Painted Bride Art Center Gerry Givnish Theatre Main Stage
Questions abound equally Painted Bride sells edifice, places hope in future nomadic programming
Contributor Ron Kanter talks with Painted Bride supporters, staff and board and finds he still has questions about the community center'due south putting its building on the market in an attempt to keep -- building complimentary -- as a nomadic programmer in pop-upwardly locations. A timely wait at an organization that's lifting anchor and sailing out on an adventure that has some supporters worried.
Afterward near 50 years every bit a supporter of artists, the city's oldest, mission-driven alternative performing and visual arts venue, the Painted Bride, will no longer take a identify to call home. The striking mosaic façade and the building are for sale. The theater that has been filled most every weekend with edgy and gamble-taking dance, theater, music and spoken give-and-take performances will be gone.
The Painted Bride as you know information technology will not be in the near future. That's a shock that the local arts community is even so trying to wrap their heads around. At this point, at that place are more questions than answers about the hereafter, but the Bride, or more accurately, the Bride Building, is for sale. The sale is expected to be finalized by June, 2018.
What is not nearly so clear is what form the Bride will take in the future. "Zippo is off the tabular array," says Executive Director Laurel Raczka, with whom I've spoken several times since the announcement was fabricated. What is on the table seems to range from a small staff in an part accepting proposals from artists for a venue and financial support, to a storefront in another neighborhood, plainly, any neighborhood other than Old City.
Passion unleashed – People love the Painted Bride
The passion that this decision has unleashed is one mensurate of bear upon the Helpmate has had over the years.
"They are committing Hari Kari," railed Jonathan Stein when I talked with him. Stein is a founding lath director of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and nationally respected legal aid chaser.
Many people were surprised to discover the building was up for sale when the Inquirer ran a front-page article in December, 2017. "Painted Bride's Risky Motility" was the original title of Stephan Salisbury's review of the situation. The Bride had held a "community meeting" for invited guests in May, 2017. There was no mention that the conclusion had already been fabricated to sell the building.
Terry Fox, a onetime Helpmate curator, and well known Philadelphia dancer/choreographer and arts administrator, was at that meeting. She says, "The older generation was appalled and younger people disillusioned," when they finally heard the news by reading the paper.
The lack of transparency has raised the ire of many committed Bride supporters. Longtime Old City gallery owner, Rick Snyderman is a former board member and his wife, Ruth Snyderman, is currently a member of the Bride's fundraising committee. Rick published an open alphabetic character in thINKingDANCE suggesting that what was needed was "a serious rethinking by the Helpmate'due south board and administrative staff…(that) equally stewards of an important legacy may likewise include turning over that legacy to new leadership…"
Organizational fatigue
The long tenure of the system's Executive Director and a few of the lath members is unusual. Raczka came to the Bride in 1982 equally Plan Managing director and has been Executive Director for the final 25 years. On most not-turn a profit boards, a member serves a term somewhere betwixt two and half-dozen years, with 3 years being a common average. A 2010 survey by BoardSource Nonprofit Governance showed that 70% of non-profit boards accept term limits. At least one of the Bride's board members has been on the board for 15 years.
Other possible ways
Questioning the Bride's conclusion to abandon an iconic physical presence is also fueled by the fact that other local arts institutions have decided to move in just the contrary direction.
Philadelphia Contemporary is a new kid in the Philly cultural scene. It was established recently by Harry Philbrick, the quondam museum director at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). In its first two years, PC has had success as an itinerant presenter of a bold diversity of art events. It presented unique art performances in partnership with venues ranging from a urban center dump site on the Delaware River to the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway.
In spite of its impressive track record, Philadelphia Contemporary says on its website that information technology "Plans to have a permanent home as soon as possible for both applied and philosophical reasons. We want to create a sense of customs around our projects, a hub where visual, performance, and spoken discussion artists can interact, and where the public can experience the synergy of unlike artists working and presenting together."
Sounds almost like a clarification of the Bride – at least in earlier years.
One idea to preserve the Bride'southward physical presence suggested by Snyderman and other members of the area arts customs is partnering with some other organisation or designing a multi-use edifice, where several tenants concur to share edifice costs and some revenues. This successful concern model is clearly visible in Philadelphia. The Wilma Theater hosts Ballet X in its Wide Street building. The theater occupies the ground floor with parking on the upper floors. Target offers its shoppers the opportunity to purchase new underwear and become a caffeine prepare from the Starbucks cafes that are incorporated into its retail stores.
The sale and a building's deferred maintenance
The Helpmate purchased its original 11,000 square foot property in 1982 for $325,000. The belongings now includes three other parcels for a total of 13,600 foursquare anxiety and was assessed in 2018 for $2,949,800. The sale cost will certainly exist millions of dollars. Exactly how many millions won't exist known until a developer's offer is accepted, but 1 idea is that the sale agreement should include space in the new development for the Helpmate.
