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North Carolina is known nationally for its extensive network of local arts agencies, featuring 84 local arts councils in a state with 100 counties. One county, however, is conspicuously absent. The 10^th most populous county in the state, New Hanover County on the southern coast, has not had an arts council since 2002. The leaders of the county seat of Wilmington asked the North Carolina Arts Council (the state arts agency) for help. The Arts Council then asked for help from someone else—the North Carolina Folklife Institute.

You might ask, what do folklorists have to do with the founding of an arts council? The answer lies in cultural asset research.  Before establishing a new organization, the North Carolina Arts Council wanted to research what cultural assets were present in the area and what particular challenges were facing the arts community.  And according to Kate Prescott of the market research firm Prescott and Associates, this kind of exploratory research is best accomplished through qualitative methods such as interviewing. Folklorists, as it happens, are some of the best trained interviewers out there. They also have a particular advantage when it comes to arts research: folklorists are trained to seek out and recognize creativity in all forms, especially that which comes from people who don’t consider themselves “artists.” By working with folklorists, the North Carolina Arts Council and community leaders in New Hanover County were rewarded with a vivid picture of the arts in their area that went far beyond numbers, bringing to life the personalities and groups that make the community unique.

The Process

Folklore research in some ways mimics folk art itself. You start off with a solid foundation or template, and then “go with the flow.” Sarah Bryan of the North Carolina Folklife Institute, along with Sally Peterson, Folklife Specialist at the North Carolina Arts Council, were selected to head the cultural asset research project. First, they conducted document research about the arts in Wilmington, tracing the city’s arts heritage to the late-18^th-century founding of Wilmington itself. Then they moved on to the city’s current arts assets, starting with stakeholders from various disciplines referred to them by arts leaders in Wilmington. To make sure they were hearing from everyone in the region, including artists working outside the established arts infrastructure, members of immigrant groups, and artists working in new media, they grew that list organically through their fieldwork.

Fieldwork can be both structured and unstructured. Structured fieldwork is a simple matter of ending interviews with the question, “Who else do you think we should talk to?” Unstructured fieldwork is exploring an area through any means possible. Ms. Bryan gave examples of unstructured fieldwork such as attending festivals and talking to people, perusing community bulletin boards, and shuffling through the stacks of business cards at gas stations and talking to the attendants. Ms. Bryan made one of her discoveries while at a red light—the car in front of her was emblazoned with “DragginFly Entertainment”, which turned out to be a gospel recording studio specializing in a new genre of gospel music, “holy hip hop.” This process of starting with a group recommended by people in the community and growing the list organically through informal conversations and observations lends authenticity to the interview process and encourages inclusion of artists outside the established infrastructure.

Likewise, interview questions in folklore research have a similar structure of following a template. In this study, there were two topics covered in all of the interviews—opinions about the nature and health of Wilmington’s arts community, and the interviewee’s own experience in Wilmington as an artist or someone working to support the arts. However, the questions themselves weren’t prepared; rather, the interviewer had topics in mind and questions arose as part of the natural flow of conversation.

The final component to the research process was a survey of largely open-ended questions made available to the entire community. In total, 180 responses were collected from interested citizens, artists, arts board members, volunteers, arts participants and arts administrators. They survey covered essentially the same topics as the interviews and ensured a broader community imprint on the study.

The Results

After eight months of research and fieldwork, Ms. Bryan and Ms. Peterson along with the North Carolina Arts Council staff came out with three reports: “Report on the Arts Resources and Cultural Traditions of Wilmington and New Hanover County,” the public survey results, and “Recommendations for Forming an Arts Council in Wilmington and New Hanover County” (all of which can be found here).

