The Arts: An Experience What Leaders Can Learn From Artistic Catharsis
Authors: Peter Reinisch Tutor: Pr. Dr. Björn Bjerke Sven-Christian Weber Examiner: Pr. Dr. Philippe Daudi Leadership and Management in Subject: Business Administration International Context Level and Master’s Thesis,
semester: Spring 2013
Acknowledgement
We want to express our gratitude to Professor Philippe Daudi and to our tutor Professor Björn Bjerke. Professor Daudi has guided us from the beginning until the end of this master thesis project. His advice and support had a great impact on us and on our work. During this year, he has given us the possibility to develop personally. Björn Bjerke provided us with insight to methodology and has repeatedly brought clarity into our concepts. Furthermore, we would like to thank Mikael Lundgren for his recurrent support in keeping our thesis on track. He has provided us with literature, ideas and gave us contacts to other researchers in our field. His considerations have often caused fruitful debates that have contributed to the completeness of our work. Further we want to thank Terese Nilsson for her time, energy and support that she has so often given us.
A special thanks goes to Professor Leopold- Wildburger from our home University in Graz. She has given us the means to maximize our output here in Sweden.
We also want to thank our interview partners. Their contribution has made this thesis unique.
I want to take this chance to thank my parents, sisters, grandparents and mentors for their fundamental contribution to “who I am”. It is you who form me and you who provide the background that I can build on. You are the frame that gives me the chance to be the picture. Not to forget Sven-Christian Weber who made this Master Thesis Project an unforgettable experience. Besides his terrific work, it is the person I value the most. I am glad to have you as my Thesis Partner, as well as a friend.
Peter Reinisch
Special thanks go to my mother and my father. Both have contributed in their own ways to this experience. Further, I would also like to thank Giovanna. You have always been there for me and supported me. I also want to thank my siblings. Through their experience I have learned. Gratefully I want to address all my friends. Those who have supported me to come to Kalmar, and to those I have found here in Sweden. You made my stay joyful. Last but not least I want to thank Peter. Working with you was enriching. Our discussions have been a pleasant challenge. You made me see my faults, and valued my strengthens. I am looking forward to working with you in the future.
Sven-Christian Weber
Reinisch & Weber ii Our Master Thesis-Our Catharsis
This Master Thesis has made us joy, suffer and learn. We have put ourselves into it, and we have developed through it. This work shows our individual experience.
It is our personal catharsis.
Peter Reinisch Sven- Christian Weber
Reinisch & Weber iii Declaration
We hereby certify that this master’s thesis was written by our own. Furthermore, we confirm the proper indication of all used sources.
Kalmar, 15th of May 2013
Peter Reinisch Sven- Christian Weber
Reinisch & Weber iv Abstract
Creativity and innovation are attributes that are important in business and leadership today, perhaps more than ever. The recent economic crisis has shown that relying on pre-established business patterns is not enough anymore. Art has always been visionary and creativity is one of its major characteristics.
This thesis looks into the possible impact the arts can have on leadership. We ask ourselves what it is that we can learn from the arts, what they can teach us that is relevant for leaders and leadership. We have used the grounded theory and the methods suggested by Corbin and Strauss.
We have conducted conversations with 12 leaders coming from different occupations who share at least one characteristic; they are all engaged in the arts. Through their experience, and through secondary data we used from studies concerning the impact the arts have on communities, we have constructed a theory. This shows that through their interaction with art, people are affected in their well-being, their personal development and their cognition. This phenomenon we have identified as the leader's catharsis.
We conclude our work by showing a map to show where in leadership research our substantive theory is useful. Further we also discuss how our findings can contribute to future leadership research. Our thesis might contribute to the discussions of aesthetics and leadership, the influence art has on the well-being of followers and how leaders can effectively form frames. Further, we suggest that the arts can be seen as a school for leadership development.
Key Words: art, leadership, catharsis through the arts, cognition, health and well-being, personal skills, social skills, personal development, the arts as a school for leadership
Reinisch & Weber v Table of contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... II
ABSTRACT ...... V
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... VI
TABLE OF FIGURES ...... IX
TABLE OF APPENDIX ...... X
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
1.1 THE ARTS: AN EXPERIENCE ...... 1
1.1 A PERSONAL APPROACH TO RESEARCH ...... 2
1.1.2 The rhythm of our research ...... 3
1.2 OUR CATHARSIS ...... 5
1.3 CURRENT ISSUES RELATED TO LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE ARTS ...... 6
1.4 RESEARCH FIELD ...... 8
1.5 RESEARCH FOCUS AND RESEARCH QUESTION ...... 9
1.6 INTRODUCING OUR TERMS ...... 11
2. METHODOLOGY ...... 12
2.1 THE CREATOR OF KNOWLEDGE: OUR WAY OF LOOKING AT THE WORLD ...... 12
2.2 A QUALITATIVE APPROACH ...... 13
2.3 GROUNDED THEORY AND OUR APPROACH TO IT ...... 14
2.4 ANALYSING OUR DATA: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AS A STRATEGIC METHOD FOR GENERATING
THEORY ...... 16
2.5 DATA COLLECTION ...... 19
2.5.1 Primary Data: Face- to- Face Research ...... 19
2.5.2 Secondary data ...... 24
3. WHY IS ART IMPORTANT? ...... 25
3.1 OVERVIEW ...... 25
3.2 POSITIVE PHILOSOPHICAL ELABORATION AROUND THE EFFECTS OF THE ARTS ...... 26
Reinisch & Weber vi 3.3 CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION ...... 26
3.3.1 Art as a school ...... 27
3.3.2 Reflections on key studies of community arts ...... 30
3.4 THE ARTS IMPACT ON INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES ...... 33
3.4.1 PERSONAL CHANGE ...... 35
3.4.1.1 Personal Development ...... 35
3.4.1.2 Imagination and Vision ...... 38
3.4.1.3 Health and well-being ...... 40
3.4.2 SOCIAL CHANGE ...... 42
3.4.2.1 Social Cohesion ...... 42
3.4.2.2 Community empowerment & self determination ...... 45
3.5 CONCLUSION OF THE IMPACT OF THE ARTS ...... 50
4. WHAT IS YOUR CATHARSIS? ...... 54
4.1 PRELUDIO ...... 54
4.2 Colleen Mraz ...... 57
4.3 Gianpietro Ermacora ...... 60
4.4 Nico Müller ...... 63
4.5 Roberto Lapi ...... 65
4.6 Ewan David Eason ...... 69
4.7 Lucinda Lloyd ...... 72
4.8 Peter Pakesch ...... 76
4.9 Prof. em. Dr. Paul Stähly ...... 78
4.10 Johann Lassnig-Walder ...... 81
4.12 Knut Weber ...... 88
4.13 Kurt Leidl ...... 91
5. ANALYSING OUR FINDINGS ...... 95
5.1 OPEN CODING ...... 95
5.2 AXIAL CODING ...... 98
Reinisch & Weber vii 5.3 THE CATHARSIS THROUGH THE ARTS: COGNITION ...... 99
5.4 THE CATHARSIS THROUGH THE ARTS: HEALTH AND WELL-BEING ...... 101
5.5 THE CATHARSIS THROUGH THE ARTS: PERSONAL SKILLS, SOCIAL SKILLS AND PERSONALITY
DEVELOPMENT...... 103
5.5.1 Personal skills ...... 103
5.5.2 Social skills ...... 105
5.5.3 Personality development ...... 106
5.6 REVIEW ...... 107
6. BUILDING A BRIDGE TO LEADERSHIP ...... 109
6.1 SETTING THE STAGE FOR LEADERSHIP ...... 109
6.2 CATEGORY: PERSONAL SKILLS, SOCIAL SKILLS AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT ...... 111
6.3 CATEGORY: HEALTH AND WELLBEING ...... 112
6.4 CATEGORY: COGNITION ...... 114
7. CONCLUSION ...... 117
7.1 REFLECTING OUR WORK ...... 117
7.2 DISCUSSION ...... 119
REFERENCES ...... 121
APPENDIX ...... A
Reinisch & Weber viii Table of Figures
Figure 1: Third System of Overture 1812 from Tchaikovsky ...... 4
Figure 2: Our use of grounded theory ...... 17
Figure 3: Art and its effects as circular flow ...... 27
Figure 4: Personal Change Through The Arts ...... 34
Figure 5: Social Change through the Arts ...... 34
Figure 6: Illustration showing an increase in health through interacting with the arts .. 41
Figure 7: Illustration of social, economic and political forces on individuals and communities ...... 44
Figure 8: Personal and social changes are influencing each other through their subcategories ...... 50
Figure 9: Key impacts arising from the interaction with the arts ...... 51
Figure 10: The path to leadership ...... 54
Figure 11: Categories through the impact of the arts ...... 96
Figure 12: Locating the Leadership Catharsis ...... 110
Reinisch & Weber ix Table of Appendix
Appendix 1: Questionnaire - English ...... A
Appendix 2: Additional Results from the Questionnaires ...... A
Reinisch & Weber x 1. Introduction
1.1 The arts: an experience
The title we have chosen for our master thesis, represents a relationship. In our work, we want to draw attention to the interaction between a leader and the arts. Though a lot has been said and written about leadership it seems that there is never enough. No single way has been found that describes how to become or how to identify ‘the’ perfect leader. Studying different leadership theories and looking into leadership development programmes we have observed that it is not possible to describe the one right way of leadership. Leadership is a subjective matter and the right way to lead, can be different for different people. Relevant literature has shown many different ways of how people have led under different circumstances. Some of them with better, and some with worse outcomes. Some leaders have gained world-wide recognition and some are only known within their respective organisations. Some leaders are described as authoritarian (Bass & Bass, 2008), some as transformational (Behfar, Kern & Brett, 2006). Some are said to be charismatic, others grey and technocratic. But all of them have been said to be leaders because of their characteristics and traits.
