Clarity in Crisis: What's missing in professional artist development?
Being an artist or creative in the time of Covid can feel a little like walking across a frozen lake by yourself. On one level every step is difficult because there's zero grip. Nothing feels solid, the situation changes all the time, the ways in which we are used to working seem either impossible or inefficient. On another level there's the ominous sense that as we get closer to the other side there's still a chance we might yet go crashing through the ice at any moment. While support may be there, in the form of encouraging voices cheering us on from the shore, we can feel in our bones that it still very much us alone on the ice, trying to make it to the other side.
About seven years ago I was at a series of masterclasses The Guardian were running in London on the 'new' concept of portfolio careers. There was roughly thirty of us in the room and as we introduced ourselves and spoke about what we wanted to get from the class, the demographics became clear; 28 of the group were working full-time in media or corporate positions and wanted to learn how they could leave their jobs and become freelance consultants. This left just myself (an actor) and one milliner (a person who makes hats - I had to ask). We were both very familiar with the basics of the freelance creative life; structuring our days, doing our own tax and living with a variable income. While the others had come to learn how to step onto the ice for the first time, we'd come to learn how to skate better.
It was through these classes and further research that I became aware of the concept of a VUCA world. The acronym stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. It’s based on the leadership theories of Warren Benis and Burt Nanus, and was used by American military strategists following the fall of the USSR: How can we be most effective in situations which are likely to change quickly and often in ways we can't predict? None of this will be new to you if you have come from a corporate background or were lucky enough to receive some coaching or leadership training. If however, like me, you’re a creative who's spent their lives in a VUCA industry without knowing any of this, it can feel like a kick in the teeth to discover there's a body of work from multiple schools of leadership training, psychology and behavioural science that speaks specifically to how we might best be freelance, and that you’ve never heard of.
For most of us in the Arts, Covid-19 has been a tragic extreme of the uncertainty that typifies being a freelancer. At every point in my career, from the very first moment I mentioned to an adult at 16 that I was curious about becoming an actor, I’ve been warned about how difficult and unpredictable it would be. At drama school there were more warnings - "30% of you won't be doing this in 3 years, 70% will have left the profession within 10 years". This has proven to be worryingly accurate. At the time I found it curious that while there was plenty of talk of how difficult it would be, there was nothing on how we might deal with it. With so much knowledge out there on resilience, strategy and leadership it begs the question; why are we sending creatives onto the ice without the right training or equipment?
So, what do the theorists who first wrote about VUCA principals have to say about dealing with them? They proposed making Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility your new principals (they love an acronym don't they). Great sounding ideas, but how can you use them practically as a creative?
Tools and Strategies
As a Coach I work with multiple tools and strategies to help people see things in new ways, change behaviours, adapt and plan successfully. Often just showing someone I'm working a developmental model is enough for them to be able to identify for themselves the missing parts of their puzzle.
The development pipeline is one such model and it demonstrates the necessary conditions for change. How often have you had a great idea you’re passionate about but somehow never quite managed to make it happen? Perhaps you find yourself growing frustrated from religiously working on your craft but without getting any closer to your goals? Working through this model allows us to identify immediately for ourselves what is missing. Perhaps we haven't expanded our capacity by developing our abilities in new ways or by increasing our knowledge of our craft. Maybe we haven't checked, before starting out, whether our goal is something we genuinely want to do or is just something we're told we 'should' be doing. A model like this is by itself only one part of the puzzle, but one I'm glad I now know about as a creative. How different could things be if solution-focused strategies and developmental models like these were even a small part of our training?
Psychological Resilience
Another piece of guidance I remember from drama school was "acting is tough but you have to be as tough as old boots to be an actor". While there is truth in this, if we pop it into our pipeline model above we'll see as piece of education it's sorely lacking in all but insight. Being a creative is tough, being one in a pandemic is much tougher, so what options are there? In coaching we work with multiple psychological frameworks from cognitive-behavioural coaching techniques to constructivist and narrative ones. All of which are designed to allow people to see their experience in new and more balanced ways. To hold a mirror up to those distorted thoughts which are exclusively negative and expose them as such. To challenge the mental chatter that says we will surely fail before we even begin and test it for truth. To enquire with gentle curiosity into the beliefs that say we can't or shouldn't and question them with fresh eyes. The result is a renewed sense of self-trust and confidence, or as one artist I worked with put it, “I have a greater sense of my own agency and a newfound belief that real change is possible and that I’m in control of that change”. Awareness can be curative in itself and I think there would be untold benefits to artists if even the most basic training in some of these concepts was more widely available.
Clarity in Crisis
When I started out on my training to qualify as a professional coach there was no Covid-19 Crisis, but I knew there would be value in creating a space where artists could begin to work with these principals and develop new ways of working in a VUCA world. Covid-19 hasn't changed any of that for me but it has brought the need for this type of training to the surface in a way, that as a sector, we can no longer ignore. As we start to ask how we might begin to renew and adapt lets ensure individual artists are at the centre of that conversation. Every freelance artist is required to be a producer, manager, communicator, innovator, strategist and executive director. The training we provide to artists needs to reflect this reality. Every artist should have the opportunity to create their own toolkit of strategies to help them build a more sustainable and productive career. Let’s adapt and renew and in doing so provide our artists with the tools and training to skate better over the ice of our ever-changing world.
We’re running a pioneering new artist development project encompassing these tools and ideas in collaboration with Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford.
Please follow the link to find out more here.
