Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / Clive Chang on Innovation and the Rise of the Multi‑Hyphenate Artist

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Clive Chang on Innovation and the Rise of the Multi‑Hyphenate Artist · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

• 0:09
  Welcome to CI to Eye with Monica Holt.
• 0:11
  It is my absolute joy to be bringing episodes to you weekly this fall.
• 0:17
  This season will feature some of my favorite people, inspiring leaders, artists,
• 0:21
  and friends from across industries.
• 0:24
  I couldn't think of anyone better to kick off our first episode than Clive
• 0:28
  Chang, President and CEO of YoungArts,
• 0:31
  an organization that provides artists with a lifetime of support.
• 0:36
  Clive has a pretty incredible background spanning artistry, business acumen,
• 0:40
  and leadership with a powerful approach to creating change and pushing the
• 0:45
  status quo. In 2022,
• 0:48
  Clive was appointed as president of YoungArts and has been a driving force in
• 0:52
  championing their mission to identify, amplify,
• 0:56
  and supercharge the potential of artists at every stage of their
• 1:00
  careers. Without further ado, here's Clive.
• 1:09
  Clive Chang, welcome to CI to Eye! Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:14
  Oh, thank you for having me. What a delight.
• 1:17
  I'm so thrilled. As you know, I've long been an admirer of the way you do,
• 1:22
  your work, but also the journey that you've taken throughout your career.
• 1:26
  So I'm really excited to talk a little bit about you and how you
• 1:30
  became Clive, President of YoungArts,
• 1:33
  but also a little bit about your thoughts on the field because I think whenever
• 1:37
  we've had those conversations,
• 1:39
  I always leave feeling a little more inspired, a little more hopeful,
• 1:44
  and basically ready to follow wherever you might lead.
• 1:48
  You are too kind.
• 1:49
  Please.
• 1:50
  I am so grateful that you're joining and really kicking off this season of CI to
• 1:54
  Eye together.
• 1:56
  One of the things about you that I think is so integral to everything you do,
• 1:59
  you actually talk about yourself as being a hundred percent artist and a
• 2:04
  hundred percent business person, and I'm just curious,
• 2:08
  when did you realize that you didn't have to choose between those two
• 2:11
  identities?
• 2:13
  I think pretty early on, to be honest.
• 2:16
  Part of it was just a slight rebellious nature that I've always had,
• 2:20
  but the moment that I can sort of think back to in vivid detail
• 2:25
  is when I first enrolled in university and
• 2:30
  I went to the management faculty counselor's
• 2:35
  office, and I said, I would like to simultaneously do a music degree,
• 2:40
  and the answer I got was, well, that's impossible.
• 2:44
  And I think that was the first moment I was like, well,
• 2:48
  is it actually impossible or has no one ever done it before,
• 2:52
  which is a different thing, right? The two aren't exactly the same,
• 2:55
  so then I marched back to my dorm room.
• 3:00
  I took out the curriculum listings for both degrees,
• 3:04
  and I just made a spreadsheet and I said, okay,
• 3:07
  here are all the credit requirements for a Bachelor of Commerce.
• 3:10
  Here are all the credit requirements for a Bachelor of Music.
• 3:14
  How could these fit together? So about two weeks later,
• 3:19
  I went back to her office and I had put together the spreadsheet.
• 3:22
  Of course.
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  It totals 236 credits,
• 3:27
  but here is exactly how I can do all these 236 credits in five years.
• 3:33
  And of course, it was like eight courses a semester,
• 3:36
  three to five courses every summer. And it was one of those things.
• 3:40
  And she looked and she was like, oh, well, I guess there is a way,
• 3:44
  and off I went.
• 3:45
  And that's how I did these two bachelor's degrees that apparently had zero
• 3:49
  overlap with each other and did it in five years.
• 3:54
  And I think that is an anecdote that is somewhat
• 3:58
  illustrative of how I've pursued the rest of my life and the rest of my career.
• 4:03
  And later on doing both an MFA and an MBA.
• 4:08
  And part of it was,
• 4:09
  I myself wanted to give myself the gift,
• 4:13
  which I think I was also very privileged to be able to give myself that gift,
• 4:17
  of pursuing both paths in full force.
• 4:21
  I didn't want to half either of them.
• 4:24
  And so I wanted to go and explore who I was as an artist,
• 4:28
  and I wanted to go explore who I was as a business person,
• 4:31
  and was luckily able to carve a path to do both.
• 4:35
  It's so impressive. And also it makes total sense that you said,
• 4:40
  I'm going to come up with a plan and then I'm going to do it because I shall not
• 4:43
  be defined by any boxes that are set forth in front of me.
