Blogathon on the Intersections of Art and Science - Day 1

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on………………"

NOTE:  I got a number of feedback emails from the announcement last week of this week's Blogathon Forum on the Intersections of Art and Science, and I would like to ask those people if they would share the news of efforts and projects already underway in our field in this area - with which they are familiar - by clicking on the blog logo, going to the site, clicking on the Comment line and entering a comment with descriptions and links to these projects.  AND I would like to encourage others out there who know of further efforts being made in the area to likewise share that information and those resource links. Thank you.

Here are the bios of the panelists participating in the week long blogathon forum on the Intersections of Art and Science:

Note:  Kamal Sinclair will not be participating as previously announced.

Rieko Yajima is a biochemist with interests that lie at the intersection of science and society—which include design and policy.  She has organized national symposia on these topics, from New Concepts in Integrating Arts and Science Research for a Global Knowledge Society, to Synergy in STEM + Arts:  Catalyzing US Innovation and Competitiveness.  She has given talks on the nexus between scientific research and design thinking at Stanford University’s d.school and the Design Principles and Practices Conference.  For the past eight years, she has worked for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Washington, DC, where she advises the scientific community on ways to strengthen research and innovation and in the use of informed decision-making for funding research.  In 2015, Yajima was elected to the Global Young Academy, a rallying point for outstanding young scientists from around the world to come together to address topics of global importance.  She holds a doctorate degree in integrative biosciences from Penn State University and served as a science policy fellow at the National Academy of Sciences.

Julia Buntaine's work is inspired by and based on Neuroscience, the scientific study of the brain. Born in Massachusetts, Buntaine attained her BA and Certificate in Cognitive Neuroscience from Hampshire College, her post-baccalaureate certificate in studio art from Maryland Institute College of Art, and her MFA of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. Buntaine has exhibited nationally and internationally including shows in Amherst, New York City, Baltimore, Seattle, Madison, and Toronto. Buntaine is also Executive Director at SciArt Center, and founder and editor-in-chief of the online science-based art magazine, SciArt in America. Buntaine currently lives and works in New York City.

Youngmoo Kim is Director of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University. He received his Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT in 2003 and also holds Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Music (Vocal Performance Practice) from Stanford University as well as a B.S. in Engineering and a B.A. in Music from Swarthmore College. His research group, the Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) focuses on the machine understanding of audio, particularly for music information retrieval. Other areas of active research at MET-lab include human-machine interfaces and robotics for expressive interaction, analysis-synthesis of sound, and K-12 outreach for engineering, science, and mathematics education.

Youngmoo also has extensive experience in music performance, including 8 years as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is a former music director of the Stanford Fleet Street Singers, and has performed in productions at American Musical Theater of San Jose and SpeakEasy Stage Company (Boston). He is a member of Opera Philadelphia’s newly-formed American Repertoire Council.

Gregory Mack, Ph.D., is an astrophysicist, modern dancer, and currently an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow placed at the National Science Foundation (NSF). As an AAAS Fellow at NSF he has led several science communication initiatives in collaboration with the NSF Physics Division and the NSF Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. He also is the founder and co-chair of the AAAS Fellow Affinity Group STArt (Science, Technology, and Art) which brings Fellows together to address the intersection of art, science, and policy through various mechanisms. Prior to the Fellowship, Mack was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio Wesleyan University, and he earned his Ph.D. in Physics (Theoretical Astrophysics) from The Ohio State University in 2008. He has been a dancer with the modern dance company Hixon Dance since 2007 and has created works integrating science and dance. [NOTE: As a Fellow, Mack is not an NSF employee and is not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency. Statements here are his own and not those of NSF.]


Lucinda Presley is the founder, Chair, and Executive Director of the Innovation Collaborative. The Collaborative is a DC-based coalition of national arts, science, and humanities institutions that work in partnership with higher education. This coalition promotes creative and innovation thinking through researching, convening key stakeholders and researchers, and disseminating information about effective practices at these intersections in K-12 and out-of-school-time settings.

