What are the mission statements telling us?
In some recent writing, I made the argument that teaching artists have a vital role to play in helping us address a crisis of loneliness and disconnection in our society through their ability to be “engineers of possibility”. They have the skill set required to convene groups of people together and activate each person’s innate human artistry to collectively create stories for ourselves that help us create social change.
While preparing that piece, I began to realize that the questions I asked that led me to teaching artistry such as, “How does my art make the world a better place? Why does making art matter to me and those I care about? What is the role of artists in modern American society?” are the same questions we are asking collectively as a cultural/artistic field. All you have to do is look at the mission statements of major organizations. Let’s examine just a couple:
From my hometown orchestra, the Chicago Symphony: “to enrich, inspire and transform lives through music, community engagement and education—locally, nationally and internationally.”
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across time and cultures in order to connect all people to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another.”
And from my place of work, the New England Conservatory: “Understanding that music is one of the transcendent expressions of human civilization, NEC is committed to advancing music’s contribution to contemporary society.”
You’ll notice a common theme in these mission statements around community and connection through art. We all are talking about the same ballgame, but the question inherent in each one of these, that doesn’t get asked often enough is how? What specific things are we doing to connect the art we make, often in a building that the community has to come to, to the people we live amongst? Making great art is wonderful, but that’s just the start. What are we doing to find and fill that role in American society that only artists can fulfill? Art to what end?
We often frame art around its nouns: the work itself is the important part, because that’s where the value is. In that model, it’s implied that the role of artists is to create art and find ways to justify its worth. This is accomplished by making art more exclusive and reliant on expertise, that way we can charge a premium for access. However, it’s hard to connect with society when the fundamental value equation revolves around exclusivity.
Teaching artists are concerned with the verbs of art. What does creative work do amongst people? How does it make them respond? What feelings and inspiration does it awaken in them? When humans are creative, what can we do together? Teaching artists focus on relationships and possibility in order to access the verbs of art, which inherently breaks down notions of exclusivity. So if our goal, as we present them in these mission statements, is to enrich community life, then we need to focus on continuing to support the work of teaching artists in our organizations, not just as a side-department, but as a core piece of what we do that everyone in the organization is involved in.
I’m lucky to work with a team at the New England Conservatory that actively prepares students to engage with the verbs of art through community engagement programs and our Teaching Artistry Concentration. That said, I think we can still do more to continue to provide those experiences and training to even more students. If we are to truly live into the school’s mission statement and we want our students to make “contributions to contemporary society”, then I believe we still have work to do to deepen opportunities for all NEC students to receive some kind of teaching artist training.
Of course, there are challenges to building those opportunities and it takes time to meet those challenges. That is why there’s a mission statement and work involved. I think about this writing project very similarly, especially since I hope to address one of teaching artistry’s challenges in the lack awareness around what it is and what it can do. So it’s only fair that while we are discussing mission statements, I give myself one for this writing project:
This writing serves to better define teaching artistry and the unique ways in which it can address the crises of loneliness and social, ideological, and cultural disconnection facing us in contemporary society through research, reflection, systems thinking, and storytelling.
You’ll notice that not only did I try to provide a clear goal through this mission statement that centers teaching artistry at the forefront of what I’m writing about, I also tried to provide some windows into how I was going to do so with “research, reflection, systems thinking, and storytelling.” Effective mission statements provide clarity of not only what the goal is but what the work looks like. I recently heard someone describe their ideal work process as “forward think, backwards plan.” Great mission statements embody that; allowing us to dream big and know we are going to get there. I wouldn’t say that this mission statement is perfect, but it’s what feels good right now. That’s the other fun thing about mission statements: they are adaptable and should change as you learn more!
As an extension of this conversation around mission statements, we should also talk a bit about vision statements. Oftentimes these get lumped together as similar entities and while they are connected, I do believe they are fundamentally different. While mission statements serve to clearly describe the work that we do, vision statements are where we describe the transformative impact of our work. However, that requires a vulnerable and bold interpretation of what it means to create a vision statement. Typically we write vision statements as some version of “What does the world look like where our work is more valued?” If our vision is to have our communities transformed by the art we make then we need to be more bold with our goals. I’m a big fan of the scary vision statement model: “What does the world look like where my work is irrelevant or no longer needed”. That’s goal-accomplished territory.
If I were to write a vision statement for myself, it might be something like:
Erik works to create a world in which every artist is a teaching artist; there is no separation between the definition of a teaching artist and a creative person.
If that world existed, where everyone who endeavored to creative pursuits cultivated their teaching artist abilities and the general populace had no concept of teaching artistry as a separate skill set from being artistic, then suddenly there wouldn’t be any need for this writing anymore. I can keep writing to try and better define teaching artistry and describe its essential role in our society with that vision as my north star, knowing with reasonable confidence we may never get there.
And that’s precisely the point of a vision statement: there’s a likelihood we don’t ever get to that vision in our or our organization’s lifetime. But the aspiration to go somewhere that feels unreachable is how all significant change starts. Also, how lucky we would be if we did accomplish our vision, because then we get to make a new vision for the world, we get to be creative and tackle new challenges, find new inspiration, and bring people together to get there all over again.
Read this piece and others on Substack
