Americans for the Arts

I judged a poetry slam this weekend---Louder Than A Bomb--Tulsa!

It’s amazing to hear young people sharing about their lives and ideas through poetry. This was the second year for the event. The excitement and enthusiasm expressed by these students was palpable:

Listening to their poetry really made me start thinking anew about just how important the arts are to shaping young minds---helping build self-confidence, fostering creativity, and excelling in school. We as artists, art professionals, and art educators are very often a major factor in a student’s success.

Ten states, including Oklahoma, recently received a reprieve from complying with certain aspects of No Child Left Behind. It seems like we keep lowering our standards rather than lifting up our youth to meet and exceed the challenges put before them.

How are we going to have a capable workforce replete with skills for the 21^st century if we keep lowering our requirements for graduation? Companies are spending millions of dollars every year providing remedial training. Universities are spending millions of dollars every year on remedial classes.

We cannot solve our current economic woes by burying our heads in the sand and hoping by some miracle that our youth will figure it out and be successful when we haven’t provided the proper foundation or the means to foster success.

Molly O'Connor

If you could get a glimpse of my desk right now you might not see anything Zen about it.

Maybe you could just accept my latest explanation: “I’m an artist and this is my own ongoing-interactive-avant-garde-installation/happening-type performance work?”

Amongst the collage of papers, Post-Its, office supplies, and arts swag, there is one tiny bit of Zen wisdom taped to my computer monitor that stares back at me on a daily basis. It allows me to realign myself whenever I lose sight of the bigger picture of my work, a simple quote from one of those page-a-day calendars:

“A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied ‘To hell, for that’s where help is needed most.’” ~ Roshi Philip Kapleau

Before you assume that I’m comparing my current situation, job, or life in Oklahoma to hell, I would like to add, I feel genuinely blessed to have a career as a cultural worker in Oklahoma, where our work as arts leaders and advocates is always meaningful and definitely cut out for us.

I actually feel this quote is just another version of the Irish blessing: “May you always have work for your hands to do.”

Interestingly enough, both bits of wisdom seem to relate directly to our Oklahoma state motto: “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Latin for “Labor Conquers All Things”).

Molly O'Connor

Spring is in the air…which means that in Oklahoma the redbuds are in full bloom and one can look forward to the regular chorus of tornado sirens.

For me and my colleagues at the Oklahoma Arts Council, springtime also brings new promise and excitement for the arts as we coordinate and present our Leadership Arts Program.

Founded in 2008, Leadership Arts, is a professional development program open to 30 class members from across the state of Oklahoma. Now in its fifth year, this program continues to build up a growing statewide network of arts advocates.

Leadership Arts class members represent a diverse and talented mix of individuals from communities both small and large and every corner of the state. The class is generally made up of arts administrators, civic/community leaders, educators, artists, tribal, and cultural representatives.

Each class meets for two days over the course of four months in a different community in Oklahoma. Class curriculum specifically addresses how the arts play a crucial role in the economic impact, education, and quality of life throughout Oklahoma.

Recently I met with Georgia Williams, co-founder of Leadership Arts and former cultural development director for the state arts council, to learn more about how the concept for this program originated.

Molly O'Connor

There’s a crisis underway in Oklahoma’s public schools. Even though House Bill 1017 requires art and music as core curriculum, these programs have disappeared from too many Oklahoma schools in communities both large and small.

This is nothing new, but that fact alone ensures that any attempt to reinstate these programs faces increasingly tough challenges. Today’s generation of parents were some of the first to miss out on art and music education, and therefore, are often unaware of the benefits of arts education and what their own children are missing out on.

Interestingly enough, several community leaders in Oklahoma continue to step up in efforts to pick up where the schools are falling short. Although, in most cases, it’s about so much more than providing an arts learning experience: It’s about providing hope.

With a thirty-year history of presenting modern dance in Oklahoma, Prairie Dance Theatre has developed new outreach programs for underserved youth and struggling Oklahoma City public schools. Artistic Director Tonya Kilburn is one of the instructors who has been instrumental in implementing dance into physical education programs in the public schools.

Tonya: “Bringing dance to children in OKC is both exciting and rewarding for me as an educator and as a concerned community member. I’ve always felt very fortunate that my chosen art form is so physical, and with Oklahoma rated as the seventh most obese state in the nation, I feel very connected to the solution.”