• 4:47
  And as you say,
• 4:48
  I think that it really does continue to characterize the work you do and the
• 4:52
  values that you've brought throughout your career.
• 4:55
  Will you just talk me through the sequencing order of,
• 5:00
  school? Okay, so we did school, MFA, MBA...
• 5:04
  Yeah. Okay. So let's see. Clive was born.
• 5:07
  Clive was born. An important date. Well, and also,
• 5:10
  and was a classical musician from a very young age.
• 5:12
  Yes.
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  Clive also has a twin sister who also is a musician and she's actually,
• 5:18
  she's a professor of neuroscience, but she too is a musician.
• 5:22
  So one day the two of us saw a piano at our aunt's
• 5:26
  house. We were three, and we started banging on it,
• 5:30
  and then we started bugging our parents for piano lessons,
• 5:33
  and then no teacher would take us. We were too young.
• 5:36
  And eventually at five we started taking piano lessons. But yes,
• 5:40
  then I started playing the competition circuit and all of that.
• 5:44
  But early on developed a love of composition.
• 5:47
  And I credit this to my theory teacher, Mrs. Kaplan, who one day,
• 5:52
  I think I was like nine, and she was like,
• 5:55
  go try and compose a piece.
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  Pretend you're Bach and compose a prelude or something. I was like, okay.
• 6:02
  As nine year olds are want to do. Understood.
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  And I think that's what sort of spurred my love of composition from
• 6:09
  a young age. And then of course,
• 6:13
  cultural pressures of,
• 6:14
  you can't really be an artist and make a living,
• 6:19
  so go pick something practical. Anyway, in a sense,
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  I had originally chosen this degree in finance for my parents,
• 6:27
  but luckily very early through that experience, it was like, oh,
• 6:31
  this is kind of fun. And there's kind of like this, a bit of art in business.
• 6:35
  Yeah, totally. I would imagine that kind of the music and math,
• 6:38
  it all must play together to a certain degree in your education.
• 6:41
  A million percent. I mean, music is just so inherently analytical.
• 6:47
  I always think about the sheer analytical horsepower
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  of a musician in so many contexts,
• 6:54
  even a player processing a really complex
• 6:59
  score in real time, and how that translates into physical manifestation.
• 7:04
  I think it's such an underappreciated and underrated
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  quality of musicians,
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  just how inherently analytical they must be to get to that level
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  of proficiency.
• 7:17
  Where it really came to a head for me was when I was doing the
• 7:22
  music degree and the finance degree in parallel,
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  and I would go to corporate finance class and we'd have to
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  build, okay, so in corporate finance,
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  you have to build these things called discounted cashflow models,
• 7:34
  and they're these unwieldy large
• 7:38
  Excel sheets and models, a bunch of things in them.
• 7:42
  Everyone freaks out about how hard it is. Literally, I got there and I was like,
• 7:47
  okay, you people, if you think this is hard,
• 7:50
  try and score an entire orchestral piece in Finale
• 7:55
  for the different instruments.
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  This is nothing compared to how analytical the notation of music really gets.
• 8:02
  And so I always joke that I got all of my quantitative
• 8:07
  analytical abilities from my music education.
• 8:12
  This is the message that all kids need to tell their parents as they're
• 8:15
  composing and playing music at a young age.
• 8:18
  Exactly.
• 8:19
  Yeah. I love thinking that way,
• 8:21
  and I love the idea that it was that piece of your brain that ultimately led
• 8:26
  you to success in a much more business oriented setting.
• 8:31
  And we always talk about that pairing. Okay, so you've gotten your MFA,
• 8:35
  you go to business school, and then...
• 8:37
  The dual degrees in undergrad, and then right after that, MFA,
• 8:42
  right after that, MBA, during MBA that summer,
• 8:46
  I interned at City Ballet. After that, I graduated and came to Lincoln Center,
• 8:51
  Linc Inc. I went to Disney.
• 8:54
  And then six years later,
• 8:57
  that's when Henry Tims called and I was like, yes.
• 9:01
  I've got to go back and be head of innovation for Lincoln Center. Like, hello.
• 9:05
  Got to go do that.
• 9:06
  A dream.
• 9:07
  And then three years into that came the young arts opportunity,
• 9:11
  and here I am.
• 9:16
  I mean, let's just take a beat. Very impressive, sir.
• 9:19
  But I guess as you left school, you, you were working in nonprofit arts a bit,
• 9:24
  and then one of the first pivots was then moving into Disney theatrical,
• 9:29
  which is a commercial Broadway entity among other things.
• 9:34
  And I guess I'm curious what surprised you the most about
• 9:39
  that transition, given that you were still in the arts world,
• 9:42
  you were still surrounded by creativity, but it's a different lens.
