Thursday, December 5, 2013

Tennessee Arts Commission’s Strategic Planning Middle TN Public Meeting


 The Tennessee Arts Commission’s Strategic Planning Public Meeting

Wednesday, December 4, 2013 

Nashville Children's Theatre 1:00 -3:00 PM with networking at 12:30 PM


PANEL MEMBERS 
Dr. Ted Brown
President, Martin Methodist College, Pulaski


Dr. Barbara Hodges
Executive Director, Kids for the Creative Arts, Murfreesboro


The Honorable Lonnell Matthews
Metro Councilman and Operations Executive,
Davidson County School Age Services, YMCA of Middle Tennessee

Bo Spessard
COO and in-house attorney, Emma, Nashville

Moderated by Ann Coulter, Principal, A. Coulter Consulting, Chattanooga

 

Round-Table Discussion Report

 Question 1: How are the arts positively impacting your community? Give examples.
  • Our organizations are already doing the 10 items mentioned as being things the arts are well suited to do on the slide presentation.
  • As a muralist, I work with at risk populations and the work we create becomes the participants’ vision as opposed to just my vision as an artist.
  • Art organizations are actively engaged in arts education by filling in the gaps left by schools.
  • Great strides have been made in efforts to engage diverse audiences. Organizations are starting to see this as being valuable to the organizations as well as their audiences. There is still room for progress.
  • Examples include Cheekwood’s Day of the Dead Festival, the Notes for Notes program and Oasis Center uses arts in its juvenile character development program. 
  • In the Woodbine area, there is not a lot going on in the arts.  There’s a neighborhood association that puts on the Flat Rock Arts Festival for four or five years at Coleman Park, which is growing.  It promotes cohesiveness and community identity.  
  • In our rural county, Hickman Co., we have lots of churches, which define social life.  Arts events are a way for people to interact beyond their church, they create another sense of community.  We create events for all to interact, it’s slowly happening.  It takes people from outside the area to create arts events.  
  • The Southern Festival of Books in downtown Nashville, creates a visible, critical mass of people getting together for an event that is literature focused.  You can see thirty thousand people at once in a public space showing support for the arts, visible public component of what is usually a private activity (reading) or shared in small groups (book clubs).  Economic impact is determined by attendance (sixty percent come from outside Davidson co., for example).  It’s a free event, not ticketed.  There’s an expectation for number to grow.  We count people going to sessions, buying books and concessions.
  • In Centerville in Hickman Co, we track sales tax for the day of the event, and that provides evidence to the mayor and city encouraging them to support arts events.
  • Nashville Ballet reaches thirty thousand children a year through its outreach program, perform at schools, partner with schools for six residency programs reaching students not otherwise exposed to the arts to develop appreciation for dance.  There is a very small dance presence in after school and head start programs, so have started to go to Headstart programs to perform dances for, three year olds,  getting movement, arts education, cognitive skills to these young kids.
  • Frist Center: Frist as an asset. OUR impact…academically, economic development. AAMD did economic impact study. Take a look at that.
  • Google map – map the students 17,000 per year. Identify groups based on exhibitions. War exhibit – outreach to audiences. Put together an advisory group of veterans, etc. to help with outreach = mental health issues. 
  • Native American Indian Association – huge part of our heritage. Need to incorporate American Indian art. Annual festival at Long Hunter State Park– overwhelmed by school children – 14-15,000 for 3 day weekend. Free and open to public. 12 to 15 buses. 
  • Get requests for them to come to the schools…Cannon, Rutherford, Davidson…middle Tennessee area.
