TAG Quarterly Issue 09

Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly

ARTS &

Creative Economy Report highlights!

TEACHING ARTISTRY Outside the Classroom #9 - Summer 2017 The “Arts &” Issue

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Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly

Quarterly Magazine Staff TAG Executive Director:

TAG Membership Director: Kenny Allen

TAG Quarterly Magazine: Administrative Associate Caryn Cooper

TAG Quarterly Magazine: Design Associate Wendy Shiraki

National Advisory Committee Glenna Avila (Los Angeles, CA) Eric Booth (Hudson River Valley, NY) Lindsey Buller Maliekel (New York, NY) Lara Davis (Seattle, WA) Kai Fierle-Hedrick (New York, NY) Jon Hinojosa (San Antonio, TX) Lynn Johnson (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Nas Khan (Toronto, Canada) Tina LaPadula (Seattle, WA) Miko Lee (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Ami Molinelli (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Betsy Mullins (Miami, FL) Louise Music (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) Maura O’Malley (New Rochelle, NY) Nick Rabkin (Chicago, IL) Amy Rasmussen (Chicago, IL) Nicole Ripley (Chicago, IL) Sandy Seufert (Los Angeles, CA) Yael Silk, Ed.M. (Pittsburgh, PA) Jean E. Taylor (New York, NY)

Teaching Artists Guild is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives.

THANKS

Teaching Artists Guild would not be possible without funding from these generous organizations:

Teaching Artists Guild is also made possible through the generous support of our members.

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-Summer 2017-

Arts AND. If you are reading this, you likely know that arts education in all its various forms, in schools and across communities, is vital to developing both future artists and creative, free-thinking, collaborative, and empathetic citizenry.

The arts are powerfully implemented across all manner of fields, towards many ends. This issue we highlight all manner of places and projects to work with your teaching artist skills outside the “usual” realms.

Look at this issue as one big dose of inspiration. The projects we write about here are fixes to problems various sectors are facing. They are a reminder that we can share the work we do as core to any solution. It is a reminder that artists should have a seat at the table; that they often do, and that we can create more space for this in our advocacy. The skills of the teaching artist are uniquely situated to many of the contexts we’ll share with you here. If you’re worried about landing your next gig, or thinking big-picture about your path, we hope this may help.

The funding ax being leveled at the arts, arts education, and education nationally is existentially terrifying. The threat it represents is not just to the practical daily matter of working and making a living in this field. It threatens to turn our worldview on its head, our understanding of ourselves as artists and cultural workers woven into the fabric of the United States, our per-

ceived value and place in a society we treasure. So while the practical repercussions of losing the stimulus which the NEA funding provides, particularly in rural areas, are horrifying, their potential disappearance also signifies a deeper wound: a nation which proclaims, we do not value the Arts. In fact, we value art and culture so little, that even when the numbers stand behind it to prove its “worth” in generating significant income to a State’s economy and wealth for communities, in providing the basis for an excellent education for our students, and health to our older adults, we still stand apart from it, disavow it.

But! We are not there quite yet.

Call and write your representatives today.

We can do this.

With warmth,

Jean Johnstone Executive Director Teaching Artists Guild

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CONTENTS

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Arts & Government An overview of some of the arts & government partnerships by TAG Executive Director Jean Johnstone. Page 6.

The Arts Mean Business An hand-held tour through some of the most relevant pieces of advocacy data from the recent reports by Otis College and Americans for the Arts. Page 08.

Drama Therapy (Cover Article) Megan Reese gives us a peek into the world of a professional Drama Therapist and the ways in which storytelling and roleplay can help achieve therapeutic goals. Page 14.

Tips for Successful Grant Writing Looking for grant funding as an independent teaching artist? This section includes practical tips from the experts. Page 18.

Arts & Health Dance Teaching Artist Jill Sonke writes about the healing power of dance. Page 25.

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Arts & Therapy Einat Menzl, PhD., gives us an inside look at the work and profession of art therapy. Our interview with her explores the connection between art making and the psychotherapy process. Page 28.

Regional Updates Events, initiatives, and other important “goings on” from across the country. Page 34.

Featured Partner Article “Barry’s Blog” reprint of z/x/y article about intersections of the arts and other industries. Page 40.

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Kate Bell Interviews Teaching Artists Featured Interview with Judy Tate, Teaching Artist and founding Artistic Director of Stargate Theatre Company. Page 44.

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Arts in A

The Quest for Healing and C

One of the most strategic ways to create comprehensive transformation is often through the arts. “A vibrant arts ecosystem stimulates economic growth, creates jobs, and engages disenfranchised communities,” writes Mike Scutari of Inside Philanthropy. Arts education is one facet of many in the United States, and arts partnerships have been developed with the US Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services.

Here, an overview of some of these partnerships.

The NEA has convened a Federal Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development in 2011 to encourage more and better research on how the arts can help people reach their full potential at all stages of life. Task force members represent multiple units across federal government, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education, among others.

It also houses this resource: Online directory of federal agencies and departments with funding opportunities for research into the arts and health.

USDA is using arts-based strategies in rural development in partnerships in Iowa, Kentucky, and Minnesota. Many initiatives in this arena seem to be based Page 6

By Jean Jo

on the Creative Class Theory. In any case, empirical research does show that successful regions pull and maintain human capital.

“These Iowa partnerships and the national efforts of Art of the Rural and RUPRI unite strong policy perspectives with robust arts and culture innovations taking place across America,” said Matthew Fluharty, executive director of Minnesota-based Art of the Rural. “The next generation of rural citizens and leaders demand resilient, inclusive and creative places. We find the pathways to that future in the space where these fields converge.”

Other rural initiatives focus on growing the income and skills of artists already working within the community, such as in Montana. The Ravalli County Economic Development Authority received $175,105 to support the Montana Arts Council’s development of a three-year job skills program. The program provided market-readiness training and market opportunities for Montana artists seeking to increase their income through the sale of their artwork, from 2011-2013.

State Arts Agencies are hoping for more partnerships like these.

Have you seen art works integrated into freeway over passes and other Department of Transportation Projects? DOT’s will sometimes be involved in public art, along with other agencies that integrate public art into their capital construction budgets. NASSA takes a look at these practices and more in their research on “Percent For Art” practices.

Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly

America:

Community Transformation

ohnstone

We know the NEA is vital to our sector, and here’s another example: Partnerships with offices of Veterans Affairs are starting to emerge, especially in relationship to the NEA’s Arts and Military Initiative. They support several new regional centers using an integrative healthcare model to treat service members with traumatic brain injury and associated psychological health issues. After successfully piloting the program at Walter Reed, the Fort Belvoir Community Hospital Brain Wellness Center in Virginia invited the NEA to replicate the program in their new integrative care facility in 2013. The partnership now involves support for multiple creative arts therapy disciplines (therapeutic writing, art therapy and music therapy) at Walter Reed and Fort Belvoir. The NEA is also collaborating on a research project with the NICoE and Drexel University’s Creative Arts Therapy PhD program involving a thematic analysis of masks created through the art therapy program at Walter Reed Bethesda.

The NEA-supported creative writing workshops were inspired by the NEA’s acclaimed program Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which launched in 2004 to help U.S. troops and their families write about their wartime experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and stateside.

There are other projects too: Theater of War presents readings of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes to service members and their communities to help initiate conversations about the visible and invisible wounds of war. The goal of the project is to destigmatize psycho-

logical injury, increase awareness of post-deployment psychological health issues, disseminate information on available resources, and foster greater family, community, and troop resilience. Theater of War has been presented to military and civilian audiences throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. To date, over 80,000 service members, veterans, and their families have participated in these performances, openly discussing their experiences on deployments and at home.