Ms. Presley also is Executive Director of ICEE (Institute where Creativity Empowers Education) Success, which uses arts, humanities, and innovation thinking skills to promote engagement, learning, century problem-solving skills in science, technology, engineering, and math ( STEM). She works with partners in Texas, nationally, and internationally to develop school and museum programming, write curriculum, and train educators. These partners include NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC, the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Brain Health, and school districts. She also works with these partners to develop pop-up museums and associated programming.

With over 25 years’ experience at the arts/science intersections, she has led STEAM education initiatives and teacher/artist training for a science museum, an art museum, and a national arts provider. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and has been an adjunct instructor of art at a community college for over 17 years.


Bill O'Brien was appointed Senior Advisor for Program Innovation for the Endowment in 2009, responsible for exploring, examining and identifying innovative and emerging practices, programs and endeavors in the arts that are transformative and potentially worthy of federal government support or acknowledgement. In this capacity, he has served as the agency's lead on the Walter Reed/NEA Healing Arts Partnership (including Operation Homecoming) investigating the role of the arts in helping to heal military service members recovering from traumatic brain injuries and psychological health issues, the State Department's "Declaration of Learning" initiative and various activities of interest to the agency at the intersection of arts, science, technology and the humanities.

Prior to these appointments, Bill was named the NEA's Director of Theater and Musical Theater in July 2006, where he designed and directed national leadership initiatives, promoted partnerships to advance the theater field, and managed the review process for theater and musical theater applications. In 2007, he designed and initiated the NEA National New Play Development program—administered by Arena Stage, which featured the NEA Outstanding New American Play and Distinguished New Play Development selections.

Before joining the NEA, he served for seven years as producing director and managing director for Deaf West Theater (DWT) where he received a Tony and a Drama Desk nomination for producing the Broadway sign language production of Big River and received three Ovation Award nominations for his work on the production of Big River at Deaf West (as producer, sound designer and lead actor). That production went on to win three Best Musical awards (Ovation, LADCC and Backstage Garland) and the cast of Big River was awarded the 2004 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater. Other productions he produced for Deaf West include A Streetcar Named Desire (Ovation Award—Best Play) and Oliver! (Ovation Award—Best Musical). He has appeared in Deaf West productions of True West (Austin) and Big River (Backstage West Garland Award for Lead Actor, Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor).

His advocacy efforts on behalf of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of the U.S. Department of Education helped garner Deaf West Theatre the Secretary of Health and Human Services Highest Recognition Award for “bridging the gap between the deaf and hearing worlds through theatre.”

In addition, O'Brien has served as executive vice president on the executive board of the National Alliance for Music Theatre and as a task force member, conference speaker, and grant panelist with Theatre Communications Group, both national service organization for the theater and musical theater fields.

O'Brien also performed onstage in 48 states in numerous national touring and regional productions, was an American College Theatre Festival Irene Ryan Acting Competition National Finalist and has recurred in all seven seasons as Kenny (Marlee Matlin's voice/interpreter) on NBC's Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning series The West Wing. teacher/artist training for a science museum, an art museum, and a national arts provider. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and has been an adjunct instructor of art at a community college for over 17 years.


Here is the first question posed to the panel:

What forces are driving emerging energy at art / science intersections?  What are people hoping to achieve here?  What do you see as being possible to achieve?

Rieko:  What’s interesting and exciting is that I see connections between art/design + science being driven largely at the grass-roots level by practitioners.  The arts + sci movement isn’t being mandated from the top; rather, it’s a bottoms-up movement for which our systems and institutions may not fully understand nor know how to adapt to yet.  These practitioners are driven by their own curiosity and interests, either through collaboration with those outside of their field or by drawing on their own talents in both arts and science.  A second driver is the awareness that creativity and innovation is spurred by bridging perspectives from multiple disciplines.  Ultimately, I would like to see these efforts lead to better understanding about how we create – and share - new knowledge, especially in the sciences.    

