Americans for the Arts

Robbie Q. Telfer

I often encounter so-called "serious" artists who scoff at the idea that what they're doing is entertaining. Art should raise up its audience, not stoop to meet them.

I certainly agree that art must challenge audiences, but if you're not considering the entry points for your audience, then you're not a serious artist at all. You might just be an insecure gatekeeper.

Essentially, entertainment is a contract of considerate communication with strangers. Entertainment is not a distraction or empty goal. Entertainment is noble; it is the way we survive our mortality without slipping into depression.

To produce events with entertainment in mind means you are interested in your audience enjoying and receiving the messages you want to proffer. This is what I’ve learned from the initial concept behind the poetry slam created by Marc Smith, and used as a foundation for the Encyclopedia Show: if you are not creating art to commune with an audience, then you are creating art that you think people should be obligated to digest.

Jaime Austin

While working on the 2010 01SJ Biennial I was involved in commissioning 46 new artworks, so I was able to witness firsthand the creativity, risk-taking, and innovation that come into play as an artist is realizing a new work.

Innovation is a process. It (whatever “it” is) always starts with an idea. The idea alone isn’t worth anything; it’s the action put into realizing that idea to make “it” a reality, something that can be viewed/experienced or bought/sold that matters.

It’s the belief that risking it all—money, prestige, reputation—on a particular idea will pay off in the end when “it” is achieved. Am I talking about the next new Silicon Valley based startup company? No, I’m talking about the next new contemporary artwork.

The process that an artist goes through to realize a new work, particularly large-scale or public works, isn’t so different from the process an entrepreneur goes through to start a business.

Angela Harris

I read Robbie Telfer’s insightful post about the tie between the arts and entertainment. I am reminded of a conversation that I recently had about the effect that So You Think You Can Dance and similar commercialized entertainment has had on the dance community.

For many years, I was so frustrated with how dance was being portrayed on television. I disliked the judges’ comments. It would irritate me that the show would highlight those dancers that could do tricks and entertain the crowd by kicking their leg to their head, instead of the technically trained dancers.

I feared that the new interest by the general public in these shows would make audiences under-whelmed if they were to experience a live concert dance performance and not see back flips. If this trend was taking over the public’s perception of dance, would other artists begin conforming? Would we in jeopardy of losing the artistry of our discipline?

But, after numerous questions from the general public, such as, “Do you watch So You Think You Can Dance?" and "What do you think of Mia Michaels choreography?" I realized that not only could this show be a teaching tool and an opening to dialogue about dance, but it could be a great promotional tool to get audiences to see live dance performances.

Robbie Q. Telfer

Hi, the internet! My name’s Robbie Q. Telfer, and I’m a performance poet and live event producer from Chicago.

The two biggest projects I am currently in charge of implementing are the annual Chicagoland youth spoken word festival Louder Than a Bomb and the monthly literary variety show the Encyclopedia Show. Both events are intensely rewarding, constantly challenging, and deeply exhausting endeavors.

The Encyclopedia Show was created by myself and longtime collaborator Shanny Jean Maney in December 2008 in part as a response to the adult performance poetry movement getting bogged down in cliquey cheerleading and egotistical self-indulgence.

Essentially, Shanny and I saw that there was this huge international community of trained performance artists who, after years of competing in poetry slams, were beginning to itch for new artistic challenges that had ostensible goals grander than “convince five strangers to give me high points in an intentionally absurd competition.”

Oh, that’s a fine goal for a while, but it would be akin to playing Apples to Apples every weekend for your whole life. They’re fun games and all, but there are so many more artistic possibilities if you just change up the rules.

Naomi Natale

Last September, I went to East San Jose Elementary School here in my hometown of Albuquerque, NM. While there I spoke with over 200 fourth and fifth grade students in six classes.

For the three weeks before I visited, the students had been studying “virtues” under the guidance of their teacher, Amy Sweet, who heard about One Million Bones, loves the project, and wanted to bring it into her classroom.

Together we began the lesson by asking the students about their virtues — which ones they possess, which ones their friends possess, etc. — and asking what acts they do that show them off. We then asked the question,  “How do we find the virtues in people that we don’t really like?”

All of us together decided that virtues are very much like bones, that though we cannot see them we know that they exist and that they make us who we are. We also decided that EVERYBODY has virtues just like EVERYBODY has bones. And then we began the process of art-making.

Ryan Hurley

Hello cyberpeople. My name is Ryan Hurley and I am a part-time educator and writer, and full-time Program Coordinator for an arts education organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called Arts @ Large (A@L). I’m excited to share some of the things that we are doing in Milwaukee and read about the emerging ideas blooming around the country.

Arts @ Large works with school communities in Milwaukee, which often lack basic access to art and music education, to develop comprehensive arts programs in collaboration with students, teachers, staff, afterschool providers and parents. At each of our 20-25 school sites we develop a team with the above mentioned community members to develop and direct a multi-faceted arts program which includes arts-integration training for teachers, multidisciplinary artist residencies, access to art and music supplies, and opportunities for field trips into the community.

Our goal is to empower each site to use the arts to enhance the academic curriculum and the creative climate. The academic connection is essential not only because we feel it is important to enhance classroom learning through the arts but also because of the limited amount of time teachers are allowed for creative exploration due to some of the overwhelming mandates put onto school communities.