Being subjective and personal, leadership and leadership theory must always be put in context with a persons’ culture, time, gender, and the type of organisation someone belongs to. The leaders’ education and several other factors might affect him or her and therefore result in a different type of leader. All leaders seem to have, however, a strategy and a vision.
Comparing with art, we find many things in common. A lot has been said about art. Yet, what is “art” as such has not been able to be identified. For hundreds of years people have been discussing what and what cannot be considered art. People have been revealed as artists by some, and considered all sorts of things but not artists by others. Time has often given artists a second chance, and circumstances have made people revalue what can be considered as art. Culture, time and the type of audience that is connected to an artist have determined either success or failure. All artists, however, share one thing, they have a message and they have a vision.
Probably also due to this great similarity, a lot of leadership literature has taken art in its different forms, as a metaphor to describe various aspects of leadership. In fact using art as metaphor has been our first approach to the topic “art and leadership”.
Reinisch & Weber 1 1.1 A personal approach to research
We, the authors, both Austrians, both students of music since an early age and coming from families with, though different, considerable artistic involvement have seen a similarity between art, especially music, and leadership. For me, Sven-Christian Weber, comparing an orchestra, its’ organisational structure and the role of the conductor to leadership theory and organisational studies, was apparent. I believe, this is due to my roots in classical music. I think that conducting an orchestra and leadership have a lot in common. The structure of an orchestra can be compared to an organisational environment. Managers on different levels correspond, from my point of view, to single leaders of the different instrument groups. Further, the very role of the conductor bears more than just a few similarities. For example, a conductor starts with studying the music searching for a “vision” of how the final outcome of his interpretation should be. This can be compared to a successful leader who needs a vision and a strategy he or she can share with his followers (Bennis & Nanus, 1997). The conductor shares his or her understanding of music in the same way a business leader might share his or her knowledge about certain projects with his or her followers and co- workers. The conductor is aware of his role and his gestures. He or she repeats and practices them, giving meaning to each. Any other leader should, in the same way, be aware about the impact of his actions. Another point where I see a connection between an orchestra and leadership is the role of the follower. A leader can only be such if he or she has followers. The same can be said of a conductor. Furthermore, the conductor's assignment is to create harmony. Harmony is something essential to the act of leading an organisation. A ‘harmonic’ organisation is one where cooperation is high (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee 2002, p. 15). A leader must think like a conductor. He or she must manage his followers and show them which way to go. The musicians are themselves highly skilled masters of their subject. They are virtuosi who play their instruments and who decide how to connect to the conductor. They necessarily put some of their own feelings and emotions into the music. This is where the job of the conductor is crucial. He or she must listen to what the others play and show his or her musicians what to do simultaneously. Doing such, he or she creates one big body of sound. This is similar to the qualities of a transformational leader. He or she is both responsible for the organisational success as a whole and at the same time, must take into account every single individual he or she is working with. In both cases, a leader shows a path others have to walk on. The more those who wander are sure of their path, the more they can create perfect harmony. The leader and the conductor must guide innovation, thought, creativity and change. This change cannot be immediate, nor can it be left to the followers themselves. Doing such Reinisch & Weber 2 thing would lead, in most cases, to failure. Rather, the leader must, as well as the conductor, bear in mind what his or her goal is. They must have a vision of what they want to reach: In terms of the conductor, it must be the sounds he or she wishes to create, and in the terms of a leader, it must be what he or she wishes to achieve through a certain project.
I, Peter Reinisch, connect the role of a leader to my personal experience within jazz music. As a saxophonist it was essential to me to listen and to understand what others were “saying” with their music. Simultaneously, I had to focus on what I wanted to connect to what I heard from the other musicians. I had to think how I could make others understand what I was trying to say with my music. I believe that jazz can teach a person how to learn from others. Playing music with others and being at the same time composer, musician and audience can be put in comparison to the characteristics of a transformational leader. Being a jazz musician, as I see it, requires multiple skills. Also the so called transformational leader (Bass, 1998) who embodies the totality of leadership capacities required in order to bring “clarity of purpose and meaning into the organization” (Hacker & Roberts, 2004) requires multiple skills from a leader. We will provide the reader with more detail on this topic in the second half of chapter six. Playing jazz, gives the musician the opportunity to make mistakes with the imperative to learn from them. This concept can be associated with the idea of failing forward (Maxwell, 2000). A concept that is also significant for leaders.
Both jazz music and classical music require from the musician that they perform at their best. There are many musicians around the world and competition has always been high. The globalized market is evidence that this is also true for business leaders. Both music and leadership are areas where people have to work hard in order to succeed. Also continuous practice and criticism are important in both.
As can be seen, music can be used in different ways as a metaphor to describe leadership in many of its diverse aspects. In fact, we have found considerable amount of scientific papers and leadership books that use music and other areas of art, such as architecture, theatre and fine arts as images to describe leadership.
1.1.2 The rhythm of our research
Our research has been characterized by different working stages. There were some weeks throughout which our work gave us great result. During others, we felt uncertain if we are proceeding in the right direction. In such situations we addressed our tutor and our professors who put gave us the necessary indication to stay in rhythm with our work. Here we represent part of our personal development and working curve. We show this by Reinisch & Weber 3 using Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Overture “1812”. We have represented the 3rd System of his work here, in order to depict how we have timed our cues.
Figure 1: Third System of Overture 1812 from Tchaikovsky
Source: http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/look_inside/3555594/image/181007
Legend: ¾ time- rhythm of conducted work Violin Clef- Peter Reinisch Bass Clef- Sven-Christian Weber 3- thesis proposal + 2 thesis progress reports
2 tracks- show our interaction 4- responsible advisors Staves- Master Programme Notes- actual work Clef & accidentals- Methodology Bar- week (11 bars = 11 weeks) Others accidentals- happenings during the thesis
This excerpt of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Overture “1812” represents our pathway, which we had to walk on in order to accomplish our Master Thesis. Tchaikovsky’s overture 1812 had a significant influence on our progress as it was a continuous companion, which transmitted power, energy and joy. This third section embodies a violin clef and a bass clef that represents us, the two authors. Both tracks show our interaction , in order to establish harmony, congruence and structure. As this 3rd system embodies our pathway it shows guidelines, boundaries, work and aesthetic representation. The staves represent our Master Programme. It has given us the opportunity to write the thesis, delimiting, however, the area we could conduct our research in. The clefs and accidentals provide the necessary methodology. All these factors provide the framework. The rhythm of Tchaikovsky’s Overture is based on ¾ time. This forms the rhythm we conducted our work with. It is a major guidance that we identify on the one hand in our thesis proposal and the two “thesis progress reports“. On the other our four responsible advisors Philippe Daudi, Björn Bjerke, Mikael Lundgren Reinisch & Weber 4 and MaxMikael Björling have given us the necessary beat when we started to lose the understanding for time. The actual notes define our work that got interpreted with a major decrescendo in the first bar. This signifying our Thesis topic change that caused reflection and greater inner quiet dialogue between us. This followed a strong crescendo in bar/week two and three, which shows our enthusiasm. This kept on being present over the whole 11 bars/weeks during which we shared our thoughts with our friends, study colleagues and tutors. We consider these 11 bars as our 11 weeks that represent the actual writing process. Bar/week five and six are characterised by conducting our interviews, which lead to a mezzo forte in our work. This mezzo forte stretches itself over a crescendo, which appeared because of necessary insights of our advisers in bar seven to a forte in bar/ week eight, where we established our substantive theory. This was probably the most significant and strongest part in our work. Nevertheless this forte could get outperformed in bar ten, with a fortissimo showing our construction of meaning at its highest point. As the issue of this thesis is still in evolution we won’t stop with a decrescendo, rather staying in a fortissimo mode, to call for further attention on this interesting research topic.
1.2 Our catharsis
Since the mid 1990’s attention has been given to the relationship between art and leadership (for example Smith, 1996). However, it is in recent times that scholars seem to have been more interested in this field of study. Publications we have found concerning this topic, have become more frequently published within the last ten years. This came as a surprise to us. Looking at different leadership theories and at the influence art has upon an individual as well as upon a community, we have found more than one connection between art and leadership. There is much more to discover than just a simple metaphoric paragon as we see it. More than we can fit in this Master Thesis without being too superficial about it. Leadership and some areas of art, are not only similar in organisational structure but in the way that people behave in these environments. Among them there is interaction. Interaction that is not superficial. It rather has great impact both on leaders and followers. We argue that leaders can learn from art qualities that might allow them to lead with more success. It can serve them as an inspiration, an example and as a means for leading.
Though music is not the only link we see between art and leadership, it is however the most evident to us.
