Again this year, I looked at all 1582 submissions at all 164 venues. It’s an axiom in art school that the documentation is often better than the work. So, this time, instead of picking a bunch of individual artists, I chose venues that, at least on paper, seem to have a strong curatorial agenda towards selecting high quality, professional, contemporary work while also the respecting the intent of each artist regardless of media.

So, here is a list of 9 venues I plan on visiting first. I had hoped this list would be longer, but that is for another post. These venues may not be on your list. Feel free to politely add what you find in other venues in the comments below and I will make every effort to check  them out.

1. Calvin College–(106) Gallery
2. Fifth Third Bank/Warner Norcross & Judd LLP
3. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park
4. Grand Rapids Art Museum
5. Kendall College of Art and Design
6. Mercantile Bank of Michigan
7. Site:Lab + U of M School of Art & Design
8. uica
9. Women’s City Club

Hello, I am Matthew Patulski, a proud parent of a first grader and 4th grader at North Park Montessori Academy in the Grand Rapids Public Schools. I am here today to speak to the challenges of retaining and training teachers in specialized programs such as Montessori.

The Montessori Method is a robust 100+ year old pedagogy that provides infant children to young adults with an education that meets local, state and national standards for curriculum while developing those qualities that are key to success in the 21st century workplace: personal effectiveness, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution and negotiation, creative problem solving, strategic thinking and team building. creating adults who live life as engaged citizens at the local and global levels.

GRPS has a very successful Montessori PK-6 elementary program. Year over year, we match or exceed scores of the local suburban schools in all of the standard tests. For the last two years, a group of GRPS parents, teachers and administrators have been working to reboot our secondary Montessori program. The primary challenge to the success of our program is the retention of a properly trained, professionally credentialed staff.

The US Department of Education recognizes several credentialing organizations for Montessori teachers, administrators and schools. The Grand Rapids Public Schools leadership recognizes this as a requirement for a successful program. Our parents expect it. Of course, our teachers are on board. The GREA leadership has publicly supported the need for programs such as ours to have a properly trained and credentialed teacher in our classrooms.

If everyone agrees, why can’t we staff a school? Everyone has a different answer. But, it all comes down to this scenario: When two teachers are competing for an open position, and teacher A has a credentials but teacher B has no credentials and 1 more day on the job, teacher B gets the position. OK fine, those may be the rules, but at this point you have also lost the parents and the children to fill the classroom.

I grew up in a union family. I believe in the right of a group of professional individuals to collectively bargain. It establishes a floor in the workplace for wages and work conditions. However, in today’s education staffing environment, components of this process are acting as a ceiling or a wall to block the optimal person from entering the classroom. There is a need for greater latitude for professional development, credentialing, and staff selection in building schools based on specialized models like Montessori, International Baccalaureate and University Prep.

Teachers are remarkable people. We all have 1 or 2 we will remember all of our lives. Everyday, they must engage our children on a personal level in a way that prepares them to be adult citizens while conducting themselves as professionals in the workplace. Current education policy sells these fine people short in that regard. As you consider the legislation before you, please take our concerns into account while also respecting the professionals who nurture all of our children.

Thank you.

Hello, I am Matthew Patulski, a GRPS Montessori parent and a member the GRPS Montessori Taskforce.

On behalf of the task-force parents, we want thank the district for executing the Montessori marketing survey. Without scooping the details, I just want to say it validates what we have known for along time: there is interest in Grand Rapids for a high performing, public Montessori High School. This interest transcends, income, race and region as long as there are Montessori trained staff teaching Montessori curriculum.

To do this, we must start at the top: Hire a dedicated Montessori Principal or Program Director. We first identified this matter in our original report in June 2009. The 2011 Englefried/Moudry consultant report makes the same recommendation, as do the leading Montessori professional organizations AMI, AMS and NAMTA.

From there, if the GRPS Montessori Community is provided tangible program descriptions, a trained staff, with practical options of where they can help, organized around consistent milestones, our parents and the larger community will join in and it will work.

