Make No Mistake

Arts Advocacy is a campaign.  It is a long-term effort that we must win.  It cannot be accomplished with online petitions, nor can we expect people to appreciate the value within art simply by the fact that WE find value within it.

“Failure is not an option.  But victory will not be easy.”

–Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

As you may read in my previous post, I spent the weekend at a campaign boot camp.  We spoke of clear messaging and grounds roots canvassing to change people’s minds.  Finding out why people are on the fence on an issue and using that information: using it to find the right message for that specific group of people and the right messenger.

So how do we save the arts?  I suggest the same grass roots approach that the losing side to a ballot initiative campaign would take: a long-term attack which fosters those who already support, researches those who can be persuaded and find the right message to persuade individual demographics.  Those are the easy parts.  Then we must call canvass and use media to further our message.  We must CONVINCE people that arts hold great value and have strong arguments WHY.

Since the goal of the Arts Campaign will not be to win on one specific date, tactics must be altered, of course.  That might be exactly the problem, though; we have no deadline.  The only end date for Arts Advocacy is the inevitable day when no theater can keep their doors open because they failed to foster a new audience.

Maybe we need specific targets at least once a year and larger targets every two years.  Look at audience development long-term vs. purely for each specific six-eight week run of three to four shows a year.

More on this campaign after I research.

A good adage for Clutter Clearing – Day 2

One very tricky thing about clearing shared clutter is that sometimes you don’t know how attached your partner is to different items.

For instance:

I have gone through three phases of streamlining my comic books, and it was down to about twenty.  Once I confirmed with my guru of all-things-comic Corey Blake that no one would pay more than $1 for mediocre Wonder Woman, or the women of Chaos Comics – poorly written but beautifully drawn, or The Maxx – which defies description, I sat down to say goodbye.

I read a few of them.  They were entertaining but I remembered most of the plots.  That’s what comes of re-reading twenty sheets over and over and over again over thirty years.

Except I haven’t touched them in at least ten, except to decide whether or not to keep them.

So I have decided to take my husband’s outlook.  When texting him to ask whether he wanted his Theatre History Lecture Notes, he said: “Overall, if you have to ask, the answer is no.”

So, as much as I love Evil Ernie, Lady Death or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, the only comic book that made me pause was Lenore.  And so “Lenore: noogies” shall stay in my library.

If only for the ‘little bunny foo foo” story.