In attendance:
Mark Berry, Center for the Arts
Tim Sandlin, JH Writer’s Conference
Tammie Van Holland, Off Square Theater Company
Alissa Davies, Dancers Workshop
Curtis Olson, Artist
Tammy Christel, Planet Jackson Hole
Lisa Holmes, GTMF
Kirsten Corbett, TC Library
Lorne Maltenfort, JH Film Institute
Elaine Walsh, Yellowstone National Art Trust

Jonathan gave a brief introduction, mentioning the three co-sponsoring organizations (Charture Institute, NRCC, & Chamber of Commerce). He also provided an overview of this year’s SJH process. At then end of the three arts meetings, he would like to have a clear idea of the “state of the arts” in Jackson Hole. What is our vision? What would we like to see the arts community becoming? How can we track progress towards or away from that vision? What steps can we take to move the arts community along towards that vision?

At this first meeting, we will emphasize the question of “where are we?” In the second meeting, we will ask “where do we want to be?” The third meeting will focus on how we get there. How do we measure progress? What are some concrete steps that we can take to get there?

It seems highly probably that in late October we will be having a one-day conference titled “the State of Our Community.” We will be bringing all local leaders together in a room for one day to talk about Jackson Hole. What is the state of our community? What do we know? What can we do to move the community along on issues that are cross-jurisdictional?

Jonathan has commitments from the NPS Superintendents, the Town, County, School District, NER, BTNF, & Hospital to participate. Integral to the conference will be the opportunity for each of the SJH groups to present. Specifically, someone from the Arts group will give a 10-15 minute speech on the state of the arts- what we know, what we don’t know, and what steps we are using to get there. Hopefully this will help focus the conversations over the next three meetings. Over the next three meetings we will develop the information to help make this presentation go well.

Today we will start with introductions, and then we will use last year’s SJH Arts report to structure our conversation. Today we will focus on what we know, and we will look at what we thought was important last year.

Jonathan runs the Charture Institute, and is grateful to everyone for coming. Mark Berry is the ED of the Center for the Arts. The CFA is not an arts organization; they are a facility developer/operator. There is opportunity for the CFA to morph into an arts organization in the future. Mark organizes the center in two ways: lower case “c”-center- which is the actual 501c3, and the upper-case-C-Center- the aggregate activity under the roof, including Dancer’s Workshop, Art Association, Writer’s Workshop, etc. The big “C” center is becoming an institution. The public is expecting this. They are growing in this regard. Concrete steps to support this reality include a website that is under development that residents are taking part in the creation of- a collective living breathing thing out there in the world. The other big thing is that they are halfway finished with the construction project; the second half of the campus will be anchored by the theater, which they hope will be under construction by this summer. Hopefully the entire campus will be completed by the end of 2006.

Tim Sandlin runs the JH Writer’s Conference. They have 4-day conference at the end of June, attended by editors, agents, writers. They also run 1-2 workshops at the library, and they sponsor a writer’s group here at the CFA. They have no paid staff, and have been in existence for 14 years. They bring in 70 students and 20 faculty annually, mostly from NY, and their families, which is their economic input to the community. The agents and editors are from NY, but the attendees are from all over. Attendees are not necessarily regional or local.

Jonathan added a process note. He observed that we are all in our own silos- usually people only get together to talk when there is a problem. A lot of the richness of the SJH process last year came out of people finding out what others are doing. He hopes that one of the qualities that animate this conversation is that everyone shares what they do, and Jonathan will try to keep the cats in a herd.

Tammie Van Holland, ED of Off Square. They are a year-round theater- producing and presenting theater as well as having theater students. They have 250 students and 10,000-member audience. They are moving form a community theater into a professional theater. Currently, they are preparing for the move to the CFA theater. They are adding staff. There are no year-round professional theater companies in WY, and Off Square would like to become the leading theater in the region. They want to have an acting company, with a core company of actors, though they will also continue to have open auditions and volunteers. They have a paid, professional staff. They would like to have theater people paid to do theater, and not have to have a typical day job. Next year they will have 4 full-time employees; now they have 3 full-time and 2 half-time. Off Square is moving up but it is still community based. Jonathan asked what Tammie thought the region was. She thought the surrounding states- ID, WY, MT. CO has more theater than WY for sure. They would like to tour WY, and be a leader in the state of WY.

Alissa Davies is the Administrative Coordinator for Dancer’s Workshop, which is a non- profit dance studio that offers all-age dance classes, from age 3- adult. They are working on developing more of a draw for guest artists around the country & the world, and making this a part of the education experience for the community. They have the only professional dance company in WY- which has been put on hold since their move to the CFA. However, they are trying to get this up and running again to tour around the state and country.

Curtis Olson is a full-time artist and part-time Architect. He is an independent contractor, not part of a group, so he is representing the voice of working artists.

Tammy Christel writes the Arts Observatory column for Planet JH, which she has been doing for over a year. She came to the paper as a copy editor and started writing about the arts. Her background is in public television. The Planet is the leading alternative weekly in the region. It’s free; the paper is 2.5 years old. Rich Anderson is the editor and the publisher is Mary Grossman. The paper tries to bring a different voice to the valley. They try to make people think a little bit more and explore subjects that may not be touched by other papers around the valley. This summer they will be starting a mom and teen magazine. They are still forming their identity- Rich & Mary have their own ideas, and everyone who works there does as well. Tammy noted that they always welcome opinion pieces about the arts.

Lisa Holmes is with the GTMF. They are an 8-week summer festival. They bring in ~265 musicians from all over the country, and some from out of the country. They have classical music and chamber performances during the week and a full orchestra on Friday & Saturday. They have been extending outreach this past year, getting into schools- they started the Tune-up program. GTMF also has a few concerts in the winter, bringing artists into schools for inspiration, (not instruction) and getting kids to realize that there are artists out here making a living, doing what they like to do playing music.

Kirsten Corbett is the outreach supervisor at the TC Library. They have a larger mission as an organization to provide free and open access to information. They also have arts programming- literary, arts, film. They have a small gallery where they show exhibits and provide related programming. They have an educational focus which goes along with their larger mission. They are also interested in collaboration- they have worked with the Writer’s Conference and the Film Institute in the past.

Lorne Maltenfort is the ED of the JH Film Institute. They are currently gearing up for the Film Festival. The first arm of the Institute is the education- they provide educational services through film as an educational medium. They have shown films at the library, such as the recent 3-night Amnesty International film festival. They have been working with partners, including local teachers to exemplify how film can be used in education. Directors of films discuss their work with local teachers in this regard. The Film Institute has also been working with the government to bring film back into the state. They state loses money annually to other surrounding states because WY doesn’t have any incentives (taxes, etc) to bring film here. The other arm is the film festival, which is occurring June 8-12. They try to bring different areas of the world to JH. This year they are highlighting Australia. They are flying over the top 5 filmmakers from Australia, who will compete for a $10,000 US prize. They market for tourism to come to JH during that period. They also have a student program with AFI and Cal Arts, giving students an opportunity to show their work to people in the industry. They work with the independent arms of studios to buy these films- i.e. Miramax - to develop product and potentially buy product. They also have sports action films- a traditional JH medium, partnering with Outside & Cloudveil. Finally, the Institute has a global insight program. Each year they highlight a different humanitarian or environmental issue. This year they are talking about displaced peoples. Representatives of the International Rescue Committee, UN, Witness, former Rwandan refugees, Amnesty Internationals, & directors of films are coming to JH to speak on panels to discuss these films and the issues surrounding the subject matter.

Elaine Walsh is a consultant in town, and she works for the YNAT, which has moved from Bozeman to here in Jackson. Their main program is to promote programming that draws arts and cultural connections to the park. Now she negotiates relationships with the parks to promote the connection between art and the history of conservation in the region, highlighting artists such as Thomas Moran. All the evidence for creating YNP came from the arts & artists’ work. She manages a NEA grant that they received to do Crow Indian doll-making in 4th grade classrooms, in the history curriculum in MT & WY. She has a group of Crow artists working in 5 different schools in the ecosystem. The other piece is that she is a consultant for the CFA, on fundraising. Mark is also the ED of the Art Trust as well. She is also a mediator and facilitator and does conflict resolution work.