• 9:46
  It's a shift. Absolutely.
• 9:48
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:50
  The biggest surprise was probably how similar the dynamics were,
• 9:56
  because both settings were creative organizations that wrestled with the same
• 10:00
  tension. Like, Disney being a for-profit publicly traded company
• 10:05
  didn't negate the fact that it also on a day-to-day basis had to wrestle with
• 10:10
  this artistic merit versus commercial viability.
• 10:15
  It's exactly the same things that we grapple with in the nonprofit arts.
• 10:21
  It very much was a natural pivot. It also,
• 10:25
  I think, allowed me to use the skills I developed in my MBA
• 10:30
  in just a different context. Not harder, per se. Different.
• 10:35
  In fact, I will throw out a hot take,
• 10:38
  which is that I actually think the work is probably harder on the nonprofit side
• 10:42
  than it is on the commercial side.
• 10:44
  We love a hot take, and I love that hot take.
• 10:47
  In the for-profit world, there's a certain,
• 10:51
  is straightforwardness the right term? Is it good for the brand?
• 10:55
  Is it more or less aligned with creative strategy? Like check, check, check.
• 11:00
  Okay, go. In nonprofit land, it's like, how is everyone feeling about this?
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  And it's a whole 17 other layers.
• 11:09
  I don't know what you mean, Clive.
• 11:10
  I've never experienced that once.
• 11:14
  And which donors will get mad about what and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:17
  Right? So that's my hot take,
• 11:19
  but that could probably be a full episode unto itself. Right?
• 11:22
  Well, listen, don't tempt me with a good time on the Hot Take episode.
• 11:27
  In addition to having a very multihyphenate, I would say,
• 11:32
  background in and of yourself, you are no stranger to innovation,
• 11:37
  even in a legacy space like Lincoln Center.
• 11:41
  But one program that's particularly on my mind that I believe you started was
• 11:46
  this kind of research and development program, the Collider program.
• 11:50
  The Collider.
• 11:51
  The Collider.
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  So the reason I love this is because this notion that artists can
• 11:56
  come together and there is no
• 12:01
  absolute definition of what they are meant to create through Collider.
• 12:05
  And that sounds very exciting and thrilling,
• 12:09
  but I have to imagine a little different than maybe what the institution was
• 12:13
  accustomed to with their programming. And so I'm curious, one,
• 12:17
  just what was the kind of inspiration, how were you thinking about the program,
• 12:21
  but also how did you then take that vision through the organization to a
• 12:26
  place where it could really be embraced and supported and promoted?
• 12:31
  Yes, this is such a good moment to go back down memory lane.
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  When I was first hired to go back to Lincoln Center,
• 12:40
  Henry needed a chief of staff, and he needed a chief innovation officer.
• 12:45
  And when he met me, he was like,
• 12:47
  do you think you could do both for a period of time? And I was like, okay.
• 12:51
  And the advantage of that, it came with, of course,
• 12:55
  lots of challenges, especially bandwidth challenges,
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  but what it did come with was a dual mandate of,
• 13:02
  be the person who dreams up the new thing and be the
• 13:07
  person who is the mobilizer who was supposed to work across the whole
• 13:11
  organization to mobilize strategy and new things.
• 13:15
  And so I think because the role ended up having both in it,
• 13:19
  it provided, I don't know,
• 13:21
  a permission of sorts to go and actually build the
• 13:26
  thing.
• 13:27
  That idea of permission when you are building new,
• 13:30
  that feels so important and such an unlock for what you then
• 13:35
  have a runway to create.
• 13:37
  Yeah. Yeah. So the Collider is an R and D lab for the performing arts.
• 13:42
  And so literally the initial white paper was just as vague as that.
• 13:46
  It was like, what could an R and D lab for the performing arts look like?
• 13:51
  And off we go, and as usual, the answer is, let's look to the artists.
• 13:56
  So the model of the Collider was really bringing together a
• 14:01
  group of artists, practitioners, thinkers,
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  educators, builders, technologists,
• 14:10
  community organizers. It was kind of like,
• 14:12
  let's bring in as much interdisciplinarity and cross-sectoral thinking as
• 14:16
  possible, and let's not prescribe an outcome and let's see what happens.
• 14:20
  And it's let's let the planned serendipity kind of ensue
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  and figure out what we learn from that.
• 14:29
  We can create a safe space to let, well, in Kennedy's words,
• 14:33
  to set the artist free. Right?
• 14:34
  Exactly.
• 14:35
  I think that's so brilliant. And even the way you describe it,
• 14:39
  again ties back to this notion that's kind of been this thread throughout your
• 14:44
  career and also your vision for these organizations.