The NASAA gives an overview of research and best practices on State Arts and the Military here.

Looking for another realm to bring your teaching artist-self to? Seek out opportunities like these and let us know what you discover.

Jean Johnstone is the Executive Director of Teaching Artists Guild. She is also the founding Executive Director of the Applied Theatre Action Institute, and the mother of two adorable children.

Learn more about Jean at http://teachingartistsguild. org/staff-2/ Page 7

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The Arts Mean Busine Two major reports are out on the arts and business, and the news is bolstering for artists and advocates. In California, the Otis Report looks at the creative economy, and nationally the Americans for the Arts newly released report, available here, presents its findings on the economic impact of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations and their audiences. The results are eye-opening and the implications are profound.

These are amazing advocacy tools at every level, and we hope you’ll wield them vigorously. Check out these facts and dig in deeper to the reports for more.

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Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5) is the latest report from Americans for the Arts, detailing the economic impact of the creative economy across the United States. It is perhaps the most powerful advocacy resource we’ve seen published in the last 2 years. We recommend that you visit Americans for the Arts online and read the whole thing (at least the executive summary section!)

This is hardly the first time we have talked about Arts Advocacy in this magazine: consider this a continued call to action. Put these reports to work! Share them with your arts leaders, ask your city government to make a proclamation, and keep advocating for stronger support for the arts in your community!

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The Otis Report zeroes in on the Californian Creative Economy, and includes some very interesting (and promising) data that is of specific interest to teaching artists. Here are some clippings you should read first. Read the full report at: http://www.otis.edu/otis-report-creative-economy “Over the five-year period 2009 through 2014, creative self-employment in California increased by almost 19.5 percent. That equates to an average annual growth rate of 3.6 percent. In contrast, the average annual growth rate of creative wage and salary employment over this same period was 2.5 percent.

Visual and performing arts providers continue to make up the largest sector of nonemployer firms in the state, particularly the subsector of independent artists, writers, and performers. This sector was also the fastest growing – averaging 4.3 percent per year (2009–2014). ... In some sectors, self-employment is actually more common than wage and salary employment. In the visual and performing arts, for example, there were nearly three self-employed individuals for every salary worker in the state.”

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REPORT HIGHLIGHTS RELEVANT TO TEACHING ARTISTS

FURTHER READING:

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ARTS & Therapy

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n high school, I, like so many other kids, gravitated towards drama club. Ours was like many I’ve heard about, a haven for misfits, artists and those who didn’t quite fit anywhere else. Most of us weren’t terribly athletic, so it was in preparing for and putting on shows that we found the power of team. We learned about managing anxiety and having each other’s backs. More than a few of us found respite from our broken hearts, some found their first loves. It was our drama teacher’s vision and unending patience that helped us make sense of it all.

Then, in college although I started as a literature major, I had a spot for an elective in my schedule, so I auditioned for my first acting class. That was all it took for me to switch majors.

In my final year of college, I was deeply immersed in writing the play that would be my senior project, when a real-life tragedy struck our dorms.

Several students witnessed the tragic death of one of their peers. As a residential advisor, many

Witnessing the Self in New Ways After completing grad school in drama therapy, I found myself working on an inpatient psychiatry unit. Many of the patients I worked with were also living with substance abuse and trauma histories.

I found that many of them had difficulty seeing anything good about themselves. Thinking about this, I was inspired to run a video group. In this group, the participants would improvise a very short scene which I would video tape and then play back for them. If they wanted, I would transcribe their words into a script and give them a copy. Almost without fail, at the beginning of every group, people would talk about how scared they were to see themselves on video. Also, without fail, after seeing the video, they would be pleasantly surprised, saying things like, “Wow, I didn’t look as bad as I thought.” Or, “I did a good job with that part!” It was such an honor to show Page 16

people were coming to me for supportive counseling. In those days, I was holding the stories of students who were affected by the crisis as well as those of the characters I had made up. It was in these moments that the two worlds collided and I was deeply connected to the healing powers of theater. The internet was brand new at that time (there I go dating myself) and so I “yahoo-ed” drama therapy. I was surprised to find that it really was a profession and that people had been doing that work for years.

People often ask me, “What is drama therapy?”

Now, I can give the North American Drama Therapy Association’s definition, which I sometimes do: “Drama therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals.” I think, however the best way to tell you about drama therapy, is to do what we drama therapists and theater artists do best. Please allow me to tell you a few stories.

them a glimpse of what they looked like through my eyes- humans, who had survived really difficult things, doing their best; humans with a great capacity to empathize with each other and with made-up characters. Even though they were in hospital gowns, for a few brief moments, they got to see themselves in new roles – as doctors, lawyers, spouses or politicians. A patient who had been in one of these groups came back to the hospital, months later and told me that he had run into a fellow video group participant on the street.

He told me that the two of them had talked fondly of having worked on a scene together, and that he kept a copy of the script I had transcribed in his wallet to remind him of that time, a time when he wasn’t at his best, but had surprised himself with an accomplishment nonetheless.

Teaching Artists Guild Quarterly

The Story Played Out With Improvised Puppets In a high school, I worked with students who for one reason or another were having trouble getting to classes. I had to share a small office (former closet?) with another counselor on the other side of a canvas partition, so privacy was limited. I was having a conversation with a young woman who was struggling to tell me about the love triangle she was in the middle of. I happened to notice she had three different flavors of Airheads candy in her hand, so I invited her to cast each flavor as one of the characters in her story. In drama ther-

apy, we call this projective techniques, projecting parts of ourselves or others onto objects. I could ask her things like, “OK, what does Grape really want to say to Orange?” and “What do you imagine Watermelon is thinking?” She was able to get a little distance from the story and experience it from different points of view. This gave her a chance to rehearse some difficult conversations and have empathy for the other people involved. I can neither confirm nor deny that there was a little cathartic laughter thrown in for good measure.

I have been fortunate to work with thousands of people with diverse backgrounds and a variety of challenges, and I get to witness again and again I had an opportunity to form some new groups the transformative power of theater. The qualiin a continuing day treatment program for adults ties I honed as a theater artist serve me well as with serious mental illness. Noticing there were a drama therapist. As either, I utilize the powers some folks in the milieu who seemed to isolate of: witnessing, empathizing, trying on new roles themselves from their peers, I decided to invite and trusting spontaneity. And thanks to all those them to a theater games group. In this group there drama teachers, I understand the importance of were structured opportunities to interact in difalways being on time. ferent ways with each other. As people began to engage in improvised play, week after week, their desire and ability to connect outside of the play also seemed to increase and they began to chat with each other on their breaks. One of the members, “Delilah” presented with what seemed like the schizophrenia symptom of a flat affect. Her expression was the same in every situation. In the theater games group, however, she was able to show emotion while playing. As her confidence grew, I saw her shake a fist in mock rage and when something funny happened, I saw her genuinely laugh. Her social worker happened to see Megan Rees, LPCC sees clients in her private the group in action one day and later remarked to practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and can me, “I’ve been working with Delilah for five years also see clients all over the world using online and when I saw her in your group today it was the sessions. To learn more, visit her at https://www. first time I’ve ever seen her smile!” facebook.com/MeganReesLPCC/ and or look for

Play As Social Skills Building

her page on GoodTherapy.org.