Julia:  I think that most people, whether they come to it on their own or are introduced to it by another, think the idea of art and science interacting as utterly refreshing.  The experience of having to choose science over art (or vice versa) in college is an unfortunate and common one. While I doubt that reforming our approach to college education will occur within the near future (I was lucky to attend one college which did – Hampshire College), having to choose one major over another does not stamp out the guitarist in an RNA biologist, the neuroscience-lover in a conceptual artist. Given our breadth of abilities as humans it should not be surprising to hear about someone who is a neuroscientist by day and fiction writer by night, but it is. The idea of being able to pursue art and science concurrently, and the idea of art and science working together, opens up life in a wonderful way because it reminds people they do not have to limit themselves. In this way, the possibilities are endless.

Youngmoo Kim:  As much as our world has been profoundly changed through science and technology, some of the most impactful advances (aortic stents, computer graphics, and the iPhone, just to name a few) have come through multidisciplinary collaboration between the arts and sciences (and engineering). Conversely, I think more and more people in science and engineering  feel that our research and education efforts in these fields have become too disciplinary and too siloed. Most professional incentives in these fields favor incremental or derivative work, so there are large impediments to taking the risks necessary to achieve something truly groundbreaking. As a result, there's growing interest in art+science collaborations to broaden perspectives in the interest of fueling scientific advancement and innovation.

Art reflects the world we live in, and science and technology increasingly permeate our lives. More and more artists and arts organizations are incorporating science and technology into their works, at times quite intentionally, and other times because it's already a natural part of their process. There's certainly strong interest from arts institutions in employing technology to broaden audiences, but I think there's an even wider gulf between arts administrators and  technologists. It always sounds easier than it actually is, and there are few best practices for the appropriate use of technology to engage audiences at exhibits and performances. We still have a lot of work to do!

Overall, I hope through art+science collaborations we can achieve a deeper understanding of both that demonstrates there's not as much distance between them as is generally thought. Perhaps we can gain further insight into both the artistic and scientific processes and find ways to combine and leverage each to greater effect.

Gregory Mack:  As an art+science “hybrid” (astrophysicist/modern dancer), I have actively sought out ways to combine my two interests and explore what it means to operate in that space. I and others like me have our own internal forces that drive us to produce work that integrates both our passions and unites our different perspectives on the world. For those like me and also for others who are grounded securely in one field but have an interest in the other, I think the internet has played a huge role. Scientists can see others like them who have worked with artists, and artists have seen examples where their peers have collaborated with scientists.  Even though I exist in both the arts and science spaces, I still needed some instigation to propel me to advance my initial inklings. In other words, I had some ideas but once I realized a community existed, I felt encouraged to explore. This exposure takes away the barrier of thinking you’re the only one and realizing that such things are possible. However, that is still an internal force, pushing someone to realize their curiosity about the matter.

External forces are rarer. There are some universities that actively push for interdisciplinary collaboration and some organizations put out calls for projects. Federal agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Science Foundation have held summits on the topic and funded a relatively small number of initiatives at this intersection. This has caused more people to become aware of these opportunities. As more organizations begin to encourage exploration, suddenly a whole new realm of possibility can seem to open for the “creatives” – a group to which both artists and scientists belong.

In working at this intersection, whether as a hybrid or otherwise, meaningful results are desired on each side. Is the art more than just a tool? Is the science more than just a subject? Successful integrations would create something that would be more than it would be if just a scientist were working on it or if only an artist were. It would be something exciting that would end up teaching something unintended to each side.

