Interview with Beth Feldman Brandt

 Beth Feldman Brandt is the Executive Director of the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation.

Can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do?

I’ve been the director of the Bartol Foundation for ten years, and before this I was the project director of a community arts education initiative.  I was the after-school visual arts program director.  Running that part of their school is what got me into the education drive.  I went to school for business and economics and then needed a job my first summer after college.  I was always an artsy person so this combination of art and business worked for me.  Then it kind of spun out and one thing followed another.  Then there were a couple of fortuitive moments where I got a call that got me into something I never would have really thought of, and then I would just go and follow-up.  Just keep layering your skills and be open when one thing turns into another.

Do you feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to advocate or is that a kind of spirit that you either have or don’t?

I would say first that artists are also citizens and every citizen has a responsibility to his or her community.  For particular situations you are always deciding when your interests are separate from the general public.  In other words, when are you speaking as an artist first and when are you speaking as a citizen first?  All humans have a responsibility to give back and speak out against things that are wrong, so in that way artists aren’t different than anybody else, but they can do it in ways that are different and unique. 

How do you bridge the cultural gap if you’re an artist entering an inner city neighborhood and trying to relate to kids that you have a completely different background from?

In addition to your artistic skills, you need to develop skills as a teacher, communicator, facilitator and collaborator.  Some of those things are innate but a lot of them can be taught.  I’ve seen artists teach with wildly different styles; some are very extroverted and some are very quiet.  You build up your toolbox, things you know how to do and to teach.  First, you need to be good at your craft, and then you can build skills around the other things.  What is really important to develop is the ability to listen to what a community has to offer, as well as valuing the community’s stories.  You also need to work around good people because you can do everything in the world, but until you’re in a classroom or an afterschool program you don’t realize how many tricks there are to it.  There are all these things about communicating, engaging, passing out materials or figuring out the steps of what the project is going to be.  Just being with a good teacher as an assistant or apprentice gives you so many skills.  Everyday you need to go in knowing that teacher and student each have something to offer, and one of the things we try to talk to artists about in the teaching artists program is that you need to bring your whole self, your whole persona to the way you teach and not think of them as separate.  There is also a balance between being super prepared and being flexible and able to think on your feet.  You want to get to a point where you notice what the students are into at that moment and know that all that preparation has brought you to a point where you know how to work with them on what they’re interested in at that time.

Do you feel that as a community we need to focus more on keeping/getting arts into our public schools or setting up more places for arts to be accessed outside of school?

Yes, both.  The truth is that kids need access to the arts and the reality is that kids are in school, so why would you say let’s not use the schools?  But at the same time there are obstacles even in a great school.  Forty-minute periods put restrictions on what you can do in a school setting.  If the project you are doing takes eight hours to complete and you don’t have eight hours, there should be a place where the project can still happen.  At the same time we have to be really pragmatic and realistic and not set ourselves apart.  If there are issues in school and we’re not part of the solution, they don’t have time for us.

What is your advice for young people getting out in the world as artists or teaching artists?

Well, health insurance is important, so it’s good that you can stay on your parents’ health insurance until you’re twenty-six now.  Especially in this climate and in this environment, you need to be open to opportunities.  At the same time know that nobody owes you anything, and sometimes you will have to take that boring job to take care of your finances while finding time to make art.  You have to fiercely guard your creative time.  This isn’t always possible, but if you let it go completely, it’s really hard to get it back.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our NET Nights blog?

It’s not always put out there that being an educator outside of a certified art or music teacher is a possible career path, but there are a lot of very accomplished teaching artists today.  They do it because it feeds their work, allows them to get out of their head and out in the community because they care about social change.  If anything was gained from the panel, I hope it’s that those listening won’t dismiss teaching arts as doing less creative work or work less than worthy of their talents.