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by Yesenia Sanchez, Arts Management Coach & Consultant Principal, Soleil Coaching & Consulting

S

ometimes the process of seeking funding for your work through grants can seem like a crapshoot – and sometimes it is. You may not have control over the decision of whether you get funding, or not, but you can give yourself the best chances of success through good preparation and making it as easy on the folks reading your proposal.

As someone who has been on grant panels and read many, many proposals with unclear narratives, missing items, and unbalanced budgets, I wanted to pass on some tips to help enhance your chances of creating a successful funding proposal.

1. Plan Ahead • Know deadlines in advance, give yourself plenty of time • Create a grant calendar – count back from your event to determine funding timeline • Don’t put all your eggs in one basket - diversify – research various funders for different aspects of your project

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2. Know thy Funder!

• Who are they, what is their mission?

• Whom have they funded before?

• Is your project a match?

• Not sure? Call the program director – they are there to help and will save time 3. Gather the information and materials you will need ahead of time to fill out the grant application Although, each funding application may be different based on the needs of the funder, generally most grant applications will ask you for the following information and materials. I suggest that you pull these together into a file that you can draw from for each of your applications. You do not have to recreate the wheel with each application!

Mission Statement • What are you planning to do?

• How will you do it?

• How do you effect the world at large?

Big vision thinking…

Project/Organization Description • More detailed than mission statement.

• Who are you?

• What are you doing?

How do you effect the world at large?

Big vision thinking…

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• Project history • Who else is involved?

• Who is served by what you do?

Goals • What steps will you take in the next year or up until your project debuts?

Who can speak to: the depth of connection to the community you serve, your professionalism and follow-through on your vision, an experience of partnership?

• What do you want to do in the next 3-5 years – think big!

Project/Organization Description – Short Version • Describe what you are doing and how you are doing it in 3-4 sentences Biographies • Brief biographies of those involved.

References • Who supports what you do?

• Who can speak to: the depth of connection to the community you serve, your professionalism and follow-through on your vision, an experience of partnership?

Promotional Material • Gather digital file links, cds/dvds, press, programs, flyers that showcase different aspects of your programming Budget • Be ready to present current year actual finances, budget, and up to two years previous years finances Page 20

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3. Create a Clear Narrative • Create your narrative from information you’ve already prepared – mission statement, project description, biographies, etc., gear to specific funders funding interest • Answer all questions they ask • Answer questions directly – use simple, engaging language, do not try to be eloquent or write a book, use language that means something to those outside of your project • Articulate why your project is not only important but necessary • Emphasize positives but address negatives that are visible to funder or panel 4. Present a Realistic and Balanced Budget • Always, always present a balanced budget • Show who else is supporting you. Be realistic – do not assume since you applied for 50k from other funders that you will receive • Ask funder to cover certain portions of your project budget, know what they will cover • Do not be afraid to show salaries or stipends, shows more chances of sustainability • Show various types of income – earned, individual donations, etc Grant writing can be frustrating and challenging, but these tips can help make the process easier. Hopefully, with a little preparation and knowledge of the landscape, this will allow you more time and energy to creating a compelling proposal to support your awesome work!

Wishing you the best of luck & prosperity!

Yesenia Sanchez is an arts management coach and consultant with 17 years of experience working with non-profits, arts organizations and individual artists. Her mission is to help empower artists and arts and culture workers through the tools of coaching & organizational development planning. She believes strongly in the power of the arts to create social change.

Yesenia Sanchez, Arts Management Coach & Consultant Principal, Soleil Coaching & Consulting www.soleilcoach.com / yesenia@soleilcoach.com Tips for Successful Grant Writing by Yesenia Sanchez ©2017

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PORTRAIT OF A GRANT-FUNDED PROJECT

by Sue Mark, marksearch

Tracings + Findings: drawings from research about Japanese cultural preservation strategies 2016 Page 22

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Onishi Portraits: Collecting stories and memories about cleaning traditions 2016.

Sue Mark is a cultural researcher with over 20 years’ experience creating local and international research-based projects. As the marksearch team’s concept designer / grant writer, she creates boundary-crossing projects that collaboratively uncover lost history, overlooked culture and community challenges. Since 2000, marksearch has collaborated with non-profits, community groups, historians, urban planners, and municipalities worldwide to create projects that connect local history with the lived experience of a particular place. Their work has received support from: The California Arts Council, The California Humanities, The Creative Work Fund, The Fulbright Commission, Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The San Francisco Art Commission, and The Trust for Mutual Understanding. marksearch recently completed a 6-month fellowship in Japan through the US-Japan Friendship Commission and has been awarded their second Creative Work Fund grant. marksearch has been a Kala Print Public fellow since 2014.

In 2016 marksearch was awarded by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (administered in part by the National Endowment for the Arts), a 6-month research fellowship to better understand Japanese cultural preservation strategies. Marksearch explored the life-cycle machiya, a traditional Edo-period building that housed a business in front and dwelling space in the rear.

The contemporary disinclination to live in machiyas stems from the challenges to maintain and keep clean this type of historic building. To gain a more intimate understanding of these feelings, marksearch invited community members to share their memories of cleaning, a multigenerational practice that embraces tradition, culture and spirituality. Visitors to a partially decaying machiya slowly filled the squares of the room’s shoji screens with their written records, revealing poignant perspectives on this cultural practice.

Sue has provided grant writing tips culled from her years of funding expertise.

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SUE’S SUGGESTIONS… BEFORE YOU APPLY: • Have a clear sense of your project vision so that you can articulate your goals, timeline and budget. Whether you are writing a letter of intent, preliminary application or a full application, you need to understand all of these project components.

• Time management: grants take longer than you think! Plan ahead to give yourself plenty of time to work on the grant. Some funders will suggest an amount of time to set aside for the grant, usually no less than 3 weeks.

• Before applying, carefully review the grant application to understand the parameters, themes and required qualifications of applicants.

• Research other projects funded by the foundation to better understand the funder’s goals.

• Plan to apply to several grants in order to meet your funding goal.

• Always keep your resume up to date.

• Have a current bio or artist’s statement, both a short and a long version.

• Make sure to have stellar documentation of your work!

WHILE WRITING THE APPLICATION: • Test out how the online application form works. Make sure to write all of your application in MS word and copy/ paste into the application.

• Break down the grant into chunks. Work on your application over several weeks. Keep track of your time.

• Ask questions: if something in the application is unclear, email or call for more information.

• Always proof-read your application carefully and double check your math.

• Gather a team of peers who can review your application statement and/or portfolio.

• Don’t wait until the last minute to submit your application! If many people apply at once, the online system gets bogged down. Upload you’re your documentation first, since this takes the most time.

Onishi Portraits: Collecting stories and memories about cleaning traditions 2016.

AFTER YOU APPLY: • Keep a copy of your application and notes.

• Always ask for comments or panelists’ reviews in case your application is not accepted. This feedback is valuable and can help when you re-apply.

• No matter the result, reward yourself after finishing your grant application.

Sue Mark is a cultural researcher with 25 years’ experience creating boundary-crossing projects uncovering lost history and community challenges. She’s collaborated community groups, historians, and urban planners worldwide. Project support includes: California Arts Council, California Humanities, Fulbright Commission, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Endowment for the Arts, Trust for Mutual Understanding. www.marksearch.org

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Arts in Health: Being Creative in Unexpected Places

by Jill Sonke Director, Center for Arts in Medicine, University of Florida College of the Arts Would you like to dance? As a dance artist and dance teacher, this question was a staple in my vocabulary. I asked this question of people of all sorts - young, old, experienced, inexperienced, able and less able - all the time. Some were students, some were friends, and more than any, as it turned out, were in hospitals.