What is possible? The endlessness of creativity allows many things to be possible at this intersection. It is important to realize what one side can beneficially offer the other. For example, science can provide motivation, stylistic elements, and context to dance. Dances can be made utilizing scientific concepts, processes, methodologies, and concepts. On the other hand, dance can give science a visual, physical, and social context and connection. Each field has a way of revealing new ideas and connections in the other. Expounding on this, there are ways to use dance and dancers to gain insight into scientific concepts, ways to incorporate science or technology into dances, ways to incorporate social science studies into dance performances and methods…the list goes on. If you have the right collection of like-minded individuals, quite a lot can happen. For example, I recently was able to debut a math-inspired modern dance called “Iteratia” at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) thanks to The Director of Cultural Programs of the NAS, J.D. Talasek. This dance, which I performed and created collaboratively with Sarah Hixon (artistic director of Hixon Dance) and Amanda Whiteman (artistic director of GroundShare Arts Alliance), was only able to happen because of the opportunity provided by Talasek, the resources provided by the NAS, and the ability of Hixon and Whiteman to come together with me and work to make a dance with the use and inspiration of a mathematical process. The right combination of opportunity, resources, and talents can yield many possibilities.

Lucinda:  There are several important forces currently driving the emerging arts/science intersections. These include: 

• The national need for a workforce that can innovate in all areas
• The exponential growth of technology that is driving awareness of the importance of these intersections while at the same time offering growing possibilities for the enhancement of these intersections
• The growing body of arts data concerning education that demonstrates the value of the arts in promoting important student dispositions and learning capabilities. This data also points to the importance of the intersections of the arts with other disciplines. 
• The increasing amount of anecdotal information in education that points to the importance of the arts/science intersections in increasing subject engagement, understanding, and learning
• The emerging findings in neuroscience that support the importance of viewing problems, phenomena, and everyday activities through a variety of lens and that also support the importance of taking the synthesis of various viewpoints and disciplines into creating novel solutions.

Through the art/science intersections, people hope to achieve:

• Enhancement of both the arts and science fields through deepening an understanding of each. This is accomplished through looking at each discipline with different lens, which opens the doors for innovation thinking and novel solutions.
• A more wholistic view of the world and phenomena by erasing the age-old boundaries between disciplines to develop a greater, more realistic world view.
• An innovation-thinking populace in all demographics and disciplines
• Greater self-efficacy for individuals.

What is possible to achieve? There are important possibilities. Among them are:

• In education, a model for collaboration between the arts and sciences that can provide a model for collaboration among all disciplines
• Generations of students who are more effective problem-solvers both in and out of school
• Greater student interest in learning and in staying in school
• An increased use of these intersections in arts and science museums to deepen understanding of the museum collections and to foster creative and innovation thinking skills in museum audiences of all ages
• In all fields, a more wholistic view of the world that promotes intersections between various disciplines
• In individuals of all demographics, an enhanced world view and sense of self-efficacy, resulting in a workforce with an increased ability to innovate.




Bill O'Brien:  My favorite playwright, Eugene O’Neil, described his life’s work as an effort to explain the mysterious forces behind life that shape human destiny.  That’s an enormous challenge to jump out of bed to confront every morning! He conducted his artistic inquiries across the disruptive eras of World War I and World War II, when there was a profound need for making sense and meaning of the “new normal” of our rattled world.  I suspect there is a similar force driving emerging energies today at the intersections of art, science and humanities.  We also live in a time of great disruption, and images of our present and future are filled with mystery, promise and peril.  The sense of urgency surrounding all of this can create a strong sense of mission and purpose for people converging at these intersections to combine forces in an all-hands-on-deck approach to confront the biggest challenges and opportunities we face today.  

As an example of how these synergies can inform and catalyze new contexts and approaches; the NEA recently released an executive report from a working group the agency co-convened with the Santa Fe Institute that brought together thought-leaders from psychology, neurobiology, neuro-technology, education and the arts to conduct a transdisciplinary investigation into “How Creativity Works in the Brain”.  These experts were assembled from across these disciplines in the hopes of gaining a new and broader understanding of how creativity functions both in the brain and across these various domains.  Questions pursued included how artists working across multiple disciplines could help shape our understanding of the creative process and illuminate new insights on how creativity could be studied more effectively.  As mentioned in the report: "Imagine the potential for our nation's health, education, culture, and productivity if we were able to truly understand the anatomy of our 'aha' moments, and how they can be nurtured, optimized, and deployed,"

Thank you panelists.