Jonathan asked how we capture this vibrancy in the arts community. He is trying to establish some database information to judge how the arts community is evolving over the course of time. What SJH is ultimately about is the legacy question: what are the qualities we have today that we would like future generations to enjoy? To understand this, we have to identify these qualities and measure them. The concept behind SJH is that the more we know about ourselves as a community, the better decisions we will be able to make. The way we know more about ourselves is to ask what we know. We are trying to avoid opinions- we don’t want to be a debating society. Regarding the conference, we will be asking someone from this group to give a 10-15 minute talk about the Arts- where are we, where we want to be, and what steps we will take to get there. Last year, the Arts chapter was a way of distilling the information that might go into this talk. Underlying this long-term goal is the homework- if you were going to give a 5-10 minute talk about your organization, what data are out there? On the SJH website, the arts appendix contains the data we gathered last year. What kind of info would your organization present to the community to describe itself? We are developing the definitive repository of info about JH, and one that is constantly being updated. For the next meeting, ask yourself the data questions, such as: audience members, students, classes, volunteers. After this we will ask the larger questions- if we distill this data into a larger presentation, what should the community know? For example, how many different people attend arts functions? Maybe each organization collects their data differently- but within the arts community, as time goes on, maybe we will come up with a way for all of these different organizations to measure things in synchronicity.

Lisa thinks the GTMF is developing along these lines- doing surveys to determine information that they didn’t know before. They are finding that you think you are asking good questions- but sometimes you don’t ask the question the right way. They are trying to find out things about themselves, and what other people are interested in getting from them. Lisa also observed that during last year’s SJH process, when they went through all of the information that they did have, they realized that there are a lot of people who aren’t doing any information gathering about their own organizations. One of the things that wasn’t an indicator was the economic impact that the arts have on this community. She knows, in terms of visiting musicians, the GTMF puts at least $400,000 into the market just on housing. When you bring 260 people in the valley, what kind of impact do they have? She thinks that a good way to sustain the arts in this community is to be proving our (economic) worth.

Jonathan noted that on p. 38 of the Arts chapter, there is the arts indicators wish list, and one of the bulleted points here is the economic impact of the arts in JH. There are a lot of things we don’t know because the numbers don’t exist- such as economic impact. In certain cases we can estimate. What we put in the report was what the group thought was important. Curtis noted that there are a lot of issues we need to research. Tammy observed that it was infinite. Jonathan said that if we just did SJH for one year, it would be a waste of time. Next year, maybe one or two things might be measured more accurately because everyone went back to their groups and made a couple of changes or suggestions, and new data would be available.

Jonathan asked that everyone come back at the next meeting and talk to us about the pieces of data for your organization- what is relevant and important for your organization. We will use this as a basis for discussion. As a way of helping everyone think about the types of information that they might be able to collect is to work our way through last year’s report. There is a lot more info collected last year that is in the appendix. We wanted to keep the document in a 5-10 minute presentation format.

In III, we asked how many arts organizations there are. From a private sector perspective, how many art galleries are there? Venues for the performing arts? Non-profit arts organizations?

Kirsten asked what parameter was used to identify arts organizations. Lisa didn’t think there was a set parameter, but we had discussions about it. This could evolve- if there is something missing, then we need to add it. Jonathan said that there are two big questions to think about as we review the report: are these good data to know, or is there more we should know? In particular, the number of galleries was a tricky question- is Pearl St. Bagels a gallery? How about the Brew Pub? It becomes mushy- the least worst thing we could do was to look at the yellow pages. Tammy noted that if people want to see art, they go to a gallery. Jonathan countered that art has tentacles out in a variety of different ways. Alissa thinks that counting PSB & the Brew Pub opens up the number of viewers- there are more diverse interests going to PSB and the Brew Pub. Mark said that you could keep track of sales coming off of the walls- 14 local artists showed, and $8,000 worth of art was sold. Tammie said that we could use the parameter that if at least 10 pieces of art were sold, it constitutes a gallery. Tim S. said that galleries should be making 10% of their income from art. However, it’s a big deal for artists to have their stuff in PSB. Elaine added that they are still part of the economic impact of arts. We could call these places and ask them to keep track of sales. Tammie said that they probably do have these numbers from a commission. Alissa thinks that they don’t have a commission. Tammy said that it is a first level of showing work. Curtis thinks that the sales are insignificant, from his experience with Betty Rock. Lorne said that we need to compare all of this to other communities. What might be substantial in other communities? Do other communities sell art in coffee shops, or brew pubs? We should compare to other mountain towns. We live in an exceptional place for art, but we how can know this without looking at other communities? Kirsten said you could also measure the number of artists who have shown, and how their careers have evolved after PSB. How does PSB support the development of artists’ careers? Tammy asked about the number of artists. Lisa said we couldn’t find it- the AA has a database, but it changes constantly. This is a difficult number to get. The artists move, or have a baby and take a break.

Tammie said that it is tricky- their lead role now at Off Square, for example, hasn’t acted in 30 years- she quit when she was younger to have a family. Curtis has an ongoing database of musicians and visual artists, but it’s very elusive, and he continues to find quite a few full-time musicians and artists who live here who never show or perform here. It’s more word of mouth. He doesn’t know if we could quantify the number by doing a formal survey. Elaine noted that the AA has a database- including people who teach, and it may be worthwhile to do a quick survey to help get us this data. This is trying to get at the next level besides looking at the phone book.

Jonathan had two comments: first, the literary arts. Perhaps this is even more amorphous in terms of shows/galleries. Does Tim have any sense of authors? Tim said that the library has a list of locals who have published books, and it was around 170. Jackson was a hotbed of writers in the 30s and 40s. They drifted off and are now back. He would think that roughly there are 100. Kirsten will ask the reference dept. about that. She doesn’t know if this list has been updated, or what the criteria are for being on the list. Tim suggested looking at reading groups (5-6), writing groups, and/or public speakers. Kirsten said that the question is setting the parameters. Jonathan noted that the job right now is to push the boundaries as far as possible. How much does art permeate our lives and in how many different ways? Art is there at PSB, though people may not go there to look at it. How does it work our way into the collective subconscious? Jonathan hopes that we can start to quantify this, and raise the overall consciousness of the community regarding art in the community.

Tim said that the literary community is divided- the Murie Center and the Historical Society have signings annually- and none of these writers work with the Writer’s Conference, except maybe Jeremy Schmidt. Jonathan asked about criteria- is a photojournalism something we are missing, for example? If you are writing a magazine article, where do you fall? Tim said that the grey area between journalism & creative writing is big. Also, photography is a grey area. Lisa asked about whether portrait photography is art. Tim said that the Cowboy Bar is the musical equivalent of PSB.

Jonathan noted that we have galleries, venues, and arts orgs. Is there something else that grabs the collective consciousness about the scope of arts in JH? Mark Berry suggested arts centers (1). Mark added the number of articles written about arts in JH from the outside might also better our understanding. We are the number 3 arts destination in the country- but what does that mean? There is a perception about JH- for example, the Four Seasons wants to talk about arts in JH for their magazine displayed in all of their hotels around the world.

Jonathan said that no one is collecting this information, which raises the larger issue of time. Part of the reason we had the wish list indicators is because there are so many things that fall between the cracks (stuff that you think someone else is doing).With luck, Jonathan hopes to develop a pot of research money to address some of these concerns. However, presently we need to mine existing information from everyone. Lisa said that this past year, they hired someone to look for clippings- so they have an idea of where the GTMF is in the world.

Lorne said that from his perspective on film, we should include the theaters- Frank’s, Movieworks. The only reason Frank can show small films is because we have so many screens. This also gives local filmmakers a venue to showcase their work. The Wildlife Museum also has screens and shows films.

Elaine said that she would love for there to be a collective program arts schedule publication. This would help with tracking numbers (events, opportunities). This would be akin to the CFJH’s community calendar. As we have grown as a community, we all know what we are doing internally, but we need the community to know. Lisa said that they are working a collaborative arts project to get a website put together and figure out how to administer it, and who will be on it, if it will cost anything- one of the big needs is an overall arts calendar. They also talked about having a separate administrative calendar.

