Late in the game, I'd like to talk about the Cultural NonProfit Forum on Creative Community thingee that happened the other day

There were lots of people that participated in the Cultural Alliance and UW-Milwaukee Center for Urban Initiatives and Research (whew, that's a mouthful...or fingerful if you're typing) forum at the Italian Community Center on Monday. There were even more people that participated in the Cultural Alliance's listening session on Tuesday. I've read much on the local MARN on-line ramblings. Crickettoes has a good synthesis of the Monday morning artistic cluster fuck. I've heard from many that the listening session on Tuesday night at Walker's Point Center for the Arts didn't suck.

Yeah! I've been a fairly vocal critic of The Cultural Alliance in the past, but I must tip my hat to them for kicking some ass lately. Nice job Alliance peops. You're lighting some good fires.

Now, I turn the mirror to the arts community. Yep, I'm kicking my own ass this morning.

You may have noticed that I've slowed down my posts in recent weeks. There's a simple reason for this: I had to get a job.

Yes, after years of freelance work and patching things together, I took a job when my wife lost hers so that my family could continue to pay our mortgage and afford hospital stays if we were to snap our tibia in half (something my youngest daughter seems prone to doing).

In doing so (and I took a job in the arts, mind you), I began to suck a little. As an engaged artist, I just started to take things for granted. I forgot my responsibility to continue questioning how we do things in the arts community here in Milwaukee, which really is the responsibility of all artists in Milwaukee (or anywhere, for the matter).

So, I'm going to try again to be an annoying pest. I'm sticking my tongue out as I write, trust me.

That's why I ultimately like what the Cultural Alliance clam bake on Monday was all about. I don't foolishly believe the Cultural Alliance is going to solve all of our problems. Hell, one of their main objectives is simply to be A CONNECTOR. Connectors, connect. The connectees need to pick up the ball at that point.

In a separate post, I'm going to post all the questions that we were asked to comment on at Monday's meeting. You can do your own homework on them, and e-mail me your own responses if you like. This Monday meeting and the Tuesday Walker's Point listening session were all in anticipation of the Greater Milwaukee Committee Creative Cultural Summit that happens February 4-5 in Delavan at one of those businessy resort places. I'll be there along with about 40 other artistically minded citizens wanted to figure something out about culture and the arts in our sector (such a Star Trek term, don't you think).

So, I've applauded the Cultural Alliance, and said I'm holding the ugly mirror up to myself and other artists in our community. What the hell does that mean, right? Well for me, that means I need to recommit myself to continuing dialogue about how arts can be better in Milwaukee, and, more specifically, how I, with my overblown ego, think arts would be better in Milwaukee (when, oh, when, will the powers-that-be realize that I am always right!).

I'm a little ticked off with the fact that at our Monday conference on culture and arts at the Italian Community Center, discussions of economics always preceded the discussion of the quality of arts in Milwaukee. I'm a little hacked off that actual artists I was sitting with in that room were scared to "ruffle feathers" and say non-flattering things about the way money is shuttled around to arts groups in mind boggling inefficient ways because there were funders in the room. I feel a little throw up in the back of my throat because many artists in our community still equate success with institutional perpetuity (hello, folks, some arts groups should never be run like "efficient businesses" and hear me now--"EVERYTHING HAS A SHELF LIFE!").

We're at a great time for change. We as artists are not only capable of riding along with that change, but we can actually shape that change. But we need to keep showing up at the table. And we have to be honest. Brutally honest. Don't follow the buck. Be brave. If you want to work for an institution (I do, and I like it) then embrace that, but don't believe that is the ultimate formula for a healthy arts community (its only part of it--I believe there are many arts movements that should be sloppy and poorly run and unbelievably thrilling).

Right now, I don't believe the hype. Milwaukee isn't a vibrant arts community. I look at my primary artistic forum (theater) and all I can do is yawn. There's spurts of risk (and I don't just quantify risk as naked people on our stages or bloody stump kind of visual art) popping up in our community, but frankly, we are all too staid, and all too conservative. I'm not asking any artist to change their ethical genomic makeup, but I am asking for the quality of bursting open the community as a rapidly evolving place of openmindedness for all forms of expression.

How do we do it? Just start doing it. Stop talking...okay, talking isn't the enemy, but it's only a start...and start doing. Something. Anything.

And the financial conversation is just, frankly, getting fucking old.

Let's make things. Lots of things. And let's not be afraid of pissing people off. Or boring them. The important thing now is volume of expression. Bring it on artists. Bring it on.