I started working as a Dancer in Residence with the UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine program in 1994. I had also just started teaching in the University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance as an adjunct dance faculty member. I had long envisioned teaching as a part of my career, but I had never imagined that I would work as a dancer in a hospital. While I couldn’t imagine what it would be like before I started this work, it only took me a day to understand how meaningful this career could be. One of the first patients I met was a 6-year old girl with Sickle Cell Disease.

When I asked her if she would like to dance, she said no. Unequivocally. But her roommate did want to dance, and before long, Bertis joined in. And then, on her frequent visits to the hospital, she wanted to learn every style of dance I could teach her.

One day, when Bertis was 14, I got a call from her doctor saying that she had been admitted to the hospital in a really bad pain crisis. When I walked into her room, she was alone and sobbing, rocking in pain on her bed. She didn’t look up when I entered, so as I always did, I leaned over her and said softly, “Hi Bertis, its Jill. Would you like to dance?” Of course, this would seem like a ridiculous question to anyone looking in, but it made perfect sense to Bertis, and she said yes.

She slowly sat up while I turned on some music, and then I started leading slow arm movements. Within minutes, she was in a state of deep concentration and leading the dance herself. I followed, and after nearly an hour of beautiful movement, she was relaxed and smiling.

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A photographer happened to be with me that day and she asked Bertis, “what happens to your pain when you dance?” Bertis replied, “Oh, it’s still there, but I don’t care because I feel so good.”

Later that week, Bertis’s doctor came into the room while we were dancing. She didn’t notice him, and so he sat quietly and watched. When he left, he put a large note at the front of her chart that said “dancing works better than meds; call Arts in Medicine.” After that, I got a call every time Bertis was admitted to the hospital and, at her request, her pain meds were reduced by half about an hour before my visit, and she could maintain that lower dosage until into the wee hours of the night.

Bertis was one of my greatest teachers. She is extremely adept at doing what all artists strive to do – to get into that zone, that creative space, the flow state, from which we make truly authentic art. And she does it with amazing efficiency, perhaps motivated by her pain to shift her awareness. She is a master of flow state. That space in which we feel totally focused, where time flies, and one moment flows seamlessly to the next. And we know that when we engage in that kind of flow state, a relaxation response can be triggered, which can be so helpful with pain and anxiety.

Today, artists are facilitating the arts in about half of hospitals in the United States and around the world (State of the Field Committee, 2009). Many hospitals have artists in residence programs, such as the one at UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine, which now employs 19 professional artists across disciplines. Arts in health programs also include health promotion programs in communities, arts-based health communication programs, and the use of the arts within medical education and caregiver support programs. Arts are being embraced not only by healthcare institutions, but also by community health organizations and the U.S. military. In the state of Florida alone, there are about 120 arts in health programs.

As a discipline, arts in health is distinct from the arts therapies. Arts therapists are mental health professionals trained to use the arts to address clinical goals, while arts in health professionals are professional artists trained to use the arts to enhance health and wellbeing in healthcare and community settings. The two disciplines and their scope of practice are distinct, but also work in partnership to bring a full spectrum of arts-based services to healthcare and public health systems and the people they serve.

A photographer happened to be with me that day and she asked Bertis, “what happens to your pain when you dance?”

Bertis replied, “Oh, it’s still there, but I don’t care because I feel so good.”

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Twenty-three years after the first day I walked into the hospital as an artist, I am still amazed by the power of the arts to make a difference.

Today, artists can envision themselves working in healthcare or public health. There are numerous academic and training opportunities available to prepare artists and teaching artists for this kind of work. The University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, which was established in 1996, offers a fully-online Master of Arts (MA) in Arts in Medicine, a Graduate Certificate in Arts in Medicine, and a Graduate Certificate in Arts in Public Health. Outside of the United States, there are more than 15 other graduate level degrees offered in arts in health, and in the U.S. there are nearly that many undergraduate certificates and minors at universities (Sonke, et al., 2017). Growth in the field is driving demand for artists prepared to work in healthcare and community health contexts, and providing broader employment opportunities for artists and teaching artists.

Twenty-three years after the first day I walked into the hospital as an artist, I am still amazed by the power of the arts to make a difference. I see the arts helping to make healthcare, and the people it serves, more whole. I see joy and beauty in places where they aren’t expected. And now, as an educator in this rapidly growing field, I see artists finding deep meaning in their work and forging a whole new field of opportunities. While I didn’t see it coming twenty-five years ago, I can’t imagine anything better.

Jill Sonke is director of the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Medicine and Assistant Director of UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine. She serves on the faculty of the Center for Arts in Medicine, and is an affiliated faculty member in the School of Theatre & Dance, the Center for African Studies, and the Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration. Jill is also an Entrepreneurship Faculty Fellow in the UF Warrington College of Business and serves on the board of Citizens for Florida Arts. With 23+ years of leadership in arts in medicine, Jill is active in research, teaching, and international cultural exchange. Her current research focuses on the arts in public health and the effects of music on emergency medicine.

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ART THERAPY: Arts and Inner Healing

An interview with Einat Menzl, PhD., LMFT, BC-ATR

Teaching artists and art educators treasure moments when they recognize deeply felt emotions in the work of their students. The practice of art therapists expands upon these relationships. A conversation with Einat Menzl, PhD., Assistant Professor at the Marital Family and Art Therapy graduate program at Loyola Marymount University, clarifies the work and profession of art therapy. Through her professional experience, Dr. Menzl helps us to see the connection between art making and the psychotherapy process. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is art therapy?

Art therapy is a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process, and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore a client’s functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being. The basic premise is that you’re using the art in all of its facets, so the making itself and then the reflective process around the project that’s created to increase one’s well-being. Information can be found at the American Art Therapy website at https://arttherapy.org/.

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Art therapy practice requires knowledge of visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms) and the creative process, as well as of human development, psychological, and counseling theories and techniques.

Here, we’re only talking about art therapy. Of course, there’s also expressive therapy, what we’ve also come to know as multimodal, where people use not only the classic arts. When people talk about art therapy, for the most part, they speak about the use of classic arts like drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms of that nature. Different than music therapy, drama therapy, poetry therapy, and dance therapy. All of these do exist and they’re either from their own profession or for people who kind of dabble in all of them, it’s typically called a multimodal or expressive therapy.

Today art therapy is widely practiced in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities, wellness centers, forensic institutions, schools, crisis centers, senior communities, private practice, and other clinical and community settings. During individual and/ or group sessions art therapists elicit their clients’ inherent capacity for art making to enhance their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Research supports the use of art therapy within a professional relationship for the therapeutic benefits gained through artistic self-expression and reflection for individuals who experience illness, trauma, and mental health problems and those seeking personal growth.

What kinds of experiences have you had as an art therapist?

My experiences run the gamut. I’ve worked in psychiatric hospitals with teens and adults in different places. I’m originally from Israel and I started in Israel, and then here in Los Angeles with adults in psychiatric hospitals. I got my PhD. at Florida State University in Tallahassee and worked with all ages in their psychiatric facilities. I worked in an elementary school in a beautiful program called Share and Care, part of the psychological trauma center at Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles. It provides basically art therapy for people in elementary school, mostly in groups but also some families and some individuals. And then I worked at an early intervention center with kids

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who were three to five-years-old, and that’s a different kind of specialty, just by the type of population as far as their needs and capacities. You need to work very directly with parents, as well, of course. I worked shortly in a program at an Alzheimer’s clinic, and in an adult day center where I served not only elderly adults or but also other middle-aged people who had difficult medical issues, often brain injuries or other forms of developmental trauma. I now have a small private practice where I see a lot of couples as I’m interested in couples work, though I do still see individuals, and a some families and children too. So really I work with a wide variety of clients.

