{"id":7172,"date":"2018-05-08T15:54:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T19:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=7172"},"modified":"2018-05-08T16:56:51","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T20:56:51","slug":"arts-publications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/05\/08\/arts-publications\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts Publications Discuss Forming Super-Group To Support Arts Coverage Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI do not see why we can\u2019t share our resources, our craftsmanship,\u201d Bill Marx, editor of the online arts magazine The Arts Fuse, said at a forum called \u201cFor the Love of Arts Criticism II: Small Magazines and Bloggers\u201d<\/a> at Outpost 186 in Cambridge last night. \u201cI don\u2019t see why we can\u2019t link and share with each other and grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marx proposed creating a website that would aggregate arts coverage of greater Boston from all the member publications\u2014\u201cOne-stop shopping for people to look at what\u2019s going on online\u201d\u2014and for the publications to form a collective to apply for grant funding.<\/p>\n

The proposal for local arts publications to collaborate and share resources was at the heart of why Marx had initiated the event. On facebook, he\u2019d written beforehand that he aimed to \u201cfocus on exploring the value of small arts magazines in the Boston area. It will also examine ways in which they can be supported at a challenging time for independent arts journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the rest of the forum<\/a> highlighted the work and needs of many alternative arts and cultures publications, podcasts and video series from around greater Boston\u2014including the ArtsFuse, Big Red & Shiny, Boston Art Review, Boston Compass, Boston Hassle, Cambridge Day, Culture Hustlers, Delicious Line, DigBoston, On Boston Stages, Som Arts from the Somerville Media Center, Wonderland (Hi!), The Word Boston and others. (I helped with organizing the event and recruited the many of these participants.)<\/p>\n

Below I\u2019ve pulled out some of the comments from last night to try to highlight some of the themes that emerged from the discussion. This is not an exhaustive accounting of the evening\u2014and doesn\u2019t very well reflect the free flow of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\"Arts<\/a>
Arts journalism forum at Outpost 186 in Cambridge with (from left) Lucas Spivey, Bill Marx, Heather Kapplow and Jason Pramas. May 7, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Does reading this inspire you to support local arts journalism? Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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How Can We Better Fund Arts Journalism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The publications represented at last night\u2019s forum are, generally speaking, labors of love, making little or no money, subsidized by the creators\u2019 day jobs, fueled by their passion for the arts. Most of the creators are artists, musicians or filmmakers themselves as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe labors of love are the best things we have in this city,\u201d said conceptual artist Heather Kapplow, who has written about art for Dig Boston, Delicious Line, Big Red & Shiny, Hyperallergic and various other outlets.<\/p>\n

Folks from Boston Hassle noted that all their work was done on a volunteer basis. Some publications are able to pay writers modest amounts. But mainly the publications are unpaid work\u2014or projects that people lose money in producing. Big publications aren\u2019t above money challenges either as even The Boston Globe has been cutting staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us really get paid for this,\u201d said Chris Hughes, who coordinates music coverage for the online publication Boston Hassle, \u201cbut we should.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a young artist, it\u2019s not just a publication, but a community. It has provided me with a ton of opportunity,\u201d said Chlo\u00e9 DuBois, who manages the Boston Hassle\u2019s art calendar.<\/p>\n

Franklin Einspruch, editor of the online visual arts publication Delicious Line, said, \u201cPeople in Boston are very generous to the arts, but a lot of that generosity is directed toward the bigger institutions.\u201d He proposed the publications \u201cform a meta-organization that would basically serve no purpose but hire a development director for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Pramas, executive editor and associate publisher of the Dig Boston newspaper and network director for the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, asked where are the ads from the arts world, from theaters, museums, galleries? \u201cAre they advertising with us? Not really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some suggested using crowdfunding via web tools like Patreon or Kickstarter. One of the ways Boston Hassle raises funds is by producing an annual 24-hour-long telethon. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty much explicitly based on the movie \u2018UHF\u2019 by \u2018Weird Al\u2019 Yankovic,\u201d said Oscar Goff, who edits the film sections of Boston Hassle and Boston Compass.<\/p>\n

