Robert Gard Lecture Series

The Populist Arts Movement

Altering the Face of America

The Inaugural Robert Gard Lecture by Janet L. Brown
Independent Consultant
Past Executive Director of South Dakotans for the Arts
Sioux Falls, SD

"If we are seeking in America, let it be seeking for the reality of democracy in the arts. Let art begin at home and let it spread through the children and their parents, and through the schools and the institutions and government. And let us start by acceptance, not negation...acceptance that the arts are important everywhere, that they can exist and flourish in small places as well as large, with money and without it, according to the will of the people. Let us put firmly and permanently aside the cliche that the arts are a frill. Let us accept the goodness of art where we are now, and expand its worth in the places where people live."

Robert Gard

Thank you to the Arts Extension Service, Craig Dreeszen, Dyan Wiley, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Clare Wood, Maryo Ewell and the others who were instrumental in honoring me with this award. I am most humbly honored.

Robert Gard first came to me in the form of his daughter, Maryo Ewell. Her thoughts, her writings, her instincts are inspirational and self-assuring to me. Her belief in people and their power to build community through the arts shook me awake about thirteen years ago. It was my people she was talking about, my sense of place, my community.

I was asked by Patrick Overton at Columbia College, Columbia, Missouri to write a paper in 1990 for a symposium and publication he was coordinating. The symposium entitled "Grassroots and Mountain Wings" brought many of my heroes in the community development field together: Maryo, David O'Fallon, Chris Van Antwerp, Bob Lynch, Bill Pratt, Daniel Withrow, Joan Lolmaugh, Tina Burdett, Nola Ruth. But most importantly, the symposium and the subsequent publication by the same name were dedicated to Robert Gard, the poet, prophet and pioneer.

I met Robert Gard at that symposium. I listened to his remarks and he listened to mine. They were, indeed, incredibly similar in content and philosophy. I was grateful to have met him and to have been introduced to his writings and his accomplishments. He was truly a pioneer in Community arts development. It is a great challenge to be honored in his name and I hope that my work can live up to his vision and boldness.

I was born to be a populist. Not that I was born a populist, I had to work at it. I grew up in Dell Rapids, South Dakota, population 2000. My father sold commercial feed to farmers and my mother, educated as a teacher, stayed home and raised five kids. On my father's side, we are the descendants of Norwegian pioneers who arrived in South Dakota in covered wagons, lived in sod huts and survived the harsh winters and isolation of the prairie. My great-grandfather's diary became the basis for the classic novel, "Giants in the Earth" by my father's cousin Ole Rolvaag.

On my mother's side, we are Irish who fought the British in Massachusetts and moved west to fight the Indians in Minnesota and finally settle in South Dakota. As my husband is fond to telling everyone, the Irish half of me gets mad real fast and the Norwegian half of me stays mad for a long time.

I left South Dakota in 1976 for the "big time" in San Francisco sure that I would find only the best, the brightest, the most talented and highest quality of arts offerings. It was an eye opener. Some things were wonderful . . . the institutions were grand: the symphony, the regional theatre, the opera, the modern art museum, the not-modern art museum, the ballet. But not every performance was the best, not every actor the most talented, not every play was brilliantly directed. There were moments of artistic euphoria and there were also moments of mediocrity and self-indulgent garbage.

From San Francisco, we moved to New York City where I worked for Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival; then a year touring the cities of Europe as a manager for Ain't Misbehavin'. More of the same...perceptions were shattered and the rule became that there was no rule and the reality was best described by a line from the movie, Little Big Man, "Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't."

In 1980, when I was living in New York City, I had a conversation with a man who at one time was general manager of Lincoln Center. We debated, rather heatedly, his premise that the federal government, i.e. the National Endowment for the Arts, should give money only to states that produce "excellent" art, in other words, New York. (He wasn't really sure if any other states should get any funding at all.) He believed the federal government should give funds to South Dakota for what it does well, grow corn and beef. He believed the government should fund only what someone would decide was "excellent" art and obviously, no "excellent" art came out of South Dakota.

Well, I was offended by that and I can pinpoint that day, as the beginning of my militant position as a populist arts advocate. My perceptions that great art experiences occur only in metropolitan areas or in major institutions had been shattered. My concept of what makes art "good" changed forever. I delight in the fact that there are no rules of geography and environment in artmaking and that perceptions are ever changing. We moved back to South Dakota 1985 to raise our children. I am a "born again" South Dakotan. I couldn't wait to get out and now, I'll never leave. It is my home, my place.

Today's populist art movement, the community arts movement, flows on several different planes at the same time. Our job as arts professionals has become more complex as we attempt to connect those planes, understand the perceptions of our constituents and convene audiences, patrons and artists. We are working with education, social services, juvenile corrections, preservation and more. But at the root of it all is our work to give the arts a home, provide a place and time for people to come together to celebrate and to give our artists the opportunities they deserve.