I can say this because, every person I have spoken with: GRPS parents, NPO leaders, business leaders, elected officials, private citizens; all think this is a no-brainer; they say ‘this is what Grand Rapids needs as an education option, now.’

They may not fully understand the Montessori method but they are inspired by practical descriptions of Erdkinder and Micro-economies and their outcomes: environmental awareness, sustainability, service learning, soft skills development, executive decision making, project based learning, community building, internships, entrepreneurship, etc.

This inspiration will fill those gaps where GRPS’ time and funds are short. We have persons in the wings who would love to help us design growing programs, partner on service learning opportunities, discuss arts, music options in the core city, or act as ambassadors to our Latino and African-American communities.

I could go on, but none of what I have described is possible without clearly defined school-level leadership invested in Montessori education, in short, a Montessori principal.

Good evening Board of Education members, Dr. Taylor, fellow citizens. I am Matthew Patulski, a proud parent of 2 Grand Rapids Public School students at North Park Montessori Academy.

I am also one of the parent members of the GRPS Montessori Task-force, established in 2009 by Dr. Taylor. In June of that year, we delivered a report that examined the existing program and made recommendations for the long-term viability of our Montessori High School.

A year ago we reconvened with a plan: The task-force would engage with consultants experienced in Public Montessori Secondary education; have them produce a COI application; and also provide recommendations to be implemented this fall 2011.

The results of that work are in hand. As parents, we are very encouraged. It’s an excellent starting point for a reinvigorated public Montessori High School. We are working through next steps with our district collaborators. We will then involve our parent community to further build consensus towards actualizing a reinvigorated program with the GRPS.

We are community-focused: Dozens of parents and other Grand Rapidians have funded a large portion of our consulting costs. Hundreds of GRPS parents, citizens and organizations are actively following our progress on the web, Twitter and Facebook.

That said, our success requires district-wide stability of staff if we want our students and parents to participate and succeed. The current climate, much of it beyond our district’s control, contributes significantly to this challenge within our district. There are many solutions to this issue but only a strong partnership between parents and the district can provide successful public education. With that we may begin to address the ongoing matter of retaining Montessori trained staff which has compromised the Montessori program.

GRPS has delivered Montessori education to its students for 40 years. There are 3rd generation Montessori students in our classrooms today. Our High School effort presents an opportunity to build on this legacy.  We can enfranchise new families to Montessori education and continue to offer quality education options for all children in our city.

In closing, I want to acknowledge the ongoing support of several Cabinet Officers: Mayda Gunnell, Mary Jo Kuhlman, Lisa Freiburger, Carolyn Evans and John Helmholdt. They and their staffs have been crucial to this effort.

We look forward to this continuing collaboration. Thank you.

An earlier version of this presentation was also part of DAM:Chicago 2010 in September.

Presently, Dr. Taylor and the Grand Rapids Public School Board are asking for parents and students to accept radical changes in the secondary teaching model for fall 2010. I would like to ask the GRPS administration to consider radical changes to the way it works as well. Below are 3 big picture ideas for cost containment and workplace cultural evolution. These are changes that will improve your productivity and save millions of dollars. Unless noted, all assumptions are for a 3,000 seat organization.

[1] Migrate entire GRPS staff from GroupWise to Google Apps and save $294,000 each year

Currently with GroupWise, you are probably paying $143.00/seat/year for 3 years of support and software. Google Apps costs $50.00/seat/year. That’s a savings of $98.00/seat or $294,000 each year. The City of Los Angeles is doing this now with an annual cost savings of comparable percentages.

Links
LA Votes for Google Apps
Google Apps for Business
GroupWise TCO calculator

[2] Home-office the entire school administration and save $1,000,000 each year

It can cost an organization between $5,000and $20,000 a year to provide office space to staff. If we assume that GRPS has a 100 to 1 Administrative staff to student ratio as sited in the media, GRPS has 200 administrative positions.

