#261: Jane Chu (Artist & Arts Administrator) (pt. 2 of 2)

This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with artist Jane Chu. Throughout her career she’s combined her academic research with professional practice in the arts, philanthropy, and business administration. From 2014 to 2018 Jane was the 11th chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts. Prior to that, she was the founding president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, and was charged with overseeing a $413 million campaign to construct and open the center.  Currently Jane is a practicing visual artist based in New York City, and her drawings of 3D colored objects atop black and white background scenes allow viewers to embrace multiple perspectives simultaneously. We’ll link to her website in the show notes so you can read more about her and her involvement with projects such as The Objects of Immigrants to America, by illustrating and telling stories of individuals from all walks of life who have immigrated to the United States. https://www.janechuart.com/

In our conversation, we dissect the challenges of securing philanthropic investment and the dance between artistic autonomy and market demands. Together, we navigate the strategic partnerships that amplify donor appeal, sharing invaluable advice for artists striving to maintain a vibrant creative practice. Discover the delicate art of demonstrating a track record that wins support, and the intricate balance needed to foster artistic innovation while ensuring financial sustainability.

Embark on a journey through the cultural business landscape, where the nuances of communication styles and entrepreneurial savvy can make or break an artist's career. Chu opens up about her personal evolution in bridging diverse professional worlds and the lessons learned along the way. You'll gain strategies for managing the ebb and flow of creative work, staying continuously inspired, and the courage it takes to place true value on your artistic contributions.

Transcript

Announcer: 0:19

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise: 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick Petrella.

Nick Petrella: 1:05

We're really excited to have Jane Chu on the podcast today. Throughout her career, she's combined her academic research with professional practice in the arts, philanthropy and business administration. From 2014 to 2018, jane was the 11th chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts. Prior to that, she was the founding president and CEO of the Kaufman Center of the Performing Arts in Kansas City, and she was charged with overseeing a $413 million campaign to construct and open the center. Currently, jane is a practicing visual artist based in New York City, and her drawings of 3D colored objects atop black and white background scenes allow visitors and viewers to embrace multiple perspectives simultaneously. You can read more about her and her involvement with projects such as the Objects of Immigrants to America, by illustrating and telling stories of individuals from all walks of life who have immigrated to the United States. Jane, it's great to have you on the podcast.

Jane Chu: 2:04

Thanks for letting me join you today.

Andy Heise: 2:06

So oftentimes arts funding is tied to a specific project that an artist is doing, but I think there's a move more now to supporting artists to create work. I'm curious that pursuit of funding for art projects sometimes can lead to more of the tail wagging the dog sort of a situation. I'm just curious to know do you have any thoughts on that? If these grant programs are helping artists become just sustainable artists, how do we measure the impact of something like that?

Jane Chu: 2:41

I think it's really difficult to do, but Well, what I do is I give myself permission to do both. If I am a creator, without any type of influence of somebody else saying this is what you should be doing because this is what the market wants, I might create something and it'll take a much longer time because it'll take several years. It'd be like writing a book. But if somebody is telling me what they want to me to create, I may agree to that and it'll get money faster. But it would almost be like I'm working for them. As long as you can do both, I think that is fine.

Jane Chu: 3:39

In terms of funding artists for who they are in some situations legally, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts rarely gives out any kind of funding for an artist. It has to be for a project and the artist can get paid for that project. There are some fellowships out there and not just in the government but private funding and things like that that fund an artist to create. You practically have to just Google and say where are the fellowship projects for artists? There are a few organizations out there who do give grants just to allow an artist to be an artist. It's both, and then it's not one versus the other, it's both.

Andy Heise: 4:24

Yeah.

Nick Petrella: 4:26

So along funding along the lines of funding donors, right. So philanthropy, donor fatigue is real, and I've spoken with philanthropists who've told me that artists should work together instead of creating multiple projects that are similar to one another, because it lessens their financial impact. So, for instance, having 10 dance ensembles in a sparsely populated area. Since your doctorate is in philanthropic studies, I think it'd be interesting for our listeners if you could describe what philanthropists are looking for when choosing to support projects.

