Is 2010 the year of the amateur?

Robin Simpson, CEO of Voluntary Arts Network, had the best New Year back to work Twitterbrag this morning, as he was quoted in Newsweek's story about the rise of amateur artists. There are few better people to quote, as Robin walks it like he talks it, a serious but unpaid French horn player and advocate for the importance of voluntary and amateur artists. I tend to agree that the emphasis on paid arts production as the entirety of 'the arts' has been meant something has been lost to the overall, and leads to some of the feelings of exclusion some people describe, and that a continuum is both more accurate and healthy culturally. (I agree that this predates the recession, and actually predates the digitally-enabled 'pro-am revolution' too.)

I might say that, coming from a poetry background, where the actual production of poems is rarely paid for - although associated products and activity might be. Some years ago I put together a books of essays on poetry readings, and there were at least two essays in there which reflected the tensions about quality and openness obvious in the Newsweek piece. They looked at the phenomenon of open readings, one, by Martin Stannard questioning the value and comparing some readings to Les Dawson's piano playing as I recall (without the book to hand), another by David Kennedy marking the personal psychological and therefore arguably social value of even bad poems, drawing on poems of mourning. I've hosted more than my share of open readings, and wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to go to one these days, but when I do see them, there's always something fascinating and heartening about them. And if there's not one really bad poem, it's not open enough for my liking. (The book, Words Out Loud, published by Stride in 2002, is no longer available except second-hand - unless you ask me nicely in which case I've a few in a cupboard...)

So let's make space in 2010 for amateurs of all qualities - the gems of brilliance that are let in will more than make up for the mediocre, I'll wager.

Oh yeah - and Happy New Year!

Why are amateur arts ignored?

A few weeks ago, Reemer Bailey of Voluntary Arts England persuaded me to do a quick interview for her blog. This was done electronically at the end of a hectic week before a week off, and was then heading for their website, where you can now see it. It's the first in a series of interviews with policy makers. (Though it does slightly read as if it's the first in a series of interviews with me - fear not, VAE readers, I'm only doing it once!)

Amongst other things directly relevant to voluntary arts such as my title question I was asked to say something controversial (the Bill Grundy approach) and to choose between Gordon Brown and Barack Obama. You can go straight to the interview here to see what I said, but best to go via the VAE site front door as you may see lots of other more useful information such as their very useful new briefings on sustainability and resilience of voluntary groups.

Should we pay more attention to prepositions?

Our 'great art for everyone' conference at The Sage Gateshead this week was really stimulating - and gratifying, as the debate was exactly the sort we are trying to encourage. 160 people there were able to debate what the hell 'great art for everyone' might mean for them, with very little defensiveness or weariness, and with a lot of humour, understanding, challenge and creativity.

Questions were raised about ‘great’ – who decides, why does it need to be great, what values does that carry, how can you know without years of hindsight?. And about ‘art’ – do people know what they enjoy can be classified as ‘art’, especially when the Active people survey rings, is it on off-putting term? And about ‘everyone’ – does the Arts Council mean everyone-all-the-time, does it mean things with small audiences are not valid, does everyone have to enjoy great art? (The answer to those at least is No in every case.)

As I said (smilingly) in my closing remarks, a shameful lack of attention was paid to the word ‘for’ in the Arts Council’s mission. I drew attention to the idea of great art for everyone not as provision and uptake-or-neglect but as gift or exchange. (I was drawing on ideas from Lewis Hyde’s great book The Gift.) If we see what happens when art happens as an exchange between artist and audience, and between audience and artist, which commerce may complicate but not fundamentally destroy, perhaps the issues around the other words become clearer - and less disabling. Think of the end of a performance when the conductor, the singer, the dancer thanks the audience, and the audience thank them. That’s often an emotional climax to the evening – precisely because of the mutual exchange I (perhaps overstretching!) suggested is implied in the little word ‘for’. If it’s not mutual, there’s something important missing from the 'great art' and 'everyone' ends of the equation.

Anyway, it was a great day, though my brain was rather struggling to contain the stimulus by the end of the day, when I went over to Northern Stage be rehearsed for giving out the Arts Council Award at The Journal Culture Awards. I managed to walk and carry a trophy at the same time, and happily present it the AV Festival 08, and then engaged in some highly unstrategic enjoying myself.

How was 2008 for you?

Well, the only invitation to share my books of the year in a newspaper round up came from The Morning Star, courtesy of my friend and five-aside team-mate Andy Croft, so I thought I’d do a little round up here of ’things of the year’ – some personal, some serious, some less so.