By asking everyone to work from home, it could be a savings on the low-end of about $1,000,000/year. You would have to rely more on conference calls but there are free or low-cost solutions out there such as DimDim or Web-ex. Speaking form experience, working at home can be more productive in the long run. A 4 day work week could also have some benefits.

In instances where you need to hold board meetings or other large events, as you are tonight, do so in the education environment. Go to the schools. It will put you closer to you constituents: GRPS students.

Links
Wikipedia overview on telecommuting
Debunking the Myths of the Telecommute
How to Implement a Four-Day Workweek
DimDIM web conferencing

[3] Divest your unused real estate holdings and save $3,000,000 one time

Based on a conversation I had with your one of your own staff,  GRPS has 5 to 10 properties that could be sold off. This includes recent closings, 2010 projected closings and eliminating the need for the Franklin Campus because you all work at home. In total, it conservatively amounts to $3,000,000, perhaps more. There is huge potential for converting these facilities into housing, offices or business incubators in the neighborhoods these facilities once served as schools.

Conclusion

By making these 3 changes, GRPS has the opportunity to save $4.3 million in the first year, with an ongoing cost savings of about $1.3 million:

Please, tap a few community members: citizens, creative professionals, specialists in these arenas to help you focus on the way the district functions administratively and see what you can sort out. If the GRPS leadership would reinvent its day-to-day operations and set an example for other districts to follow, you will build confidence in your community and with your constituents.

Thank you,

I have many issues with ArtPrize on a functional level but it has the potential be very good for the Visual Arts in Grand Rapids over time. Put another way: how is this not an improvement over having large fiberglass painted cows, fish, birds, etc. scattered around downtowns across America and calling that art?

The salient point of discussion: We all must continually broaden and improve the quality of the work shown and the subtlety of the exchange between Artists and the viewing public.

While Artists are not Doctors, they do share that singular dedication and desire for professionalism and knowledge found in medicine and other professions such as the law, the sciences, the baseball. How does one get the public to understand that premise, fend off biting allegations of elitism, while at the same time being responsible as artist/curators for selecting 1/2 of the top 10?

Margo Burian, a painter friend of mine, remarked the following:

It seems like everyday, more funding to the arts is being cut at both the state and federal levels. My take on it is that the general public feels generally excluded from the arts, therefore the powers that be can make cuts without suffering too much backlash. If ArtPrize did something well, it was getting people to feel included and that they were participating. Does that qualify them to judge art? It’s not my place to say, but what I do know is that many of them cared enough to get off the couch and get down to venues to look at Art.

If we as an artistic community want to have support for the Arts, we have to get the greater community as a whole to see the value of the inclusion of the arts in their lives. If by allowing a public vote, you get the public interested in the arts, we bring the community up as a whole. Its then, when we create an inclusive community, that we can educate people as to the value of the arts and how they play a part in the quality of daily life.

People will defend something they care about. As creative professionals we need to own Art actions, not just be passive observers waiting for an audience to saunter by. The increased traffic will give our local institutions an opportunity to show work that we will want to see that public will be interested in as well.

ArtPrize was a great membership drive for the UICA. Also, several pieces are under negotiation of sale to collectors and UICA gets a cut–another win for the home team. My hunch is that the success of this year will help to shape decisions of who shows next year and where. UICA has set an expectation for success (4 of the top 10). Many other works are in the top 25/50/75/100. I wonder if next year, GRAM will throw it’s doors open for 3 weeks and show work inside instead of just two walls on the exterior. I would not be surprised if the Frederick Meijer Gardens and GVSU are more involved next year as well.

Sure, you will still have the B.O.B. and other restaurants showing work. Smarter artists won’t go back to the venues that make their work subservient to the spectacle of that venue. I felt very uncomfortable looking at artwork and  someone else’s lunch or dinner at the same time. The Kissing Booth was the exception that proved the rule.

Besides the UICA/Old Federal Building, I can think of 5 or 6 venues of the dozens I visited that are role models of well presented, non-institutional spaces covering a full spectrum of curatorial premises: Betadesign, Brass Works, 47 Commerce SW, Monroe Community Church, Peaches B&B and Tanglefoot. The work varies in quality, like much of ArtPrize, but these venues really cared about the presentation–they respected Artists. By the way, 2010 venue organizers, you could cherry pick a great 10–12 person show from the right 1–3 artists found at each of these locations.