Jane Chu: 5:00

Well, the first, the idea of partnering with each other or with various entities together, is not just because of donor fatigue. It certainly can be because of donor fatigue, but it isn't always just that. Specifically to those types of partnerships, there is a lot of encouragement of people to partner, and one way I see it in addition to a donor who just doesn't want to give to 10 dance ensembles, for example is that you can partner with each other. But it also sends out a message that you're not isolated in a corner. You're out in the community because you know what's happening. So when you partner with others, you can send that message out by saying we are partnering together. Or we're two dance ensembles who need to be both funded but we're under an umbrella name, or we're two dance ensembles I'm just making this up as an example. We're two dance ensembles who are separate from each other, but behind the scenes we share the same database and because that thunder, we are showing you how much back office expenses we've saved. And that is a great leverage point because even though we're separate, we work together behind the scenes and donors love that. They've loved to understand that their money leverages a greater impact as opposed to one versus the other at somebody's expense.

Jane Chu: 6:38

But the one thing I have seen repeatedly, regardless of any type of funding entity, is donors typically do not look for victims. They want to see that you are a proven, you have some kind of proven track record that you know how to perform in whatever it is you need to do, or you need to know how to implement the project that you're wanting to implement, because sometimes there is a temptation on the side of those who want the funding to say, oh please, fund me, I can't do this without you, and on some level that's true. On another level, if you get to the point where you're desperate and you haven't shown that you do know how to implement and that's the communication side of. Back to the original questions about my social entrepreneurship class do I know how to communicate and show that I have performed in a way that I have a good track record?

Jane Chu: 7:39

Think about what it's like to go to a bank, whether this is fair or not. When is the best time that a bank will give you a loan? It's when you don't really need a loan because you have shown already had a manager money and you know that it's going to work for you in the future and that's why you're asking a loan and the bank executive can say you can have a loan because you've already performed in so many ways. You have a great track record of how you manage money. But if you come desperate and you have not shown that in the past, it's a little bit harder for somebody to make that decision. Similar to funding.

Nick Petrella: 8:15

Yeah, that's a great example.

Jane Chu: 8:16

You've got to show that you can follow through what you've done. People will take chances on you too, but you do have to show it.

Andy Heise: 8:29

Jane, the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, or SNAP, has been surveying graduates of arts programs since around 2011 or so, and they've consistently found that there are gaps that exist between what artists learn in art school or music school or whatever, and what they need to support a career in the arts. In response to that, there are a number of arts entrepreneurship, arts management, arts administration programs that have popped up over the last 10 or 15 years, but these gaps still seem to prevail, according to the last SNAP survey. What do you think those programs are missing? What are we not getting right?

Jane Chu: 9:16

Well, I do want to put in a plug for the Society for Arts, entrepreneurship, education. That's another service organization that is forming and I'm sure you're familiar with it, because they care about those same kind of questions and they're popping up in different programs in the universities and what I've seen about their curricula, depending on what university, but what I've seen about the service organizations is that they are trying to answer the same questions. What is missing and there's a lot of field work in that kind of setting Even game playing, and I mean that in a good sense, let's go into a course and let's play a game on how you, because it's a lot more fun to play a game frankly than to just listen to a lecture. But they have found ways and they are. So I commend them, because they're always asking the same questions about how do we really get artists ready? Because many artists are not the weirdos like me who decide they want to go get an MBA. So they're moving in that direction and I like that.

Jane Chu: 10:16

But what is missing is or at least this is missing for me when I was really pursuing that academic focus and that is how you do something is just as important as what you do so I could learn all of the tasks and the information I needed to do to be an administrator, but how you do something. I wasn't taught that how you do something is equally as important, and it is because you can miss a culture completely and be correct on all the facts. And so I'm hoping that entrepreneurship programs are including equally as much about the culture and how do you address it, and not that you have to specifically carry out something a specific way in every situation. But I have, if I know how, that how I do something is just as important as what I do. That widens all my tool belt. I have many more tools in it that I can pull out that match up. As long as I think judiciously and if I'm hopefully wise, I can pull out the right tool that matches and makes a better impact.

Jane Chu: 11:36

How you do something needs to be taught in some way. Here's an example in my Colin Powell school class. Every person in my class is either an immigrant or their parents are, and I see my mother in them, in so many of them, and there isn't a one of them who isn't smart. But I do see the how you do something is a really big deal and how I have to say to myself how am I communicating what we want to get across in a way that matches up with what they're hearing? Because I'm quite familiar with being in multiple cultures at the same time. So how you do something can be added to entrepreneurship education in some way, without force-feeding everybody to have to be a certain way. Because that's what's so great about arts entrepreneurship you get to dream and you get to be in the market at the same time.

Nick Petrella: 12:32

Thank you. So you've worked for the federal government, in a private foundation and as an entrepreneur. How has each informed your thinking when you decide to pursue a new project?