The report on arts resources, in particular, brings all of the cultures and traditions and personalities of New Hanover County to life. It reveals a varied history of organized cultural events at the town’s oldest theater, Thalian Hall, originally built in 1759. It also turned up an incredibly rich African American cultural history, from Jonkunnu “carnival”-style festivals, to young black women who were pioneers in vaudeville and opera, to gospel music and the new “holy hip hop” genre. The area is not only known for bluegrass, but duranguense, the Mexican version of country western music. There is a large Latino population in New Hanover County (many from the province of Oaxaca) who celebrate traditional holidays such as Tres Reyes or “Three Kings,” and still engage in traditional arts forms such as painting and embroidery. Being a coastal town, residents are experts in boatmaking and oyster-shucking. And  it’s not just traditional southern food that’s served here—the diversity of the community means that Latino (especially Oaxacan) and Greek food are also available. Finally, over the last forty years, Wilmington has become a popular place in the film industry because of its variety of architecture, locations, and low cost of doing business.

The public survey results reveal some overarching themes. Wilmington is attractive to creative workers due to its existing local arts scene, affordability, and proximity to water (both the ocean and the river), which many artists cite as inspirational to their work.  The city faces challenges, however. While Wilmington is a haven for early and late career artists, it loses mid-career artists who have to move away to find work. In addition, being a small community with limited resources, artists and organizations openly admit to struggling with competing amongst themselves instead of working together.  Residents have clear ideas of what they want an arts council to accomplish for the city. They believe that their arts assets are economic assets, but that they haven’t fully been realized as such. They want an arts council that can turn their local culture into dollars for the city. The survey also reveals a strong desire for public art in the city.

The recommendation report pulls everything together into a guidebook for what the new arts council should look like and how it should function. Incorporating feedback from the interviews and the survey, it advises that the arts council should concentrate on three core areas: securing funding, recruiting experienced staff, and building relationships both within the arts community and with other key stakeholders. It also recommends to “strike while the iron is hot” by forming a council within the next year and a half.  It provides a set of beliefs to guide the new council, as well as a budget for the first year.

The Benefits

Wayne Martin, Senior Program Director for Community Arts Development at the North Carolina Arts Council, explains the benefits that came from using folklorists in this project.

• Authenticity

“By having folklorists trained in interviewing, we got some really eloquent statements that we were able to quote exactly. The results of the research were in the words of residents, which was a different tone than when other consultants would come in and write about a place. We were confident that the assets they reported on were valued by those in the community, lending an air of authenticity and connection we hadn’t had from other reports.”

• Community Engagement

“The work itself was a great community engagement tool. The interviews and conversations engaged the community at a deeper level than other projects.”

• Identifying artists outside the infrastructure

“Folklorists are trained to seek out and recognize creativity in a variety of forms. While it’s easier to just engage with artists and arts organizations, you leave out a big segment of the community who can bring a lot of depth in terms of artistic assets.”

• Identifying Community Culture

“Folklorists understand how artistry is a window onto a community. They are able to articulate how the art that is produced there reflects the values of that community and makes it distinct.”

Moving Forward

After a two year process and eight months of research funded by a $15,000 contract, an arts council for Wilmington and New Hanover County is around the corner. The city has already agreed to appropriate funds for the council if the county takes the first step.  This month, there will be a County Commission meeting to decide that.

Folklorists aren’t usually asked to conduct this kind of cultural asset research, but the method shows great promise. Mr. Martin says that the North Carolina Arts Council has already shared their work on this project with their counterparts in Kentucky and adds that they would be happy to share with others.

Imagine the possibilities, though—what else can folklorists help us with? Stay tuned for more about how folklorist research can interact with more than just traditional arts, and can become a tool for cultural advocacy, tourism and business councils, and region-specific grantmaking institutions.

Special thanks to Wayne Martin and Sarah Bryan for their help in preparing this post.