I like to think of us these days not as arts administrators, which I have always thought was an oxymoron, but more like arts shepherds. I have a Sheltie dog at home and in the office. His name is Max. He is a herder. He worries when one of the flock is missing, he doesn't eat until everyone is safe and at home and he always sleeps with his back up against the wall in case of attack. These are good traits for an arts administrator.

But as shepherds of the arts, we have several challenges facing us as we enter the 21st century. One of our greatest challenges is the shepherding of young people. How do we show value for their art? How do we involve them in our organizations, programs and value systems? How do we promote their talents as they grow into mature artists and arts consumers? What are we doing to embrace them? There is a dialogue that needs to happen in every community between youth and community arts organizations. This dialogue is more important today than ever before in the history of our country. Because in the arts, young people can find democracy, self-confidence, a voice of their own and a place to belong.

We must simply talk to them. What do they want? How can we help? They may not want what we want them to want. Oh horrors, then what will we do?

There is a also a great role for every community arts organization in the advocacy of arts education in our schools. In America, we have allowed creativity and imagination to take a back seat to the so-called basics when in fact, what is more basic? What is more basic than imagination? What is more basic than creativity? Many of our elementary schools have no arts specialists at a time in our children's lives when they are most creative. Most schools manage to pound the creativity and playfulness out of children by the time they reach middle school. If we are to play a dynamic role in the development of communities, we must be outspoken advocates for arts education at an early age.

We are also challenged to build bridges between the commercial and nonprofit arts worlds. It seems so ludicrous that we struggle so financially to keep theatres, museums, symphonies alive when "Stars Wars" has grossed over $250 million. I believe in capitalism and I don't believe that we should all share in George Lucas' earnings. However, there is a connection between the people trained in the nonprofit sector that go on to be commercial successes. How can we support each other? Americans for the Arts has done great work in this area with Michael Green and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. I would hope that we will begin at the local level to make the same connections.

When the National Endowment for the Arts was created in the 60s, America needed a mechanism to nurture composers, writers, playwrights and visual artists. Major institutions were in great need of support to compete with European operas, symphonies and ballets. The perception of the Endowment as elitist today came from its focus on these rather well-heeled and metropolitan-based institutions thirty years ago. The NEA began its journey specifically to fund the product of art. This became problematic almost immediately as the professional world of art which produced the product centered in only about a half dozen metropolitan areas.

Even though by the late 80s, the NEA had created the Locals program, the Folkart program, and other populist programs, the perception to the average American was that it funded big institutions and weird artists. When the attack came, we didn't know what hit us and we had no idea how poorly we were perceived and how damaging the spin would be. We also had no perception of how poorly we could defend ourselves. It was damaging to the tune of $75 million dollars and we're still recovering. But that recovery has brought a new strength and a stronger voice . . . the populist voice for the arts in America.

The lesson for those of us who work in our own communities and states is that perception is reality and for the NEA it was too little too late. We must take a reality check more often than every 25 years to make sure that our reality equals the public's perception.

Community arts are strengthened by a populist foundation. It's like that great 30s tune made famous by Fats Waller, "Find out what they like and how they like it, and let 'em have it just that way." There are those among us that are absolutely appalled by this kind of thinking in the arts. That somehow we will degrade ourselves, that great artforms will disappear, that true artists will be overrun by the mediocrity of the masses. I don't believe that for one moment.

I believe that we know the difference between poorly done theatre and excellent theatre. Even the most untrained eye can tell the difference between the Nutcracker Ballet performed by Miss Terry's Dance Studio and by the Joffrey Ballet Company. The artistic experience had by the audience depends on the audience itself. It is the relationship between the audience and artist that gives value and relevance to the art. If the audience is filled with parents and grandparents of children in Miss Terry's Dance Studio, the artistic experience is an incredibly moving one even though the artform itself has some developing to do.

The real connection between the two performances happens when that parent is witness to both performances at two different times in his child dancers life. There is a connection between these two and we, as arts administrators, publicists, advocates and shepherds, make that connection. We advocate that there is a connection between arts education and the quality of instrumentalists of the Boston Symphony. The production of community and school theater in small towns in South Dakota and in Massachusetts, Vermont, Mississippi and Alaska makes for better theatre in New York and Washington, DC.

This is a creative eco-system. It needs nurturing and protection. In order for the creative eco-system to thrive, the chain must be complete at every level, from Miss Terry's Dance Studio to the Joffrey Ballet.

In 1995, Garrison Keillor spoke before the Senate Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities. I love this quote from that speech. He said "Today, in every city and state, when Americans talk up their home town, invariably they mention the arts, a local orchestra or theater or museum or all three. It didn't use to be this way. Forty years ago, if an American meant to have an artistic career, you got on the train to New York. Today, you can be a violinist in North Carolina, a writer in Iowa, a painter in Kansas. Today, no American family can be secure against the danger that one of its children may decide to become an artist."