Jane Chu: 12:45

It gives me a far bigger range of tools that I can pull out at the right time. I've loved every opportunity. They do think differently and so, or they have different rules and ways to be. So as long as I am conscious and I am very aware of the setting I'm in, I can figure out how to best operate and how to think. Now, one of the things that has allowed me to do that I think I'm better at than before is I know how to anticipate. Depending on which entity I'm in or who I'm talking with, where they're coming from, I can anticipate how to communicate better than I could be before.

Jane Chu: 13:36

One thing I learned, I think, through my MBA, is that because I felt like I was going into a different country and had a different language, I would spend during my MBA training days.

Jane Chu: 13:49

I could spend an hour writing one paragraph because it took so long to do a linear piece of conversation For me, then something that could just pop into my head because I had a holistic mindset. But I needed to have a linear mindset to communicate to somebody who tends to hear linearly more than holistically. So I have loved that opportunity. I mean I thought it was kind of painful at the time because I had to reinvent myself on how I would communicate. But I'm much better now as a result of forcing myself to spend so much time. And then I would say oh, I've spent so much time. I can't believe this is so embarrassing that I've spent an hour writing one paragraph. But I'm so much better now and that's helped me. That, along with working in the government and private funding, as well as fundraising, has given me more opportunities on how I communicate to others than I had before.

Andy Heise: 14:48

That's great. Yeah, I've recently encountered a similar sort of situation and the way it was described to me is thinking about the communication to these different audiences or different stakeholders, or whatever, just thinking of it in terms of different genres. Right, you've got the same message, but you're communicating it in a different genre based on who the audience is. Right.

Jane Chu: 15:09

I love that. That's exactly the way I was thinking. For example, you probably don't act the same way in Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare as you do in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but they're both comedies. So understanding the sometimes people would say there are nuances, but they're pretty big nuances. Understanding how to play Mozart, which is different from Bacofiev that's at the heart of many artists and so artists really get a platinum star for that. How do we communicate that way outside of our arts is equally as important.

Andy Heise: 15:52

So, as we talked about at the very top of the interview here, Nick and I started this podcast to share stories of artists because we think that was an important thing to do. It was also sort of a product of the pandemic, where we couldn't bring artists into our classrooms and that sort of thing. So we said how can we do that? Well, let's do this podcast thing. I'm curious to know why you think and this may be a loaded question, I may be priming you a bit here curious to know why you think sharing stories of artists is important.

Jane Chu: 16:23

I think it's important for a couple of reasons. One is when you are creating your arts. Sometimes, of course, you're creating as a team or a project, but in my particular case, I require a lot of focused alone time to get through my own creations. There's a big difference for me on being alone and being lonely. I haven't been lonely in decades, but I do hear that sometimes people do get lonely, and so when they start hearing these stories about other artists and the things they go through are entrepreneurs, there is a pattern that entrepreneurs sometimes they're having to eat animal crackers and water until they get their business on board and you start realizing that people are more alike than different. And so hearing stories about other artists can give you hope to say you know I, oh, they went through that too.

Jane Chu: 17:27

I thought I was alone. So that's, that's probably the main thing, and that out of that you can give yourself permission to keep going, because the rest of the society who doesn't think that way will be very tempted to either want you to stop because they're worried about you, or they will want to. There are some people who might want to take you down because they don't understand. You do have to if you feel this in your heart. You do have to give yourself permission, and hearing stories about others is an encouraging way to keep going.

Andy Heise: 18:02

Yeah, yeah, I was just just sort of an example. I was just talking with an artist yesterday who she had stepped away from painting for a while to do other life things and but then started coming back to it in in the role at a gallery she was. She was helping sort of administratively to do those and stuff at a gallery, and it was at that point, when she's unboxing all of this work and hanging it on the wall, that she realized these are just people who make work and that's I can do, that that's who I am, and that that kind of brought her back into that. So it was sort of it's sort of like a storytelling thing, but but the story was being told in maybe a little different way than what we're doing here.

Jane Chu: 18:44

It absolutely is, and sometimes the stories are happening in real time. But but I would not discount those signs that say wait a minute. It might be time for you to return back to what you love so much and what you know you can do, and I would. I would uphold that and believe in yourself as much as possible to say you know, what I believe in counts.

Nick Petrella: 19:08

So, jane, throughout your career, I'm sure you've met hundreds, if not thousands, of arts entrepreneurs throughout the arts ecosystem, so not only those creating but, you know, helping to create. What do you think are common traits among those who are thriving?

