Joseph and Klaus George Roy.  The Arts Prize has been lauding local talented individuals for five decades, through an internal selection process that has recognized more than 100 arts patrons, arts institutions and late-career and emerging artists in our community. 

A final word.  Wouldn’t you think that, with this level of creative talent in our community, Cleveland would be an inherently more innovative, risk-taking, entrepreneurial city than it is?  There is a disconnect between the conservative, timid outlook of our civic leadership and the visionary energy and talent of our creative workforce.  Imagine what could happen if we instilled some of our creative ability into the civic and political realms here.

Members of the brand-new White House Office of Urban Affairs (there hasn’t been such an Office before!) came to Cleveland to learn from us and others in Ohio about what has worked and what is not working with the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. (Think ‘stimulus.’) More than 50 representatives of government agencies, nonprofits, and philanthropies throughout Ohio attended the half-day session held in the Cleveland Foundation’s Minter Conference Center.  They came from Youngstown, Cincinnati, Columbus, Lorain, Toledo, Akron, and Cleveland. 

The Fed sent representatives from the Departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy.  And the State of Ohio sent representatives from the Departments of Housing, Commerce, and Energy.  Mayor Jackson, Sherrod Brown, and Dennis Kucinich sent representatives as well.

The messages from the White House were:

• The door is open. 
• We are listening. 
• We want to learn from you. 
• Be bold in your vision for recovery. 

The information from this session will be shared with the White House Interagency Working Group on Urban Policy, and be used in making program improvements in 2010 and in developing the 2011 federal budget.

As the facilitator for one of the two breakout groups (mine was Energy/Workforce Development/Job Creation; the other was Foreclosure Crisis and Land-use Revitalization), I can report a very energetic discussion with people eager to share both the challenges they faced as well as the successes they were seeing.  The White House representatives pushed again and again for specific examples of barriers to implementation – and they got an earful.  Plus they all left their e-mails for follow up. 

Cleveland was chosen as one representative region, and the second in the White House’s “Learning Through Recovery” listening tour.  There will be a select few other stops before a report is compiled and distributed. While I can’t possibly chronicle all that was said, I can report that there were many ‘kudos’ given for ARRA and for the administration’s commitment to listen.  On the critical side, here’s a few of the key points that surfaced in my group.

• Washington doesn’t know what’s needed at the local level. It’s a disincentive to boldness if we are threatened with an investigation when we try to be creative or innovative beyond the very narrow restrictions of many regulations.  Give us more flexibility in the use of funds as we see what is working in our different communities.
• Reporting is a nightmare.  Many low-bid contractors do not have the capacity to do the paperwork needed and cities must take on this burden, with no additional support.  Let us add administrative costs above the bid to cover this expense.  Also, coordinate the application reporting requirements of different federal agencies.  There is so much duplicate entry required.  Reciprocity is needed.  Can’t information get shared electronically? 
• Write the guidelines and reporting requirements in English!
• HUD is great at coordinating and connecting services and agencies.  Other departments should model HUD.
• There should be a vision of a healthy community to guide planning and allow for a holistic approach in the use of funds rather than a siloed one.  Healthy communities need healthy people and livable environments.  It’s not only about infrastructure.
• There needs to be a strategy for a ‘soft landing’ when the stimulus funding ends.

The White House representatives seemed pleased with the meeting and promised to stay in touch.  The foundation will link to the report when it is finalized.
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Last week a number of arts community members gathered to welcome Karen Gahl-Mills, the newly named executive director of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC) – our county funding agency for the arts.  And for once we didn’t have to warn an incoming executive to prepare for the Cleveland winter.  Ms. Gahl-Mills spent a bit of her teen years here and she currently is the director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra – in a town that understands a Great Lakes winter better than we do.  She will begin her official duties February 1, 2010.

Thomas Mulready’s introductory video interview with her will give you a sense of her enthusiasm and readiness for the job.

Ms Gahl-Mills has an impressive background, with the range of experience that will serve her well in understanding the diversity of cultural activities here.  And her background – in nonprofit management as an arts executive, as a practicing artist herself (cello and voice), and her for-profit work in film and television will give the arts community some comfort that she understands where they are coming from.