Are there opportunities to experience art therapy practice prior to committing to a program such as the one at LMU? I would suggest that anybody who’s interested in it to try to experience an art therapy session themselves. That would make a big difference in understanding what it does and doesn’t do.

Most schools that have an art therapy program would have some workshops that are open to the community or open houses where you could come and learn more about art therapy.

There are opportunities– organizations, some on a national level, that offer therapeutic use of art experiences that are not art therapy but are close to art therapy. For example there is an initiative called Windows Between Worlds that serves families who have dealt with domestic violence, and they have a very specific art curriculum. Also in most medical settings, especially children’s hospitals, there are volunteers who do bedside art making or special art projects. In Los Angeles, we have the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles that has both an artist program, where general volunteers from the community and artists come in and provide artistic experiences, and then also have art therapists who go in and do art therapy sessions. Again, these are different services but you’re serving similar populations, but the focus is still on healing.

What is often required to enter your art therapy program? For example, do most of your students have a psychology or art background? What do you look for in potential students?

Any program that’s approved by the American Association of Art Therapy (AATA), has to have prerequisites both from psychology and the arts. That’s not an option, they have to have some of both. The exact numbers are online. About the credential, generally I would say they need a certain amount of studio art, actually hands-on experience with art. Most programs, like ours at LMU, would ask for a portfolio, as well. We would actually need to see evidence that they’re comfortable with art and a plethora of different materials and medias because as an art therapist, it’s not so much about how

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The beautiful thing about art therapy is that unlike other mental health professions where predominately you see clients by labels, what you really see in the room is the person’s creativity. wonderful you are as an artist, but rather are you able to provide with ease a diversity of media and art experiences for people who come to see you. You have to have a flexibility between media and forms and an understanding of the materials, an understanding of what different art experiences provide.

We teach the psychopathology and we teach how to treat those, but you have to have at least a basic understanding of what psychology is, and what is the normal range, and when we talk about abnormal psychology what are we talking about, and when we talk about the difference between developmental stages there has to be some understanding. And, of course, we build off of those.

We try to not only look at academic skills, which are important, but you have to have writing skills. In California, health insurance is so important here, as it is in other places. You need to document in writing what’s happening, because it becomes part of your client’s file and the way for you to advocate for that client, whether it be with others in the treatment team, or with a psychiatrist, or with a nurse, or with their parents, or with whoever. A lot of that is happening through writing. Also, at LMU we also ask for an autobiography, looking for them to write a bit about themselves. The intention here is no right or wrong but really to look at the ability to make connections, to have insights, to enable to report ecological mindfulness with communities about how you see events in your life, how you see yourself in terms of identity. We do really try to look at the whole person.

Does art therapy work best with any particular population, such as children?

Art therapy is for everybody because we all have a capacity and a need to store and process information in visual form and also in sensory and kinesthetic form too. Many of us are socialized to not see ourselves as professional artists and, typically in elementary or between elementary and middle school, most of us were told, “Oh, you know what, you’re not going to be an artist anymore, Page 31

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Our profession has certainly has gotten a lot of validation…

You can really see evidence of that in some of the work we do with veterans.

A Marine staff sergeant performs art therapy as part of his Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) treatment and recovery. (DoD photo by Marvin Lynchard).

so maybe choose something else.” There’s a specialization that’s happening, and very few continue to pursue art as a way of being, but it’s not that that capacity is gone. In art therapy, that potential is there, but many more people have already histories of hesitations and rejection. They feel like they haven’t been able to be good artists. With adults, you have to really work through that.

We keep propagating that myth by talking about how kids do really well in art therapy, and how people who have autism are especially good with art which is true and untrue. And there are certain issues where information is typically stored in visual form. Take people who endure trauma for example. We tend to store traumatic images in our brain, and as well as smells and sounds, much more so than verbal information and cognitive information because it’s linked to our survival. When you’re in a car accident, what you’d remember is that sound and the look of hitting the other car, and maybe the smell that comes after. These are the ways that our body intuitively marks things and are connected very directly to the areas in our body that respond the quickest.

Our brainstem and amygdala. It takes up much more time to process things cognitively in our frontal cortex and so forth. So there are certain issues that I would say where art therapy is probably better than verbal therapy and trauma treatment would be one of them. Sometimes when kids have a hard time— or adults have a hard time verbalizing what it is that they’re experiencing, art can be very useful.

The beautiful thing about art therapy is that unlike other mental health professions where predominately you see clients by labels, what you really see in the room is the person’s creativity.

What I get to know about them is through the lens of, “Oh, here’s another client that suffers from schizophrenia, rather, here’s another client who really loves the color red or here’s another client who does really well with more structured material and has a hard time with uncontrollable media.” You get to know people in a different way, in a way that kind of defies some of those very painful labels and sees through the challenges straight into the strengths. Straight into the reflective piece and the emotional piece and the personal piece. You are able to really see directly how the personal pieces meets what society sees and doesn’t see.

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What do you think the future holds for art therapy?

Our profession has certainly has gotten a lot of validation, and mental health in general, seems to still be growing despite a lot of back and forth in our medical and mental health systems. It’s certainly here to stay and it is growing in its visibility and impact. You can really see evidence of that in some of the work we do with veterans. That’s become very well published recently and our association grows every year. Around the world, similar trends unite, for example I also teach classes in Barcelona, Spain. In all of these places, art therapy is growing in different ways, but it’s certainly growing and is a viable mental health profession.

As we get more into this new century, a lot is going to be different in how we see services and provide services in general. I think there’s some benefits and some challenges to how accessible potential sessions online are. Of course, there’s an allure in it, but I think there’s also a loss in not actually seeing someone face-to-face. However I would imagine we’ll see more of that just because it’s here. Certainly, the younger generation is very comfortable with digital media and more therapists using Skype or other video programs to provide sessions too. I think that’s going to happen more because you do have a broader access to clients that cannot come to your office physically.

Final thoughts?

The last thing I will say about the art therapy as a field, which is also I guess an indication of its vitality, is that there are a lot of states in the US where there’s a push towards title protection for art therapy so people can’t just say they’re doing art therapy if they’re not actually art therapists.

Which is not the case yet in California. But hopefully, we’ll move to that end.

Einat Metzl, PHD, LMFT, ATR-BC is a licensed marital and family therapist (MFT) and a registered art therapist (ATR).

She is a therapist in private practice and an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University’s graduate Marital Family Therapy / Art Therapy program. Einat is committed to expanding art therapy research and bridging our current paradigms of art therapy with related disciplines; weaving our collective knowledge of wellness in ways that benefit the diversity layers between and within each of us.

Resources: American Art Therapy Association https://arttherapy.org/ Loyola Marymount University - MFT Graduate Program http://cfa.lmu.edu/programs/mft/ Addtional photo credits: Loyola Marymount University MFT Graduate Program Page 33

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WEST COAST Arts in Corrections: Building Bridges to the Future California Lawyers for the Arts Los Angeles, CA Date: 06-26-2017 thru 06-30-2017 Early Registration: 05-08-2017 Website: https://www.calawyersforthearts.org/workshops.html California Lawyers for the Arts, in association with the William James Association and Loyola Marymount University, will present this national conference June 26-30 at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles.

Pre-conference meetings for artists working in California state prisons and in federal correctional institutions will be held on Monday, June 26th at LMU. Loyola Marymount University, a member of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, is located a short distance from Los Angeles International Airport.