• 14:49
  What drew you to YoungArts,
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  and how did you know it was time to move on to a step
• 14:57
  like this?
• 14:58
  It honestly feels so much like coming home and
• 15:03
  being in community with artists all the time.
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  And that is the greatest gift of this role is that I get to spend the majority
• 15:10
  of my time with artists.
• 15:13
  If I were to point to my biggest FOMO while at the larger
• 15:17
  institutions like Lincoln Center and Disney, it was so close yet so far.
• 15:22
  Oh, sure. Absolutely. Yeah.
• 15:24
  I think it allows me to reconnect with my artist roots in a
• 15:28
  way that was harder in a different context.
• 15:32
  And going back to how we started this conversation,
• 15:36
  being a hundred percent artist and a hundred percent business person,
• 15:39
  I can finally actually activate both in in this job,
• 15:44
  which is such a gift.
• 15:47
  I think you get to the point in your career where you're
• 15:52
  finally like, I think I'm ready to run a thing. I think I'm ready.
• 15:56
  And you just know it.
• 15:57
  It's not some level of preparedness that came with a checklist or
• 16:01
  whatever. It's like in your gut, you're like, yeah, no, I think I'm ready.
• 16:07
  And then the last piece of it,
• 16:09
  which I believe more and more as time goes on,
• 16:13
  is it's as much what you're doing as it is who you get to do it with.
• 16:18
  Preach on that. Preach on that. Yeah.
• 16:21
  When you just are like, you are my people, right?
• 16:26
  Yeah, I do.
• 16:26
  And so it just really made total sense.
• 16:31
  When I think about impact as well,
• 16:34
  there's a unique vantage point from which we operate
• 16:39
  because we deal with the common denominator that unites all arts
• 16:44
  organizations, which is the artist.
• 16:45
  And I think most listeners probably know YoungArts by its
• 16:50
  kind of sterling reputation.
• 16:52
  But would you just talk a little bit about a kind of full picture of the
• 16:56
  organization's scope and how it supports artists kind of throughout their entire
• 17:01
  career trajectory?
• 17:02
  Yes. YoungArts was founded in 1981,
• 17:07
  and since then it has identified exceptional young
• 17:11
  artists between the ages of 15 to 18.
• 17:14
  So every year we launch this massive nationwide call for any young
• 17:19
  artist, 15 to 18, to apply to our national competition.
• 17:22
  What most people don't know is that once you enter our community,
• 17:27
  and that is winning any YoungArts award at any level,
• 17:30
  each year we award between seven to 800 winners.
• 17:35
  Once a part of that community,
• 17:37
  you have lifetime access to everything that we
• 17:41
  offer,
• 17:42
  whether it's the monthly 40,000 in micro grants that we disperse every
• 17:47
  month,
• 17:48
  our multitude of residency opportunities and fellowship opportunities,
• 17:52
  professional development, mentorship opportunities, all of this,
• 17:56
  sort of the suite of resources that we continue to invest in and grow over time.
• 18:00
  And over the decades, we now have over 23,000 past award winners.
• 18:05
  That's incredible.
• 18:06
  And to my knowledge,
• 18:08
  we are still the only organization in this country that
• 18:12
  supports artists across the entire breadth of performing
• 18:17
  visual and literary arts, which as you can imagine, is no small feat.
• 18:21
  No, none. And I'm curious,
• 18:23
  when you're thinking about what we were talking about in terms of the
• 18:27
  interdisciplinary nature of collaboration and artists' future,
• 18:33
  how do you balance those pieces? What's the breadth there?
• 18:37
  Yeah, I think this is sort of --
• 18:39
  we're already branching into what does the future of the ecosystem look like?
• 18:44
  Rarely will you see a young artist today at a high level of
• 18:49
  artistry embody only one artistic discipline.
• 18:53
  So the fact that our ecosystem still compels them to choose
• 18:58
  one and go pursue it relentlessly is actually our fault.
• 19:03
  So every day I ask myself the question,
• 19:06
  are we doing a service or a disservice to a young artist if we're asking them to
• 19:11
  choose one lane and apply? And so this is one of the big,
• 19:15
  big questions we're asking.
• 19:17
  Do these 10 discipline lanes that we currently
• 19:22
  run, are they the right 10 lanes? Are they the right division?
• 19:27
  Do they accommodate not only artists practicing at the intersection of these
• 19:32
  disciplines,
• 19:32
  but also are they fully encompassing of every genre that falls
• 19:37
  under, say, dance? And the answer right now is no. Right?
• 19:42
  So we're gradually trying to evolve
• 19:47
  and we're trying to do it very thoughtfully. For the first time this year,
• 19:52
  any applicant in dance will self-identify their genre.
• 19:56
  Very interesting.