  • We help drive a one hundred million dollar tourism industry in Cannon County.
  • Represent Nashville and TN on a global stage: help setting global brand through ticket sales and recordings
  • Raising Nashville creativity quotient.
  • Raising quality of life by giving retires things to do: volunteers. Staying active and 
  • Immeasurable impact and investment of arts experiences
  • Celebrate local culture
  • Offer public visibility for critical mass of readers and arts consumers
  • Flatrock Arts Festival  give the neighborhood a sense of cohesiveness
  • Global Education Center recently sponsored a one-person show in our area that I doubt I would have seen elsewhere
  • In Nashville, there’s a significant influx of arts in the last few years
  • The Frist Center has worked with several communities on special projects and with ESL communities. All ages, all ethnicities
  • Quality of life, innovative thinking, jobs
  • The arts and creative thinking are worthwhile. Creativity allows for strong focus and with that focus comes positive interactions
  • Community involvement and sense of community ownership in public spaces – Art Crawl in Wedgewood – Houston has enjoyed and partnered with the neighborhood organization to plan events and opportunities
  • A chance to express ourselves when we, as the disability community, don’t have typical ways
  • The arts and creativity are an essential way to help causes and non-profits tell their story, raise funds and create experiences for people in need.
  • Too many to list here, but follow facebook.com/creativity moves for a lot of local examples
  • Engage the public and allows the public to take ownership/responsibility in the community (take pride in neighborhoods, etc)
  • Express desire to create. Creativity is expressed
  • Can create common ground, cohesion
  • One participant explained that she used to live in East Nashville, where there is plenty of public art. She now lives in Antioch, where there is very little. She expressed that public art is very uplifting for a community and would like to see more of it in Antioch. Furthermore, it was expressed that public art should reflect the community’s demographics. 
  • The Watermarks Public Art series was discussed at our table as public art that strongly reflects the surrounding communities. It was also noted that these pieces have been the site of community gatherings. 
  • Because of accessible cultural programming racial reconciliation and religious tolerance increase significantly
  • Several participants agreed that they’ve witnessed individuals develop self-expression and critical thinking as a result of exposure to and involvement in the arts. 
  • I live in Antioch, which has had its share of problems. But the community is so excited that metro is renovating the Hickory Hollow shopping mall. There will be a new community center and library which will include a new piece of public art. The new public artwork will keep rejuvenate our neighborhood’s public image.
  • I work with the Oasis Center here in Nashville.  When we host workshops in our art studio we hear a lot of kids say, "I can't do it" at first.  But when the kids participate in the workshops and complete the activity without giving up, kids learn to be positive and confident in their abilities. These art making activities are very therapeutic, students are forced to slow down, drown out the negative voices and focus on the task at hand.
  • At my organization, we have a program where musicians create different pieces of music and then local students put the various pieces together and curate the finished product. This activity promotes an appreciation for Jazz music that students might not have otherwise.
  • I live in Ryman Lofts which is part of an affordable housing initiative for artists in Nashville.  It is a great networking opportunity for residents who are looking to work with other artists or make trades for services they might not be able to afford otherwise. Whether your band needs a bass player for an upcoming show or a graphic designer to help design your website, there is always someone willing to help.


