The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

ut we have to help them help us understand
what is it about those institutions we want to
become and what do we not want to become?
That is something I don’t think we have done a
very good job of. As a result, we tend to reify
and romanticize the small and the marginal,
important as they are in small spaces, as
important as they are in our own communities.
That public space that we have to traverse, we
don’t want to claim. Particularly for the younger
people, I want to leave you with another
wordsmith, A. Phillip Randolph: “At the banquet
table of nature there are no reserved seats.
You get what you can take, and you keep
what you can hold. If you can’t take anything,
you won’t get anything; and if you can’t hold
anything, you won’t keep anything. And you
can’t take anything without organization.” 8
Then the question is, “Where do we direct
that organization?” We have to become the
public. We have to become the mainstream
organizations. We don’t have to abandon
our particular spaces, but we have to pick up
that other part of our citizen identity. We are
not just Black or this or that. We are also the
public. By and large, that is a challenge before
us that I would urge you to take on. Look at all
of those institutions. They have got at least one
colored person. You know that. That came
from struggle! And that person is having a hard
time because he or she is trying to figure out,
“Do I put on a coat and tie or do I put on my
poncho and my huaraches or do I dress up in
tails?” So, we have to engage them because, if
we don’t, they get frustrated and they atrophy
or they turn into the “other.” Then, when the
crisis comes, they are the ones whom they
put out and say, “Go talk to your people.”
Amanda Ault: Institutions are most certainly
the sum of the people working there. And
because people are different in where they
are and who they are, we see institutions
evolving and responding to the communities
they serve in really different ways. I think there
are numerous examples of institutions that
have not done that smoothly and numerous
examples of organizations or institutions that
have been very responsive and savvy in working
with their communities as they change.
Because of their dependence on a few
foundations or a few sources of income, many
institutions and organizations find their program
directions strongly linked with the funding
agendas of their major funders. Programmatic
shifts that you observe in institutions may be
occurring because of influence from those funding
sources. When analyzing our relationships
with institutions, we should look a little more
broadly and certainly deeper into the financial
environments within which they operate and
by which they may be influenced. Within the
National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture
(NAMAC), we see organizations working to
diversify their financial sources in order to be
more sustainable as funding agendas shift and
allow their programs to stay more closely aligned
with their missions. We need to recognize that
the priorities and trends in the funding community
can affect the program decisions of
institutions and incorporate this issue into our
discussion. Maybe this is an invitation for us to
get more involved with the funding strategies
of our institutions and help them have greater
financial autonomy and focus on the mission
goals that we want to see them accomplish.
1
“U.S. Census Bureau Quick Facts,
Sacramento, California,” US Census Online, 2000,
Census Brief, 28 Oct. 2006 .
2
“All Across the USA: Population
Distribution and Composition, 2000,” US
Census Online, 2000, Census Brief, 28 Oct.
2006
2.
3
“U.S. Census Bureau Quick
Facts, Sacramento, California.”
4
Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro
Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of
Power (New York: Birch Lane, 1991).
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