Reinisch & Weber 5 1.3 Current issues related to leadership through the arts
We see interaction between leadership and art originating from different areas. During discussions with our teachers and tutors we have been made aware of the role architecture, drama and fine arts have on the individual and on the leader. During our reflection on these thoughts, Professor Daudi made us consider the history of Montpellier. A town in the south of France that has become known all over the world thanks to its artistic architecture. Here art has been used by a leader, namely the former major Georges Frêche. He used art as a means to transmit a vision and achieve a goal. As the town’s population started to grow exponentially in the 1960’s, the quality of life started to decrease. Georges Frêche became mayor in 1977 and decided to use architecture and fine art to give the city a new, modern and aesthetic face. His ambition is said to have been the creation of a new, a modern “Athens”. His persuasion and his strong belief that art would increase the wealth of his town, made these projects become reality. The impact the new face of this town had on its inhabitants can still be felt today. Montpellier turned into one of France's most important University centres. Further, people started to treat the city in a different way. People are proud of their town and of its appearance. A new understanding of aesthetics has been created by architects because one person, one leader had a vision. This is a good, practical example of how art and leadership correlate. The art of Leadership starts within a person. In the same way as art departures from a person’s inner process. The Tuscan towns of Siena and Montalcino are further great examples of how architecture can influence leadership. The impact they create both on a personal and at a community level is evident to us. We will report in Chapter three and five how this process occurs. Furthermore our research has shown us that leaders use art as a means, a goal and a resource for their leadership. The major of a certain town believed in a certain project and realised it. The inhabitants he led, were and still are today affected by his vision. As they see how a project starts they argue and participate actively in the restructuring of the destiny of the city they live in. It is also possible that they will become passionate about it and start to care. The modification of space makes people see new things and reset their priorities. This can also be seen in a small town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. There, the construction of the tallest wooden tower ever built has caused national and international interest. Those who have initiated the project have successfully used it both as a source and a means for their leadership. People are affected by what they see and start to confront themselves with these matters. In these circumstances people have to confront themselves with art. The buildings and squares that are created in towns are often idealised by an individual, but create impact on the whole community. A new feeling of Reinisch & Weber 6 unity and self- awareness is created, as will be shown in Chapter three. Another way to perceive and create art and strengthen leadership is through theatre. It stands in contrast to architecture considering that fact that a person must go and see a play. To be able to learn from drama, a person must decide to look at a play or actively participate in one. However, you do not need specific skills in order to understand and learn or even to act. Aristotle wrote in his Poetics how this form of art impacts the audience. In this earliest surviving work of dramatic theory the great Greek philosopher speaks about how, through the experience that is shown on stage, the audience reaches catharsis and the individual in the public is able to learn from the play that is shown (Scharper, 1986). Also here we see that art has an impact both on the individual and on the individual within a certain group. The experience a person takes from being in inter-action with the arts, offers them knowledge. A similar discourse can also be made with respect to the fine arts. Drawings and paintings both impact upon certain communities and on individuals within this community. Paintings tell stories. They have an impact on the single individual who looks at it. Though each person will take something different from it, the painting has some common aspects that are transmitted to its observers. Putting up a painting rather than spraying graffiti on a wall may show what a person believes in. It gives others the opportunity to step into a story that is told and through which they are taken into a new perspective for a moment. Both leaders and followers here have the great opportunity to learn how others might see things. It allows a shift in perception (Holl, Pallasmaa & Pérez-Goméz, 2006). A rather recent event in Egypt gives evidence for this. There, graffiti art has been, and continuous to be, an important means of expression. Especially those people use it, in most cases women, who are not given any voice in public debate. Through the graffiti art, they have found a way to communicate and to gain public awareness. These artists and activists have been noticed by the mass media. Thanks to the graffiti art all over Egypt the oppression of female rights are discussed and the perception of their situation has changed. Foreign commentators broadcast the message all over the world causing political leaders to put pressure on the Egyptian national government. The leaders of this movement have been given, in this way, a force to continue their path. They have been encouraged to continue to perform art. These examples underline the influence art has on the individual and on the community the individual is part of.
Leaders in our view have to be able to see things form different perspectives. Here again art enters on to the scene. Through art we are confronted with a different world. Art gives us the opportunity to travel into different places without moving. It gives us the possibility to see things through a different lens, a different perspective.
Reinisch & Weber 7 Both leadership and art have another common trait, we argue. The two subjects are characterised by great subjectivity as we see it. This might also be the reason why little has been said about the impact of art on leadership. Both leadership and art are two very personal, very subjective fields of research. This creates an obstacle to such research that is looking for empirical proof. Within art and leadership the one truth cannot exist, Bennis and Nanus have said that there is no “cookbook for leadership” (Bennis & Nanus 1997, p. 223) just as there is none for art. No one can decide for another person what art is and what it is not. We can only decide for ourselves. It is also not possible for anyone to say how someone can become a successful leader. We can report our personal opinion and make suggestions to others. This is what we have tried to do in this thesis. We have asked leaders what they learn from art, in order to suggest it to others. We support our collected data with a theoretical framework and have abstracted the concepts we have found. However, we had difficulties finding supporting literature for our topic. Though some have been writing about leadership as art (De Pree, 2004), and many about the art of leadership, (inter alia Walters, 2001; Mannign & Curtis, 2011) few have written about the impact that arts have on leadership (one example can be Gardner, 1999 but also and more recently Adler, 2011).
1.4 Research Field
We believe that there is a research gap concerning the impact the arts have on leaders. With this thesis we want to show that a connection, a bridge between art and leadership does exist. We have found more than one link that joins these two fields and claim that they have much in common. Our aim with this thesis is to point at this missing link. We focus on some influences the arts have on leaders.
As mentioned, we have found different relationships between the two fields of research. Within this thesis, however, we have decided to focus on how art impacts on a leader individually and how art impacts on different communities in a way that is relevant to leadership. The authors of this thesis share Plato's view that “the art of leading others comes from the art of leading oneself”. This, the very motto of the course for which this thesis forms a final project, is a ‘leitmotiv’ for all our leadership work. Prof. Daudi has helped us realize how important it is to be aware of your personal leadership, in order to be a potential leader. Different people who have accompanied us on our path towards this thesis, made us aware that we must focus on ourselves before being able to decide what message we want to convey to others. From this we took that it is necessary to investigate how art impacts on the individual in order to understand how art can influence the leader. First, we have looked at our past and understood what deep effect
Reinisch & Weber 8 art had on our life and continuous to have today. We wanted to understand how the arts have affected us and we found some similarities. Intrigued by this, we decided to question others about their experience with the arts in order to see if they had a similar impression. Doing so, we found relations and connections between the interaction with the arts and personal development. Those outcomes we have put in comparison with our leadership framework, and reported the results relevant to leadership in this work.
Though we focus on leaders, we consider that followers are the premise for leadership. In fact “the essence of leadership is followership” (Bjerke, 1999) and therefore also followers must be taken into account when speaking about the impact the arts have on leadership. In our research we have found texts from different areas of social studies that are not necessarily (or not yet) linked to leadership research (inter alia Matarasso, 1997; Willams, 1995; Costello, 1998). The findings of the aforementioned papers deal with the influence art has on individuals. We consider these and create a link with different leadership literature (inter alia Smircich & Morgan, 1982; Doh, 2003; Hackman, 2005; Bennis, 1984). In such way we have found what we believe to be the catharsis through the arts relevant for leadership.
In order to understand the influence art has on the individual we thought that interviewing people who are or have been either leaders, in different fields of business, education or in the arts, can lead to most interesting results for our study. Indeed, our inquiry was very fruitful and provided us with multiple views of the arts. Those findings have been of interest for us both from a research perspective and on a personal level. Conducting research for this thesis has been highly interesting and gave us the opportunity to broaden our views. The interviews have been exhilarating and their content will be shared with the readers. Our interviewees have expressed that they have learned and experienced from art. They believe that art has much to teach. Thus the idea that art can be seen as an education tool for people emerged. The idea to learn through the interaction with the arts is ubiquitous in our thesis. Indeed, we will regard to the arts as a school for leadership development.
1.5 Research Focus and research question
Our aim in this study is to understand what it is that a person can learn from art, and if there are aspects that are connected to leadership. Individuals who confront the arts experience an inner development. They encounter art and take something from it. They learn something about themselves, see skills they already possessed and learn how to use them more effectively. They obtain intellectual skills from which they can develop their personality. Personality depends on self-esteem and self-worthiness. Those Reinisch & Weber 9 attributes that might be reinforced through the interaction with the arts. On a personal level this might be triggered through the discovery of personal skills that enable people to communicate, to fulfil personal goals, to present, and improvise in the best possible way for example. A second possible way is attached to the interaction among people. The way people learn within a certain community. This community is the conglomerate of various individuals who learn. Indeed the personal level directly affects the social level, through shared understanding, cooperation and tolerance with others. Aspects all relevant for good leadership. In addition, art can also teach about various aspects of the economy. We have decided only to mention this economic part, leaving it to the interested reader to take the chance of undergoing further research in this direction. We therefore formulated our research question in the following way:
What is it that we can learn from the arts and what can we provide to leaders and leadership theory from our findings?
After having explained our methodology, we will concentrate on a community arts discussion. Subsequently we will present our primary data collection, and its analysis. Following, we will build a bridge to leadership drawing attention to major leadership studies for which our findings can be relevant. We will show some general thoughts on this topic. Doing so we show our understand of the connection between the arts and leadership. Furthermore we will introduce our own, personal perspective on art. This is relevant because we cannot “escape from ourselves, not even as ‘objective researchers’” (Daudi 1986, p. 133) and therefore the reader must know what we think about the topic which we are writing on. In this section we subsequently present the relevant literature that, connected with leadership, can show how art influences the individual in the community. We therefore adapt the structure Matarasso (1997) has used in his study that shows the social impact of participation in the arts and how it affects personal change and social change.
Following this part we will display the interviews that we have conducted with personalities who are connected to both art and leadership. We will show how art has influenced them from their point of view. This chapter will conclude with the highlighting of the common traits we have found between the single interviewees and how they can be relevant for leadership.
Finally we will conclude by connecting the results that we have found. Putting together the results of the impact art has on certain communities and art has on certain individuals. There we will see that art inter alias affects intellectual, communicative,
Reinisch & Weber 10 technocratic and also psychological and physical capacities and why these are important to leadership.
