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Measuring a Community’s Creative Health
By Jonathan Katz, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
This
is a particularly challenging time to address what makes a healthy arts community.
Even what we mean by the health of a community is evolving. Health is often thought
of as a state of affairs — things about a body that one can measure and
determine to be operating relative to a norm (like your temperature, blood pressure
and weight).
We might look at several factors that have to align with the mission of an organization or individual in order for its operation to be considered healthy. I find Kevin McCarthy’s and Kimberly Jinnett’s RAND study, A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts, a good stimulus for thinking about this. Some of these factors would include:
• The quality of the artistic experience: Is commitment
to maintaining and improving the quality evident? Is achievement recognized by
the market and the public?
• Community engagement: Do relationships with community
groups and different demographic populations assist the offering of a product
that will be well received and supported?
• Level of resources: Are the human, financial, informational
and capital resources adequate to support the quality of the artistic product
and the level of community engagement?
The extent to which the larger community is reminded of, understands and appreciates the value of its arts community is certainly a component of that arts community’s health.
Tangible signs and symbols that promote the health of a community’s ongoing cultural life include:
• The community icon: What the Community Bridge has
done in Frederick, Md., and the Angel of the North has done in Newcastle/Gateshead,
England, is position the arts community to define identity and to be, in the words
of Arts Council England Northeast’s Andrew Dixon, “the broker of ambition”
for the whole area.
• Art in public places: Artifacts are powerful. When successfully
integrated in public space, they express community identity — as residents
and visitors in many cities will attest. The commitment and ability of the arts
community to manage the context and process are key.
• Arts districts: These provide visibility and sometimes
revenue for an arts community. An important point to bear in mind is that arts
districts can polarize an arts community unless they are part of a holistic investment
in arts resources throughout the area.
• Dramatizing community issues: The arts community is empowered
by dramatic expression of the larger community’s most serious and most popular
issues. History theater in some communities accomplishes this and so does an annual
community production.
• Celebratory events: Festivals, awards, open houses and
participation in National Arts and Humanities Month (October), National Poetry
Month (April) and the upcoming NEA Big Read initiative should be managed to bring
attention to the year-round cultural life of the community.
In a couple of hours, a group of arts leaders can process the notion of the arts community health and pick a small number of high priority activities to work on collectively. Over time, for maximum impact, I expect they would want to come up with rubrics (what would excellent, good, less than good, and poor outcomes look like) in a few priority areas in order to assess progress.