Tammie V. talked about doing something like this. In Aspen, they had a marketing committee, and they produced a piece twice a year. They would set a date to get events listed. The Splash is starting to go that way. And the Cultural Council is having strategic planning meetings- could the CC do this kind of project? This lack of a comprehensive publication is a problem for the tourists and the locals. Lorne said that the Dept. of Tourism is creating interactive kiosks- and this should be a part of it! It’s going to be focused on JH- what to do, what to see- and the arts community should be on there. Tim said that the WY Arts Council is having a state-wide arts calendar, which they charge you to be listed on. Tammie V. said that there is a free email list distributed by the WY cultural council as well.

Jonathan said that we are a little off topic, but part of the value here is to provoke discussion.

Elaine asked how Tammy V.’s project in Aspen worked. Tammie said a couple big organizations put in money; the criterion was if you had more then 10 events, you’d pay. Elaine thought this was an attractive match opportunity. We could set up a budget, and get a donor to match it. If we collaborate, it might be more efficient marketing. Tammie said that it was a tiny publication, distributed to all stores, with no advertising.

Jonathan brought us back to section A- how many arts organizations exist. If we only had ten minutes to talk to the community, this would be giving them a sense of how many different ways people can be exposed in the county to the arts.

The second piece was education- number of classes, and number of people taking classes. From the stunning number of N/As, we learned that the different ways people can learn arts are not measured uniformly. Considering arts educational opportunities are important for the community to know about, are the number of classes and number of students the way to measure this? Mark said that we should break it down by residents v. non-residents, to make the case that we are bringing people in from the outside. Kirsten asked about age as well- children v. adult programs. Elaine noted that the 1997-98 student numbers from NMWA were mostly kids.

Lorne said that the only way to sustain ourselves is to know what we provide, and what other communities provide. Are other communities catching up to us? What are we doing, and what other communities are doing? He wants to know about Telluride and Taos.

Jonathan had three responses- comparative data is key. This is part of the reason we ask for time-series- if we can’t compare externally, we can at least compare ourselves internally over time. If we measure something consistently, and see that it’s increasing- we are probably doing something right. Part of the problem is that we are comparing apples and oranges. For example, it doesn’t mean a lot to know that per capita income in TC is $62,000, unless you know that it is $21,000 in other counties. This kind of project hasn’t been done in a systematic way anywhere else- and we may start a project in Lake Tahoe. Again, it is a resource question. We are trying to suck the marrow out of your organizations. If you can compare us to Sundance, or Telluride, great! Lorne said that he shares his data with five other festivals, as it provides great indicators for where you are as an organization. He is happy to share this data.

Curtis agreed, and said that often you hear that JH is an arts center. When we were talking about the number of artists in JH last year, Curtis called the Santa Fe Chamber & Gallery Assn. They have data, and it is interesting to compare to this community to give us some benchmarks. To have basic numbers, we should pick five communities we can compare ourselves to. Jonathan said that it is exceptionally difficult in a variety of ways. The film Festival has a good idea of who their peers are. If any other organizations have internal data- such as music festivals, writer’s conferences, theater companies- if you can provide information about your peers, this will make the results of SJH much richer, and will help to inform the community.

Lisa said that her ED went to a conference with all of the western music festivals and realized that we are different, in terms of the number of weeks of duration, and bringing in musicians. A lot of things were not apples to apples comparisons. Even comparing us with our peers did not make a lot of sense. Jonathan said that he is leaving it up to the group to screen. Lorne said that as a group, we should pick five comparable communities- i.e. number of galleries in Sun Valley, performing arts, symphonies, film festival. We could collectively gather that information.

Tammie V. said that this is good if you are looking for very basic data. But some companies don’t track attendance, for example. Lorne thinks that there is usefulness in terms of dissecting our numbers- where do we stand on a basic level with other communities?

Jonathan said that for the meeting 3 takeaway, the group could come up with a collective work plan. When we sit down in a year, have we made any progress on action items? You might not be able to do this in 4 weeks, but over a year you could start to make comparisons in terms of identifying other arts communities. He wants to encourage interaction among working groups as well.

Back to the indicators: we have number of classes & number of students taking classes. The large question is whether this is important to know? If it is, send your new data to Lydia via email. Mark said he can track down numbers from other organizations. Jonathan added that we would like to identify the kind of information we would like to add. If there are galleries or venues or organizations that aren’t listed that are important, we need to include that information.

Tammy C. asked about gallery representation. Jonathan said we are aware of the under -representation. We are working on it but we can’t seem to get anyone in the fold. Tammie V. said that they attended one of her meetings. There is only one staff person for the Gallery Assn. Tammy C. will make some suggestions of people to contact.

Section C is appreciation of the arts- donors, events, $$, volunteers, attendance. Mark said that in terms of donors, there are a lot of orgs. not represented. We could probably differentiate between capital, programming, etc. to get a finer grain.

Jonathan said that demographics are important- students taking classes, or attending performances. To the extent that the group sees merit in going to a finer grain, we would encourage each org. to feed it back to us. If you think that this is important info, perhaps you could start orienting your org. in this direction so we can get more apples-to-apples comparisons.

Lorne measures attendance of the Film Festival by locals, drivers to Jackson, and flyers to Jackson- they measure meals, lodging etc to determine economic impact. After the first festival, they collected data from attendees. They created a group of economic indicators- airfare taxes to atm fees to meals to lodging, and they measured economic impact. They had contingency data of 12%. They knew were everyone was from in their database- address, email. Tammie asked how they collected this information at the box office. Lorne asked people to fill out a form when they bought individual tickets, and asked volunteers to push it. They are not sure if everyone was counted, but in terms of sponsorship they need to know how many people are local or non-local. If they were from beyond 140 miles away, they assumed that they stayed overnight in Jackson. It’s not perfect. They would love to know how people gather information for economic information. This was a guess- they didn’t know what they were doing. Lisa noted that they were doing more then the Music Festival. They hand out surveys- and on a good night, they give out 100 surveys and have 75 returned. Tammie said that the problem is that there are a lot of recurring people. People don’t want to re-fill out surveys.

Lorne said that when he sells passes, the buyers have to give that information. It’s the individual ticket buyers that are difficult. Lorne had about 2,000 attendees (distinct) over a 5-day period. This year they are expecting around 3,500, and they will have this data by the end of June. They work the shoulder seasons- early June, late May, early Sept. as they are trying to extend the tourist season for maximum economic impact.

Jonathan asked if these categories from last year’s report still seemed reasonable. Kirsten wants to add non-traditional gallery spaces and how many artists they serve. Tim added a profit v. non-profit breakdown of performing venues. To bring profit people into the survey seems difficult. Mark added the breakdown between music promoters.

Elaine asked if it is the organizers’ role to go to Les & Maggie to ask for some of this information. Jonathan said that it wasn’t. This meeting is the second of 40 2-hour meetings for us. All of these ideas that the group comes up with are great- which is why we have IV:wish list. From a resource perspective, we don’t have time to collect a lot of new information. All we have is the pulpit. If it is important to know, you guys need to come up with it. We have the ability to say if everyone thinks this is important to know, then perhaps you can orient your organization to compile this data. Kirsten clarified that the group could send info to Lydia. Jonathan said that we do the compilation stuff, but not information gathering. But the group can use the wish list to focus on next year. Everyone should focus on getting us updated info or new info, which would be a big help for our next meeting.

To clarify, the wish list indicators are the things that last year we really wanted to know. Unfortunately, the information isn’t counted, or we didn’t have access to the data. For example, how many people are involved in the arts- as artists, or musicians- we can at least start asking these questions and get a sense of how art influences our lives in this community.

Finally, we will close with the statement of ideal. If we talk about where we want to go, we need to have a sense of where we want to be in the future. Often organizations use mission statements. In organizational theory, there are weaknesses to mission statements. Jonathan went over the ideal statement- the arts ideal statement is built on clearly binary items. Each part of the statement can be measured- did it happen, or didn’t it? He would like for everyone to contemplate whether this current statement captures the legacy we would like to leave for future generations. Jonathan doesn’t care what it says, but it must be able to be clearly defined. Next time we will revisit data everyone has brought in, and talk about the statement of ideal.