1.6 Introducing our Terms
In this thesis we repeatedly use the term ‘the arts’. It stands for all different kinds of arts and artistic process.
Another term we use rather with frequent repetition is how we refer to our interviewees. The characteristic they share that is relevant to our study is the fact that they regularly interact with the arts. Meaning they either produce or consume art on frequent and repetitive basis. We refer to them as ‘art- active’. To be clear, this does not necessarily mean that ‘art- active’ people are artists.
We also want to draw attention to the fact that the pronouns ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘us’. They are often found in this thesis and referring mainly to us, the authors. Sometimes we also address the reader directly. In those cases we use the pronoun ‘you’.
Reinisch & Weber 11 2. Methodology
In this part of our thesis we will outline the way we set out to achieve our results. We will share with you, the reader, our methodological approach as researchers in social science. We will show how we approached our research, how we collected our data, and how we analysed the data.
All research is interpretative; it is guided by the researcher’s set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. Some beliefs may be taken for granted, invisible, only assumed, whereas others are highly problematic and controversial.
(Denzin & Lincoln 2005, p. 22)
2.1 The Creator of Knowledge: our way of looking at the world
Arbnor and Bjerke have named the researcher the “creator of knowledge” (Arbnor&Bjerke 2009, p. 47). The researcher investigates the reality in order to discover, to reveal, to draw attention to or to create knowledge. He then shares his findings with those who are interested in them, taking responsibility for what he presents. Not every researcher has the same aim nor does every researcher have the same concept of the reality he is investigating. Further, you, the reader, might have divergent assumptions from ours and that may result in your understanding being different of the research presented. This explains why it is important that we clarify what we are doing and why we are doing it. Also how we plan to achieve possible results that can be relevant for others. In fact, Arbnor and Bjerke describe the researcher as a “conscious researcher” (ibid, p. 20) who takes his actions with caution, being aware of why he is doing what he is doing. The normal variation in understanding makes it necessary that we researchers must share our point of view and explain what we are doing in order that you, the reader, is left with no why unanswered. We want to be as transparent as possible in sharing why we do what we are doing and why we come to our results and what they mean to us.
Our research question was left rather broad. At the same time it sets some limits that define the field we want to investigate. One of the reasons we decided to leave the initial question broad is because we wanted to have absolute freedom in the way we approach our research. However, investigations concerning human action and human experience it soon occurred to us that we could not work with quantitative data. This would have compromised the way we want to do research and we believe would have restricted our
Reinisch & Weber 12 outcome. In fact, we want to be as free in the choice of means and methods as possible. This leads to the fact that though quantitative data can be combined with qualitative data, we have not taken any quantitative data into consideration.
2.2 A qualitative approach
We have decided to use a qualitative approach for our research. A qualitative approach means using data transmitted through language rather than numbers (Legewie, 1995). Having said this, this approach to studies gives us the possibility to do research where little has been done so far. Further, as both art and leadership are characterized by subjectivity, personal feelings and emotions, we believe, this method is more exigent to enable obtaining data useful to leadership research. In order to show a possible relationship between leadership and art we have to be able to look into as many directions as possible. We have to speak to those who have experienced this influence and understand what they have taken from it in order to draw conclusions, which are useful to our research. Using a qualitative method rather than a quantitative method, gives us access to a great range of data resources (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 27) and different methods of data collection. More than once though, we felt the need to introduce some quantitative data that can, however, be used in combination with qualitative data. Reflecting on possible outcomes though, we concluded it would be more useful to stick to the qualitative method and not to combine it. In this sense we let the research question tell us how we should deal with problems encountered. To look at the impact of art on leadership, we think, can only be done by speaking to people about how they feel, how they personally relate to art and leadership and what experience they had in these areas. We argue that this provides us with more meaningful outcomes that we can share with you, rather than asking about how many times somebody has been to a museum or an art gallery in order to create statistically relevant data. We note that there is more to understand and discover in what leaders and artists have to say and what they feel, rather than in getting to know if they are frequent visitors of museums or other art institutions. Further, this subject is of great personal interest to us and we feel emotionally involved. Art has been a fundamental part of our lives and it would have been impossible for us not to transmit any of these influences on our outcomes. Though some see the impact of the researcher as irrelevant on the discovery of qualitative data, suggesting that the truth is out there and only needs to be discovered (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), we want to acknowledge that we do believe that we have an impact on our research. This implies the use of a methodology that requires the researchers to be new to the topic to the highest possible degree. We instead see ourselves as being part of this
Reinisch & Weber 13 reality to a certain degree. We chose this method also because we wanted to have the possibility to “enter in the reality of the participants, [in order] to see the world from their perspective” (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 16). Thus, the present study's qualitative data was gathered with the help of qualitative interviews.
2.3 Grounded theory and our approach to it
The grounded theory is a research method that was developed by Glaser and Strauss in the 1960’s and presented to the public 1967 in the book, discovery of grounded theory. These American sociologists had been searching a scientific set of rules to develop theory that arises from qualitative data instead of, as was the most common way of scientific investigation at the time, trying to prove already existing theory (Strauss, 1999; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). More than a set of rules or methods, however, the grounded theory forms a way of how to analytically reflect on social phenomena (Glaser cited in Legewie & Schervier-Legewie 1995, p. 71). Over the years the theory has evolved and especially Strauss together with Corbin (1990) have focused on a rather “strict and complex process of systematic coding” (Goulding 1998, p. 52). This has led to deep discussion and critique from Glaser (inter alia Glaser, 1992). Glaser has repeatedly stated that though grounded theory contains certain methods, these can be adapted to different areas of research. A historian may have different needs from an IT- researcher or from a nurse, for instance (Glaser in Legewie & Schervier-Legewie 1995, p. 71). Indeed, Glaser focuses more on the explanation of the phenomenon that is being examined. Strauss, on the contrary, wants to “conceptualise beyond the immediate field of study” (Goulding 1998, p. 52). We are not using grounded theory to its total extent having adapted some methods only that are proposed by Strauss to our research. We see our theory grounded in our data, but believe to construct, rather than find it.
Originally, Glaser and Strauss wanted to find an alternative way to the traditional, logic- deductive methods. In such, a hypothesis, developed at the beginning of research, is subsequently empirically tested by confirmation through statistical data. The grounded theory approach gives us, the “creator[s] of knowledge” (Arbnor & Bjerke 2009, p. 47) the possibility to look at a certain phenomenon, discuss it and then start to build up a theory that is already grounded in reality (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and revealed through the analysis of data. It is therefore based on induction, which is the process of building theory from the data. The researcher either discovers, or and as we see it, constructs the theory from what he has found.
The originators of this theory look out for a more “defined and systematic procedure for selecting and analysing qualitative data” (Goulding 2002, p. 40). They based their views Reinisch & Weber 14 on the principles of symbolic interactionism (ibid, p. 40). Symbolic interactionism, a term coined by Herbert Blume, is a theoretical approach to social analyses developed to a great extent by George Herbert Mead (Mann, 2007). According to Annells (1996) symbolic interactionism must be seen as two distinct concepts. On the one hand it is a theory of human behaviour. On the other, it forms a possible way to conduct research concerning the way humans behave as individuals as well as within a community. This shows that Glaser and Strauss were searching for a way to better understand and scientifically describe social interaction. Though this theory was established for sociology, according to its “basic principles it is transcendent in terms of its application” (Goulding 2002, p. 38) researchers from various fields have used it for their purposes. Today it has also found great application in management and business studies (Legewie 1995, p. 189) and previous to our analysis, already in leadership studies (inter alia Parry, 1998). We want to note that this has not lead to a substantial modification of the theory. Rather it has led to adaption of the grounded theory to a certain extent (Strauss & Corbin, 1997).
Goulding (1998) suggests that the “role of grounded theory was, and is, the careful and systematic study of the relationship of the individual’s experience to society and to history” (ibid, p. 51). This, however, applies to most qualitative research methods. What distinguishes the grounded theory from others is that data is simultaneously collected and analysed. Further, the researchers develop analytical codes and categories from emerging data and not, as we have said, from hypothesis. Another characterizing aspect of the grounded theory is that the theories are constructed not only at the end, but already during the process of research (Charmaz 2007, p. 5). The writing of so called “memos and diagrams” (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 119) that are used to analytically analyse the collected data are also typical and essential to this theory. Another very important aspect of the grounded theory is the continuous comparison between different sources of data and already elaborated concepts. This ongoing process is called “constant comparative analysis” (ibid, p. 65).
Using grounded theory means collecting data while analysing it step-by-step. The aim is to find a logical connection within the entire field of research the researchers are working on. According to grounded theory, our own theoretical findings originated from the data we systematically gathered, analysed and compared with each other. Therefore we worked inductively but also deductively to a certain degree. We used our data, labelled and categorized them, set up theories, confronted them with each other and reusing them, gained more data. The new data indicated if we could either find further results or if, what we had already found was relevant. This process we identify as our theoretical
Reinisch & Weber 15 sampling process. When the data led to confirmation of what we had found, we considered the data sated (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 143).
The aim of such a process, the collection of data applying the grounded theory, is the description of a certain phenomenon; in our case the influence art has on leadership. This description should finally represent a theory based on the collected data. In order to generate a theory, the revealed and analytically analysed data must eventually be abstracted (Glaser & Strauss 1967, p. 45). The means just described should, ideally, lead to such a goal. The researchers using the grounded theory, however, must go beyond description (Goulding 2002, p. 42) of the occurrence we have chosen to analyse. The terminology of Goulding is not identified with Geertzs’ “thick description” (ibid 1973, p. 5 et sqq.) in her work. Goulding, just as Geertz, refers to an abstraction that takes into account the environment that surrounds the phenomenon that is observed.