Jane Chu: 19:23

among those who are thriving. Well, one of them is that you follow your heart. So you go where your energy level is and you follow your heart and you can give yourself permission to turn away from people who don't understand that or think you're loony, when you know that that is the most important thing anybody can do. And the other one is to really understand and this is now down into the real step-by-step process. Do you understand? Because these people do, those who are thriving in the entrepreneurial world, the arts entrepreneurial world. They know how to manage their. They know how to match their time management with their energy level. That's a very specific thing, but I'll just use the examples of how I'm learning myself.

Jane Chu: 20:18

I will not create. I usually have three to five arts projects going on at the same time, and I do it intentionally, because when I finish one, I'm still working on another one, so I'm never done and I never feel like, oh no, I'm done with one and now I'm lost. I'm never lost. The other thing is that I don't work on the same project. I don't do one project and then finish it, and then I go on to the next project, even if I have a stack of them waiting, because that's too linear for me. The second project I work on in the day informs my first project, and so people figure out their time management, even in every day, and they figure out how that matches with their energy.

Jane Chu: 21:08

Are you a morning person or do you stay up into the middle of the night? Are you better creativity? You have better creativity that way. So figure out who you are, figure out when your best energy level is and stop the project when you're running out of that energy and start a new project and then go back to it. So I have my days are actually divided into modules. I even use time management records how long did I work on this object or this product? And that has actually helped me, even in terms of how do I price them, because I know how many hours it takes. So that time management is something that arts entrepreneurs who are thriving seem to have an understanding. In some ways that's a business skill, but that's a really big deal because they can see the productivity as long as you follow your heart.

Nick Petrella: 22:01

Yeah, and that's something that I talk about a lot in my classes time. It's often most insidious because you can't see it, it's not tangible.

Jane Chu: 22:11

Unless you use a stopwatch or you, which many of us do. Oh look, I spent seven hours today on the active drawing. Then I start really seeing a productivity that's in society, encourages you to pay attention to time, whether it's. And yet what's so great about at least the way I create is I look up and time has stood still and we yearn for those opportunities because we're not paying attention to those time aspects. We're paying attention to the joy of getting to create.

Andy Heise: 22:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, Jane, we've reached the part of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?

Jane Chu: 22:58

Well, I'm coming from the creation side of showing something, so it might be. I don't compose, but it might be a composition or it might be. For me it'll be drawing. My advice would be it's about volume. So you just keep putting it out there and I actually pay attention. You know, if something is turning out to be crappy I wouldn't put it out there. But you just keep going and going and you get to a point where you're building a body of work and you have enough of a volume that you because a good volume of work brings in more work.

Jane Chu: 23:39

So that's one piece of advice, as well as what we discussed originally, which is have multiple projects going on simultaneously. You get excited about what you haven't gotten to work on because you know it's coming and you don't have to wait and complete one versus the other. So those are my two bit pieces Volume and have multiple projects going on simultaneously. You have to manage how you feel about it. Oh no, I can't get to this next one. You have to manage that. But it's all about energy and it's all good.

Nick Petrella: 24:15

What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?

Jane Chu: 24:22

You want to respect the different ways we communicate with each other. So, as we inferred earlier, there is a way to connect our arts to different people and, out of respect, find a way that communicates with each other and that connects to each other, as opposed to well, if you don't understand, I'm going to cut you off and appreciate how the arts honors diversity. For me, the way I came into the arts in the first place wasn't because my parents were artists. In fact they were. You've got to be kidding, you're not going to go into the arts.

Jane Chu: 25:02

But those drawing lessons and those piano lessons that I was taking at age seven and eight, when my father became ill and then ultimately died at nine when I was nine, were my vocabulary, and it was far greater, robust vocabulary when I could express myself, because at age nine I didn't and maybe many kids don't, but I did not have enough vocabulary to express the grief over the loss of my father and especially did not, because my parents spoke Mandarin at home and I was solely encouraged to speak English. So I would assimilate and so the arts became my vocabulary. So there's something about communication and making that is. That's one way of a key way of becoming making sure people understand how the arts connect to our lives in the widest possible audience.

Nick Petrella: 25:56

Great.

Andy Heise: 25:58

Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've ever been given?

Jane Chu: 26:03

Well, it's got to be to keep going and be very conscious about giving yourself permission to say just because society doesn't always reward artists, but you do reward yourself because you know it's in your heart and that's the most important thing is not to let anybody pull you down because you know you've got to do this and keep going, just keep going.

Nick Petrella: 26:30

That's great advice, jane. It's been wonderful having you here. It's just. It's inspiring to hear your worldview and growth mindset. This has been a lot of fun.

Jane Chu: 26:40

Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

Announcer: 26:43

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