This conference will provide critically needed opportunities for professional development and support for artists and arts organizations that teach art classes in correctional facilities. In addition to plenary panels and workshops on best practices for teaching in institutions of all levels, this conference will provide information about re-entry programs, evaluation and documentation, legislative updates, restorative justice, academic issues, and perspectives from different state art councils. Topics will also include building public awareness, enhancing programmatic sustainability, and next steps for a national support organization for artists who work in corrections.

New this year will be sequential art classes with master artists with years of teaching experience in various disciplines and diverse institutions. Confirmed registrants Page 34

will receive a separate packet in advance to sign up for these two-part classes.

Confirmed registrants will receive a separate detailed information package by May 15th to sign up for classes with master artists on campus.

Developing & Implementing Dance Curricula-A LUNA Dance Institute Berkeley, CA Date: 07-31-2017 thru 08-04-2017 Website: http://lunadanceinstitute.org/workshop-descriptions/ DIDC-A is a comprehensive overview of standards-based dance education across age levels. Content covers: structuring discrete lessons aligned with the National Core Arts Standards, integrating dance into curricula, understanding dance elements (H’Doubler and Laban), child development theory, role of the teacher and instructional methods. Invigorate your teaching and learning with DIDC-A this summer.

AEABA is Gathering Teaching Artist Feedback Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area San Fransisco, CA Date: 2017 Website: http://artsedalliance.org The AEABA holds a monthly “round table” discussion for arts providers and one of the many discussion topics this past year has been regarding the challenges of being a teaching artist in San Francisco and the Bay Area with exorbitant housing costs, as well as the challenges from the non-profit organizations about how to continue to maintain talented artists employed when costs are so expensive and residency structures and hiring are often seasonal or school-year based.

This research will collectively benefit the field of arts

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education in San Francisco and the Bay Area by establishing a benchmark and guiding principles for quality among arts providers as well as improving the quality of employment and training for teaching artists.

A lot of positive brainstorming happened and topics were discussed including what organizations are doing to problem solve in terms of offering benefits, parttime employment status, travel stipends or solutions to provide some kind of job security.

How to organize and potentially share resources from an organizational perspective was a big theme and we decided that it was time to take a pulse on how agencies and organizations structure their work for work with teaching artists.

The last survey completed was in 2009 by the Arts Provider Alliance of San Francisco and so using that as a base template and resource we are in the process of creating a survey to get a pulse on where the Bay area stands in regards to teaching artists. Our goal is to provide the survey in the 2017/2018 school year and present results as well.

THE SOUTH Governor’s Arts Awards Mississippi Arts Commission Date: Now - August 1, 2017.

in Mississippi. The nomination deadline is August 1.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/2sjACbZ Don’t Fence Me In Wichita Falls Public Library Wichita Falls, TX Date: July 11, 2017 Out of momentum from the 2016 Teaching Artist Learning Lab, organized by the Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts & Culture, this event involves community members painting fence pickets around the theme of “Don’t Fence Me In” and involves the collaboration of master teaching artists with emerging local artists.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/ events/762495650586792/?acontext=%7B%22action_ history%22%3A%22null%22%7D Teaching Artists Named State Poet Laureate and Visual Artist for 2017-18 Texas Date: 2017-2019 Website: Link here.

The Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) is pleased to announce the Texas State Legislature’s 2017 and 2018 appointments to the positions of state poet laureate, state musician, state two-dimensional artist and state three-dimensional artist.

2017 Texas State Poet Laureate – Jenny Browne 2018 Texas State Visual Artist 2D – Sedrick Huckaby

Mississippi Arts Commission is now accepting nominations for the 2018 Governor’s Arts Awards, an annual ceremony that recognizes individuals and organizations for noteworthy contributions to the arts Page 35

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FAAE Summit was a success!

Florida June 22-25 Website: http://www.faae.org/annual-summit The FAAE Summit brings together all stakeholders in Florida Arts Education – dance, music, theatre, and visual art educators, school and district level administrators, arts supervisors, community arts organizations, teaching artists, and arts advocates with the common goal of improving, enhancing, and promoting high quality arts education in Florida.

NORTHWEST TAT Lab - Washington State Teaching Artist Training Lab Application open for the 2017-2018 cohort thru July 17, 2017 The Washington State Teaching Artist Training (TAT) Lab is a seven-month professional development program with a focus on supporting arts education as part of basic education in K-12 schools. Participants benefit from ongoing learning over seven months, individualized coaching from master Teaching Artists, connections to state and national organizations, and peer learning and reflection. The TAT Lab cohort will include up to 32 Teaching Artists, working in all artistic disciplines and all regions of Washington State. http://www.sct.org/For-Educators/TAT-Lab/ The Creative Advantage Summer Institute August 17, 2017 at Seattle Art Museum The fourth annual Creative Advantage Summer Institute is now open for registration! The institute is open to teaching artists, educators, administrators, community members, and anyone invested in providing equitable arts education for all students in Seattle Public Schools. This free, one-day workshop will include inspiring presentations by national thought leaders, hands-on art-making activities and opportunities to network and collaborate with peers. Advanced regisPage 36

tration required, includes lunch and eight (8) Washington State Clock Hours.

Register now at SAM. The institute is offered at no cost to participants. Online registration required and includes three Washington State Clock hours for teachers.

The Creative Advantage invests in artists and educators thru ongoing professional learning opportunities that deepen qualities of practice and foster community.

This includes an annual Learning Series and Summer Arts Partner Institute. Emerging to established teaching artists, teachers, administrators, and youth development workers are invited to participate in these trainings presented in partnership with Seattle Art Museum.

Real Talk: People of Color Speak Out on Working in and with Arts Organizations Seattle Arts Leadership Team (SALT) and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Turning Commitment into Action (TCA) program are bringing Real Talk: People of Color Speak Out on Working in and with Arts Organizations to Seattle. Real Talk is a project organized by Arts Workers for Equity(AWE) in Portland Oregon, focusing on personal accounts of applying for work, job interviews, work culture and leaving the job as they relate to being a person of color in the field of arts administration. You can submit your story here.

Accepting submissions until June 30, 2017

CENTRAL USA CAPE’s new Office Residency Program!

CAPE has launched its new Office Residency Program, which invites teachers and teaching artists from our network of Artist/Researchers to further investigate the potential of art and pedagogy. As arts education is marked by expanding the field of how art is taught and how arts practice impacts the classroom learning environment, the new Office Residency Program provides

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teachers and teaching artists a studio space, carved out from our office in the Loop, to create new art works inspired by the arts integration from their classrooms.

Website: http://capechicago.org/ CAEA Fall Conference Breckenridge, CO November 2nd-5th, 2017 Website: http://www.caeaco.org/2017-Fall-Conference Celebrate Colorado Art Education’s 80th Anniversary with them by attending their Fall conference.

Pre-Registration Fees* CAEA Member Full Conference $210 Non-Member Full Conference $270 Full Time Student Full Conference $175 Applications for SDAC South Dakota Arts Council Date: Now until 9/1/17 Website: sdac.gosmart.org/ The Arts Council is accepting application for the Artists in Schools and Communities (AISC) and Touring Arts programs. Artists are reminded that the deadline to apply is September 1, 2017. Apply online at sdac. gosmart.org/ Summer Intensive Arts Integration Institute St. Louis, MO Date: July 23-26, 2017 Work with Kennedy Center Teaching Artists during a three day in depth exploration of arts integration techniques. For more information, view the brochure here or register at http://cocastl.org/event/2017-cocaedu-summer-institute/ Arts Integration Symposium Nelson-Atkins Art Museum Kansas City, MO Date: July 24-26, 2017

EAST COAST Summer Institute 7.0 Teaching Social Justice: Current Events though Art, Inquiry, and Reflection Date: July 19-21 2017 Summer Institute is a three-day intensive workshop for creative writers, visual artists, musicians, dancers and theater artists with 2+ years teaching artist experience.