Spiggle (1994), shows that applying grounded theory in qualitative research will take the merely descriptive research to a more abstract level to conceptualize it. To create theory as is our goal in fact. Strauss and Glaser have described theory as “process; that is, theory as an ever-developing entity, not as a perfected product” (Glaser & Strauss 1967, p. 32). During our research we have gained the experience that has shown us this concept. We have collected data, both primary and secondary. We have analysed the data using different coding methods and compared them with each other. We then thought we were able to see a theory but we went back, collected more primary data and the idea of our theory was modified. We finally created a theoretical framework that helped us see the meaning in our data. We abstracted by means suggested from the grounded theory literature. Sitting in front of the transcripts of our interviews and listening to the recordings, what has emerged was first the feeling of something that combined all our interviewee’s. Then the feeling manifested itself in the data. What this is will be revealed in the final and conclusive part of our thesis.
2.4 Analysing our data: comparative analysis as a strategic method for generating theory
The process of analysing our data is crucial. Corbin and Strauss have pointed out that this is “the act of giving meaning to data” (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 64). Therefore, whatever we analyse also has to do with us and the concepts we bear in mind. Our final aim is to construct a substantive theory. We want to highlight that we see ourselves as the constructors of a theory, rather than its discoverers. We have depicted this in the subsequent figure 2. This shows how we arrived at our results through the different coding techniques and through the comparative analysis. The figure does not include Reinisch & Weber 16 memos and diagrams as these have been of help since the very beginning and until the very end. The small blue arrows show show the way our information was flowing. The empirical data is at the core of the graph in order to visualise the centrality of it for our work.
Figure 2: Our use of grounded theory
2.4.1 Open Coding
Using grounded theory means that collecting and analysing data happen simultaneously. As Hutchinsons’ guidance for the data elaboration in grounded theory suggests, “while coding and analysing the data, the researcher looks for patterns. He or she compares incident with incident, incident with category, and, finally, category with category or construct with construct” (Hutchinson 1986a, p. 122). Therefore the analysed data has impact on that data that is collected thereafter. Using a qualitative method also the coding of the data is done from a qualitative perspective. We started our analysis by going through our interviews and the secondary data and selected words that we found could be of relevance to our study. In a certain sense we separated the sentences of your interviewees and focused on single words and phrases. We aligned these words and sometimes sentences, and compared them to each other. We did this to see if we could
Reinisch & Weber 17 identify some similar and reoccurring concepts within one interview. Had we found such repetitions or synonyms we would write them down under each other forming a category. These groups correspond to a word that had been expressed by the interviewee and that labelled the concepts these words stand for. Corbin and Strauss name such categories “in vivo codes” (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 65) as they are used during the process of analysing.
2.4.2 Axial Coding
Throughout our research we did a “constant comparison” (ibid, p. 65) with our secondary and primary data. We searched to see if we could obtain new findings by analysing the data for similarities in the answers of the interviewees as well as comparing it to our theoretical framework. We also took into account our theoretical framework to see if this could provide us with inspiration and insight considering the organisation of our data collection. After having coded the single interviews into the above mentioned “in vivo code” we looked at those categories and properties we had coded to see if those were related in some way. We created such categories from the interpretation of data (Charmaz 2007, p. 111) and did not have those already in our mind. These categories are critical moments of experience. Critical because they have been of great importance to our interview partners and because they are those moments that have made us see a theory behind the described reality. These constructs added theoretical meaning and scope to the substantive theory (Glaser, 1978) we have developed. What we have found is a core construct that is made out of three categories. These categories represent the experiences of our interviewees. These coded experiences help us make a theoretical construct because they are repeated in the different experiences of different people. “This comprehensive pattern is, in fact, the theory. The theoretical constructs are grounded in substantive or categorial codes, precluding the possibility of unfounded, abstract theorizing” (Hutchinson 1986a, p. 121). We state that the 12 interviewees we reproduce in this thesis contain such repetitions.
The theory we have elaborated is substantive, as it regards a specific area of study only. Further our aim is not explain what is outside of the reality we have conducted research in. A theory at such conceptual level, however, may have important general implications and relevance (Strauss & Corbin 1994, p. 274).
2.4.3 Selective Coding
According to Strauss and Corbin (1998) this coding process is the ultimate. It leads to building- up the theory starting by identifying a core, or central category (ibid, p. 146 et sqq.). Selective coding describes our process of what we have concluded and unites all Reinisch & Weber 18 our previously established categories. This abstracted concept we were able to reveal unites all those categories we found earlier. It forms in, our opinion, the backbone of our study. It is the same thread that runs through all our findings, and is meant to show our theory more clearly to the reader. It is indeed central to our substantive theory, even though it occurred to us only at a final stage of this research. We believe that it always was there already, though we were unable to see it at the beginning. In fact, on the contrary to the “in vivo codes” explained above, these category was not explicitly brought up by our interviewees. It rather occurred to us at a certain point and thanks also to input from tutors, research partners and others.
2.4.4 Memos and Diagrams
Writing a thesis includes a lot of reading. This reading seemingly always requires further reading. Articles, books, biographies and other forms of literature often only touch upon certain topics and lead the reader off to undergo further research on his own. Especially at the beginning of our research we would rely on our memory. Soon, however, we realised that this led to the loss of potential concepts we might have used. To stop this process of memory loss, we adapted Corbins’ and Strauss’ concept of memos and diagrams (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 117 et. sqq). After any literature we had read we wrote a short abstract about it. This often contained some additional personal notes with ideas of how this could be linked to our research, which additional material should be read, according to the bibliography and also some key words. However, especially making diagrams has been of great help to us. During all the phases of our research we made use of them. Reading literature from many different areas of research has often been confusing and making a visual representation through diagrams has helped to narrow our research down to what really is important. Further we quickly saw if our links were missing logical connections as well as realising that there could be connections where we had not originally seen any.
2.5 Data collection
2.5.1 Primary Data: Face- to- Face Research
We want to give this part a particular focus as this is of essential content for our thesis. The face-to-face research and its planning and execution has taken a great amount of time, effort and energy. However, it has led us to very interesting and thought provoking results that have provided us with energy to continue our research with enthusiasm.
We have decided to split our face-to-face research into two parts. The first part can be seen as a pre-study phase and results are not directly reported here. However, they are Reinisch & Weber 19 indirectly embodied in this thesis as they have influenced us, and therefore our work in a very early research phase. The second part forms the actual primary data collection. In order to gain some subjective factual data, we decided to conduct conversations (Bjerke, 2007). This process was very interesting and we will report the findings in great detail. Though the outcome of such investigations depended on the willingness and expertise of our respondents (Arbnor & Bjerke, 2009), we have been fortunate as 12 out of 13 of our interviews have been very useful for our purpose and we can report them here.
At this point we see it as important to mention that the interviews have been conducted in different languages. German, English and Italian. We have translated them with care into English. However, we are aware of the fact that this might have caused some alteration in the exacts meaning of the interviewees words. Therefore we are glad to share the originals with the interested reader. They are available under the following URL: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8nzalgykxp879ab/4d5UvHK-ed
2.5.1.1 Phase I- interviewing the crowd
In this first phase we have conducted conversations with anyone we regarded as being interesting to speak to us about art and leadership and their experience with both of them. We interviewed everywhere, in school, at the library, people who live with us and sometimes people at the pub. These totally free and unconventional interviews also prepared us for the further data collection with our experts. These preliminary talks have been important to us as they have provided suggestions of how to better conduct our interviews. They also helped us to understand what would be interesting for a reader to know and therefore where we should focus our research on. They have made us understand first commonalities among people interested in arts and led us to some first assumptions. These conversations also gave us a feeling of how people react to certain questions and showed us how we needed to approach our interview partners. This helped us when we prepared the open questions for our interviews as we saw that some questions were too superficial, others too vague and would require more explanation from us. Secondly, these discussions gave as an idea how we, the conductors of the interview, reacted to certain answers. We realised that our reaction had influence on the answers even if we actively tried not to show reaction. For example we understood that eye contact was very important. This subsequently had an influence on the way we saw our role as researchers. For is it made clear that we were not able not to influence the outcome of the interviews. Therefore our data was influenced not only because we chose to analyse the data we analyse. More influence had the fact that we had impact on the data directly. Simply because we were conducting the interview. This lead to the result
Reinisch & Weber 20 that we could not see ourselves as researchers that are standing out of the reality we analyse.