In the end, advocacy, education and most of all, empathy will improve the conversation and the quality of the work. The public will develop a more informed opinion to compliment an intuitive one about Art and Artists. Artists will gain much in speaking to this newer audience, but it will take some time. Asking questions and listening may be the better action for now. Both sides will garner respect from each other. There is a bigger agenda in play that goes beyond just looking at Art. It will probably take 3 of these before you can effectively critique its impact to the larger schema of the Art World.

Last Saturday, on the last day, two days after all of the winners were announced, there were thousands of people out in the streets of GR simply because they wanted to see the work. Some were artists, 20-somethings, the usual suspects. But also moms and dads taking their kids around downtown. I had great conversations, I listened. A typical story: ‘We wanted to see the top 10 and then got sidetracked.’

Sidetracked: it’s a start. Thank you.

Last Thursday, at a public ArtPrize event, Deb Rockman, a working professional artist, shared a concern with the founder of ArtPrize, Rick DeVos, about the impact of ArtPrize on Grand Rapids within the professional Art world. Mr. DeVos was reasonable and polite in his response as was the rest of the panel (at 12:25):

Following this public forum, Ms. Rockman was interviewed by Wood TV–you can see the report here:

It all seems reasonable. You may not agree, but you can say it was civil: ideas and ideals upfront, personalities set aside. Since then, there have been 220+ comments on the WOOD-TV site. 93 of them have been from one person who calls himself MofPointillism. MofPointillism has also been leaving negative posts to Deb Rockman’s Facebook page as well. This news report has also lead to others sending Ms. Rockman unkind, personal emails to both her personal and Kendall email addresses. It has reach a point where the admin of KCAD are truly concerned.

You may not agree with anything Ms. Rockman has said and that’s OK. But given the class warfare in many online comments, ArtPrize could be called SpitePrize. Hiding behind an online handle while acting in such a manner is shameful to say the least. This is not right. An email from WOOD-TV states that if 4 complaints are lodged they will remove him from the thread. It’s completely agreeable to disagree but this is beyond the pale. If you support a civil discourse please ask for MofPointillism to be removed.

Also, please pass this along: ArtPrize, an open framework is not an open season to abuse or threaten those with whom you disagree. Support a civil discourse.

Last night while walking through The Old Federal Building,  Festival of the Arts came up. For those not from River City, it’s our annual 3 day event featuring the best local Art, Music, Film and food in the West Michigan 7 county region. The first Festival began in 1969, the year we installed Le Grande Vitesse. The icon at left was created by Calder for that event. A line has been drawn from 1969 to now. After this first week of After this first week of ArtPrize is there an intersection of intent?

From the Festival website:

Always held the first full weekend in June in downtown Grand Rapids, Festival of the Arts is a community celebration featuring arts, entertainment, food and fun activities for the entire family. All performances, exhibits and activities are free, thanks to generous donations by local organizations, companies and individuals.

Now ArtPrize:

At ArtPrize, any artist—from established to emerging—has the chance to show work. Any visitor can vote. The vote will decide who wins the largest art prize in the world. We also took the unusual step to allow people in the city to open a venue and choose the artists to show in their space. There is not one official curator or jury for the competition.

On the face of they sound very different. But are they?

This past week, crowds in the 10′s of thousands walked biked, bussed and trollied throughout the 3 square mile ArtPrize district to look at art, eat food, take in the day. This past June, 10′s of Thousands of people walked around downtown to look at art, Listen to music, eat food, take in the day.

ArtPrize has a $250K people’s choice award. Festival’s is only $500. Both events had over a thousand entries. Both get people talking about Art.

The selection process of Festival is more rigorous on the one hand with only a third of its entries being chosen for the exhibit.  Although very local in flavor, the overall quality offers a decent sense of the ‘best of the region’ by  those people who love to make work be they are paid or not.