In attendance:

Tammie Van Holland, Off Square Theatre Company
Heidi Sherwin, TC Library
Tammy Christel, Planet JH
Alissa Davies, Dancer’s Workshop
Chris Hanson, Center for the Arts
Tim Sandlin, JH Writer’s Conference
Laura Johnson, JH Wildlife Film Festival
Cathy Wikoff, Art Association & the Cultural Council
Lisa Holmes, GTMF

The general plan for the day is to review what we did at our last meeting. This week, we will start talking about “where we want to be.” What is the grand vision for the arts in JH in the future? Meeting 3 will look at “how do we get there?” This meeting we will talk about the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

Tim Sandlin’s Writer’s Conference is June 23-26.

First, Jonathan asked if there were any changes to the minutes. There were none.

The focus last time was to talk about what we actually know about the state of the arts in JH. The goal of all of this is to prepare for our one-day conference in October. One person will make a 10-15 minute presentation about what’s going on with the arts in JH. Each of the other 11 working groups will make a similar presentation. At this meeting there will be about 200 people. The core of the conference will be these group presentations. The challenge to this group is “what do you want to convey to the community about the arts in JH?” What is really important for those folks to know about the arts in JH? The emphasis of SJH is on facts- what do we actually know? We are desperately trying to avoid opinions. Hopefully we are informing opinions with good factual stuff.

Last time, we went over last year’s report and talked about what we might want to include in this year’s study. In the course of doing this, we also came up with some additional information. Today we will use last year’s arts chapter and look at the new information and start making a rough cut. Is this what we want to include? Any information we get we include- if not in the report, in the appendix. The idea is to develop a comprehensive compendium of information about our community. Today, we will determine whether it passes the 10-minute community presentation threshold.

Yesterday, Jonathan groveled for money from the County Commissioners. To date, we have over 2500 downloads of the SJH chapters. In some cases it was 360 pages of the appendix; in others, people were pulling down individual chapters. There is a real interest in the community as a whole to have this information, validating that there is a thirst for information in the community. Any information that you guys provide will be incorporated into the community as a whole.

Laura will talk about the JHWFF. They don’t pull this kind of information very often, and it is interesting for them to see changes in their numbers. She has been with the Festival for 3 years (2002 on). She was a volunteer in 1997 and 1999. On the very top of the sheet are Performing Literary & Visual Events. Until 2003, they were a film festival. On the odd numbered years, they had the film festival; even years they held a techie conference. They changed their perspective in 2003, looking more at the community after 2003, when they had smaller events- in conjunction with the Museum, kid’s programs, special screenings at the Library (I.e. Shane Moore’s film). They feel much more a part of the arts of the community in terms of collaboration. They hope these numbers continue to grow. In terms of annual attendance, outreach was nonexistent until 2003. She separated this into the Sept. event and outreach (geared towards the community). Those numbers are the people who would attend the 6-day festival. She couldn’t pull numbers for the smaller events in 1998 and 2000, but they were more techie then arts events. There is a ? by 650 in 2001, that was the best number that they could come up with (the festival happened 10 days after 9/11, so there were a lot of cancellations).

Jonathan asked how they measured their attendance- ticket sales, turn style. They count the registrations that they receive (people who pay to attend the event, passes for staff & volunteers). Most people come to all 6 days or a couple of days, not a single screening. 650 people were there for at least a day, but most likely 3-6 days. Jonathan noted for a lot of these groups, such as human services, there are discrepancies in collecting data: some count client hours, while others count the number of bodies. It’s not an apples to apples comparison. Jonathan hopes that, long-term, the arts community could come up with a standard measure of something. Laura responded said that it has been the number of bodies for them in the past. This year, they are offering a variety of pass options, and they have a new database system. They will be able to say, for example, that this number of people was here for x number of days, or this person came for one day, or for an evening event.

Jonathan asked about the drop in attendance; Laura thinks it is 9/11. The companies that send folks to the festival cut travel budgets and expenses. That had an economic impact on the natural history filmmaking community. They are hoping to build this attendance through multiple passes.

Laura said that the last number is the number of volunteers (not hours). Most volunteers offered 8 hours for at least 9 or 10 days.

Tim will talk about the Writer’s Conference. He doesn’t like putting things into boxes. They bring in 50-70 people a year, and this year seems to be down. Some years he can point to why numbers are down, but not this year. 30% are returnees, and will sign up in Feb. and get their manuscripts in. Univ. of WY administers the conference, and people are signing up late this year. He thinks it might have to do with the economy falling apart. There are 24 events within the conference. Laura noted that they have one festival, but lots of events during the festival. It is a 6-day event, multi-tiered- film screening, panel discussion, all happening at the same day. They should track the different events to see attendance.

Tim said that this makes measuring strange. Jonathan asked what Tim’s internal criteria for success are. He said it is breaking even, and surviving each year. The U of WY administrates, but if they don’t bring people in, they are dead. For 14 years so far they have kept it up. They are getting a lot of help: Cultural Council, CFJH, and Library Foundation. Tammy asked if registration was down in Jackson. Tim said that the first 10 or 11 years, not many attendees were local. Less then 5 or 6 were from WY, even. A lot of people want to come here from the East and West Coast during the 4th of July; most people from WY don’t want to be here in July. But he can get a best seller from NYC in July and have them pay their own expenses.

Tim said it seems that what we are measuring are the non-profit arts. We haven’t even come close to the for-profit places. Jonathan said that this is a challenge. We have tried through the Chamber of Commerce for the galleries. Last year we started with the rough number of galleries. This gets into a nuanced issue- if you went to a gallery and dropped 10,000 dollars on a painting, as a Wyoming resident, you would be obliged to pay sales tax. If you lived in Driggs, you wouldn’t have to pay this sales tax. If you go around to art galleries and ask them to estimate the stuff shipped out, all of a sudden, you have very nebulous conversations. Perhaps the pure ethical issue of residence is being fudged a little bit. They have the numbers but don’t want to share them. Tim thinks that we should title ourselves non-profit arts. Jonathan said that in successive years, we might be able to bring in the for-profit folks. There is a lot of for-profit art that goes on in the community, and we need this for a comprehensive picture. Tammy said that non-profits are driven by mission, not money, such as their education programs. When you start to bring the for-profits into the non-profits, it will be very interesting. Jonathan said that we have been struggling with this, but he’s not sure where to go.

Tammie said that at the Oct. 29 meeting, we should convey that we are focusing on non-profit arts right now. Chris asked what the other groups look like. When you bring the groups in, is there a non-profit v. for-profit? Practically, does it seem like the galleries are the only ones not interested in cooperating, or are other businesses not in there?

Jonathan said that there is no non-profit representation in the Business/Economy Working Group. However, last year it was the old economy- travel, JHMR, downtown businesses. This year, he was active in recruiting the new economy- professional services, investments, venture capital. Eventually all of this has to come together. Human Services, for instance, it is all non-profit. But the only for-profit would be doctors. “What’s in it for me?” is the thinking for the business people. If they are not in a do-gooder mood, they aren’t going to show up. Here, it’s sort of low-hanging fruit. The nature of business is to minimize risk. Once this gets some credibility, and looks legitimate, we might get more representation from the business community next year.

Lisa talked about the numbers from the Music Festival. They have a roller coaster economic effect- a lot of the in-kind donations are from the Wine Auction. Almost 1 million in-kind donations are in that number. This number includes the donation of the lot and the value of the lot sold. Lisa said that the value of the bottle of the wine is the in-kind. Tammie thinks that we need to separate in-kind numbers from cash. Lisa separates it for accounting, but they are part of donations. We should list in-kind v. cash donations. Chris said that you can’t spend money that you don’t have.

As far as classes go, it’s about 24 classes- in-school services, pre-concert talks, String Fest in the fall for all 8th grade students in orchestra. They will expand this to other grades. Also, Tune-up sends extra teachers into schools to teach kids different instruments. Some of the numbers are approximate numbers- they don’t do a head count, but they are within range. The pre-concert talks are adults. Tammie will be separating adults and children. Alissa and Cathy could do this as well..