The Helpmate's board doesn't seem to be pushing for a multi-use building proposal from a developer. The focus, instead, is that the sale will provide an infusion of cash for an endowment to support artists, and pay the rent and staff salaries. Without a house sale price or specific estimates for futurity costs of staff, rent, and other overhead, it is incommunicable to approximate what funding will be available for supporting artists.
A leaky roof and the need for millions of dollars in maintenance is 1 major reason given for selling the building. Joan Thousand. Sloan, Bride Board Chair, is proud that the last fiscal year concluded with a counterbalanced budget, but information technology seems that what helped balance the budget was deferred maintenance, which at present, ironically, seems to exist a major reason for selling the building.
Dwindling audience
Another consequence primal to the hereafter of the Bride is its audience or lack of audience. Art, by definition, is fluid, and audiences change, too. In spite of being located in a neighborhood with a huge increase in its residential population, attendance at the Helpmate has been failing for years. "Our audiences are graying, while younger people are less likely to become subscribers to arts and cultural organizations," Sloan suggested recently.
Studies conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts advise that attendance might exist more than of a Helpmate trouble than a national trend. The NEA did find a significant drop in full general attendance in the early part of the 21st century. However, that trend has been reversed in the terminal few years and "older Americans are the only demographic grouping to have experienced increases in attention alive visual and performing arts activities over the final decade."
Some other marketing study found that Millennials "consider the arts (more than) important in places to which they locate" than GenXers, Boomers, or Elders.
Of course, facts and feelings are non the same. Raczka said to me that it feels that after 36 years, "We don't fit into the Old City neighborhood. It feels weird."
A consultant and strategic priorities
Figuring out where the Bride fits into the Philadelphia cultural scene seems to be a challenge for the staff and lath of the Helpmate. A "sustainable operation" is the number one "strategic" priority developed recently with the help of a California-based consultant. The list of five Strategic Priorities makes no mention of developing audiences or reaching out to younger people.
As if reinforcing the consultant'southward priorities, the planning commission for the Bride's time to come did non included immature people or new voices from outside the system. Instead information technology was comprised of Raczka, iii long-time board members, one artist in her 40's, and former member of the staff who had been with the Bride for 10 years.
The good news is that the Strategic Priorities say clearly that "The Bride volition design and implement programming that embodies its legacy." The list goes on to commit to "supporting artists making artwork that engages current bug" and "who undertake creative inquiry and expression that is non bars by the commonly recognized boundaries betwixt arts, sciences and humanities."
A grouping of Bride supporters has been talking to developers and exploring alternatives to selling the edifice. Legal assistance attorney and theater/dance advocate Stein told me he thinks "The Painted Helpmate should pause and give others an opportunity to put together a viable programme for the continuation of a performance venue for dance, theater, music and arts centre on the Painted Bride site." He is confident that "with the right consortium a viable, fundable programme can be put together."
It may already be too petty besides late, but if passion counts for anything, pubic opinion may influence the Bride's futurity form.
The Bride volition present programs at 230 Vine Street through June, 2018. It has also committed to 2 trip the light fantastic programs for next year although where they will be staged is i more than open up question. Board Chair Sloan characterizes the Bride programming activeness for next yr as a "airplane pilot program."
Can the legacy of the Bride morph into a new dynamic, more active cultural leadership? That's the i affair that both critics and supporters hope for. The only thing that is known for certain is that the Helpmate volition be different in the future.
Some lingering questions
The auction price of the building is more than idle curiosity. The decision to sell is based on a plan to establish an endowment that will be invested to secure the Bride'south futurity. If the auction price is not sufficient to fund a significant endowment, what will become of the Bride and its ability to support artists and future projects.
The Inquirer reported on Feb 18, 2018, that a vii,840 square foot lot at the corner of 12th and Vine sold for $two.4 million.
Maybe,12th and Vine is not as hot an expanse every bit tertiary and Vine (information technology is coming on strong) only there are other points that brand this sale worth noting. First, the sale is for a lot that is five times the size of the Bride property. Second, the buyer holds other adjoining backdrop. That means they were a motivated to larn this specific property..
If a motivated buyer was able to larn a big parcel for merely $ii.4 million, what does that suggest a developer would pay for a relatively small parcel that offers no special value other than a good location?
Has the Bride leadership established a minimum auction price that would allow the Bride to flourish, at to the lowest degree financially, in the future?
What is the fill-in plan if that minimum dollar amount (afterwards commissions and taxes) is not obtained?
Source: https://www.theartblog.org/2018/03/questions-abound-as-painted-bride-sells-building-places-hope-in-future-nomadic-programming/