Tomorrow's question asks how we can scale up the intersections between the arts and sciences.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit

Barry

Reminder:  Please send me your nominations for inclusion on this year's Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit arts.

The Intersections of Art and Science

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on……………."

Reminder:  Please send me your nominations for inclusion on this year's Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit arts.  

Upcoming Blogathon Forum on the Intersection of Art and Science begins next Monday, August 10th.

For decades America has worshipped at the altar of science and technology.  Going back to the development of the atom bomb and the race, post Sputnik, to land on the moon first, the country has been obsessed with maintaining superiority in the sciences - from engineering and physics to biology and chemistry.  Our economic well being and future has long been seen resting in the citadel of scientific advancement.  And in the past decade, science -- as manifested in technology -- has governed not just our lives, but the whole planet.   The doubts, hesitations and angry rejoinders at the ungodliness of science by evangelical Christians and other religions across the nation and around the world notwithstanding, STEM is the rallying cry not only of business and government, but of education.

We have labored intensely to add the arts to make it STEAM - focusing our limited energies on the education field as a place we might have the maximum input in making creativity a part of the knowledge and experience that we in America, and the human species in general, will pin the nation's and humanity's future on.

In the past five years there has been considerable expansion of  the conversation about extant intersections by and between the arts and the sciences - and what might be possible in those intersections.  Indeed, there are growing numbers of university courses on the subject, increasing numbers of talks, seminars, meetings and summits that have as their theme the very subject of the arts / science intersections. And, increasingly the relationship between the two is being accepted and moreover, investigated, explored and embraced.  By and large scientists "get it", and understand full well the direct relationship between art and science and the potential in that relationship.  Very often, business and policy makers are the ones who gloss over the relationship's importance and fail to see and appreciate how each sector complements the other.

From the neurology of creativity, to the role of art in explaining and understanding discoveries and basic knowledge; from the spark of creativity's link to the development of theories of how and why the physical world behaves as it does; from imagination's role in innovation, to the effect of creativity on aging and health, the arts are increasingly intertwined with the various sciences and technologies.

Not all of the impetus for this sea change in the former siloization and compartmentalization of knowledge is coming from the arts and the creative people; it is coming from the scientists and technologists, from the engineers and the physicists - and we in the arts are learning that many of those people also don the hats of artists and creatives too.  Scientists and engineers are ever more frequently coming to the defense of the arts (click here for an article on scientists and engineers who rallied to the defense of the arts in the U.K. after an idiotic remark by education secretary Nicky Morgan, who said last year that choosing to study arts subjects could “hold [students] back for the rest of their lives”.

As far back as 2008, an article in the Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, concluded:

"Nobel laureates were significantly more likely to engage in arts and crafts avocations than Royal Society and National Academy of Sciences members, who were in turn significantly more likely than Sigma Xi members and the U.S. public.  Scientists and their biographers often commented on the utility of their avocations as stimuli for their science.  The utility of arts and crafts training for scientists may have important public policy and educational implications in light of the marginalization of these subjects in most curricula."

Indeed, the article opens with this:

"In 1878, J.H. van Hoff, who would become the first Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry (1901), proposed that scientific imagination in correlated with creative activities outside of science." 

And concludes with:

"The data shows very significant relationships between success as a scientist and evidence of adult arts and crafts avocations."

The relationship of the arts to the high tech computer revolution is easily documented.  From the Xerox PARC laboratory - where both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs saw the future of the computer and basically stole (borrowed) the design for the computer and the mouse interface, to Jobs' application of design and beauty as essential to the product - art and creativity were at every important step in the development of the technology that has changed the world.