Question 2: What can we do beyond funding to get the arts to more children in your region?
  • TAC should partner with libraries and community centers as well as schools
  • There should be a network of artists and some sort of marketplace or showcase to market them to schools
  • The poor community has no arts organizations, so churches and non-arts organizations pick up the slack with arts and cultural events.  However, the difficulty of grantwriting is a huge hurdle for these groups.  Our community lacks the institutional infrastructure to apply for funding.  The TAC needs to do more outreach, technical assistance, talk to them specifically about how to apply for grants.
  • Teachers, children, parents love the arts, but school administrations cutting arts from the budgets, and leave teachers no time or leeway to add it.  The panic about money and testing comes from higher up, on the administration level.  As a result there is reluctance among teachers to go outside the box since they have to abide by administrative mandates.  Years ago TAC had a wonderful program with the State Board of Education, a partnership to interact with teachers and artists.  School administrators need to be convinced that the arts can impact the schools.  Perhaps TAC could talk with Dept. of Education.  Schools are under pressure from testing.  Local arts advocates needing to have voices heard by education.
  • It's a curricular issue, all the emphasis is on science, math, everything is results oriented. There needs to be hard data proving that curriculum should be structured so math, science can collaborate with the arts, music, show it is a positive thing.  
  • Parents put pressure on school systems?  Start with educating the PTA, get parents to support the arts.  Parents often involved in aggressive fundraisers for the schools, but the money often goes for tech, equipment, athletics, rather than the arts.  Also low income areas in the city and rural counties lack strong PTAs  or in some cases, any PTA at all.
  • Art is not seen as essential or a priority by the public at large.  Other things are a priority – i.e., jobs, health.  Finding a way to bridge, to show measurable impacts of arts education, arts experiences, ON “essential priorities” – economic development – is a way to insert arts into the conversation
  • Art can't be advocated by itself, has to be incorporated into math, science, language, curriculum. 
  • How broaden your reach? Partnerships. Native American Indian Association is not in the system. Not considered an arts organization. 
  • Target the parents. Educate them on the stats/value of arts in their schools.
  • Series of 1 minute videos “art is all around you” for school kids. Frist kids.org working to reach.
  • Tennessee State Museum – facility. Movement there. TSM updated 21st Century Classroom so now have means of providing satellite education and training.  Funded by Nissan. Hoping to expand through You Tube and google offering sessions on Tennessee History. 
  • Have a heavy arts focus at TSM.
  • Help create markets for Native American artisans. 
  • Use art to teach language skills to Native American kids through federal grant.
  • Community engagement exercises: 
  • Immeasurable impact and investment of arts experiences/ framing the creative process as an informal process that has definite applications and impact on students
  • Helping to work with school districts to make it easier a better system to connect artist and arts organizations.
  • The use of technology for greater access
  • Being able to go to where the kids are or target audiences maybe 
  • How the commission can help students engage the community engagement piece
  • Expand your teaching artist program so TN artists can assist inside and outside the classroom. Make grants that utilize artist-teachers available to everyone with minimal restrictions.
  •  Fund this category heavily (mini-grants: are orgs who receive operating support eligible for mini-grants?)
  • Creating awareness
  • Mobilize the art to go to the children
  • Frist Center “Art Trunks”
  • Help promote and create visibility for existing programs for kids that will help other funders and supporters discover them.
  • Facilitate connections/collaborations between your members, doing this kind of work and seeking these kinds of programs
  • Help crate and foster opportunities for arts organizations and partner with community liaison to meet people interested in working together who otherwise might not meet. Putting artists and art advocates into more non-arts meetings. What does a networking event look like if you are not mid-level, middle-class person? How to engage these? When and where and how do these events happen?
  • Match artists to schools
  • Identify collaborative opportunities
  • Professional development for teaching artists
  • Identify community liaisons
  • TAC can foster dialogue between State Board of Education and the arts as a valued teaching tool and hope it trickles down to the schools, as a go-ahead for already willing teachers to bring it back into the classroom
  • Educate school PTA leaders about availability of arts programs and their value. Schools use discretionary funds for technology and equipment. A small percent redirected to artist visits and events would make a big impact. They may not know how affordable it is
  • Outreach to first-time applicants at non-arts organizations
  • Beyond funding, it is important to develop a presence in the community. Steer people toward public arts that can be teaching tools for children. Those works already exist and can be great ways to engage children
  • Use media as an educational tool for the arts. Specifically elements of art, getting moving – dance theater. Curious about reading and writing creatively
  • Open doors for consistent placement of arts in school curriculums. Organizations have resources that they are willing to give, but entry is impossible. Need participation in planning for standards, curriculums, etc.
  • Transportation
  • Support for reaching families that have English as their second language (training)
  • Be adaptive. Be inclusive. Teach teachers not to fear general disabilities. 500,000 youth with autism will lose their services in the next 10 years after graduating high school. It is at least 700K if counting all developmental disabilities. Many are innately talented artistically. We have just begun phase one workshops of the inclusive CreativeArts co-op where adults with and without disabilities create, exhibit and sell their work. This will eventually be a full-time program
  • Reform education so that teachers have more time and support in incorporating the arts
  • Create legislation that reflects the arts as cohesive and inextricable from our lives, which is ‘true advocacy’
  • At The Nashville Jazz Workshop we find ourselves competing with kid’s busy schedules. Lots of students have numerous extracurricular hobbies taking place after-school. In order to still reach those students we are opening up dress refusals to different groups during the day.
  • I think we need more visionary directors/leaders that encourage government employees to insert themselves in creative workshops for community groups that target young audiences.
  •  “Trying to reach more students is difficult for non-profits but I think reaching a bigger audience is easier when your organization has presences on social media websites.”
  • Government agencies could facilitate connections between schools and arts organizations through programs and workshops they are already sponsoring or hosting.  
  • Making sure we are making the most of the time students spend in their art class. Teachers see every child in school, weekly. I think it is important that our local teachers have resources to curriculum and classroom activities that expose children to all the great resources our city has to offer, like public art.


