171028 A Town without Pity 

Yesterday I did what many people in the art community might consider a strange thing, something out of the ordinary way of doing things in the Seattle Arts Community. It is something I did which many artists would say, “I sure wouldn’t do that!”

It’s typical of me, though, and therein lies the core of my creative soul—the tiny bit of my brain which Elmer Gates studied, the source of dopamine his Collie dogs demonstrated to be the possible key to intelligence and what he called Mind Growing. Today it’s called the nucleus accumbens located in the so-called pleasure centers of my brain and which resembles that of almost everyone.

Image from the Web

What is it that I did? I wrote a blast email to the entire staff of Artists Trust—from the topmost Executive Director to the new Interns. I asked them to consider partnering with me on the development of the Northwest Print Center Incubators.

In a similar vein, I sent a blast email to my colleagues on the Uptown Arts & Culture Coalition. This is a key group whose purpose is to encourage cultural and artistic endeavors in the neighborhood where we live and have our family’s art gallery.

The nucleus accumbens is the source of dopamine, an organic chemical produced in humans, animals and plants. It is the source of art, you might say, and any activity associated with art in all its forms. This includes activities not considered art at all, such as truck driving or weight-lifting, science and deep-sea diving.

My blast email was, and is, part of my deep-sea diving insofar as I am exploring what possibilities there may be in the Artist Trust staff in partnering with me to develop my brainchild, the Northwest Print Center Incubators. The same goes for the Uptown Arts & Culture Coalition. Is there any interest, I wonder? To date (and I am writing less than 24 hours after my email and have not, at 6:30 AM, checked my email).

Past performance is no indication of future performance, I learned, when it comes to investing in stocks. Years ago, I formed an investment club to learn about investing—one of my many exercises driven by dopamine. In other words, I have communicated with Artist Trust in the past. In fact, I was in touch with the founders of Artist Trust from it inception, notably Anne Focke and David Mendoza.

When Artist Trust was started, the group was to address as many of the deficiencies in the artists’ support infrastructure as possible—from housing to health insurance. Lobbying and grants may have been the most successful aspects. Health insurance was, I suppose, out of its capacity. My personal wish was that it would address educational deficiencies artists find and, today, Artist Trust is possibly the best source of education in matters of economics, i.e., the business of being an artist in today’s economy.

For example, Artist Trust lists almost twenty resources on line—ranging from asset management to laws that effect artists and their families. Many artists, I think, who would scan this list of resources would experience a tiny hit of dopamine just reading it because there is help available on pressing questions like, “What about copyrights?” and “What about grant-writing?”

Artist Trust espouses community-building. Anne Focke’s life has been a life of a community builder, and Artist Trust would not exist were it not for hers and David’s vision and design plus their political acumen in getting support from the monied people in Seattle both in industry and government.

I shall end this speculative essay now, finish my online Spanish lesson (Duolingo) which is my way of stimulating my nucleus accumbens into giving me hope that, in a circuitous way, will lead to the formation of the Northwest Print Center Incubators.

Ask me about that. And if you’ve read this and wonder why I gave this essay the title, A Town without Pit, it’s the title that popped into my head—a title of a song, the lyrics of which are, “It isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do.” It’s about the possibility that my blast email will not receive a single answer from a staff member at Artist Trust, as has happened with my emails to the UACC asking for partners to develop the NPCI.