Tammy said that it is important to have a standard for the group, not the outside world. We need to establish our own set of criteria. Chris was thinking the same thing- what constitutes an event? A class in schools? Or the writer’s conference? Is an event a 9-day thing? Laura thinks it is both- the event is one, and the keynote within the event is also an event. Lisa has been looking at it as each concert as an event. Tammy asked if she separated the pre-concert event from the music. She has never considered counting the post-discussion event as an educational event, but thinks she should.

Heidi said that, from the Library, they do the literary arts, but they also have visual and performing arts. Their numbers are lumped. Should they separate literary, visual, and performing arts? Tim said that the Library Foundation sponsors the Writer’s Workshop, so the library can claim it as a Library event. Chris said that a lot of stuff happens in the CFA building, so he counts everything. Laura asked how to count collaborations. If they both count an event, they are misrepresenting the information. Lisa thinks that the number of events in the arts is misrepresented, but not for each group. Tammie said that you could separate it- you could claim the film portion of the event, and the museum could claim something else.

Lisa had an unusual year with summer events. 10,000 of the total number (23,000) is Music in the Hole. They also had the US Air Force Band, and they tried to expand programming, and had Arlo Guthrie. In the shoulder seasons, they had a couple of other concerts. There were differences last year that would bring the numbers up that might not happen again this year.

Jonathan had some observations. The dialogue that is going on was one of the main goals of this project. You could make an argument that arts fly under the radar screen, and there are a lot of things taken for granted. If arts are going to continue to thrive, we need to create tools to allow the community to appreciate what is going on, and the tentacles reaching out to touch the community in many different ways.

The second thing is Curtis’s email regarding benchmarks. He makes a really good point. The next meeting will be focused on how we get there. As a group, we can find one project that this group can continue to work on. Maybe this project would be benchmarking against Aspen, Taos, Santa Fe. Or maybe, it’s pushing out this dialogue a little farther asking what a good common unit of measurement is. That would be Jonathan’s hope- out of the course of this project, the group determines something that would be mutually useful to work on together.

Tammy asked if we should bring comparative data from places outside of JH, looking as to help feed our thought process. Jonathan asked if benchmarking was the most important thing to pursue. If it is, then what are you comparing? Jonathan asked Tammie whether Aspen counted things comparatively. Tammie said that there are always going to be differences- they were only a summer theater company. Lisa said that the Aspen Music Festival is totally different- they have a school, faculty, and multiple venues, and year-round. Lisa thinks that benchmarking is interesting, but economic impact on the community is the biggie. Tim noticed that we can’t even decide how to count numbers in this room, much less in other communities.

Alissa said that the way individual artists count and organize things is different from non-profit arts organizations. A lot of our indicators don’t pertain to individual artists, per say. In terms of how to figure out how we use the same language, it is difficult- especially if we compare non- and for-profits art, and individual artists.

Tammie said that they talked about Aspen as an arts destination. Summer was as popular as winter when she left after 8 years. Tammie said that things in Jackson are changing as well. Jonathan noted that it is exceptionally difficult to do benchmarking when a lot of the questions we are struggling with right now are not being articulated in other communities. There may be another center for the arts, but it isn’t commonly known. What Jonathan would hope that if this is successful, and has merit, when you go off to conferences, you can start talking to peers in other communities- this would make it easier to benchmark. Tammie said that in terms of benchmarking for theater, there is a national organization which puts out a report for their member organizations. However, some of these organizations are major companies (OR Shakespeare Festival). She doesn’t know how to work it into this project.

Jonathan said that benchmarking is the big trend in health care. How do you find a place that is truly comparable to yourself? There is only one benchmark that matters- judging you against yourself.

Tammy will now talk about her for-profit newspaper- the Planet. What they depend on any given week is advertisers- the number of ads bought and sold per week determine the numbers of pages. The more pages of ads you have, the more they can write. Seeing as they are for profit, and they don’t do similar kinds of numbers, she looked at last year’s indicators to find close comparisons. The paper itself is only 2.5 years old. Her data is purely observations/ counting contributing writers, and confirming with Mary & Rich. They have 11 FT and 10 PT employees- writers, full time ad/sales people, people who help with distribution, accounting. They don’t have volunteers, but have articles written by people for free. There are 13 (on average) contributing writers per year. Largely they are paid. They don’t offer classes, but they do go to classes, such as a marketing and bargaining seminar given by Ted Ladd. They have a relationship with JHHS & the newspaper. They have 10 students who do internship-type duties- transforming press releases into stories, printing press, and they are adding a page to the paper (Teen Orbit- this is a classroom for them- they put their events and opinions out to the public). When they sponsor something, they create advertising. They sponsor JHFF- they trade about $5000 with nonprofits. They publish 52 issues annually, 58 next year with their new magazine. They have 600 distribution locations. During the off-season they circulate 8-9,000/papers week. During the peak seasons, they do 12-13,000 papers/week. Their website is visited 5500 times/week.

In terms of words devoted to visual arts/week. Tammy is purely visual arts (Arts Observatory). There are so much visual arts here- she could easily do 2-3 pages/week on the variety of arts & things going on- the shear amount of product. The reason she doesn’t do it is because advertising is where it is- she doesn’t have the space. The words that she cranks out hovers around 1200 words. If she has a page jump, she goes up to 1500-1600 words. She is still frustrated because she cannot devote as much to everybody. Its advertising based. They depict 1-2 images/week. She also does the calendar, which is a listing of the arts, sports, and recreation. They devote 4 pages/week to events in JH. The number of pages devoted to music/week is 1.5. No. to performing arts, depending on activity, is 1-2 pages. No numbers for economic impact of the arts. Visual artists and galleries have increased interest in shows b/c of the arts writing that goes on; some artists are experiencing increased sales. She also has comparative data to other papers.

Chris has an observation. In terms of pages and word count, and knowing the format of the Planet, pages and word counts can be different- could you put it into column inches? Tammy can do this. Chris said that for comparison in the future it might be an apples-to-apples comparison. Tammie thinks that word count/pages are useful for the lay person. One interesting thing about the newspapers is how many actually get recycled- how many don’t get read and sit in their stack? Lisa said its everything-calendar, playbills, posters. Tim said that newspapers base their advertising on circulation. A newspaper doesn’t mind if they recycle leftovers, b/c it ups their rates. Tim said that they all pad their numbers anyway.

Laura said that it all gets back to the question to true data. Of the circulation, is there a gauge for how many people pick them up and read them?

Heidi has numbers, but would like to separate into visual, performing, etc. Tammie asked about changing numbers from past years. Jonathan would rather have more data, more accurate then others. Heidi asked if we are doing annual totals- fiscal year or Jan-Dec. Lisa said that they have to be based on fiscal year- it’s too difficult to change. Jonathan said that we take what we get. Lisa said that you are comparing yourself year-to-year, so it would still be relevant. Jonathan’s challenge is to figure out what is really important. You may have a zillion different numbers, but you need to determine what is really important. Cathy is still working on numbers, so will Alissa.

Jonathan wants to switch gears and talk about the statement of ideal. The difference between a statement of ideal and a mission statement is that it is unambiguous, measurable. The statement of ideal has a tremendous amount of rigor. You can take a look at the statement, and dissect it to determine whether it happened or not. We avoid excellence, or quality. These terms are varied person to person. It makes it hard to determine progress.

It has a lot of implications. One has to do with benchmarking. Toyota, the progenitor of the statement of ideal, looks at their own systems, but it is the only thing they can control- they can always evaluate themselves against themselves. Thinking about the ideal, it starts driving indicators, figuring out what they want to measure.

We reviewed last year’s arts statement: Jackson Hole will be:
• a widely-recognized, year-round center for the presentation, creation, teaching, learning,
and appreciation of the performing, visual, and literary arts;
• a location with the resources needed for artists to fully express their skills; and
• a community where those who make their living from the arts are able to live and work.
.

The challenge for this group is to determine whether this is an ideal ideal. Do we need to add anything? Take anything out?

Laura sees a gap in terms of the information we are gathering- the local performing groups. We have the GTMF, but we need someone from the community groups. We have no information here, such as the Chorale, Band, Symphony, Swing Band. Most of these are volunteers. She plays the piano with some of them. We are missing local artists who don’t do music for a day job. Tammie said that it takes time to do this- they have to want to participate. Laura noted that some of them aren’t available during the day for meetings. They apply for grants, so they keep track of information- expenses, grants, attendance. Jonathan agrees, and hopes that people will want to participate as we pick up steam. Tim asked if the Cultural Council can release that information. Cathy has some of it- but only for their specific grants or projects.