• 19:57
  Any applicant in voice will self-identify their genre,
• 20:01
  and now it's going to be incumbent on us to make sure that we
• 20:06
  find the right adjudicators and reviewers to properly judge
• 20:11
  these applications.
• 20:12
  Oh,
• 20:12
  that's so fascinating because I truly wasn't even thinking about that side of
• 20:16
  the adjudication.
• 20:18
  You are then truly breaking down these silos in every possible way.
• 20:23
  I can't tell you how we're going to do it yet,
• 20:26
  but is there a version of the world one day where a young person is
• 20:31
  applying simply as an artist. Now,
• 20:34
  how we ensure equitable adjudication...? It's a big,
• 20:38
  big question to answer,
• 20:40
  but we're doing as much field listening and conversations with partners as
• 20:45
  possible to really figure out how best to do it. And can I just name,
• 20:48
  it's not enough for us to do that at YoungArts because where do these young
• 20:52
  artists go after us?
• 20:53
  Well, exactly.
• 20:54
  They go to Parsons, Julliard, Central Saint Martins, whatever.
• 20:58
  They go off to art schools, conservatories, et cetera.
• 21:01
  So how must those institutions also evolve?
• 21:05
  And do you now,
• 21:07
  or are you imagining a pipeline from which you can be having those
• 21:11
  conversations,
• 21:12
  leveraging YoungArts with these different organizations that do then hold the
• 21:17
  kind of next wave of education and future for these young artists?
• 21:22
  Absolutely.
• 21:23
  More and more we're leaning into investing and building these partnerships
• 21:28
  far and wide across the country.
• 21:29
  We realize that we are a part of the ecosystem and we can't do it alone.
• 21:34
  So this is the hard work that we're investing in over time.
• 21:38
  Well, and I think you also stopped short of saying the other places --
• 21:43
  at performing arts centers,
• 21:44
  at all of the different arts and cultural organizations throughout the states.
• 21:48
  Putting my marketing hat on for a second,
• 21:50
  we still send a dance brochure and a classical brochure and a pops
• 21:55
  brochure and a theater brochure.
• 21:58
  And I think there's been a lot of conversation about how we start breaking
• 22:02
  that down even further to say,
• 22:04
  we know that audiences in the future are selecting into events that they think
• 22:09
  are going to make them feel something, whether that's nostalgia or joy,
• 22:13
  or challenging their perspective, we should hope, too.
• 22:17
  But I think the thread that you're talking about carries through all the way to,
• 22:22
  an artist at the pinnacle of their career is probably in a brochure somewhere
• 22:26
  being defined.
• 22:27
  Exactly.
• 22:28
  And so we have to break this down across the board,
• 22:31
  and I think a lot of what you are doing becomes foundational for
• 22:35
  that thinking,
• 22:36
  even when we get into the nitty gritty of ticketing and subscription packages
• 22:40
  and what the right message or photo is to convey the art that folks will be
• 22:45
  interacting with.
• 22:46
  Absolutely. And it goes to the very institutional structures
• 22:51
  and the need to evolve those to even get to the point
• 22:56
  where you're then figuring out how to tell the story on a brochure.
• 22:59
  You can only do so much if the system was set up to have a
• 23:03
  curator for dance, a curator for classical music, a curator for...
• 23:09
  and by definition,
• 23:10
  they're already selecting the work in a way that's boxed.
• 23:14
  Exactly. Well,
• 23:15
  and you know how the Kennedy Center was structured in that exact format,
• 23:19
  and I think we were trying over the past few years to really have a sense of
• 23:23
  creative collectivity, but the structure was still there,
• 23:26
  and there's only so much work you can do in culture when it's
• 23:31
  still bound by some pretty tight and rigid frameworks.
• 23:36
  One thing that you've talked about before is the unintentional inertia of
• 23:41
  legacy organizations.
• 23:43
  And it already sounds like at an organization like YoungArts approaching a
• 23:47
  45th anniversary,
• 23:49
  that you are already taking your perspective and how we push against that
• 23:54
  inertia and evolve meaningfully.
• 23:58
  What other ways are you working to keep YoungArts responsive to how the
• 24:03
  environment around it is changing?
• 24:04
  Yeah,
• 24:06
  one thing that I feel like we've always stumbled over
• 24:12
  is our lack of good data. There's no quick fix for it.
• 24:17
  And so we are just undertaking a sweeping 18 month long
• 24:22
  data architecture revamp completely.
• 24:25
  And as painful as it is right now,
• 24:28
  I just know that our future selves are going to be like, thank you so much.
• 24:33
  Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
• 24:36
  So that's something that depending on who you ask,
• 24:40
  they may find it sexy or unsexy.
• 24:43
  I wouldn't rate it as one of the sexier things.