Summer Institute’s training curriculum is based on Community-Word Project’s “creative process” exploration methods, teaching practices and arts-in-education philosophy developed over 12 years.

For more information, please contact TATIP@communitywordproject.org TEACHING FOR ARTISTIC BEHAVIOR 2017 Summer Institute TEACHING ALL STUDENTS Massachusetts College of Art & Design Date: July 9-14, 2017 Spend a week in historic Boston with TAB educators to develop and expand understandings about choicebased pedagogy in PreK-12 art programs. Teaching All Students, this summer’s focus, looks at culturally proficient teaching, special education, and English language learners in the PreK-12 TAB classroom. Teachers new to TAB will acquire plans, tools, and strategies to implement a choice-based art curriculum in their own setting. Teachers with experience in choice-based art education will deepen understandings of learner-directed practice.

Website: http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/

Working with a different set of Kennedy Center Artists you will also gain in-depth experience with Arts Integration techniques. For more information, view the attached brochure here or watch the informational video here (not available yet). To register, please go to http://www.lpsartsintegration.com/.

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FEATURED PARTNER ARTICLE

Good morning.

“And the beat goes on........................”

Everywhere you look, we are consumed with the realities and possibilities of varying intersections of the arts with other specific fields: arts and the economy, arts and social justice, arts and healing, and the military, and placemaking, and community engagement, and entrepreneurship and on and on. Then too there are the intersections of the arts with other disciplines including arts and science, arts and technology, arts and medicine.

Indeed, we might well argue that there is virtually no area that doesn’t intersect with the arts, and we firmly believe the arts play a role in nearly every area by bringing value, support, ideas and creativity to each.

In part, this policy of promoting relationships with other fields and interest areas stems from our strategy that our alliances with other sectors is a way for us to advance our interests and our agendas, and demonstrate our value over and apart from the intrinsic value of the arts. And while those who decry that too much emphasis is placed on the value of the arts as a handmaiden Page 38

to other values, and perhaps not enough emphasis on what the arts do for individuals, communities and society by just being the arts, the advance of the promotion and involvement of the arts where they intersect with other areas, and where they spur partnerships, is a genie not likely easily put back in the jar.

But all intersections are not the same, and we tend to ignore that fact. We’re in favor of exploring intersections, but haven’t devoted energy or resources to understanding how intersections work in general, or in specific cases. Some intersections are of two equal, major thoroughfares.

But most arts intersections are with forces and structures that dwarf (even if only in their own thinking) the arts. Rather than as two major highways, the arts are still often seen as (and in reality often actually are) minor intersection avenues and roads. The arts, and the proposition that they validly and meaningfully intersect with other areas, in many such cases are almost afterthoughts to the area with which we seek to intersect. To be sure, we have made inroads in being treated more equally, in having a more respected and vocal presence at a number of intersections, but not everywhere. While in many cases, the arts intersections are well established and respected, in many other cases we are still at the stage of convincing the “other” area with which we intersect, to see us as we see ourselves - bringing much to the table, and worthy of being seen as not just a contributor,

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but as worthy of support ourselves for what we bring.

Because there are now so many arts intersections being explored, supported and nurtured (at least by us), it would be wise to take a look at the whole area of intersections, and specifically arts intersections and to try to develop some tools to analyze (or at least consider) each one - first on a case by case basis to determine our relative strength in the potential relationship, what obstacles we face, what opportunities await us, and, generally, what we need to do, and to demand, in order for us to effectively move forward; and second, while each arts intersection is different, there are common elements to all and we can learn from the whole of our effort to pursue meaningful intersections so we might be better at the effort in the longer term. Our progress in any number of intersections that are already along the continuum has yielded us results and data and experiences that can help us with both existing intersections, and those still embryonic or yet to be opened. And we have research on some of those intersections.

But more would help us to answer two fundamental questions: What have we already learned and how can we apply it? And what might we still learn about the phenomenon of how intersections (best) work?

The whole idea of the arts intersecting across virtually every field and every interest area is so pervasive, widespread and endorsed, that it deserves special attention as a whole subject matter on its own, apart from each individual application.

It is an area that would benefit greatly from more data, more analysis and more consideration as it own phenomenon, so we can have some continuity across these various intersections, and have the best chance of success in each one. So while we rush to embrace intersections and make them work, we should, I think, spend more time trying to understand intersections as a phenomenon and how they work; more time in consideration of both the art and science of these specific kinds of arts intersections.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit Barry

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TEACHING ARTISTS GUILD - MEMBER UPDATES -

Coming Soon!

The Teaching Artist’s Pay Rate Calculator The data has been gathered, planning meetings have been had, and now we are only a few short weeks away from launching a TA Pay Rate Calculator tool for the field! Be sure you are signed up as a member on our site so that you get an email notification as soon as it comes out.

The calculator will allow TAs to find out what a standard asking rate for their work is, based on their experience, location, and several other variables. It is the product of a working group from the 2015 National Guild for Community Arts Education, Teaching Artist pre-conference.

Call for Contributions!

Social Justice Resource Database - Centering the Work Centering the Work is an online resource launched by TAG earlier this year. It is a crowd-sourced arts education and social justice repository celebrating best practices, practitioners and projects from all over the country to serve as beacons, inspirations and support for expanding the work from the margins to the mainstream.

The database is being visited and used by teaching artists across the United States, and we are currently accecpting new resource suggestions! Visit the site to contribute: https:// teachingartistsguild.org/social-justice-resource-database/ Page 40

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Coming Soon!

The Teaching Artist’s Asset Map - CA Pilot Teaching Artists Guild Executive Director, Jean Johnstone, presented at the Americans for the Arts 2017 Annual Convention about the forthcoming TA Asset Mapping project. The California pilot of the asset map is expected to launch this Fall, and it will be useful as a practical tool as well as a powerful advocacy and research resource.

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Judy Tate

Interview By: Kate Bell

I’m here at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side in Manhattan with the amazing Judy Tate and we’re going to start out talking about her work with Stargate Theatre Company. Judy, could you tell us a little bit about the young men of Stargate, and the particular mission and history of that project?

Okay! Stargate Theatre is a project of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Education Department, and it is a theatre company of young men who have been court-involved. Over the course of a summer, they write, rehearse, and perform an original piece of work for the stage, under the tutelage and guidance of a professional playwright and a director.

I’m the founding Artistic Director and my Co-Artistic Director, Stephen DiMenna, has been with me since the beginning of the project.

How would you say your collaboration with those young men of Stargate is similar to or different than your other Teaching Artist work?

First of all, the Teaching Artist work that I do in the schools for my own project, or for other people’s projects, is just that: in-school, educational workshops in which students learn a particular skill or learn how to see a play or get involved in making aesthetic decisions. Stargate Theatre is a paid work-readiness project. These young men are paid minimum wage for their work. So, they’re learning about stage craft: writing and performing.

And they’re learning how to build an ensemble, how to work with people perhaps outside of their own community, because the young men come from several different communities. They are learning to work with people they might not have worked with before. They are developing their abilities to speak sequentially about events in their lives, because a lot of the writing we do is personal or testimonial writing. So, that’s largely the difference. Yeah. It’s a work-readiness project as well as an artistic project.