2.5.1.2 Phase II- Interviewing the experts
We have interviewed 12 experts and the outcome of these interviews form a substantial part of our thesis. We have chosen to use conversations (Bjerke 2007, p. 2) in order to receive primary data. At this point we want to show that we are aware of the importance of observations while conducting a conversation. Because of that we tried to make notes during our research and more importantly we sat down right after having ended the talks in order to conserve those impressions that otherwise would have been lost (ibid, p. 9). Part of these observations we have included in the reproduction of our primary data. We agreed in advance that we would also include our own personal feelings on this first transcript. This helped us during the process of obtaining the data to take into account our “reflexivity” (Corbin & Strauss 2008, p. 31). Doing this permitted us to include partly our own emotional influence on the interviewee (ibid, p. 31). The advantage of conversation in contrast to interviews is, according to Bjerke (2007), that we did not have to arrange a formal setting. This was favourable in several ways. First, we have an informal relationship to most of the interviewees. Conducting a conversation for that made the situation more comfortable and realistic for both the interviewers, and the interviewee as we could speak freely. Secondly, our topic is personal and subjective, so are our questions. We asked the respondents to express “inner feelings and thoughts” (ibid, p. 8). As we see it, this is the only way to find possible answers to our research question. Though we used a semi- structured questionnaire, we tried to make as little interruptions as possible. We also changed the sequence of our questions if we had the feeling it would give the conversation a more logical direction. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part concerned the life of our interviewees and their first involvement with art. The second part focused on their personal and professional experience with art. For us it was important to know what they think and feel when creating or consuming art. Further we asked some questions we had not planned to ask but felt could enrich our research or keep the conversation in its flow. Therefore the flush of thoughts and words of the interviewees was almost uninterrupted and we believe lead to more authentic and honest results. This also led to the fact that more information was given to us, and the talk seemed more natural. Keeping eye contact with our counterpart was a set priority as well as using some other “active listening” techniques such as asking “non- direct questions” and sometimes repeating what the person said (ibid, p. 9). We believe this gave our interlocutors the feeling we would listen more actively. This we believe increased the sense of being in an informal situation for them. Reinisch & Weber 21 In order to analyse the conversations in the best possible way, we recorded them with the consent of the interview partners. We have transcripts and memos of our interviews that we have used for analysis. The transcripts and the voice recordings are not attached to this thesis. This is because we have conducted interviews in different languages and time was too restricted to translate entire conversations into English. Nevertheless, , we have made the transcripts accessible on a “Dropbox”- Folder under the following URL: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8nzalgykxp879ab/4d5UvHK-ed
We have also gained consent from our interview partners that parts of their curriculum vitae might be published and that we could name them personally in our work. We think these will be of great interest to the reader as they highlight their professionalism and therefore justify that we call them experts. All of the following have agreed to these prerequisites and their interviews will be reproduced as a summary and analysed in the appropriate chapter:
Colleen Mraz- American Drama teacher and management coach. Colleen Mraz taught Drama on different educational levels in Italy and further used Drama to coach leaders in the United States of America.
Gianpietro Ermacora- Italian Architect and Consultant. Gianpietro Ermacora is the founder of Gesti- Project an architecture and consulting company in Udine.
Nico Müller- German Singer and vocal coach. Nico Müller is Bariton among others for ADORO, which is a successful German classical music ensemble with over 1.7 Million sold sound recording mediums.
Roberto Lapi- Italian Architect. Roberto Lapi is co- founder and CEO of the architect studio L+Partners in Milano.
Ewan David Eason- British Gallery Manager and Graphic Designer, currently working for Flowers Gallery London.
Lucinda Lloyd- British award winning Actress and Founder of "A little bird whispered".
Peter Pakesch- Austrian Curator and Director of the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria.
Prof. em. Dr. Paul Stähly- Swiss Emeritus Professor for Operations Research of the St. Gallen University and art collector.
Reinisch & Weber 22 Johann Lassnig- Walder – Austrian Trumpeter, Music teacher and Musical Director of the kelagBIGband Klagenfurt.
Eugen Bertel- Austrian Musician and Music Teacher. Eugen Bertel is a flutist among others for the Symphony Orchestra Vorarlberg.
Knut Weber- Austrian Musician. Knut Weber is a Violoncellist at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and plays in several other compositions.
Kurt Leidl- Austrian Artist and Manager. Kurt Leidl was the responsible manager for the Eastern European countries for Hofmann -La Roche a pharmaceutical company and now runs workshops for artistic lithography.
The reasons why we have chosen to interview these people are multiple. First, we have access to them. On the one hand some of these people are part of our own network and we could rely on their participation. On the other, we found an “informant” (Goulding 2002, p. 60) who provided us with personalities that fit in our scheme and were happy to be interviewed. Secondly, they are experts in their fields. Thirdly, they are all leaders. Some in the field of business, some in the field of education and some in the field of art. Fourthly, they all are connected to art, either on a professional level, or privately. However, all of them have in some way produced art, and further see themselves as very interested in art. We call them “art- active” individuals. People who enjoy art as they go to artistic events on a non-measured, but regular basis. In reference to the suggestions made by Goulding (2002, p. 59 et sqq.) we have approached our interviews in the following way. We contacted our potential interviewee’s with a specially generated E- Mail account ([email protected]). This gave the interviewees the information of who we are and what we want to do. We think it also established a certain trust in our relationship as it helped to make clear that we were serious in our endeavour. Through this address we managed all our correspondence. We provided potential interview partners with information about our thesis and exchanged addresses and phone numbers. This helped us establish a certain relationship with them as we could speak to each other at least once before we met. Thanks to this we gained some idea of how the person spoke and in which language it would be appropriate to conduct the interview.
As some of these interview partners preferred to speak in their first language our language knowledge provided us with the possibility to do this. We think that this led to more authentic and reliable answers.
Reinisch & Weber 23 2.5.2 Secondary data
In support of, and in addition to the primary data we have collected, we are using secondary data. Secondary data, meaning empirical data that has been collected by other researchers, is used in this work in addition to our personal findings. We made use of it as we were limited in time and resources and believe that it gave our findings a more complete set of data. The secondary data we used relates in particular to the influence art has on social groups of different people we will call ‘communities’ throughout the thesis. Therefore we make reference to empirical data contained in scientific papers and books. They are connected to leadership theory on the one hand, and on the other hand to literature that considers how art impacts individuals within a community. This data is partly taken from fields of research other than leadership. These are pedagogy and some other social sciences. We also consider some classical analysis in the field of art. Though these might not seem to be connected to leadership on first sight, we invite the reader to look at our analysis that has the objective to reveal these links that will be looked at in greater detail in the conclusion. Looking at the given data from our perspective as leadership researcher, gives its original meaning additional relevance that we can utilise for our conclusion (Goulding 2002, p. 57).
The combination of primary and secondary data allows us to complete the picture of what we can learn from art and incorporate in our leadership research. In fact, it is the combination of the analysis of these two data sources, that will lead to our conclusions.
Arbnor and Bjerke (2009) have suggested that when using secondary data some considerations should be taken into account. These are the trustworthiness of the other research and compatibility of the data may have with our own. We have chosen to take data only from accredited publishers and have taken into consideration what the aim of the research was, when it was conducted and what approach the researcher used for his data collection.
Reinisch & Weber 24
3. Why is art important?
3.1 Overview
In this very essential part of the Master Thesis we want to point out why art is important for us, why we believe art is important for individuals, where we see significant influences and impacts on individuals and communities and what are possible behavioural outcomes arising out of any interaction with the arts. In other words- what does an individual, or a community gain out of the interaction with the arts. With the word interaction we refer to any form of active or passive engagement with the arts- no matter if it is direct involvement in the practice of art, or the indirect involvement through art consumption. We believe that both forms have a significant impact on us and through that we assume that every individual who accepts art as such might be taken on this wonderful journey called “art”, with all its impact.
To underline our assumptions and ideas, we try to relate them to already existing research in order to present an informative picture of what has already been done and how it relates to our work. Besides the theoretical framework, we present 6 key studies taken in the period 1988 - 2000, their outcome, their evaluation of results and their impact on further development within the evaluation of arts, which might support our ideas and underlines our assumptions with numbers and additional scientific value. We want to present our arguments as clearly as possible, without just leaving them as such, but relate them to other scholars’ work.
It has to be mentioned that the scientific field about personal impact of the interaction with the arts is not that explored yet. Reasons for this can be seen in the difficulty of measuring the impact of the arts in the form of personal and social gain. The question, “what does an individual or community gain out of the interaction with the arts” include the importance of clarifications; therefore we state now what we mean with the following terms:
• We are referring to “the arts”, as to all activities and organizations, which are under the banner of art. Activities include a wide variety of either consuming or participating in all genres art provides, like paintings and drawings, sculptures, music, dance, theatre, literature and architecture. As organizations we see museums, galleries, concert houses, theatres, operas, libraries and cultural centres. Reinisch & Weber 25 • “To gain” is the impact the arts have on individuals and communities. We believe that this impact might lead to personal change, social change and economic change, which are also discussed by Matarasso, 1999; Guetzkow, 2002; Newman & Curtis & Stephens, 2001.
• “Individuals” are all sorts of human beings, who accept art as such and interact with those art forms that they like the most.
• As “community” we refer to group membership, which occurs out of the fact of origin, sex, occupation and interests.
We believe that art has an intense impact on human beings, because as it is fundamentally integrated in every form of society. The whole discussion on the positive effects about art and its importance within society and for every individual started with Aristotle (384 BC).
3.2 Positive philosophical elaboration around the effects of the arts
Aristotle (384 BC) represented his thoughts on the notion of dramatic catharsis in his work Poetics (Belfiore & Bennett 2007, p. 17). He described, that the audience is confronted with a cathartic effect, which is caused by experiencing danger and fear on the stage. Modern interpretations about Aristotle’s Poetics and the notion of catharsis, interpret this effect as an impact, which can be described as emotional, ethical and educational. Brought into another context the emotional impact theory is seen as therapeutic, which might be healing and leads to an overall well-being and therefore end in a human happiness. The ethical impact theory is seen as humanising and as a moral educator, through diversified examples on the stage, and to restrain emotions (ibid, pp. 17-20). The educational impact of the notion of catharsis is argued to stimulate a cognitive process and to generate a clearer understanding, through the aesthetical experience, which leads to the generation of knowledge (ibid, p. 19).
3.3 Contemporary discussion
Even in the 20th century Aristotle’s predefined three effects on the arts: emotional, ethical and educational are strongly valid. Nevertheless, his main focus concentrated on the impact of theatre and poems, which are part of the arts we are talking about. Besides those, we take into account all activities and organizations that stand in a relationship to art.