In an interview by Linda Naiman with John Seely Brown the chief scientist for Xerox in the 1990's, when the PARC lab in what is now Silicon Valley was pioneering the technology that became the home computer revolution, Brown talks about the importance of the PAIR (Parc Artist in Residence) program at Xerox.

"There are three ways I look at [the impact of an art experience]. One is the notion that engaging in these types of activities evoke deeper responses, deeper emotions. It brings forth many of the tacitly held beliefs and assumptions that you have. So think of it as evocative of the tacit knowledge.

The second is that focused conversations are built and fused together around evocative objects that concern problems that the researcher has on his or her mind. I have said very often, it was the researcher that had the real problem, but the interaction with the artist actually made a big difference. Now that’s a complex interplay, ‘cause it takes over; it’s like a conversation that unfolds over many months.

The third concerns the power of simplicity. Simplicity prior to complexity doesn’t mean much. But simplicity, after you pass through the wall of complexity, after you have marinated in a fully nuanced reading of the situation and then rendering it in very simple ways is extraordinarily powerful.

And so, my favourite saying is that “Picasso can say more with five lines than most of us can say writing an entire book.” Picasso does not traffic in commas, and parentheses. When you’re doing a painting or sketch, you do not have qualifiers. You have to be crystal clear about matters, and that’s one of the beauties of art as a primary language, primary in that you can’t make caveats and qualifiers around everything. Also note that the image you construct is meant to be an evocative object for both you and others. You’re conversing with yourself as well with others."

Today, there are artists and scientists pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery and artistic understanding yet further in complex ways.  Click here, for example, where Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin explains the development of the AlloSphere, an immersive 3D environment that allows scientists to experience their data on a sensorial level.  Experiments are happening all over in the intersections of art and science and we have just begun to scratch the surface.

Walter Issacson, Steven Jobs biographer, in a 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson lecture noted about Einstein:

"His mother, an accomplished pianist, also gave him a gift at around the same time, one that likewise would have an influence throughout his life. She arranged for him to take violin lessons. After being exposed to Mozart’s sonatas, music became both magical and emotional to him.

Soon he was playing Mozart duets with his mother accompanying him on the piano. “Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe itself,” he later told a friend.[ix] “Of course,” he added in a remark that reflected his view of math and physics as well as of Mozart, “like all great beauty, his music was pure simplicity.”[x]

Music was no mere diversion. On the contrary, it helped him think. “Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or faced a difficult challenge in his work,” said his son, “he would take refuge in music and that would solve all his difficulties.”[xi] The violin thus proved useful during the years he lived alone in Berlin wrestling with general relativity. “He would often play his violin in his kitchen late at night, improvising melodies while he pondered complicated problems,” a friend recalled. “Then, suddenly, in the middle of playing, he would announce excitedly, ‘I’ve got it!’ As if by inspiration, the answer to the problem would have come to him in the midst of music.

He had an artist’s visual imagination. He could visualize how equations were reflected in realities. As he once declared, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

We are only beginning to explore and understand the relationships between art and science and the many levels on which those relationships operate.  The highly fertile field of arts and aging / healing is but one aspect of the arts / science intersection, and this arena is critically important to us.  Indeed, I suspect that in the not too distant future, we won't describe the relationship between the arts and science as an intersection - two separate and diverse disciplines that occasionally cross at various points - but rather parallel lanes that share the same highway - working in tandem as the norm.

The subject fascinates me, and it equally fascinates Bill O'Brien, the Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Chairman at the National Endowment for the Arts, who has been at the forefront in our field in exploring the subject.  Click here for an article authored by Bill in LiveScience.com last year.

Bill and I have been working at organizing a Blogathon Forum on the subject of the Intersection of the Arts and Science, and last month extended invitations to a half dozen people in the scientific / arts field to join Bill in responding to five questions, the answers to which I will post on this blog, one per day, beginning next Monday, August 10th.

