This is gonna be brief because I have more things to sort out about what I want to say about the meeting that took place between me, about ten engaged artists, and The Cultural Alliance on Monday. Also, other pressing things like sick family members and deadlines for books on the history of live theater in Milwaukee are pressing, and I know you all want my children's fevers to break and for me to finish my book so that you can buy multiple copies of it, of course.
But, basically, meeting wise, I give it a big thumbs up. I appreciated a great deal of candor from Executive Director, Christine Harris, and Board Chair, Paul Matthews. Their agenda is huge (maybe too huge), but certainly well intentioned. And if you believe that they can do everything they hope to do without the help and support of their constituents (i.e., artists and institutions they serve), then you probably also believe that it doesn't matter whether or not you get involved in helping to elect the next President of the United States because it will just kind of happen. Yes, both things can just kind of happen, but the "New" cultural Alliance (and I would really characterize it as something with a new vision) is one that wants artists and institutions to help set the agenda for what it is gonna to focus it's organizational priorities on as they go forward. And that ain't a bad thing at all.
I also taped the entire two-hour meeting and will offer it as a free downloadable podcast in a slightly edited form later this week. Watch for that. Good talking went down. And I'll follow up with some more thoughts on the whole big package of culture and alliances.
And I'll finish my book, and my children will frolic and play again. All goodness shall be restored to the land.
1 smart alecky remarks:
the initial concept for the Cultural Alliance was an arts council for Milwaukee. the idea came from a very talented guy who moved to Milwaukee from out of state. he had been an active member of the arts council in Columbus. he was involved in all of the initial planning of the Cultural Alliance, but was convinced to leave the board so he'd be eligible to be hired as executive director. then the Cultural Alliance decided to grow to seven counties and include zoos and historical societies, and the job was given to the wife of some wealthy man who had a vested interest in the organization. the man who's brain child was the Cultural Alliance has since given up on Milwaukee and moved to Chicago.
there was also a point where i met with the Hertzfeld Foundation (a major supporter of the Cultural Alliance) to ask for funding for MARN. i was told MARN would never get a penny from the Hertzfeld Foundation unless we did all our programming under the name of the Cultural Alliance and met with their director (then Tony Forman) on a regular basis for guidance.
a lot of pressure was put on us to hand over our mailing list to the Cultural Alliance and to persuade our members to join their organization as well. i never saw the benefit for individual artists in doing that.
in the end, i gave up on MARN because the team of consultants we hired was told (earlier this year) that none of the funders in town would give money to MARN's arts incubator 'because of the failure of the Cultural Alliance.'
i guess my failure was my inability (lack of desire) to get the 'right' people on MARN's board. all i ever wanted to create was an organization for artists by artists that could be honest about our situation here and make things better for artists. unfortunately, there's very minimal financial support for organizations not run by Yes Men.
what i don't understand though, is how an organization, like the Cultural Alliance, that seems to be well funded, doesn't do anything that's apparent to any of us. to me it reads like an offshoot of UPAF... same funders, same administrators and serves the same organizations.
what they HOPE to do is great. if they do it, great. but until then Milwaukee remains one of the only major cities in America without a full-time (PAID) staff person working to make the arts a priority... which was what the Cultural Alliance was supposed to be in the first place when it was formed in 2003.
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