Reinisch & Weber 26 3.3.1 Art as a school
We see art as a school for human beings. A school where individuals gain tiles they can build their personality on. They learn about themselves, learn about their skills and become more knowledgeable. Personality depends on self-esteem and self-worth, which might arise out of the interaction with arts. This can happen either through positive recognition by others or by the discovery of personal skills, which enables to communicate, to fulfil personal goals, to present and to improvise in the best possible way. This is on a personal level, but the personal level directly affects the social level, through shared understanding, cooperation and tolerance with others. The personal goal can suddenly affect the collective goal, through common interests. Besides the personal and social affect a third effect can be identified coming from the arts, which is the economic effect (Matarasso, 1997; Guetzkow 2002).
Figure 3: Art and its effects as circular flow
Personality Business Emotion Social Service Agency Strengths Church Beliefs Neighbourhood Weaknesses Educational Institutions Behaviour Goals Individual Community
ART
Personal effect
Social effect Economic effect
Source: Adapted from Kirst-Asham (2011, pp. 27-29)
Reinisch & Weber 27 Figure 3 presents a possible circular flow. The medium “art” with its personal, social and economic effects might influence the individual and the community. Furthermore the individual might influence the community and vice versa. Further, the individual and community may have an impact on the arts as well. Our aim in this part of the thesis is to explain those connections.
Kirst-Asham (2011, p. 27) relates to individuals characteristics that make them unique. These are the following: personality, emotion, strengths, beliefs, weaknesses, behaviour, goals and interests. To change an individual, involves working with this person, enhancing his or her functioning and identifying strengths and issues (ibid, pp. 27-28).
Furthermore Kirst-Asham (2011, p. 29) illustrates in this modified image how communities might look like: school, business, church, neighbourhood and social service agency. Of course there are many more unmentioned communities, but this should rather be seen as an example of how communities might look like.
Going back to the effects of the arts that are explained by certain scholars as personal change, social change and economic change (Matarasso, 1997; Williams, 1995; Jones, 1988; Costello, 1998; Stern & Seifert, 2000), which might have impact on the individual and the community.
Personal change through the arts might be caused by personal development, which increases people’s confidence and sense of self-worth. The personal development might arise through an improvement in skills, cultural capital and creativity, an increase in social activity, mental well-being, cognitive functioning, increase in health and academic performance (Matarasso, 1997; Williams, 1995).
The social change through the arts might arise through intercultural community understanding, because people find together, who might not have, without interacting in the arts. There could be an interaction among generations. Through this medium art organizational skills and social networks profit, because people learn cooperating and understanding themselves over their culture barriers. This helps to promote tolerance and reduces conflicts (Matarasso, 1997; Williams, 1995; Jones, 1988).
The economic change can be seen important from two perspectives. First the individual might profit out of the arts, because new jobs are created, as well as more people get job opportunities. The arts support the economy, through investments, because people buy property, where art is more available. The reason for that can be seen that property around arts might be more worth. Besides that
Reinisch & Weber 28 the arts attract businesses and people, to join art programmes, which is a business in itself (Costello, 1998; Stern & Seifert, 2000).
The economic change will not be presented in this thesis in more detail, because our main interest lies in the personal, as well as social change. Nevertheless we want to state that these three areas contain our thoughts towards why the arts are important for the individual and society.
Lowe (2000, p. 358) would say at this level: “it is possible to generate ‘Gemeinschaft’ in settings where ‘Gesellschaft’ prevails”, through the arts.
This idea gave us the incentive to have a closer look at the arts. The arts can have an impact on an individual as such, but also indirectly through community based arts. By “indirectly” we mean the community based arts have “the community” as their prime aim and not the individual. Nevertheless, “the community” is built on individuals. So we believe that the school “art” educates its students over two possible ways. In other words we believe the individual is receiving a double incentive by the arts. The first incentive is direct and very personal. The second incentive is a more indirect way and occurs thanks to community stimuli.
Therefore we will concentrate on both incentives the arts might provide for an individual:
• How arts effect in a personal way. In order to do so we conducted interviews with experts, who share their ideas, their knowledge, their experiences and their feelings with us. Due to these interviews we receive a picture of how they relate themselves to art, how art educates them and how art influences them. This can be found in the following part of our thesis.
• Community arts. Raven (1993) describes community arts as a form of public art, which has an inclusive and experiential nature. Artists create art together with non-artists, which does not necessarily have to be in that way. Flood in Lowe (2000, p. 364) adds to this explanation: “the role of the artist is to engage the individual or group in the process of art and to stir something within the individual about his individual and/or collective being”. Weitz (1996, p. 6) explains, it offers individuals opportunities “to learn new skills, to expand their horizons and develop a sense of self, well-being and belonging”. Fromm (1955) sees collective art as a fundamental part of life and remarks its speciality for being shared in a productive and meaningful rich way.
Right now we want to focus on community arts, because the interaction with the arts in a personal way will be elucidated by the taken interviews. Scholars in the the period
Reinisch & Weber 29 1988-2000 have made key studies on this area of research. Some of these have been partly criticised today. Especially from a methodological perspective. Critics believe that these studies failed to be clear about how people were selected and how their opinions were measured. Nevertheless, the view still does exist, and we see it as essential to list them and provide their main outcomes. We believe that their results are of great importance for our research area. It is visible that positive change was the characteristic in the majority of those studies.
3.3.2 Reflections on key studies of community arts
In the following we want to present six key studies, which were done between 1988 and 2000. Their prime aim was to find out through community art programmes, why the arts matter for individuals and communities. Their methods were telephone interviews, questionnaires, discussion groups and random surveys. Their target groups consisted of artists, art consumers, local art organisations, participants of community art projects, funders, art professionals, teachers, volunteers, users of social services, children in play schemes, festival organizers and volunteers, local residents, visitors, public officials and stakeholders of art projects. These studies will be listed in a chronological order.
3.3.2.1 Study 1: Evaluation of community arts and its impact on community and culture
In 1988 Jones collected 20 interviews of public officials, school officials, local and resident artists and art council members; 24 pre-residency and 47 post-residency random surveys of households, 16 informal interviews, did direct observations and monitored local newspapers. A visual artist did with a Colorado neighbourhood several art activities in order to develop the community. He created a world with a change agent, a change agent system, the action system and the target and client system. He is referring to the change agent as the artist, the change agent system as the sponsoring art council, the action system as the art community and artists and the client system as the community. He figured out that through the arts the identification with others increased, as well as the sense of community. Furthermore participants of community arts projects appreciated more symbols and cultural heritage and mentioned that they would join community affairs again. Jones (1988) argues that the artist is the change agent, who helps participants to enhance personal relationships and artistic techniques by working together. To summarise, he confirmed that community arts, develop communities (ibid).
Reinisch & Weber 30 3.3.2.2 Study 2: Clarification of the social impact through participation in the arts and the elaboration of opportunities how to assess social impact
In 1996 Matarasso collected 242 questionnaires of adults and children. Among these were organisers, volunteers, art consumer, artists, residents and visitors at three art festivals. One of those was the Gaaelic Music Festival, which is famous for music, dance and several other forms. Matarasso (1996) could find out that through the interaction with arts, 79% of all participants gained new skills and 78% reported that they felt more confident. Through the availability of different people, 96% reported that they could find new friends, who had different social backgrounds. This helped to perform and learn from one. 93% mentioned an enormous increase in their creativity. Besides that 43% of participants felt better and 80% felt happier. The festivals could create 10 fulltime jobs and integrate the participants into a community, which valued local culture and traditions (Matarasso, 1996).
3.3.2.3 Study 3: Clarification of the social impact through participation in the arts and the elaboration of opportunities how to assess social impact
In 1997, Matarasso engaged in another study in order to find evidence about the social impact of participating in the arts and to elaborate opportunities in how to assess social impact. He collected questionnaires around Europe and in Great Britain. The research found out that 84% of adult participants felt more confident about what they can do. 37% felt motivated to enhance their skills, through further trainings and courses and 80% have learnt new skills from being involved in the arts. Besides that, 91% made new friends, 54% have learnt about different cultures and 84% have become interested in something new. 49% think that their ideas have changed and 81% referred to an increased form of creativity. 73% of participants have been happier and 52% reported they felt healthier since interacting with the arts (Matarasso, 1997).
3.3.2.4 Study 4: The social impact of the arts
Williams concentrated her attention in 1995 on a survey for 109 community participants, who interacted in a community based art project in Australia. The goal was to make their community centre more beautiful. The townspeople got the chance under the guidance of professional painters to create artwork. It turned out to be a very successful social activity, because people who normally would have stayed at home came together. Further, those people had a mission and transformed it into reality. They formed a shared voice towards politicians for negotiations, for other improvements and thanks to their work. Through the achieved goals community members saw a new sense in that what they were doing. This is a fascinating example of how a community Reinisch & Weber 31 transformed into an organization. Through that people learned organizational skills and built relationships and trust among them. These are necessary for a well-run organisation. Besides that some people found jobs in their personal created environment. The communication skills among the members improved which got pointed out by 95% of total participants. 80% got into contact with new lifestyles, different cultures and 57% believed that it increased audiences for art work. 90% saw an increase in public awareness for an issue and 57% appreciated the actual action on a social issue. Besides that 45% believed that the project increased employment and 61% agreed on the idea, that through the project further attraction was raised for new art projects (Williams, 1995).