• 24:45
  Sure. But they're good vegetables.
• 24:47
  Very good.
• 24:48
  You need the vegetables too.
• 24:50
  And I think it's more,
• 24:51
  if I were to boil it down to what is it that we're actually trying to
• 24:56
  change, it's,
• 24:58
  it is a sort of setting of a behavior
• 25:03
  to just always ask the question,
• 25:06
  does it have to be done this way just because it has been done this way?
• 25:10
  And I think it's something that if you don't discipline yourself to ask the
• 25:14
  question,
• 25:15
  you will naturally default to doing it the way it was because there's a process
• 25:20
  in place for how it was, and it's easier.
• 25:23
  So I'm a big fitness fanatic too, and one of my favorite sayings,
• 25:28
  I forget which fitness influencer kept saying it, but it's like,
• 25:31
  if nothing changes, nothing changes. And I'm like, oh my God, mind blown.
• 25:36
  If nothing changes, nothing changes!
• 25:39
  But I love what you're saying, the discipline around questioning.
• 25:42
  What a succinct way of saying that, because that can be really hard,
• 25:46
  and particularly when maybe folks who are listening,
• 25:49
  not everyone is already leading an organization.
• 25:52
  And so how can you meaningfully from within an organization have that discipline
• 25:57
  to ask the question,
• 25:58
  even when those around you are also still developing that muscle.
• 26:03
  I think it's great to have leaders like you out in the field talking and
• 26:06
  encouraging that type of behavior and thought process.
• 26:12
  One thing that I really wanted to make sure that we talked about was that
• 26:15
  YoungArts has recently started the Artist Resource Collective and really talking
• 26:19
  about financial wellness paired with art.
• 26:22
  How do you think about prioritizing a program like that,
• 26:26
  and what are you hoping that that financial literacy piece contributes to artist
• 26:30
  sustainability and the journey that YoungArts supports throughout their career?
• 26:34
  Yeah,
• 26:35
  such a great question and such an important initiative that we're putting more
• 26:39
  and more and more resources behind.
• 26:42
  When you think about an artist's journey and the critical inflection points
• 26:47
  that they face,
• 26:49
  one of the greatest inhibitors is financial sustainability.
• 26:55
  And unfortunately,
• 26:57
  none of us in the ecosystem do a particularly good job of preparing artists for
• 27:02
  this eventuality that slams 'em in the face when they're out in the world.
• 27:06
  And there are resources out there in the field
• 27:11
  that speak to this and help artists develop financial literacy and dah, dah,
• 27:16
  dah. But these resources are actually completely scattered all about.
• 27:20
  They're not created and dispersed in a particularly friendly
• 27:25
  way to artists. So we saw a real gap here that we could help to fill,
• 27:31
  and being the only organization that really supports all artists across all
• 27:35
  disciplines in this way,
• 27:38
  we really saw this as a responsibility for us to grow into.
• 27:42
  So I have two brilliant colleagues,
• 27:45
  Emily Waters and David Thompson,
• 27:48
  who dreamt up this wonderful thing that has become Artist Resource Collective,
• 27:52
  and it continues to grow, and the need is really salient. Honestly,
• 27:57
  it boils down to as simple as when young artists come into the world,
• 28:02
  they don't even know what bank accounts they have to open.
• 28:05
  There is also this eventuality of the insurance cliff that every artist hits
• 28:10
  because they're often independent contractors, gig workers,
• 28:15
  and they can be on their parents' insurance until 25, and then it falls off,
• 28:19
  and then all of a sudden they can't even afford health insurance.
• 28:21
  So it's a real human-centered and artist-centered
• 28:25
  approach to building financial empowerment.
• 28:28
  So this is what we've landed on in terms of a label for it.
• 28:30
  We now call it a financial empowerment initiative.
• 28:33
  Oh, I love that.
• 28:34
  It's not like, yes, it's -- part of it is about literacy,
• 28:37
  part of it is about knowledge,
• 28:40
  but ultimately it's about giving agency to the artists to build a sustainable
• 28:45
  career in the way that makes the most sense for them. So for the first time,
• 28:50
  we're actually requiring, this coming cycle,
• 28:54
  any YoungArts winner before their prize money is dispersed,
• 28:57
  they will have to take this introductory curriculum.
• 29:00
  And I think that's a really,
• 29:01
  really important first step to helping a young person
• 29:06
  build financial empowerment. Not even just young artists, young people.
• 29:10
  You know what I mean?
• 29:10
  Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 29:12
  And I love the idea of marrying it from the start with the mission and purpose
• 29:17
  of the work that you're doing.