Here are the panelists who accepted the invitation:

Rieko Yajima -  American Association for the Advancement of Science

Young Moo Kim - Scientist / Musician and Director of Drexel's ExCITe Center

Julia Buntaine, editor in chief of "SciArt in America"

Kamal Sinclair - Co-Director of Sundance's "New Frontier"

Lucinda Pressely - the Innovation Collaborative

Gregory Mack - American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Science and Technology Policy Fellow, National Science Foundation

Bill O'Brien - Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

I hope you will follow along next week as this distinguished group of leaders working at the intersections of art and science talk about the future of those intersections and what they mean.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry



Open Nominations for this Year's Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on………………"

Every year, for the past seven years, I have posted a list of the Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts.  This will be the 8th year.

As I note every year: This is a list of those with power and influence in our field.  It is NOT necessarily a list of the smartest or brightest people, nor a list of those who have the best vision of the future, nor even those who have had the greatest impact on our field - though the names on each year's list have had significant impact and that is (often, but not always) precisely why they have power and influence.   Those with power and influence, or at least those we perceive to have power and influence, impact decisions across the sector; they set agendas, control funding, help set our priorities and affect our strategies on multiple issues.  For that reason, among others, it is important to know who has that power and influence.  Click here for a more detailed explanation of the process and the rationale behind creating the list.

Over the past seven years, I have assembled a list of over 500 names from my group of anonymous nominators.  Some people on the list one year, because of retirement, sabbatical or inactivity, fall off the list the next year.  Some of those return in subsequent years.  Some names show up every year, but for the most part the list is very different from year to year.  Indeed, in the last two years, nearly half the names on the list were not on the previous year's list.  It is that churn in who we perceive to be powerful and influential that is, i think, a fair indication of the continuing changes in the sector's leadership.

Last year I opened up the process to the field to submit nominations of those who people thought ought to be on this list.  That proved to be valuable in identifying names of people that might not otherwise have been identified, so I am again asking all of you to help me by suggesting names of people you think have substantial power and influence in our field.  

This isn't a beauty or popularity contest.  The criteria is very limited.  It's a list of the people who wield substantial power and influence in our field.  Not necessarily the ones who are doing the greatest work, though arguably they are.  People may have power and influence because of the position they occupy, because of their reputations and renown, because they control budgets and money, because they set agendas, because they are recognized spokespeople, because they are great persuaders, because they are visionaries, because of their experience, because of what they have created, or written.  There are countless reasons people who are powerful and influential in our field are seen as such.  But it is their power and influence that the list attempts to profile - not any other quality, nor based on any other criteria.   And it is a sector wide list, so some people who have power and influence in a given discipline, or  area, or region, may not make the list because the focus of the list is national.

The list intentionally does not include artists; it is limited to the United States; and it is, as are all such lists, arbitrary and subjective.  It is only meant to be a broad stroke snapshot of where power and influence in a small universe might lie.   Every year, I can personally think of a dozen or more people who could easily be on the list (and in my opinion should be on the list), but don't make it.   I do my best to make sure the input and vetting process is as representative of our field as I can make it, but it is not a perfect system.

It also, not surprisingly, favors the people with the public face at an organization, rather than those unsung heroes who work behind the scenes to make things happen.  And, I note there are arts organizations that have a lot of power and influence apart from their leadership, and this list does not necessarily reflect those powerful institutions.

As some names on this list are, like Meryl Streep at Oscar time, a perennial nominee and designee, I have decided to retire some of them on the main body of the list.  Beginning next year I will designate a handful of those who are always on this list as virtual Top 50 Hall of Famers so that the list can continue to recognize them, but also include more of those whose power and influence are trending upward.  Most of them will still exercise considerable power and have major influence - at least as long as they are in their current positions.

So, please send me the name or names of those you think have real power and influence.  I need their names, organizational affiliation, and, if you have time, any other information that would help me realize a better and deeper picture of why that person is powerful and influential so I might vet those suggestions. All suggestions will remain confidential and anonymous.

I need those suggestions no later than August 17th.

Thank you very much.

Don't Quit
Barry