Jonathan said that there are levels: awareness, desire to participate, numbers available. He sees this as a vacuum- he’d rather have more information then less. Jonathan asked Cathy to provide what he had. Laura will send an email to musicians.

Jonathan said that, for the statement of ideal for the arts community, does this make sense for your organization. Are you working within these confines or not? Does the hard data you are collecting tell you about whether you are moving closer to the ideal? A lot of organizations gather info that is disconnected from their mission. There are a variety of reasons for this disconnect. In a similar way, Jonathan hopes that the kinds of information we collect tell us whether we are moving closer to the ideal or away from it. The kinds of things we measure or talk about now may drop into the appendix. They may not tell us whether JH is moving closer to the ideal or not. This is a seed that will take years to germinate.

The only reason to have indicators is to tell us whether we are moving closer to the ideal or not. Do we collect information that makes sense?

Cathy said that the arts are available regardless of age, background, ability, access. She is not sure how this would work into the ideal. Everyone agreed. Jonathan clarified: access is missing. Ideally, you could access any type of art in TC regardless of age, social status. Heidi noted that this is really important to the library. No matter who you are, we will help you find information. Heidi read the Library’s mission. Jonathan wondered if we can poach any language.

Tammie said that arts should be accessible to all regardless of social, economic, age. We could just say “to make the arts accessible to all.” Jonathan noted that the first part of the library statement is beautiful; the second half is pretty mushy.

Tammie asked about the part where artists who make a living from the arts can live and work. Some people don’t want to work full-time; some would love to but can’t because the resources aren’t there. Chris thinks that the focus was: if an artist wants to live here, can they make ends meet? Buy a house? Rent a studio? Tammie said that the more the arts thrive and grow, the more housing costs are going up.

Heidi said that this is an ideal- we want people to live here. Chris thinks it is important to include in a community like this, where cost of living is increasing. Jonathan described the community as one based on investment instead of retail sales and tourism. Pretty soon we’ll have the hedge fund managers living here and no one else. Jonathan said that, in practical reality, the arts community has to convince the hedge fund managers that this would be a suckier place to be without the arts. Tammie said that they want to live in a place where the arts are. Heidi thinks that arts are taken for granted. Lisa said it isn’t just the arts- it’s the service industry. The same thing is happening here- those folks are going to Victor, Driggs, Alpine, and driving up here. Even those places are getting kind of ridiculous. There is a big separation between the haves- and the have-nots, throughout the country. If we don’t try to help plan the community, (we may be past the point) with affordable and attainable housing- if we don’t keep trying to push those things, this will be a segregated place as opposed to a community. We are pushing for this ideal, so we need to put our input in to the planning commission.

Jonathan said that if the statement of ideal resonates for individual organizations, it has implications for your salary structure, how you take care of your employees. Tim said that there are artist subsidized colonies too- the Symphony provides housing for their musicians, but that’s it here. Jonathan said that this is the conversation that this issue should prompt.

So there is an access issue missing here. Are there other things not reflected here? Tammy had put down some thoughts. Did she have reactions for the group?

It’s hard for her, as a writer interested in the arts, to delete all touchy-feely things from an ideal. The other thing she realized is that any person’s given ideal is influenced by where they have been. Have they lived in Jackson, other places? Work experience? What has enriched their creative spirit? That’s unique to you. Inevitably, this will be projected onto what one considers an ideal. Since everyone is different, their first take on an ideal would be influenced by this. The list she made comes from that place. She would want to think about it in the light of this conversation. Some of it is relevant.

Jonathan said that one of the homework assignments was to react to the statement.

Laura said that one point Tammy made is about youth (See Tammy’s handout). When we talk about the future of the arts, as people get older, we need new blood and the youth involved and excited about it, is really important to the groups, especially as volunteers. Heidi agrees. The first part of the statement of ideal hints to that, but it would nice to see youth as a separate ideal. It is broad. Tammie asked what Jonathan was looking for – two sentences, bulleted points. In her mission work, it is one sentence- clear, concise. What are the parameters to make it consistent with other groups? Jonathan replied that his ideal about the hospital is cached from Toyota’s. Its one long sentence with a bunch of sub-clauses- it doesn’t talk about quality, profit. It is concise enough that anybody from a part-time janitor to the chairman of the board can understand it, but it hits on key points and it is specific enough that each piece can be defined. There is some flexibility, except that we need to measure each part of it. Should we add access, and youth? The way that this was structured was to hit those unambiguously measurable qualities.

Heidi sees it as a to-do list. Laura summarized- arts for all. Chris said that it doesn’t matter how you state it, we just need to list the things that are important and whether we can measure them. Tammie thinks that it is general. Heidi thinks the hospital one is general too. Jonathan said you don’t want it drowning in specificity- it has to work for every aspect of the arts.

Homework for next time: look at new data, use 10 minute speech threshold. Consider what is important. We will go back and tweak the statement of ideal. Part 3 of the next meeting is the next step- Benchmarking? We will find a project that this group feels comfortable pursuing.

In attendance:
Elaine Walsh, YNAT
Laura Johnson, JHWFF
Kirsten Corbett, TC Library
Francine Carraro, NMWA
Tammy Christel, Planet JH
Alissa Davies, Dancer’s Workshop
Cathy Wikoff, Cultural Council
Tammie Van Holland, Off Square Theater Company
Chris Hansen, Center for the Arts

Jonathan gave an overview: today we will work on polishing the report. What will go in there? What is our statement of ideal? What will our task be?

Francine said that the jacksonholearts website is coming along.

Lydia forgot to photocopy everything.

Lydia and Jonathan feel generally comfortable with the edits/ changes to the chapter.

Cathy does a lot of outreach and school events. These are the numbers Cathy has for 2004; she expects them to change significantly this year with the opening of the new facility. They used to have 4,000 square feet; now they have 10,000 square feet. They have more foot traffic in the gallery, more people finding out about classes. Their family memberships have gone up 90% since the building opened. Their overall budget was $520,000-tuition and fundraising events. She will add tuition and other sources of revenue to her numbers. If we are going to see this explosive growth in 2005, this would be an interesting way to track it.

One of the challenges the arts community faces is the kinds of dollars that flow through the community because of art. What would make sense to measure? Tuition? Tammie said that ticket sales could go from 5,000 to 10,000- but some of these events could have been free. There are two types of income: earned and unearned (contributed). Grants are unearned, as are county funds. Kirsten noted that the library is a little tricky- they make some money on late fees; other then that it’s contributed. The highest the fees can go is $5 unless you damage a book.

Jonathan wondered if we could get a breakdown between contributed, earned, and total. That would be something that would be very easy. Francine can measure both paid and unpaid attendance. Unpaid could be members, or children’s groups. They keep these clearly demarcated.

Jonathan asked if a class at the Art Association was counted as attendance. Is attendance anyone who walks in the door? Cathy separated students in her numbers. Francine’s category wouldn’t fit, but you could call students paid attendance. Art Fair you pay an entry fee. Tammie said that we could separate students from people attending a performance, opening, or event. Does Francine have that difference? They just have paid/unpaid. They don’t charge school groups. Their unpaid attendance is larger then paid attendance.

We have a consensus, that at least on a budget level, we can measure earned v. contributed income, and a total. Tammy asked about the Planet- should see gather income and ad sales? Jonathan said that probably not. In any of these meetings where there is a private enterprise, he wants to honor the fact that they are in a competitive market. Column inches of art space, for example, would not put the Planet in a competitive disadvantage. Things that relate to dollars he would treat carefully.

Kirsten wanted to know if the entire budget would be a literary arts budgets, or education and social services. In the greater Library mindset, there are two components- perhaps we can pull out the arts part. She will see what she can do.

