{"id":871,"date":"2016-04-28T10:54:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=871"},"modified":"2016-04-28T10:54:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:54:18","slug":"raucous-caucuses-and-imaginary-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=871","title":{"rendered":"Raucous Caucuses and Imaginary Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montauk<\/p>\n

Two conferences about\u00a0creative support for artists<\/h3>\n

We had some brunch, then we had some lunch,
\nThen we talked some more until we tired.<\/em><\/span>
\n We cursed and we swore, then we talked some more,<\/em><\/span>
\n Following the shoals of salmon.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A stanza excerpted from “The Orcas Anthem”
\nBased on music\u00a0& lyrics from \u201cShoals of Herring\u201d by Ewan MacColl
\nNew lyrics by\u00a0Terry Dimmick, written on Orcas Island, 1988<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, several hundred people met twice at remote locations on two islands, one on the U.S. east coast and one on the west, to consider \u201cthe creative support of the creative artist.\u201d Sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), the first conference was held in May 1986 at Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York and the second in November 1988 on Orcas Island near the Canadian border in Washington state. These two gatherings brought together artists, arts funders, and dedicated people from organizations that serve artists. For a day and a half (Montauk) or three full days (Orcas) they talked, performed, argued, ate together, played together, and tackled critical concerns within and beyond the arts. They also built life-long friendships and professional relationships and provoked questions that remain today.<\/p>\n

I chose to be an artist. I had no choice. My parents thought I did. They said I should get a job.”\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 Trisha Brown, choreographer, letter to the conference\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addition to the relationships and knowledge\u00a0that remain long afterward, a physical record was also created. Participants in the Orcas conference were given\u00a0custom-designed three-ring binders and\u00a0received four installments of materials to fill them: commissioned papers from both conferences, background readings, conference proceedings, as well as letters and reports received from participants afterward. Complete notebooks contained almost 500 pages.<\/p>\n

I have run a very successful small business for over 25 years. But I forgot to be paid. Well, I didn\u2019t ‘forget’ \u2013 it would have been impossible.”\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 Robert Ashley, composer, letter to the conference<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With an interest in tracing the emergence of a national conversation about the place of artists in the system of arts support, Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) commissioned me to write about these two conferences. My perspective was\u00a0undoubtedly colored by the fact that not only did I attend both events, I was in the whirling center of the second as its coordinator.\u00a0My\u00a0essay was published in the winter 2015 issue of the GIA Reader<\/em><\/a>, and it’s also posted on an archival website\u00a0I created for materials generated by the two gatherings. (A link to the site\u00a0is here<\/a>.)\u00a0My essay<\/a> is one of the pieces\u00a0in the archive. I’ve begun posting materials from the conference notebook \u2013 some are interesting historically, others remain pertinent today \u2013 but the going is slow\u00a0because the documents\u00a0don’t exist digitally. All of this happened\u00a0before the widespread use of personal computers and the internet.\u00a0The notebook’s table of contents<\/a> is<\/em>\u00a0posted on the site, though, and gives a sense of what\u00a0the book\u00a0contains.<\/p>\n

A valuable lesson for me from these two conferences is the importance of creating\u00a0opportunities for us to connect with each other, to talk and argue together, and to feel equal as participants.<\/p>\n

From one\u00a0perspective, the experience proved to David Mendoza* how important artists are to a democracy. Living now in Indonesia, a nascent democracy, he sees how important gatherings like these could be. In retrospect, I recognize in them some traits essential to a democracy: a forum that allows all voices to be heard and one where differences can be expressed.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Long
Long Island, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Orcas
Orcas Island, Washington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u2022\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

*David Mendoza was a founder and, at the time, the first executive director of Artist Trust.<\/p>\n

\n

\"cropped-9099-Logo-red_D-nick-squared.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two conferences about\u00a0creative support for artists We had some brunch, then we had some lunch, Then we talked some more until we tired. We cursed and we swore, then we talked some more, Following the shoals of salmon. A stanza excerpted from “The Orcas Anthem” Based on music\u00a0& lyrics from \u201cShoals of Herring\u201d by Ewan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-commons-civil-society","category-re-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pXN0-e3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}