Several people suggested using events to grow audiences and attract income. Jacqueline Houton, formerly of The Boston Phoenix, Improper Bostonian and Boston Magazine, noted that she\u2019d seen even mismanaged organizations make money by producing events. She praised meetups like Opus Affair. \u201cThere\u2019s a hunger for more events like that where you can connect with people in real time,\u201d she said. Also, if you\u2019re hosting events, \u201cLiquor companies are happy to throw free booze at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in finding events with locations where everyone is comfortable going to them,\u201d said Mary Curtin, an events producer and promoter, who helped with the organization of the forum. \u201cThis town is a weird town. It\u2019s got its little sections where people don\u2019t cross the street to go to the other side. \u2026 I feel as a presenter that I have a responsibility to find the safe spaces where everybody feels comfortable going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Arts<\/a>
Arts journalism forum at Outpost 186 in Cambridge, May 7, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More Voices Of Color?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I saw when I moved back here to Boston [in 2004] was there weren\u2019t a lot of resources for people of color. There were a lot of resources \u2026 for white people. But not for African-Americans,\u201d said Pat Williams of The Word Boston newsletter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of attention spent on the bigger shows and the bigger institutions,\u201d said Chanel Thervil, a contributor to Big Red & Shiny. Smaller projects need art criticism too. She was \u201cadvocating for voices of marginalized groups in that criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can publications attract those voices? \u201cPart of what\u2019s difficult is arts criticism does not sound sexy,\u201d Thervil said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to capture the creation of culture as it happens. Does that happen in the upper middle class and ruling class art world? I don\u2019t think so,\u201d Pramas said. \u201cIf you\u2019re talking about where culture is created, you\u2019re talking about all kinds of working class and poor neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the [Globe] \u2018Spotlight\u2019 series, there\u2019s still racism in Boston,\u201d Williams said. \u201cHow do we as artists try to get together\u2014white people, black people, Latino people. How do we bring people together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it feels like people don\u2019t want to get together,\u201d said Lucas Spivey of the Culture Hustlers podcast. He proposed deliberate attempts to promote different values. \u201cIt\u2019s deeply honoring and affirming to belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams talked about covering the play \u201cBad Dates\u201d by the Huntington Theatre Company earlier this year, which starred an African-American actress. But, she said, \u201cWhen I go to a theater I see a predominantly white audience. What is that about?\u201d<\/p>\n

What Role Do Arts Publications Play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we post something it means an artist or arts organization can link to that and promote themselves,\u201d said Marc Levy, editor of Cambridge Day. \u201cWhat role do we play? It\u2019s sort of as a legitimizer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing for Boston is to continue to create a scene here that can be exported,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

In addition to Marx\u2019s call for sharing content, Dave Ortega of the Somerville Media Center encouraged publications to look at opportunities in community media and public access television: \u201cThere\u2019s very strong media access here and it\u2019s very underutilized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pramas noted that the Dig is already collaborating with Boston Hassle, Delicious Line, KillerBoomBox and Wonderland (Hi!) in producing and syndicating arts coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I travel, the more helpful I can be. I can get a solution from Miami and share it with an artist in the South End,\u201d Spivey said. \u201cThere\u2019s a giant fucking world and Boston is so isolated. It shouldn\u2019t be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Boston isn\u2019t listening to us, why are we still talking to Boston? Why aren\u2019t we talking about Boston and telling it to the world?\u201d Spivey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we are doing things that are sexy enough,\u201d Spivey said. If he\u2019s not connecting with his audience, he said, \u201cpeople weren\u2019t listening wrong, I did something wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNimble\u2014I think that is the silver lining,\u201d Houton said. \u201cThese larger organizations that I\u2019ve worked for are not nimble at all. They\u2019re struggling as well and they\u2019re having a really hard time turning the ship around. \u2026 There is a lot of opportunity to experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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You can support local arts journalism right now. Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI do not see why we can\u2019t share our resources, our craftsmanship,\u201d Bill Marx, editor of the online arts magazine The Arts Fuse, said at a forum called \u201cFor the Love of Arts Criticism II: Small Magazines and Bloggers\u201d at Outpost 186 in Cambridge last night. \u201cI don\u2019t see why we can\u2019t link and share […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7172"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7187,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172\/revisions\/7187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}