Although it seems that the funding from the Issue 18 cigarette tax has just begun – the artist fellowship grants have not yet all been awarded – the renewal of that tax is already on the minds of the arts community.  2016 is not that far off in terms of gearing up for a campaign.  Although the operating support grant cycle is just beginning to enter its second round, the arts have already begun to depend on these funds.

A week ago the Ohio Arts Council came to town on a ‘listening tour’ to meet with various segments of the cultural community and the public, to help inform a new strategic plan for this agency.  The OAC lost nearly 50% of its funding since the start of the decade – from a high of $32 million for the 2000-01 biennium, to $13 million currently. 

Once one of the most generous of state agencies, the OAC has seen its predominance in the field diminish significantly.  Cleveland’s organizations, as well as those across the state, have seen their funding cut three times in just the current allocation – and this, after grants were already awarded and the costs they support already incurred.  Few for-profit enterprises could continue to succeed with a business model this capricious. 

See my blogs of June 30, May 1 and February 3 this year for related comments.

So thank the gods of culture for CAC and the wisdom of the voters of Cuyahoga County.  Issue 18 has put Cleveland at the forefront of local communities in the U. S. that pro-actively support the arts; we are fifth in the level of local public support nationally.  But that does not change the fact that the arts world itself has been permanently altered in recent years.  Last week I discussed how we have seen the end of an unprecedented era of growth in traditional and historical aspects of arts and culture.  But the world shrinks daily and younger generations have very different views of what constitutes art and culture.  Things will never be the same and there is no going back.  If we are to see Cleveland’s cultural community thrive in the coming decades, it must re-invent itself in light of a permanently changed financial environment and a new global and demographic cultural reality.

So, welcome to Cleveland, Karen, and every best wish as you join in the conversation about how the arts will continue to stand as a critical pillar of Cleveland’s economy, its place as a center of creativity and as a re-invented, but still signature element in the region’s quality of life.

I’m an avid, daily reader of ArtsJournal, Douglas McLennan’s one-stop electronic newsletter that collects news and blogs from worldwide media and keeps me informed on relevant issues in the arts.  Today, the always interesting Andrew Taylor’s Artful Manager blog pulls together some thoughts on a rather scary but important topic: that the life and times of the last 50 years (1952 – 2000 or so) was an historical aberration in American life and that the arts enjoyed a period of ascendancy during this time that never was before and never will be again. 

Since most of us grew up and have lived our professional lives in this period, to think that what we knew will never again be, and that what we know will not, even cannot, provide guidance for dealing with a world changed by the recession, is worrisome, if not downright depressing.

If this notion that we have been living in an aberrant historical reality is true, what does this mean for the arts?  Indeed, what does it mean for all nonprofits and the philanthropic infrastructure on which they all depend? 

Business consultant Neill Archer Roan discusses a Harvard Review article, The Quest for Resilience by Gary Hamel and Liisa Valikangas.  Hamel and Valinkangas offer an observation about this ‘aberrant period’ that nonprofits would be well advised to consider.

“… successful organizations resist change and falter.  They deny warning signals.   Their success has taught them that they have good judgment, that their models of reality are coherent and accurate, that their strategic ‘gut’ is superior.  What they know obscures what they need to learn.”

For nearly all of the past five decades the arts and their funders have been obsessed with capacity-building – first for growth (called advancement and focused on improving artistic excellence) and more recently for sustainability – which also included expectations for advancement/growth; in audiences and in technological, professional management and financial capacities. 

Both funders and organizations have been dancing the dance of advancement for a long time.  But the world has changed.  If it will never again be the way it was, and all our lessons from the past cannot provide a guide to the future, how do we plan?  What do we need to learn?  What must we “un-learn” in order to approach the future with eyes open and a fresh and flexible attitude of what might be?

If advancement is not the expectation, what is?  Retreat?  Downsizing?  Popularizing?�
Or, rather than advancement, maybe the future holds expansion for the arts.  Expansion of a more global view of human culture.  Expansion into the realm of more active participation in the arts, rather than passive appreciation. Expansion of the value and role of creativity in business, education, politics and human affairs.  

It is clear that we go forward into a changed and unknown reality.  And when the future is unknown, one must make the effort to dream a new and better reality into existence.