And he is right. We have come such a long way since Robert Gard began his work. We can pat ourselves on the back. We can take some credit. We must put into perspective that America is a young country. Where I live, we are just over a 100 years old. We've only recently determined that we have gathered enough food and wood for survival and that we can now turn our attention to celebrating as a community, a state, a people. We look to our native peoples, the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Sioux who have no word for "art" because art is synonymous with being a human being. We haven't quite achieved that level of understanding yet amongst the northern European majority in my state. But, I know our community work moves us in that direction.

To meet the challenges of the next century, the arts community must have leadership with passion, vision and guts. We must have a clear understanding who we are leading and the potential of where we can go. We are a people's movement, doing the people's bidding. We must fight for every citizen to have access and participation in the arts. We must take risks. We must take charge and we must speak up so that others will speak out.

Five years ago, I began sending a letter to the Governor of our state two weeks before his State of the State address asking him to mention the word "art" in his speech. The day of the address, I would fax him a hand written note asking him to "please say the word "art" once in your speech." The first three years, nothing happened. Then, he talked about standards for education and along with math, science and English, he mentioned visual art, music, theatre. I was elated but the best was yet to come. The morning after the state of the state address, a board member of mine was attending a convention of concrete contractors. Around the breakfast table, they had a discussion of arts education based on the Governor's comments. My board member sat silently at the table, amazed to hear his colleagues talking about art. The Governor had given them the license to talk about it and I had given the Governor the push to bring it up. We must speak up so that others will speak out.

Year's ago, someone called me a public servant. I bristled at that since I thought the term was meant only for government workers. However, I have come to believe that as leaders of non-profit organizations with the gift of tax-exempt status, we have an obligation to serve the public. Our organizations cannot make decisions without the public's best interest in mind and we cannot survive without the public's interest in our product. We are public servants and by serving the public, we will thrive and move forward with their support.

I believe we have always been a populist movement. There is a new and very public spin from the National Endowment for the Arts to reach out to America with programs like ArtsREACH and the new Challenge America programs. These are great ideas and will be very helpful to all of us if the current Chairman Bill Ivey can increase the budget using these populist programs as bait. I'm sorry we had to go through all that pain to learn that this is the sermon we should have been preaching all along.

I once had a conversation several years ago at a NALAA convention (now Americans for the Arts) that had a real impact on me. I was speaking on rural arts development and someone in the audience said they had a problem with audience development in their community. It seems they had instigated a chamber music series in a very small southern town and after three years, the audiences had not grown and only a handful of faithful chamber musicites came to every concert. "What can I do, I've tried everything?" he asked me. My unpopular response to him was, "Stop doing chamber music concerts. No one wants them." It all goes back to that tune made famous by Fats Waller, "Find out what they like..."

As community arts developers, you can make a huge difference. It is your job to assure that "the reality is democracy in the arts." You can make the arts more popular, more accessible, more publicized, more educational, more everything.

This is not just a job for us, this is a life's work. We have devoted our lives to it as Robert Gard devoted his life to seeking out democracy in the arts through the artists in the farms and small towns of the midwest. If you can't do that, then change jobs. Passion will move us forward, not statistics (although they come in handy) or grant programs (although they also help). It is passion that will inspire creativity and secure support. I used to try to figure out how we could institutionalize our organizations so they were not so dependent on personalities. I do believe that can be done to some extent, however, one cannot deny that passionate leadership has created much of what we have today. Artistic leadership, administrative leadership, dynamic personalities.

The Arts Extension Service is a perfect example. Look at the list: Stan Rosenberg, Bob Lynch, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Craig Dreeszen. Passionate leaders, all. So, we shouldn't create organizations and programs that just anyone can run. Our goal should be extraordinary programs that serve our public administered by extraordinary people.

I want to close with a poem written by Robert Gard, which appears in "The Arts in the Small Community: A National Plan" written in 1967 as the result of one of the first rural projects funded by the NEA. The poem is untitled:

If you try, what may you expect?

First a community
Welded through art to a new consciousness of self:
A new being, perhaps a new appearance...
A people proud
Of achievements which lift them through the creative
Above the ordinary...
A new opportunity for children
To find exciting experiences in art
And to carry this excitement on
Throughout their lives...
A mixing of peoples and backgrounds
Through art; a new view
Of hope for mankind and an elevation
Of man...not degradation
New values for individual and community
Life, and a sense
That here, in our place,
We are contributing to the maturity
Of a great nation.
If you try, you can indeed
Alter the face and the heart
Of America.

Do I believe the arts can alter the face and heart of America? I do. Because I have seen the faces and I know the hearts of the passionate people who lead the community arts movement. You will alter the face of America.

Thank you.