• 29:18
  I think so many folks would've benefited from this and have talked about exactly
• 29:23
  what you're saying,
• 29:24
  particularly in the gig work economy that so many artists find themselves in for
• 29:29
  an indefinite period of time. This is brilliant.
• 29:32
  Thank you. Thank you. We're so excited about it.
• 29:35
  I think anyone who is close to an artist of any age
• 29:39
  understands the challenge that artists face in building a
• 29:44
  financially empowered life.
• 29:46
  And so I think it's deeply resonant to our community at least.
• 29:50
  Yeah, it's fantastic. When I think about some friends who,
• 29:53
  younger designers or that type of life where they're just trying to figure out
• 29:57
  how even they negotiate a contract or start any of this
• 30:02
  work, I think in the financial space,
• 30:04
  in the legal space and just administration,
• 30:08
  having this type of support system there will only help sustain the field as a
• 30:13
  whole.
• 30:14
  So we've talked a lot about many different initiatives that YoungArts is
• 30:19
  taking on and evolving for the organization.
• 30:23
  If YoungArts succeeds in its mission and the vision that you and your team are
• 30:27
  acting on,
• 30:29
  how do you think the broader arts ecosystem will start to look different?
• 30:34
  Gosh, I think when you boil it down to fundamentals,
• 30:39
  if we continue to grow and evolve our work at the pace that we
• 30:44
  aspire to, more and more young people will raise their hands to say,
• 30:49
  I want to be an artist, or I am an artist.
• 30:53
  Even just that critical first validation alters the path of so
• 30:58
  many young people's lives, and of course,
• 31:01
  we're talking about societal structures that will need to change and evolve as
• 31:05
  well.
• 31:06
  Parents need to stop being so worried that their kids will starve if they pursue
• 31:10
  a life as an artist.
• 31:12
  You know that one personally and look at you now.
• 31:14
  So I think that's first and foremost. To me,
• 31:17
  one of our key impact metrics is the more young people who raise their
• 31:22
  hands to self-identify as an artist, the better, right?
• 31:25
  We truly believe that artists are vital to our humanity,
• 31:28
  and we truly believe that artists make the world better.
• 31:31
  So the more people who will identify as an artist, the better.
• 31:35
  I do think we hopefully will have opened up
• 31:39
  more and more entry points,
• 31:42
  more and more pathways,
• 31:46
  more and more opportunities for artists,
• 31:50
  not only at this young critical juncture,
• 31:53
  but especially at this young critical juncture,
• 31:57
  to train and develop all of the artistic identities
• 32:01
  that they really feel to be a part of them.
• 32:05
  One anecdote I'll give is two cycles ago, the top winner in dance --
• 32:10
  he's a top winning tap dancer. I asked him, where are you going next year?
• 32:15
  He said,
• 32:16
  I'm going to New England Conservatory for classical guitar. And I was like, oh.
• 32:20
  And I said, well, why'd you apply in dance? And the answer was, well,
• 32:24
  that's where I thought I had the highest chance of winning.
• 32:26
  So here I am going through a multitude of emotions and questions of like, wait,
• 32:31
  so did we do this young man a service or a disservice?
• 32:35
  We've given him this platform,
• 32:37
  but then we've forced him to choose one thing when clearly he wanted to do the
• 32:41
  other thing, and... right?
• 32:42
  And so when can we work toward a day when this young artist can come as
• 32:47
  both? I really think that will take a lot of work, not only on our part,
• 32:52
  but in the socialization across the ecosystem,
• 32:56
  in the work that we develop with our partner organizations across the country.
• 33:01
  And it will take time. It'll take a long time, I think,
• 33:03
  for that to manifest and then for every conservatory or art
• 33:08
  school to also follow suit and have a much more imaginative way of structuring
• 33:12
  their schools and curricula, et cetera.
• 33:16
  You so clearly have such a sense for the future and what could
• 33:21
  be possible and how we grow to serve the
• 33:26
  need of our community.
• 33:28
  And I guess one question that I just really want to know from you is,
• 33:32
  what is exciting you most about the future of the arts field,
• 33:36
  and what is giving you hope,
• 33:38
  given that you're working with all of these exceptional young artists right now?
• 33:43
  I think what gives me the most hope and optimism
• 33:49
  is knowing that the future that we're building for
• 33:53
  artists will give them more and more agency.
• 33:57
  The more agency artists have,
• 33:59
  the more societally transformative work can ensue and be created
• 34:05
  artists.
• 34:06
  They're the ones who ultimately tell the historical
• 34:11
  narrative of our human experience,
• 34:14
  and I think there was no better group of humans to do that than artists,
• 34:18
  and so that gives me hope.
• 34:21
  That's beautiful. That gives me hope too. I'm glad you said that. Okay,
• 34:27
  so we're at the end,
• 34:30
  which means it's time for our quickfire culture questions.