Jonathan asked Cathy for trend data. It’s already in the report. Alissa has info about the number of classes, number of students she has. Adult programs are smaller then children’s programs. They need to reach out to more adult members of the dance community. Events have gone up quite a bit, with a lot of outreach into the schools. Donor numbers have gone up a little bit. She would like to find out the donor demographics, and access issues- who aren’t we reaching? She has the $$ raised in 2004, she would like to see where it is spent and how much is part of the budget. They were in certain categories from last year. Jonathan asked if they have ideas about trends. Are they getting busier? Will they see an upswing because of the building? They are starting to; they are in the stage of figuring out how to develop themselves in this building. The schools come to them; the kids see the space and want to take classes. They are also able to develop the professional group-Contemporary Dance Wyoming. She can’t quantify how numbers have changed since they moved in here. Their studio space is doubled here.

Tammie asked if they are still offering the same classes. It is changing- they will be busier, and their time more efficiently used. Jonathan said that as a footnote for both organizations, and anyone else, is if we are going to start seeing spikes, this would be useful because it will start begging questions about what happened.

Right now we will figure out who will give the talk at the conference. The date is either Friday the 28th of October or Saturday the 29th. Our keynote speaker can only speak on Thursday Oct. 27th. It will be at the new Journeys School.

Tammy asked if the speech would be a collaborative effort. Jonathan said that we are going to put all 12 chapters into a book. The content of the chapter will be the 10-15 minute speech threshold. The content of the speech will follow the chapter. Tammy asked about Q&A. Jonathan is trying to figure this out- the timing is tight.

Francine is happy to do it, as long as she is reading the collaborative work. The challenge will be distilling the key points into a 10 minute talk. How do I take the general information and turn it into a 10-minute talk? People will have the book. She will have a captive audience.

Francine is happy to do it, but she would like to do a dress rehearsal. Maybe a few people can work with her- everyone volunteered.

Kirsten has additional adult program numbers. The programming at the library falls into children, teens, and adults. This is how the collections are organized as well. In terms of attendance, Heidi has it for the year so far. They run on a county fiscal year, from July to June. Some of the trends that they have been noticing, for all three types of programming, they are coming to some facility limits- they turn away more people then they can accommodate. This is true for sign-up programs- discussion groups. All of the programs are free and open to the public. They don’t track admissions, but they do track attendance. They also get feedback forms from almost every program they do in the adult programs. Their range is broad- guest speakers (some are collaborations, such as with the Writers’ Conference).

Jonathan has a question: collaboration as part of above stats- it’s not necessarily a separate stat, but they have started tracking collaborations with other orgs. They are not counting collaboration when they do a school tour, for instance (which they have not been tracking attendance on). For instance, if they are working with the Murie Center to bring a speaker in- they are both putting a significant amount of work to bring them here. They have been trending to do more collaboration when possible. They want to work with as many people as possible.

Jonathan asked Kirsten, for the purposes of the arts chapter, are there a couple stats that are meaningful and important? The main thing is attendance numbers. These are a fair match with what everyone else is measuring, and what the community as a whole is doing. How do you separate a literary arts event v. something else? Even the things they do with story-telling, these are education and arts events. Attendance and budget numbers are most important. They need to be tracking the number of people turned away. Heidi didn’t include the Latino outreach program numbers, which are in addition to this- events that are in Spanish or bilingual.

Kirsten thinks attendance is most important- but also, they want to look at local v. non-local. Tammie said we should total their number of programs. Kirsten has trending data for 5 years. They have seen growth; she thinks that there are different factors: the new facility, and a general growth. Their facilities are determining the top end of programs. Francine asked if it was relative to changes in JH population. She doesn’t know. That is probably a factor, but they have also made more of a concerted effort to do outreach, especially to different populations such as the young adults & Latinos.

We’ve clearly knocked off the speaker question; we have a general sense of the kinds of things included in the chapter, subject to everyone’s feedback. We have a good structure, and if everyone can get us budget numbers that would be great.

The third task here is trying to look at the statement of ideal.

Chris wants page numbers on the minutes.

One of the concerns that came up with the statement was access. Part of the homework was to consider this statement and react to it. Francine wanted a definition of access. Cathy said- economic, age, ability- access to participate in the arts. Tammie said that they were talking about access for participants, but we should also consider artists. Elaine said that there are different levels of access. In terms of general access, we aren’t doing performances in Spanish. The library provides Latino resources, but the access piece is interesting. There is a lot of programming going in that direction, but we aren’t a bilingual community. There is also financial access. Francine asked what ideal access would be, and when we say ideal, is that some time in the future, or now?

Tammie sees it to provide access regardless of economics, age, or race. Some of this is in the future- we aren’t providing everything bilingually right now. Kirsten said it could be broader, open access to serve all members of the community through the arts. Cathy said that there should be things available to everyone, not necessarily in every organization. Francine asked about tourism. Does this play into the statement? Chris thinks it plays into the economics of access- everyone has unlimited access? What happens to commercial enterprises, and the orgs that have to make money? Is there a level to achieve, or are we trying to increase access? Tammie said we can’t provide everything to everyone, but we can provide something to everyone. Cathy’s budget relies on earned income, but she keeps tuition costs low, and they have scholarships available. Chris said we should provide mechanisms for access.

Francine said that last year, subsumed into this discussion, was that JH should be a location for artists to fully express their skills. A location where there are organizations and resources providing access to the arts for all kinds of audiences. We need something that includes access as a broader point. Everyone has a mission, in aggregate they provide something for everyone.

Tammy said that it is tough for her to encircle one small concept; it usually extrapolates to something else. She listed several big things that are very idealistic, and perhaps futuristic. As Francine says, in the aggregate they cover a lot of ground. Nurturing our youth is very important. Jackson is a world-class place, and we have huge potential to produce models of education, and the CFA is a step in the right directions. We need to continue exploring local, national, and international issues. We need to bring more of the outside world, and we need to get out there. Elaine said that we have a legacy to honor in this community because artists are the reason there are National Parks here. (Artists and politicians.) That piece is a void. The museum has done a great job of highlighting a piece of that. There is a much bigger opportunity as a statement of ideal. The arts are a socio-economic-political medium through which this community can be expressed to the world. It’s a legacy that is close to 200 years old. Tammy said we can’t have arts without our ecosystem. The Moran exhibit at the library- they are wonderful at pulling in exhibits that illustrate this point.

Francine said that what we are honoring is not only that heritage, but also the concept that art is important and necessary. How we deliver it, in different forms to different audiences, is inherent to our arts community. There are orgs within the community to address this. The CFA is critical for the community. Before we didn’t have the focus or place. There is a community of arts that is absolutely essential. We have to talk about the community- it’s where our children, dollars, etc are. There is another level dealing with the nature of this town. We are a small town with a huge tourist audience, which gives us the ability to do outreach to a much larger audience. We have to be cognizant of the unique qualities of this place, and how we nurture not only the community but also the larger world of art. How do we make this stronger? How do you package it? We have everything in place here. We have matured as an art community, as a place where professional and amateur art delivery has improved.

Jonathan interjected with his statement of ideal for a hospital. Every patient, every time will get exactly the care they need at exactly the right time, with no waste, in an atmosphere of complete safety for the patient, providers, & family members. The earlier conversation about access- if you say “without barriers to access” this fits in the statement of ideal mold. He thought the statement last year was a good start, with things to be desired. There are a lot of other things to include if we are going to define an ideal arts community in JH. We need to make sure they can be unambiguously measured. If we can come up with a statement of ideal, we can start creating measurement tools to determine if we are making progress towards ideal. Things aren’t going to change overnight, but over time we can start measuring progress.

Tammy asked if we are talking about a present ideal, or ideal for the future. Jonathan sadi that the statement of ideal sets up a clear standard for moving in a direction; we will probably never get there. With any activity, we should ask ourselves: are we moving closer or farther away from it?

Kirsten took a stab at combining access with collaborative arts community here. We have a collaborative and communicative arts community that offers broad access to the arts without barriers for our community and visitors. Elaine suggested for all instead of community & visitors. Elaine thinks collaborative incorporates communicative. Francine wanted to add a wide variety of arts experiences. Elaine proposed that something like that would not replace the “location” part. The CFA is built, and we still need to support this piece- it’s not a done deal.

Francine said that “resources needed for artists” was predicated on the thought that if artists can’t live here, and have studios here, there is a big hole in the doughnut. She is a parasite on the arts. If there aren’t any artists here working, there is no reason for the arts to exist. Maybe this is combined with number 3. It’s about having real live artists running around.