For those of you in or visiting New York City, I’m presenting at two events on consecutive Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm, both sponsored or co-sponsored by Emerging Leaders of New York Arts (ELNYA), the local Americans for the Arts-affiliated emerging leader network here. This Tuesday, I’ll be on what looks like a pretty awesome panel with The Art Newspaper’s Andras Szanto and Alliance for the Arts’s Randy Bourscheidt to talk about defining impact in the arts and the implications of that conversation for arts funding. The panel will be moderated by Bolder Giving’s Jason Franklin and is presented in coordination with NYU Wagner’s excellent Student Network Exploring Arts and Culture (SNEAC). Here’s the link for more info.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 5, 6:30pm
WHERE: NYU Wagner Rudin Family Forum, The Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, Manhattan
HOW: Free event.  RSVP here.

Then, on October 12, I’ll be back with a Pecha Kucha-style mini-presentation on cultural mapping and related topics as part of “Four Topics in Search of a Dialogue” at the Salt Space in Chelsea. Fellow presenters include my sometime coworker and ELNYA dynamo Selena Juneau-Vogel, Marit Drewhurst, and Jose Serrano-Reyes. Further details here.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 12, 6:30pm
WHERE: The Salt Space, Salt Space, 1158 Broadway, (5th Floor, enter at 27th Street), Manhattan
REGISTER: $5 suggested cash donation at the door.  Please register here.

Hope to see you at one or both! And if you’re not in New York, there are other Creative Conversations happening all around the country this month. Go here to find out if there’s one near you.

