Want to listen instead of reading?

In the past little over a year I have lost three non profit arts organizations that were important to me. Two are shuttered and the other has changed their programming so much that I no longer have a place to be as a member. I was feeling a little down one afternoon and I gradually figured out this had been on my mind. I’m a girl without an art center. I’ve said this kind of jokingly before, but as I drove by the former-art-center-now-a-medical-facility today it really hit me.

I worked for a huge part of my adult life at an art center. I stumbled in to it, answering a call for school residency teachers and ended up falling in love. There are lots of kinds of art centers; some are media specific, some include theater and music. There was an art center in the town where I grew up and I loved it there, but it was more of a museum style place. I’d never been to a place designed just for creative people to congregate and try to bring some more art into the world. 

As an artist, having an art center to call “mine” has always been something awesome. In very practical sense, it gave me legitimacy. Being able to say “I am partnering with X Arts to do this workshop” let me write grants that got funded. Teaching classes for an art center multiplied my marketing reach by 1000x when my class got listed in their newsletter. The members of the art center community were a bottomless source of information and experience. Somebody always knew somebody who could answer your question or recommend you for a class or job.

And I also got to volunteer and pay back some of those benefits: staffing demo booths, graphic design, tech help, serving on the board. I could use my skills to make their jobs a little easier and their community a little stronger. It was a win for everyone. 

When I left my arts administrator job, I needed to step away from that art center I’d been a part of for all those years. Things had gotten a little toxic with some leadership changes and I needed a little distance. That was hard to do. But gradually I started “dating” some other orgs and found a few that seemed like a pretty good fit.

But today I’m back to being a girl without an art center and I’m not sure who makes a dating app for that situation. Maybe the thing I’m hoping for is a thing of the past. 

Artist, age 50. In search of a creative and welcoming art community. Looking for a long term commitment. Likes: innovative thinking and inclusivity; dislikes: gate keeping

So I guess the moral of this story is don’t take your favorite organizations for granted. Take a minute today and leave a comment or a like on a social media post, sign up for their e-newsletter, share something they are doing with a friend. A lot of the ways these orgs get funding is by showing that they are valued in the community and that means people are participating.