But in this case, you always get more than you give. It’s you who must bring something to jazz.” The act of bringing yourself to something new is an act of courage, sure. “You have to bring yourself to it,” he said. I interviewed Wynton Marsalis for Fortune years ago, and he shared this piece of advice for people who didn’t quite know how they felt about new jazz forms, but it works for all the arts. And, some 40% of NEA-supported activities take place in high-poverty areas, 36 percent of its grants support organizations working with disadvantaged populations and 33 percent serve low-income audiences. Though the NEA costs the taxpayers just 46 cents per year (.004 % of the overall budget), they provide arts programming in all 50 states. Planned cuts to the NEA budget proposed by the Trump administration would disproportionately impact already marginalized audiences and artists. There’s also the question of government support. And by supporting art-through grant-making, underwriting, producing, and ticket-buying-we make a business case that assures that people who have been excluded from making (or seeing) art get the platform they deserve. It’s why Alvin Ailey mattered back in the day, and why Moonlight, Fresh Off The Boat and Marvel Comics matter now. ![]() It’s where we can see other lives and other stories play out, with little at risk except some time and maybe some feels. But under stress and deadlines, we tend to default to our old worldview.Īrt has a real role to play in all of this. Questioning our assumptions often makes for a better final product. It’s also the nature of business, whether it’s a start-up clinging to an outdated notion of culture fit, or a marketer choosing a spokesperson and tagline, there’s always a winnowing toward a final goal. It was a good, early lesson for me: What (or who) you leave out should always be a conscious choice.Ĭuration of any kind is an exercise in strategic exclusion. For a brief time, everyone was united in delight rather than separated by a retrovirus. We asked visitors to sketch their own favorite things on index cards which we posted. When families came to see the show, they just saw pictures of puppies and chess sets, basketballs and teddy bears, plates of spaghetti and well-worn sneakers. If our goal was to humanize kids with AIDS, why label them? And sure enough, Janice was right. “Hey, let’s not tell anyone which kids have AIDS and which ones don’t,” she said. After I picked up the artwork and started laying out the exhibit, the museum’s executive director, Janice O’Donnell, made a brilliant suggestion. A small grant allowed me buy some art supplies, and we set on a theme: My Favorite Things. The daycare was a place they could feel normal for a while, free from judging eyes. Most of the kids had already lost their parents to the disease and they were living with exhausted grandparents just trying to keep it all together. I enlisted a groundbreaking daycare in Boston that was caring for H.I.V.-positive kids and their siblings during the day. But kids! What about them? I wanted to make a point. By then, some of the most beautiful people I’d ever met had already died of the disease, horribly, often shunned and alone. ![]() Fear (and homophobia) were ripping the nation apart. It was the late 1980s and AIDS was still an automatic death sentence, an invisible grim reaper walking among us. One of the first “big ideas” I had while I was on staff was to commission an exhibit of artwork by kids with AIDS.
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