Elaine thought we could combine 1 & 3 and add a version of Kirsten’s statement. Tammie thinks that a location is what 3 says. “Fully express skills” is the same as being able to live and work. Kirsten thought you might add resources from number 2 into the 3rd point. She was thinking of non-tangibles that don’t contribute to your income.

Elaine thinks we will take the second point out, and what is in the third statement is inclusive of what is in the second line.

Elaine thinks that there is a potential marketing piece. Kirsten was coming at it from within- intercommunicative- among arts organizations. She wasn’t thinking of it from the outside. Tammie like collaborating, we aren’t collaborating if we aren’t communicating.

New point: collaborative arts community offering broad access without barriers for everyone. Access implies everyone so drop “for everyone.”

Jonathan asked if you can define “collaborative” and “broad.” Tammie asked if we should define access- economic, age, race. Jonathan said that you would want to say unlimited access, because broad is limiting. Broad is like quality. Unlimited is unambiguous.

No one liked unlimited. Elaine said that Jonathan is coming from the hospital perspective, which never happens. Jonathan said that is the point- you may never get there. He is trying to limit ambiguity. Tammie said that no one is doing unlimited. Jonathan asked why there should be. Elaine said that it is a different type or perspective, the hospital mission is to help everybody every time. Arts are not human services. Tammy said that the hospital is a finite place; this is composed of many different organizations. Everyone is operating differently.

Jonathan said that if the library is turning people away, this suggests a problem. This is shining a light on the fact that they have a facilities limitation. In this particular area, you are falling short, because you don’t have the resources to meet full demand. The question is, if it’s going to be “broad access” as opposed to “unlimited access,” broad implies that you would not want to serve everyone who walks in the door. Kirsten said that they say “open” in the Library mission. But we could drop broad and say access without barriers.

Laura asked if this was going to replace the top point, or it is an addition. Laura thinks that there are useful words in the first point. Elaine asked how we measure access without barriers. Jonathan said that if there is someone who wants to do something and can’t, there is a barrier. I want to go to the wine auction and I can’t. There is not a pejorative context. There is a barrier- you can choose to act on it, or ignore the fact. Kirsten noted that if someone gets turned away, it is a barrier. Ideally, what you are saying is, in a perfect world, anyone who wanted to do something in the arts at anytime could do it. This is not realistic, but this is not a statement of realism- it is a statement of ideal.

So we are at: collaborative arts community that offers access without barriers.

Jonathan asks what collaborative meant. Tammie said that it is everyone working together; interactive. Not all the time, and not every event, but often. Laura thinks you can measure it through the number of events where there is more than one organization organizing. Elaine said that the CFA is a collaborative effort. It’s not quite as ambiguous in Jackson as it used to be. It is happening more, and you can see results from these efforts.

Jonathan asked if you know collaboration when you see it. Kirsten has a definition of it: when the Library works with one or more other organizations to present a program. The orgs each contribute time, money, or resources to the event produced together.

Cathy would define it/ measure it this way as well. Kirsten said it is more than collaboration in name, but also in resources. Jonathan asked if SJH would be collaboration, and is SJH a goal the community wants to strive for. Tammie thinks that this is a collaborative effort for JH. Elaine said that the CFA is also a collaborative effort. Jonathan said building on this discussion, collaboration would be when more then one org devotes resources towards working to a common goal. It doesn’t have to be a program.

Tammie said that she is happy saying it is a collaborative arts community; the definition could go in the comment. Jonathan clarified that if we wiped out point 2, this is point 3- yes.

Elaine said that the location is here, and resources are provided. Maybe backtracking, we need to continue to develop this- the CFA needs care and feeding.

Alissa thinks it can be put together with the third point. We can word it so that the idea of a location with resources to express skills can go with being able to live and work here. Tammie said it could say “live, work, and express skills”. Elaine sees resources as studio space. Alissa said that resources are broad- going outside to paint, for example. Tammie thinks that making a living is a type of resource.

Jonathan said that in the same spirit that we have a good sense of what the group would like as a general outline of the chapter, Lydia and Jonathan will wordsmith a little bit. We will move onto task 4- the project. In the course of these few meetings, there have been three proposed group-wide tasks: benchmarking-comparing ourselves to other places. How does the arts world in JH compare to the world in general. Second was the website. Finally, figuring out a way to measure the same stuff across organizations in a consistent fashion. A year from now, if we talk about attendance, membership, financial sides, etc, we will have come up with a standard for measuring stuff. Francine doesn’t measure things the same way as Tammie.

Those are three different things that have come up as potential projects. Laura said that, when the ideal statement is flushed out and figuring out how to measure this- we need to make sure we touch all the points of the ideal. Jonathan agreed; the balance that he wants is that he doesn’t want this to become a task; these are decisions that he wants the group to make about an achievable goal. In a perfect world, the only things that would be measured are those that tell us whether we are moving closer to ideal. Just the simple idea of measuring things, now, is proving to be a challenge. He doesn’t want to overwhelm people.

Elaine said that the other piece is a collective calendar or marketing piece. Tammie said that they are talking about a website and a calendar print piece. There is not consensus. The website maybe has rated higher. Tammie would like a print calendar piece, partially because she did it before in Aspen. The locals all had it. The orgs all paid a percentage of its cost, based on the number of events. It was part of the Arts Council there. Perhaps that is something the Cultural Council could help see through. Kirsten said that this effort has been stalled, but it isn’t devoid of momentum and energy. Tammie said that they are planning on meeting in September. Kirsten said that given the fact that this has some momentum, it seems that we should do measurements across organizations so we have common data. We need our stuff together internally before we can compare ourselves to outside communities.

Tammie said that the benchmarking is lowest on her list, because it is a huge job, and there is a benefit to it, but it isn’t a tangible or measurable benefit. There are so many ways to do this- but it is down the road.

Jonathan clarified- everyone can do budgets similarly. What is tricky is measuring attendance and participation. The museum cannot be compared in an apple to apples fashion. Tammie said the other question is programs- a festival compared to a theater event, to a post-show discussion.

Right now that we can count money, relatively uniformly. Laura is not sure about that. Tammie said that GTMF counts their in-kind donations in their dollars, but Tammie doesn’t. Laura said that counting in-kind would double their donations.

Elaine said that one way to clear this up would be talk to Clare (CFJH) to see what their standard is. You report to your donors in the way that they want to hear it. At the museum, they counted participants, donations, and in-kind. It could be clearer then it is.

Tammie said that regarding the budget, the GTMF is the only one on the budget end that is doing it differently.

Jonathan thinks that it would be a great thing if this group could agree on some activity to move us closer to where we want to be. There is merit in consistent measurement, because a lot of energy has been focused on how the arts community reaches out to the broader community. Is coming up with a consistent measurement system something people can do, seems reasonable, and everyone is willing to do it? But you don’t want to do something that is asking too much, or will hurt the long-term prospect of this enterprise. How you go about doing it is another set of questions.

Elaine thinks that it’s not as sexy as a website. Tammie thinks it is a matter of everyone getting together, talking about how we currently count- no one has to change, but we have to figure out how to report consistently. It’s going to take a little extra work on an annual basis. Some of us might have an easier time of it.

Elaine asked if it mattered if some orgs count differently if they can manipulate our data. Tammie said we need to agree on a set form for data manipulation so that we can all report with one format.

Cathy said we could push it to the winter, and do it for 2005 data. However, Kirsten and Laura have fiscal years starting in July. Laura thinks we should look at it ahead of time.

Tammie thinks we should look at each other’s data for a current heads-up. And meet in the fall to discuss.

Jonathan will take this as a consensus that this group, over the course of 6 months, by the first of the year, will have the goal of determining consistent ways of measuring revenue, participation, and programs. Even a couple of consistent measures in each of those would be huge because it starts to get towards that benchmarking concept. If we can look at all of these orgs, and we are all measuring in the same way, and someone is growing faster then someone else, it will start telling you about your own operations and other operations in the community. In terms of the pitches the arts make to the community, it would be really valuable to say how many people participated in an arts program in 2004. This will catch people’s attention.

Jonathan and Lydia will work on the report, statement of ideal. Lydia will send an email reminder about earned v. unearned income.