Among the final sessions at this year’s Grantmakers in the Arts conference was a panel that included speakers from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, National Arts Strategies, and the Mellon, Boston and Doris Duke Foundations.  The uncertainly titled “One Step Back, 2 Steps Forward?” session took a pragmatic look at what new strategies funders are employing in response changing needs in the arts and how these new approaches will likely affect grantmaking in the future.

First, there was an overview of the current arts environment and what organizations were doing themselves.  In short, the arts are less healthy than other sectors and money for the arts disappeared first and faster than for human service nonprofits, with support from individuals being the first to go.

More specifically, the national overview aligned pretty well with what we see here.

• While 30% of organizations operated at 8% above break even during 2008-09, 56% of them expect a long term negative impact.
• 70% of organizations have prepared ‘worst case’ budgets for the future.
• 50% are asking funders to re-purpose grants already made for more flexibility.
• 50% have reduced staff
• Debt service is taking precedent over program support
• Reducing and/or shifting program focus has also created challenges
• Super-small groups are the least endangered as they have the greatest flexibility.
• Mid-sized organizations are at greatest risk.  Many cannot sustain the increased infrastructure they have built in recent years.
• Some of the largest organizations are in serious trouble due to heavy reliance on endowments which have been decimated.

None of this information was surprising or unexpected at this point in this “stressful economic retraction” as one panelist named it. 

(I’m going to get to the Fable part in a minute.  I promise.)

While there were some interesting new strategies being employed by funders, most of these emerged from intensive evaluations and a lengthy process of re-positioning.  These were not things that many foundations can immediately employ without their own study and planning processes.  

But during the conversation, Russell Willis Taylor, the witty and (as she might admit) acerbic head of National Arts Strategies referenced a “provocation” paper she had written for the Doris Duke Charitable Trust: The Grasshopper or the Ant.  The paper both
reinforced and challenged some sacred cow notions about the value of endowment gifts.  I commend it to any organization contemplating an endowment campaign.

Also on the NAS website is a terrific paper by National Arts Strategies Vice President Jim Rosenberg, about effective financial practices for arts organizations (with applicable information for other nonprofits as well). This paper also contains a terrific self-assessment framework for arts organizations.  NAS is happy to have this paper widely circulated and I hope you check it out.

Toil away, all you ants - and grasshoppers. �

This is a second posting from my experiences at this year’s Grantmakers in the Arts conference in Brooklyn, but I want to start it from an unusual place – a quote by our own Mayor Frank Jackson, overheard in a recent interview on Cleveland Public Radio: WCPN ideastream.  It’s probably the most brilliant and insightful thing I have ever heard the mayor say: “Cleveland needs to be where the world is going – not where the world is.”  Amen!

To paraphrase the quote, and to link it to an interesting plenary speech at the conference by pollster and author John Zogby, I would say: The arts need to be where the world is going – not where it is, or where it has been. 

To launch GIA’s 2009 “Recession Conference,” which most of us expected to be focused on the doom and gloom of the economy, Zogby painted a more positive scenario for the future based on his years of work looking at the meta-trends in American society.  Challenging the notion that we will never be able to change entrenched and destructive political and societal realities (think climate change, health care, obesity, etc.), he catalogued some remarkable changes that we have already made in relatively recent history: “We recycle, we stopped smoking, we stopped littering, we turn out the lights, we have begun to understand we are not the only ones on the planet.”

In his latest book, The Way We’ll Be, Zogby defined some new categories of consumers, and pointed out how the arts are much higher on the list of necessities for these groups. 

There’s the “First Globals” - cosmopolitan 18-30-somethings, 56% of whom have passports and think of themselves as citizens of the world.  They are cultural omnivores, not stuck in traditional ways of viewing or validating art and culture.

The “Secular Spiritualists” are likely to be older; people with experience who are redefining the American Dream as something far less possession-based.  These folks are  living longer and looking for ways to make meaning in the rest of their lives through authentic and creative experiences.

Among the lessons for the arts, in Zogby’s view are: Get’em young through social networking, and give them opportunities to participate, learn and explore their own creativity.

Among the lessons for the arts from Zogby, Mayor Jackson and the GIA conference itself are: Imagine a healthy arts community in a changed and changing world, and make the leap into the future.  Be where the world is going.
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