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Photographed Above: Kate Bell

How or why were you personally called (if you want to use that phrase) to pursue a project with court-involved youth?

Well, it was interesting. Two members of the Manhattan Theatre Club’s board, Jeff Kindler and Sharon Sullivan—and our summer project is called the Sharon Sullivan Stargate Theatre Company—also sat on the board of the Vera Institute of Justice, and introduced us to Evan Elkin, our co-founder. Evan is a leader in the field of positive youth justice and was creating projects for youth at the Vera Institute in this very vein. There were projects like food trucks that young people who maybe had been on the corner, looking for cash, could work in learning how to do food preparation.

He had created all kinds of programs for young men. So Evan and David Shookhoff, the Education Director of the Manhattan Theatre Club, and I sat down in a room together, to figure out what young men seemed to need that a theatre experience could provide. And then we talked about from where we would recruit them. There are several

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zip codes in New York City that feed the criminal justice system, so we wanted to recruit from those areas. And we decided to—at first we didn’t know whether we should go into those communities or bring them to us—but we decided to bring the young men from all over New York City to the Theatre District. To MTC’s studios. Theatre is for everyone. It levels the playing field. So guys who might never have interacted with each other because they’re from different and sometimes conflicting communities were all in the same room, and all put slightly off-balance enough to be able to work together.

What advice would you give other Teaching Artists who are interested in pursuing work with court-involved youth?

First of all, the ways in which young men can become court-involved are vast. And so you can’t make any assumptions about the character of a kid because he’s been court-involved. I mean, you know, honestly, a young black man in New York City is very likely to have a lot of interaction with cops because they may be from neighborhoods that are highly surveilled by police, and so the number of interactions you have with cops is going to increase the likelihood of you being involved somehow. So, there’s that. And so not to have pre-conceived notions about how anybody is.

And also, as Teaching Artists, our job is to create art, and so that’s what my partner and I set out to do when we are in the room. Our job is simply to create art. Our job is not to be a therapist, or to get people to “act differently in their lives.” That theatre work can be therapeutic is a wonderful by-product, but we don’t start out trying to be therapeutic. We start out trying to put a good show on. Not a good show “oh, for these guys,” given that they’ve never been on stage so “oh, it’s a good show.” No. It’s just a good show.

Absolutely.

A lot of times with these young men you wouldn’t necessarily know that anyone had been court-involved, you’d just think, “Oh, here’s an interesting young man.”

Right. You don’t learn anything about their personal histories in terms of what landed them in a court-involved situation…

Sometimes. Because the writing that we do can be very personal, they’ll sometimes write about their situations. And we also have a social worker in the room, and he interacts with their people.

And by “their people” I mean…your life gets very complicated when you’re court-involved, and sometimes you have a parole officer or a social worker, some sort of person that interfaces with them. We have a Company Manager who is also a licensed social worker, who works on staff, and so, when there are issues, emotional or behavioral issues that come up, he’s able to deal with that. And so, he’s also able to let us in on what might be a particular issue for any young man if it’s necessary for us to know as facilitators. But we don’t necessarily pry, as the artists.

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your advice about where to look, how to get started in the work…

Yeah, I don’t know exactly. I guess I would look for an institution, like Manhattan Theatre Club, whose Education program is dedicated to working with under-served youth, and “under-served youth” are often youth from communities that are the highest feeders to the criminal justice system. And so I would find out what different theatre companies or arts organizations worked with under-served youth. But I’m a little suspicious, too...the cynical part of me is, “oh yeah, everybody wants to get their ‘street cred,’” by working with the kids from the ghetto, kids who go to jail. Everybody’s always asking me about that. It’s like, “well, why? What is that about?” And I don’t know the answer to that for other people. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I grew up in an entirely black neighborhood.

My parents exposed me to the arts, and I found it necessary for my well-being, my survival. I was lucky. There are a lot of kids now on the South Side of Chicago that have been left behind by all kinds of socio-political forces. I feel like I’m in a unique position to talk to kids about that, because I talk to kids like that really naturally, because I get it. It’s where I’m from. So I don’t find it…I don’t know, I don’t find it any different. I’m “multi-lingual” in that way, “multi-culturally lingual,” and so I feel like I can talk to my (Stargate) guys and I can talk to people on the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Theatre Club and not have any conflict within me in doing that.

You are yourself completely in all contexts.

Yeah! And so I feel like people tap me for that because I have that ability. It’s like somebody who speaks fluently in more than one language.

Jedi-level code-switching.

Yeah! (Laughter.) I wish I had said that! But sometimes I don’t know what other people’s motivations are. Yeah, I think being very clear about why you’re called to do a particular kind of work with a specific group of people, knowing why is important. Because I do think there is a level of sight-seeing, tourist pedagogy, for street cred or something, that I don’t really admire.

No. I agree. It’s dangerous. Now let’s talk a bit about your other Teaching Artist work. What organizations, besides MTC, are you working for right now?

So many years ago now, MTC helped to set up TDF’s (Theater Development Fund) Education Program, and so, having worked with Marianna Houston at MTC, she brought me over to TDF, and although she’s not there now, I still maintain one or two contracts with them a year. And I have my own project, called the American Slavery Project. We have an Education Program where we go into the schools to help young people write direct-address dramatic monologues based on the burials at the African Burial Ground (in Downtown Manhattan).

That’s wonderful. I’ve seen it!

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You’ve seen our show Unheard Voices, right? So, they go to the Burial Ground, they watch a performance of Unheard Voices, and then we work with them over a series of weeks to study the era of the African Burial Ground, study the bones and the objects in the burials, and they create their own “people.” And it’s fascinating to watch young high school and junior high school kids learn history through the idea that it was people, real people who lived.

What other creative projects of your own do you have going right now?

Oh! I’m so excited! There is a wonderful festival in Ithaca, NY now, that is a collaboration between the four theatres that are there: the Kitchen, the Hangar, the brand new Cherry Theatre, and the Civic Ensemble, which is community-based theatre.

Yes, I’m familiar with that!

You know, for ten years I was writing a couple of television shows very intensely, and I always kept a teaching gig, because I never wanted to forget what young people are going through, or what it’s like in school. And then when I’m doing too much teaching, and I’m forgetting about my own artistry, I feel imbalanced in that way, so…it’s very challenging, but you have to carve out space for yourself to do your own work.

Do you have any strategies that have worked?

I wish I did. Give me the silver bullet! (Laughter.) Please tell me what I should do, and I’ll do it.

Get a friend to say, “How’s your writing going?” (Laughter.) I have a friend whose job it is to do that for me.

I’ll find that person for myself, too, then. Finally, Judy, can you offer any plugs for upcoming events connected to your teaching or your writing?

• June 2nd American Slavery Project’s Education Program actors will perform student-written monologues based on burials at the African Burial Ground for students from Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Weehawkin, NJ • Stargate Theatre Company performs at City Center, Stage II 8/18 7pm, 8/19 4pm & 7pm • American Slavery Project Unheard Voices : Echoes, Fall, 2018, NYC TBD please visit www.americanSlaveryProject.org Thanks so much for this interview, Judy!

Thank you, Kate!

Kate Bell is a writer, theater maker, musician, and Teaching Artist in Brooklyn, NY. Kate seeks to understand the field of Teaching Artistry more deeply through her “I Interview Teaching Artists” series, which is featured in the TAG Quarterly, and on her blog: www.katebell.info.

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ISSUE 09 “ARTS &” Summer 2017