• The third annual Barry’s Blog listing of the top 25 most influential arts leaders came out recently, and this time to my surprise I’m actually on it. I’m tied for #21 along with two other “emerging leaders” who I respect very much (Marc Vogl and Edward Clapp), kind of in the peanut gallery towards the back where Barry starts grouping people according to his whim. Barry allowed each of the 60 nominators, of which I was one, to put their own hat in the ring if they wished, but since I didn’t, that means at least one other person out there must have thought of me. It’s strange to be mentioned in the same breath with those names, but I was gratified that to see that two “emerged” leaders who are nevertheless in their early 30s, my boss (Adam Huttler) and Future of Music Coalition’s Jean Cook, both made the list at #8 and #11 respectively. Fun fact: when I was getting ready to leave New York three-plus years ago to go to business school, I reached out to the two smartest people I knew in the arts to get their take on what I should look out for as I began my education. Their names? Adam Huttler and Jean Cook. Must have been doing something right back then.
• Barry is also putting together a campaign to have the gubernatorial candidates in California answer questions about their support for the arts. Some very smart people are working on this, and you can read more here.
• Another arts advocacy campaign to watch: 1% for Culture in New York City. (Yes, that’s 1% of the entire city budget for arts & culture. The current figure is less than a quarter of that.) Here’s Grantmakers in the Arts’s Janet Brown, who knows as much about arts advocacy as just about anyone, with her thoughts on the subject. And look out, world: Robert Lynch has a blog.
• Uh oh: in Britain, two-thirds of the public agrees that cutting public arts funding by 25-30% in that country would be a good idea. In case you haven’t been following this story, the Conservative government led by David Cameron is proposing moving to an American-style system of private support for the arts instead of the current hybrid approach used in the UK. It’s worth noting that even an arts system that relies on public funding still costs a pittance. We’ll have more on this story here soon.
• Research compilations galore! First up, here’s a summary of current research data from the theater world, courtesy of Tom Loughlin. Next we have Brigid with a round-up of recent psychology and neurobiology experiments involving philanthropy (along with her caveat about them). With the blog’s new page menu structure under development, I’m thinking about putting something similar together one of these days. Special mention in the research compilation category goes to this excellent-looking article from Theatre Bay Area’s Clay Lord on (lack of) diversity in audiences for the stage, into which I am looking forward to digging further. It’s already begun provoking discussion around the office.
• Mapping madness! My colleague and friend Ron Ragin at the Hewlett Foundation, himself an emerging leader to watch, guest blogs at the Center for Effective Philanthropy Blog and name-drops the Bay Area Cultural Asset Map along with several other data-driven Hewlett initiatives. Arena Stage gives a preview of the user functions of the New Play Map, currently under development. The University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute (aka Richard Florida’s shop) comes out with a map of the “creative class” in Canada’s largest city. Judith H. Dobrzynski reports on the Foundation Center’s new interactive map of arts grantmakers by state. And check out this boffo analysis of the top 10 ZIP Codes by startup venture capital per resident (via ReadWriteWeb).
• Data delight! Today’s selection of studies, charts and graphs includes an explanation of why misunderstanding statistical variance might have cost the Gates Foundation a whole lot of money; a rundown of how musician salaries at top orchestras have fared during the recession; an examination of how personality type affects taste preferences in entertainment; an evidence-based look at what dance moves most impress the ladies (hint: engage the head, neck, and torso, not just your arms and legs); and what a dating website tells us about stuff white (and black, and Asian, etc.) people like. Here are the top arts- and entertainment-related results for each race/ethnicity & gender: white men, Tom Clancy; white women, Nicholas Sparks (unless you count “mascara”); black men, Menace II Society; black women, The Color Purple; Latino men, merengue; Latino women, also merengue (both the top results overall); (East) Asian men, The Rock; (East) Asian women, “love story”; Indian men, Shantaram; Indian women, Bhangra; Middle Eastern men, The Sopranos; Middle Eastern women, The Kite Runner (unless you count “scarves”); Pacific Islander men, The Rock; Pacific Islander women, Alicia Keys. Love the OKCupid blog!
• Crowdsourcing continues to enter mainstream thought, to the point where one begins to wonder when we’re all supposed to have time to do our “real” jobs. The Brooklyn Museum is hosting the first-ever visitor-curated Target First Saturday on October 2; website visitors are both nominating and voting for their top choices. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is commissioning composers and programming concerts based in part on Yelp-style reviews and comments. You know this shit has hit the big time when even humanities scholars are trying it out for their precious peer-reviewed journals! Standing firmly behind the expert-curated model, meanwhile, is Apple, which has published guidelines for its iPhone App Store that sternly warn against the online marketplace becoming “amateur hour.”
• One positive trend I’ve been seeing recently is a greater willingness among grantmakers to share their thinking and, increasingly, their actual source materials, with the world. Witness, for example, the publication of the McKnight Foundation’s Grantee Perception Report, conducted by the aforementioned Center for Effective Philanthropy. (The results were remarkably similar to the Hewlett Foundation’s, as disclosed by Ron Ragin in another guest post.) Meanwhile, over in the public sector, there was a minor kerfuffle regarding the new federal Social Innovation Fund’s transparency practices that resulted in the SIF releasing the entire set of scores and comments from the application review process. I’ve never seen that level of disclosure from a private funder not named GiveWell.
• Speaking of GiveWell, the founders are temporarily working out of Mumbai, India, and Holden Karnofsky is wondering if he wouldn’t be practicing better philanthropy just by walking into poor neighborhoods and randomly giving out cash.
• And Ken Berger of Charity Navigator, GiveWell’s longtime nemesis, has co-authored an article exploring what philanthropy can learn from baseball’s statistical revolution.
• RIP Community Arts Network. The website will be archived by the Open Folklore Project at Indiana University. Back when the recession first hit, many people predicted we’d see a ton of closures of nonprofits and, more interestingly, mergers. I think it’s fair to say at this point that those predictions have not come true, but two organizations that have merged are the Cape Cod Conservatory of Music and Arts and the Cape Cod Symphony.
• The Nathan Cummings Foundation has hired Maurine Knighton as the new Program Director for Arts & Culture.
• Social media is the new NYC. That is, if it doesn’t become totally lame first. Or are those mutually exclusive?
• Attention USA: we’re going to need to raise taxes. Get used to it.
• Oh. My. God. Vice Magazine is doing classical music reviews. “Like if one day you visited Vivaldi’s apartment and discovered some bassoon-shaped nipple hasps or jelly dongs, would you honestly be that surprised?” Indeed. (h/t Life’s a Pitch)