Question 3: What could we do to help the arts get “a seat at the table” in all Tennessee communities?
  • The Metro council member on the panel has the right idea. Find out what the agenda at the table is and come with what the arts can do to advance that agenda.
  • We need to foster a new generation of arts allies outside the arts community.
  • TAC could email constituents statistical studies showing how the arts affect test scores, economic development, how to access that information. (Note:  some of this info available on TAC website under ARTS ED)  Look at jobs for TN graduates, show that the arts produce jobs.  Does Americans for the Arts, TFTA have statistics proving to administrators? Show me the numbers.
  • It's about personalities. The presence of a sympathetic ear.  Find those people! Work them.  People come and go, when your champion is gone, you rebuild.  
  • Strategies are different in different areas.  We don’t have arts groups in all TN counties or city neighborhoods.  TFTA is taking responsibility for lobbying for the arts to protect the license plate revenue stream and provide online materials for arts constituents to advocate for the arts.  
  • Defending “the formula” (arts income from license plates) is a real priority.  
  • The parents, the people who live in communities, they are the people who elect the legislators.  Political action, community forums, inviting people into community centers, educating about the arts, what lack of the arts would mean.
  • Planning and development, communicate with elected officials
  • Grassroots action is important.  If it's happening down on the street, the elected officials have to notice.  We can do a lot because we’re not in their way.  Before there was anything, there was the public library.  If there were two people who wanted to do someone thing, the librarian said yes.  Trickle down to all kinds of arts events
  • Public partnership model.  TAC could partner with neighborhood associations and groups, neighborhood resource centers.  Gov’t organizations partnering with local entities. Do more than just offer a grant. Communication, contacts, addresses, access to the community. 
  • Do research:  Creative peacemaking book.  Rise of the creative class.  William Cleveland, speaker at conference, valuable insight.
  • Support seats that are already there/ Advocacy.  Target the parents. Educate them on the stats/value of arts in their schools.
  • Need for private and public sectors and arts sector need to speak the same language/communicate better. Arts seen as separate, independent, an ancillary thing to support and enjoy.
  • People in the arts can't be afraid can't be afraid to be political/ being strategic And critical in garnering support
  • Leveraging political connections of arts legislators and arts supporters
  • Raising awareness of art issues: the arts commission playing a role to highlight what table they need to have a seat at.
  • Being involved with the chamber in your community / partnering
  • Advocacy for relationship 
  • Economic impact studies case. Looking at MTSU or other partner to hell with economic impact studies,
  • What is being said is not being reflective in the funding.
  • Find out civic/political agenda and goals and find connection point with arts
  • Boot camp to train mid-level artists and organizations to join civic organizations and committees; create incentives by making in an honor to participate; encourage them to walk with their leadership to get plugged in
  • Access to staff of legislators
  • Critical thinking
  • A shift in the culture and an understanding of what’s offered through the arts. We currently see a shift in Nashville that is bringing arts to the forefront
  • Partner with neighborhood resources or community centers to educational forums
  • Provide arts advocates with clear measurable data on benefits of arts in communities and schools: economic, social and cultural
  • Provide easily accessible list of statistics, resources, planning tools that can be used by grass roots organization to convince of value of the arts in the economic , educational, cultural, tourism levels
  • Specific arts orientation for council leadership class with arts focus
  • Widen the vocabulary of how we talk about creativity in communities. Specific and clear ways the arts impact a group/place; Use past examples relevant to that community and shown to them through methods they use and find relevant.
  • How to make parents advocate? Give them tools and opportunities to know value of arts
  • Tie into the concept of “creativity and the creative community” which is broader and includes entrepreneurs, science, design, marketing, business, leadership, etc
  • Change the vocabulary to engage a broader audience
  • Help our arts organizations be strong and help us articulate our various and common voices, in all way you can.
  • Every bit of communication is actually advocacy. And everyone should be invited to the table of planning and recognition
  • Advocacy is expanding the community’s awareness of the arts
  • Integrating the number of ways that people can access funding is advocacy
  • There’s only so much that can be done in schools if the arts are not supported in the home. We need more programming incorporating the whole family
  • Advocacy is related to access—people who directly experience the arts will begin to invest in the arts, including electing officials who support them
  • When I think of ‘advocacy,’ I think of making a case. So the question is, to whom are we making the case for the arts? Funders? Politicians? And what are our tools in the making of this case? Can the TAC help provide the tools – the time and resources – that we can use in making the case?
  • We need research literature that is more accessible and readable, like an index of the last five years’ worth of research
  • Nashville needs people to advocate for the fair payment of art and artist’s services. We need non-profit leaders to help remove the stigma associated with non-profits paying for services. Even if you’re a non-profit organization, that doesn’t mean you can’t pay and artist competitive wages. Organizations should be proud to fairly compensate our creative class.
  • There needs to be a change within the culture of craft fairs. As a craft artist, it is difficult to pay a fee for a booth and still make a profit when customers feel like they can haggle or demand a cheaper price. Craft fairs are a great way to get your art out there but customers just don’t value the product, they just want to find a deal even if it is at the expense of a local artist.
  • Increasing the number of communal performance and exhibit spaces, more affordable housing for artists and finding a way to make studio space more affordable for young, local artists would help.

4.  Other comments
  • TAC needs to be more supportive of individual artists, not just organizations.  Artists are asked to perform for free.  I.e., TAC grants going to organizations who then do not pay the artists.  The poorer we get, the louder we have to get.  Individual artists must be considered to be important stakeholders. 
  • Kudos for Arts Education Program’s conference team!  Create2013 was a fabulous conference.
  • The TAC website is very difficult to navigate