Word of 2008: Excellence

New record of 2008: Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes
Old record/songs of 2008: Tell Tale Signs by Bob Dylan
Play of 2008: Pitman Painters by Lee Hall
Cultural Policy Document of 2008: Pitman Painters by Lee Hall
Poetry anthology of 2008: In Person – book and dvd of poets reading – edited by Neil Astley and Pamela Robertson-Pearce
Novel of the 2008: The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Exhibition of 2008: Unpopular Culture: Grayson Perry selects from the Arts Council Collection
Poetry collection of 2008: The Invisible Kings by David Morley (pedants: yes, came out late 2007 but I only read it this year!)
Mis-casting of 2008: Equity putting Peter Hewitt in the role of pantomime villain
Oddly exhilarating team-building experience of 2008: Arts Council England North East Management Team Ukulele Orchestra performance at the staff summer party. Oh yes, we walk the walk.
9 hour multi-lingual experience of 2008: TSF/Lepage’s Lipsynch at the Barbican

If They Could See Me Now That Little Gang of Mine Moment of 2008: Feargal Sharkey admiring my long-arm stapler story when I chaired VAN’s Our Creative Talent conference (see photo above from VAN's Flickr site of photos - this one by Paul Caplan.)

I love this job moment of 2008: lots to choose from, including some of the above, but probably all the 'backstage access' I enjoy was topped by a day in February spent with the Premier of the Eastern Cape in South Africa, and the signing of an MOU between the Eastern Cape Government and the Association of North East Councils, in Gateshead's Council Chamber. Sounds dry perhaps but it comes out of a deep relationship between artists and politicians and arts funders/developers in the two regions, mainly embodied through the Swallows Partnership. I read something I'd written when visiting the Eastern Cape in 2006. Our visiting colleagues, Premier included, responded by singing a fantastic Xhosa song, bringing their political and artistic tradition to the Council chamber. The moment caught the way the arts can work in a deeply political world. I definitely walked out of the room reminded of the worth and pleasure of my job.

How did I end up on stage with an Undertone?

It must be conference season. After the one on social capital I wrote about recently, last week I had the pleasure of chairing ‘Our Creative Talent’, an event organised by three partners: Arts Council England, Voluntary Arts Network and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The event marked the launch of a major piece of research into participation in the arts through voluntary and amateur groups, and through informal learning. You can download it here. There are some pretty impressive statistics about people’s involvement in the voluntary and amateur arts, although as with most ‘groundbreaking’ research, it raises as many further questions as it gives answers. (Or at least that’s what the researchers were trying to persuade me...)

Speakers ranged from Margaret Hodge to Feargal Sharkey, once an Undertone now head of British Music Rights and possibly Britain’s only strategic ex-pop star via Alan Davey and Robin Simpson (whose blogs I heartily recommend: start at Cultural Playing Field.) There were various workshops, then a panel session where I had that almost impossible task of spotting people put their hands up.

There was a really positive atmosphere throughout the day and it is clear that the voluntary arts are seen differently than was the case when I first wielded a long-arm stapler in their cause. There are lots of questions to work through though: can the sector deliver on quality consistently enough? How is the sector changing given the aging population? How do we encourage better connections with the professional and funded sectors (the right, better connections)? How do we cope with the destruction of adult education in this country? For starters.

You can read all about the conference, and listen to some of the sessions on the Voluntary Arts England site. (Follow the Flickr link there enough and you can see me on stage with Feargal Sharkey. I’m not embarrassed to say that gives me a thrill. Click here to see a seasonal Undertones classic. Or here to see him in full pre-smoking ban glory on my favourite Undertones song. )

Is an audience participating?

In the current edition of the National Campaign for the Arts newsletter, Robin Simpson, Chief Executive of Voluntary Arts Network says this:

‘Actively participating in the arts or crafts helps us get more out of life, bringing us understanding, reflection, camaraderie and much more. But what do we mean by ‘participation’? To me participation means rolling up your sleeves and joining in. No one ever suggests that 70,000 people ‘participated’ in Manchester United’s last home game but in the arts some people still use ‘participation’ to refer to audiences. Is the audience at a performance of The Messiah participating?’

Understandably, given VAN’s consitituency, Robin wants to see a greater emphasis given to people who take part in the arts actively through making, singing, dancing and so on, in their communities, amongst their friends, and on-line, as well as professionally. As someone who started in the arts working ‘voluntarily’, editing a poetry magazine in the evenings and weekends after shifts as a head chef, I think he’s right that Britain has historically undervalued (and failed to measure) that part of our culture. (You can read my particular story alongside others in a VAN publication Making the Leap: From Labour of Love to Earning a Living.)

Where I differ is in his comments about audiences. Being in the audience is – if it’s a good event – participatory. If the audience don’t lean forward into the event, you soon know it as a performer. His comments about football crowds give it away. Ask Sir Alex Ferguson if he thinks the crowd participate – of course he does, that’s why he criticises them instead of his players. (Of course any football supporter knows that our involvement from the stands doesn’t always make a difference to the result on the pitch!) Think of the crowd participation at the recent Munich anniversary game.

I suggest we banish forever this idea that an audience is passive and think about how we make the most of their experience and open it up to more people, including those who currently prefer to make rather than watch. We should also recognise that for many people there is a continuum between the two.

You have a chance to have your say about the voluntary and amateur arts by taking part in the first nationwide survey, commissioned by DCMS and Arts Council. You can find it here http://www.artsurvey.org.uk/ and you’ve got till the end of February to take part.