• 34:34
  The first question is largely based on the fact that for the past six weeks,
• 34:38
  no one can get me to shut up about Evita on the West End.
• 34:42
  So in order to diversify my own interests,
• 34:44
  I'm looking to ask everyone what is one piece of culture right now --
• 34:48
  that can be a show, a song, a comic, a TikTok,
• 34:55
  a performance --
• 34:56
  what is one piece of culture that you are obsessed with right now?
• 35:00
  Gosh,
• 35:02
  you know who keeps popping up on my Instagram who I cannot get enough of is
• 35:08
  Atsuko Okatsuka. Have you seen this comic? Oh my goodness.
• 35:11
  I love that you said this.
• 35:12
  I'm rolling on the floor all the time. Will you go to one of the shows with me?
• 35:17
  Yes.
• 35:18
  We need to go. The other thing is,
• 35:21
  right now I'm way late to the game and watching Building the Band.
• 35:24
  Is that what it's called?
• 35:25
  Oh, is that the one on Netflix with Nicole Scherzinger?
• 35:30
  Yes!
• 35:31
  No, I desperately want to watch it.
• 35:33
  It is so good.
• 35:35
  Okay. Question two.
• 35:37
  If you could go back in time and either witness a live experience,
• 35:42
  a performance, a show that you have already seen,
• 35:45
  or go back to a time where there was a show that you didn't get to
• 35:49
  see, what experience would that be?
• 35:53
  This might be because of the composer in me, right?
• 35:56
  So the rooms that I desperately wanted to be in,
• 36:01
  if I could go back in time,
• 36:03
  were in the rehearsal studio
• 36:07
  when the melody for Defying Gravity was first conceived.
• 36:12
  What was that moment?
• 36:13
  Or when Julie Taymor had her first
• 36:18
  fully built and realized puppet prototype made
• 36:23
  in the workshop, what was that moment like? Who was there? What was the,
• 36:27
  you know what I mean?
• 36:28
  Yeah.
• 36:28
  The theater geek in me is totally cheesing about these ideas because you're
• 36:33
  right, I think. I am thinking of the famous Godspell in Toronto, right?
• 36:38
  That is something that I would've loved to have seen, but you're right,
• 36:41
  it's the intimate moments. It's the...
• 36:43
  Or like the first Hamilton Mixtape show or whatever,
• 36:46
  right before the thing became the iconic thing.
• 36:50
  Okay. Practical question,
• 36:52
  what's one free resource that you wish more people knew about?
• 36:56
  Oh, the Library for the Performing Arts.
• 36:59
  It's one of the organizations on the Lincoln Center campus,
• 37:03
  and it has the richest sort of archive of
• 37:08
  video and audio material.
• 37:12
  So if you were like, I wish I could have seen the original cast of blah,
• 37:17
  go there and you can see it. You know what I mean? Not in real life.
• 37:20
  Maybe one day they'll make the hologram versions.
• 37:22
  Totally. We need to get a partnership going ASAP, just immersive archival.
• 37:28
  Okay. And then this is your CI to Eye moment.
• 37:32
  So if you could broadcast one message to executive directors,
• 37:37
  leadership teams, staffs,
• 37:39
  and boards of thousands of arts and culture organizations,
• 37:44
  what would that message be?
• 37:47
  Yeah,
• 37:49
  I think I would implore everybody to always ask the question,
• 37:53
  how does this impact the artist community?
• 37:58
  No matter where you sit in the arts ecosystem,
• 38:02
  the artist really ought to be at the center of it, right?
• 38:05
  Because without the artist, there is no art.
• 38:07
  So when presiding over a decision or debating
• 38:12
  A versus B versus C,
• 38:14
  does this decision we're making enable artists to do their work,
• 38:19
  or does it detract? Even if the answer is neutral,
• 38:22
  at least you've asked the question. So that would be my message.
• 38:27
  That is a fantastic message, and I love that message.
• 38:30
  Thank you.
• 38:31
  Clive, thank you for the time.
• 38:33
  Thank you for sharing your story and so much incredible advice.
• 38:38
  It is just always so good to see you and to talk to you.
• 38:42
  Likewise.
• 38:51
  Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt.
• 38:54
  If you enjoyed today's conversation,
• 38:56
  please take a moment to rate us or leave a review.
• 38:59
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• 39:03
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• 39:07
  please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts.
• 39:10
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• 39:12
  and I wouldn't want you to miss them.
• 39:14
  This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by
• 39:19
  Karen McConarty and myself, Monica Holt.
• 39:22
  Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are our incredible designers and video editors.
• 39:27
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• 39:43
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• 39:45
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