What I saw this past week in ArtPrize, was that the bad are very bad and the good are very good. Of the very good works created elsewhere, they help expand the local sense of what is Art. I also saw that many local artists can hold their own against national work.The sad part is much of it is rarely seen locally, except in the classic gallery setting. Will the ArtPrize public continue to step out for that after next week? They say it is part of their mission to promote an ongoing dialogue about Art. We shall see.

When I was a boy, my family would go to Festival and I would always go to the Visual Arts and Film competitions first. I spent hours walking the halls of art and especially watching short films. Often returning many times; amazed that someone I might know could make a movie and show it to other people. Now as an adult, I work as a creative professional, I write, I support the creative endeavors of my wife and two boys. I can draw a line from Festival to now. Will my sons be able to say that about ArtPrize? We shall see.

A lot of the local Art professionals like to grumble about the caliber of work in Festival. Same goes for ArtPrize. I don’t disagree. I have real issues with both but I still go, family in tow and find value in both. If you are going to live here and make here, then step up and own Festival, own ArtPrize, own this town. Don’t sing public virtues of ArtPrize and grumble in the comfort of friends. If you don’t like something point it out, offer a solution. Also make sure to give praise when it’s due.

The general public often remarks they don’t always understand Modern Art. Or they may say ‘I could do that.’ And that classic: ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder.’ Not good enough. There are some great works out there but please, do your homework. Crack a book, rent a video, google an artist, attend some of the great lectures that UICA, ActiveSite and other venues are hosting this week and next. Own your vote by being informed.

Tomorrow night, Friday 10/2, UICA is hosting a discussion on the ArtPrize Top 10. 7–9 PM. Come out and step up.

Here are a few remarks, made on location. I want to encourage Connoisseurs and Fans alike to take in the following works these next few days as they deserve more attention than most:

Matthew Kluber at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

It’s a little after 9. We’re looking at an animation projected on to the south side of the Education Center becoming part of the Museum’s architecture. The image itself is highly graphical, only black and white, very low resolution, very slow frame rate.

Just enough information to make out a woman swimming, treading water. At times disappearing into the waves/forms and then re-emerging. How much do we need to know before we know and what are we going to do with it once we have it? It’s probably one of the most successful pieces I have seen so far. Listing, ethereal, quiet.

Young Kim at 47 Commerce Ave SW

I saw this piece around 8 o’clock, at twilight and it’s really quite remarkable. Walking into the space, you see a large grid, 10 by 8 or so,  of salt mounds 3″ tall, flattened with  a single image of a person on each silk screened with red clay. Illuminated with  20 watt incandescent lamps and street light coming through the large industrial windows to the north.

The serene images of people eyes closed, horizontal–at rest, sleeping? I am unsure but I find it peaceful. What  I also appreciate is the rigor applied when using materials–an unusual quality when looking at most work in ArtPrize. It disappears the individual materials as it transforms the space.

It could be best described with these remarks:  ‘Why are they doing it and what is it really for?” or “Hey ArtPrize: I really like what you are doing but you should do it this way” and of course “ArtPrize is great, why do you want it to fail, you must hate our city.”

So why does ArtPrize exist?

Is it just a ‘radically open art competition, giving away the world’s largest art prize’? Is it only about viewing and voting for and against visual art in some neo-populist fashion? Is there more to it? A fragment, a clue, may lie here in this blog post on Rapid Growth Media where Rick DeVos remarks:

I thought that models like X-Prize were particularly interesting as a catalyst and organizational model because they create a large incentive for attaining a particular goal, which in turn entices a large group of individuals and teams to go after that goal.

