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.