Let’s look at a study by McKinsey and Company published earlier this year on Using Prizes to Spur Innovation (free, but registration is required). The firm talks about the explosion of prizes being used to spark innovation, in particular X-Prize. Check out this 14 minute podcast with Peter Diamandis, the CEO of the X-Prize:

http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/file_download/8/WM_An_audio_interview_with_Peter_Diamandis.mp3

Also this excerpt from the report supports the premise that the ‘prize’ model is a growing trend in philanthropic activity:

Moreover, the role of prizes is changing: nearly 80 percent of those announced since 1991 have been designed to provide incentives for specific innovations rather than to reward excellence in general. An understanding of the characteristics of effective prizes and of how they are evolving would be useful for not only philanthropists but also public– and private-sector players hoping to harness their potential for innovation.

When are prizes more effective than other kinds of philanthropic instruments? Our research suggests that three conditions are paramount: a clear objective (for example, one that is measurable and achievable within a reasonable time frame), the availability of a relatively large population of potential problem solvers, and a willingness on the part of participants to bear some of the costs and risks.

What is the audacious, outrageous solution of ArtPrize? Is the current way we are viewing art a problem that needs to be solved? Is the breakthrough of ArtPrize a triad of  a competition, a commercial enterprise and a cultural catalyst for Grand Rapids?

Somewhere in the next two weeks we may start see where the truth lies.

The Art Fund’s Big Art debate will ask should the public choose public art? What would happen if they did? And can we even afford public art in a recession?

Chair: Jon Snow

Panelists: Jonathan Jones, art critic for The Guardian, Munira Mirza, Cultural Adviser to the Mayor of London, Grayson Perry, Turner Prize winning artist, Andrew Shoben, greyworld.

RSA Audio: Can the Public be Trusted to Choose Public Art?

If there is a thread through the dialogue its that artists are professionals and in no other realm are professionals questioned or seen as suspect in their abilities to the same degree as the visual Arts. Citizen surgery anyone?

Click to learn more about the Big Art Project

“When I was 18, my parents tell me you have to sleep eight hours every night,” he says. “And I said, ‘God, you know, if I sleep eight hours every night, I’m going to piss away one-third of my life just by sleeping.’ And life is too short. “

In his waking hours, Schuller has composed nearly 200 pieces of music over the past seven decades. Schuller’s latest, called “Where The Word Ends,” was recently premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Gunther Schuller: A Little Jazz, A Little Classical, Too Little Sleep : NPR Music

A: One can try, but probably no.

As some of you may know, ArtPrize is a new visual arts competition being held in Grand Rapids, MI  from September 23 to October 9, 2009.  It’s been the talk of the town here in River City since late April of this year. Many posts, comments, chats and an aha moment later, we are now on the cusp of something. With venue and artist matching complete, everyone is building, painting, installing, cleaning up after themselves, twittering and teasing all sorts of minutia; drip, drip, drip — you get the picture.

So, what does the discerning art viewer do to make their way through it all? I started by reviewing each entry online.  With a healthy application of Sturgeon’s Law (both of them) I winnowed a list of selections down and I plan to give what work remains the time it deserves.

Full disclosure: I listed a few artists I know–totaling about 1% of ArtPrize–but then I tend to know good artists. Not everyone made that cut either. Those that remain deserve a spot on this list.

10% of 1262, organized by venue:

The how and the why of it all

I spent a week or so after the closing of matching in mid-August, reviewing, venue by venue, all 1262 entries. Often it was like house-hunting: I am sure that when I actually view some of this work installed, I’ll regret some of my choices for sure, but I may also stumble up a gem that the web could not do justice.

Aptitude alone does not result in Art. Art begins in the realm of ideas, the human intellect visualized. While looking at all the entries I had a few basic criteria:

1. If an artist did not have any imagery or a link to external site they immediately did not make the cut. It’s a visual arts competition not an essay contest.
2. I like pieces that are responsive to the site where installed.
3. I prefer works that speak to our time and realities we live with now.
4. I like work that heightens awareness of how we experience space and time.
5. Whimsy.

I based my choices on my own aesthetic preferences, developed with a: post-secondary education major in fine art; a creative professional life; time spent visiting museums and sites throughout the US and Europe; questions and conversations with my colleagues; and going to the library to hit the books.

The back half of September will be interesting. I will post more in the coming days. Flame-on!

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.congressmancaveman.com/