3.3.2.5 Study 5: Clarification of the social impact through participation in the arts and the elaboration of opportunities how to assess social impact
In 1998 Matarasso collected two studies. He interviewed teachers, volunteers, artists and participants in schools and exhibitions in Portsmouth. A total amount of 30 schools, 100 children and 3000 exhibition visitors participated. In an educational context he reported that 86% improved their language skills and 85% improved their observation skills through the arts. 92% of participants refereed to an increase in their creativity and imaginations, which are visible in their everyday actions. 78% could improve their social skills, through making new friendships, group interactions and an improved form of group organizational capacity (Matarasso, 1998)
Matarasso and Chell (1998) conducted in the second research 53 telephone interviews in Belfast. It was done at the beginning and the end of a 1.5 year period. Besides that, 100 questionnaires were filled out by art participants. To obtain a full picture, they organized 6 discussion groups with funders, artists and participants of the arts projects. In this survey 20% of participants felt an increase in skills through the interaction with arts and 88% reported that they have made new friends, which lead to answers of 64% receiving a new understanding for new cultures. Besides that discussion groups reflected on a higher awareness of community issues (75%), nevertheless 22% felt the availability of the projects did not help local businesses and 23% believed it did not lead to an improvement of public facilities. The participants pointed out that new jobs could be created (ibid).
Reinisch & Weber 32 3.3.2.6 Study 6: Evaluation of the community-art process and its cause on social interaction
In 2000 Lowe observed focus groups and analysed reports of 100 artists and participants of 2 community art projects- One in a school and one in a library. Both were done in Denver. Lowe (2000) says: “The study describes the community-art process as a ritualistic setting for social interaction”. Poetry, drama, dance and music were used to share traditional stories. In this context it was a Latino culture. She identified that through the interaction with arts, participants got knowledge, because a story was told to them. Besides that skills raised because they could voluntarily join the drama, dance and music, which enabled them to establish a common sense. People discovered creativity in themselves and therefore a new form of identity. This made new relationships possible. New established networks had their roots in the arts (ibid).
3.4 The arts impact on individuals and communities
The above mentioned key studies described individual changes from a personal, social and economic perspective. In this thesis, however, the main concentration will be on the personal and the social perspective. We will now clarify these terms into more detail. Matarasso (1997) inspired us to claim that personal change is built on personal development, imagination and visions, as well as health and well-being, which is presented in Figure 4. Personal development might get caused by an increase of confidence, through enriching social lives, through finding a voice, through skill building and employment (ibid). Imagination and Vision contain out of a development of creativity and positive risk taking. Finally, we see health and well-being consisting of health benefits, increase in well-being and enjoyment (ibid). It has to be mentioned that the sub- categories of personal change influence each other and therefore influence personal change as such. Three interactive on-going cycles have to be imagined, which leads to the output “personal change”.
Reinisch & Weber 33 Figure 4: Personal Change Through The Arts
Personal Change
imagination and health and well- personal development vision being
developing increasing confidence creativity health benefits
enriching social lives positive risk taking enjoyment
means, goals, finding a voice vision
skill building and employment
Source: Adapted from Matarasso (1997)
The social perspective although is claimed to be based on social cohesion, the community empowerment and self-determination, which is shown in Figure 5. Social cohesion is built on bringing people together and a creation of community. Community empowerment and self-determination have their roots in building organizational capacity, the support for local projects and the community involvement in regeneration (Matarasso, 1997). As stated under personal change social cohesion, community empowerment and self-determination should not be seen as two separate parts. They rather should be looked at two parts continuously influencing each other.
Figure 5: Social Change through the Arts
Social Change
social cohesion community empowerment and self determination
bringing people together building organizational capacity
community support for local projects
community involvement in regeneration
Source: Adapted from Matarasso (1997) Reinisch & Weber 34 In the following paragraphs we want to explain these two charts with the necessary literature. Before, we want to clarify the reasons why our described key studies were done. Jones (1977) evaluated community arts and its impact on community and culture. Matarasso (1996, 1997, 1998) was rather focused on finding evidence about the social impact within participation in the arts and to elaborate opportunities how to assess social impact. Williams (1995) was concentrating on the social impact of the arts. Lowe (2000) described the community-art process and its cause on social interaction. Having identified those differences it is clear that we approach the possible description how the arts impact individuals from two directions. First the community arts and second the arts themself. Nevertheless all of them have one aim: To describe how the arts might have an impact. These two directions help us to get a diversified picture.
3.4.1 Personal Change
3.4.1.1 Personal Development
Overall respondents of the key studies remarked that they changed personally and that was caused by personal development, imagination, vision and health and well-being (Matarasso, 1997). Let us now have a specific look how these variables could be stimulated. Many variables are interlinked and cause each other. When we talk about the arts, we talk about the interaction with them. This interaction can be active and passive. Certain scholars claim that personal change might be caused from both. Within our thesis, we won’t differentiate between them.
The whole cycle starts with people’s increase in confidence during their interaction with the arts. Matarasso (1997, p.14) found the reason in the cooperation with others and personal achievements, because individuals like to have something done. Nevertheless achievements can be accomplished personally, but also in collective terms. In an atmosphere where everybody can let them go, outcomes can be perceived differently. Connor, Dewson and Tyers (2001) describe that the attainment of certain skills are insignificant for certain people, but the jump forward attaining those, are from immense importance for others. The confidence might arise from the discovery that creativity does not belong just to artists, or certain people, it is also deeply imbedded in one’s person- it just has to be found (Matarasso 1997, p. 17).
We believe the outcomes of the key studies see the term enriching social lives in a personal context. Through the interaction with arts, the personal horizon can be expanded. This happens by generating new experiences, exchanging such with other people and getting new ideas about what exists and what goals are achievable. The arts
Reinisch & Weber 35 further teach how to use the voice. In terms of everyday life individuals might not get always the chance to speak out and the arts provide an incentive to do so (Matarasso 1997, p. 17). Furthermore the author (ibid) explains that through community meetings and personal exchange, individuals might talk about personal experiences and get more knowledgeable about personal rights and law issues, they didn’t know before.
One major characteristic coming from the key studies is skill building. Weitz (1996) argued that the interaction with the arts leads to a better form of decision making. This contributes either to more success in the art project or in personal life. Randall, Maggie and Miller (1997) argue that through the arts, participants start to self-empower themselves, because they can see what is possible. Furthermore the authors refer to the arts as a medium which empowers communication and through the participation of performing arts; it helps people to interact socially and gives them the chance to practice their social interaction skills. Through the arts participants have to deal with sense making and interpreting meaning because the arts present an unpredictable environment. Environments can be chaotic, beautiful, funny, sad and people have to learn how to cope with that (Matarasso 1997, pp. 22-25). This can be transferred to real life too. Fiske (1999, p. 60) describes: “arts learning, involving as it does as the construction, interweaving, and interpretation of personal and socio-cultural meaning, calls upon a constellation of capacities and dispositions, which are layered and unified in the construction of forms we call “paintings, poems, musical compositions and dances”. Benard cited in Randall, Maggie and Miller (1997) adds social competence in the form of caring, empathy, responsiveness of others, sense of joy and humour. Furthermore he mentions problem-solving skills such as seeing alternatives, planning ability, resource fullness and critical thinking. The author (1997, pp. 22-25) refers to goal directedness, persistence, achievement motivation, hope and optimism.
One important part is still missing: Our education. Education basically starts with kindergarten, then primary school, secondary school, grammar school and sometimes ends in universities. Those institutions are platforms of knowledge and skill transfer. Furthermore this area is partly seen as society’s key inclusion outcome. As Picasso once said: “every child is an artist”. Reflecting on this statement we can see the child as the freest spirit of all individuals. We believe that children are totally relying on their senses in order to give creativity and the drive for observation and curiosity the flow, which is needed. We certainly trust in our experiences that art keeps the flow on-going and it is claimed to maximise educational output. This on going flow supports children, youngsters, adolescents and adults in their everyday life. We can support this idea with the key studies mentioned before that have elaborated the fact that the impact of art Reinisch & Weber 36 might lead to better education and employment. Gardiner cited in Matarasso (1996, p. 18) puts it very well: “When students discover that participation in arts activities is pleasurable, they become motivated to acquire skills in the arts […] with two types of result. First, from learning that they can learn such challenging but desirable skills, students’ general attitude towards learning and school can improve. Second, learning arts skills forces mental ‘stretching’ useful to other areas of learning.” As described by Gardiner art teaches skills on the one hand and on the other hand it helps to get educated more effectively from other sources, like schools or universities. Besides that the teaching method is different. The arts in education rather enhance personal expressions and questions how did you do that, or why did you do that. The result is seen as an individual’s project, whose characteristics are defined by personal skills and personal ability. This leads to an important difference to traditional classes. Unlike in quantitative school subjects, as mathematics and languages that aim at a correct result, with art the aim is rather an interpretative result.
Harland et al. (2000) found out in his research and studies, that students confronted with painting, music, drama and dance had gained the following personal and social benefit: raise in communication, expressive and thinking skills, improved creativity, greater knowledge about social and cultural issues, having knowledge and skills in one or even more of these art forms and having the opportunity to release tensions. Harland et al. (2000) argues that the release of tensions is multiplied by the experienced enjoyment, fulfilment and excitement.
These are a couple of skills and impacts the student receives from the correctly distributed education towards quantitative goals and personal development. Quantitative goals should be understood as knowing how to calculate, write and read.
The final step we see within personal development is employment. If we think of a community art project it has to be organized and managed, which could be done either by governmental authorities, but also by organizations or individuals, who want to initiate a community art project. Some key studies, such as Matarasso (1996; 1997; 1998) and Williams (1995) mentioned that within their evaluation of community art projects they found out, that new jobs could have been created. These new jobs might enhance for example the inexperienced individual with organizational skills, management skills, crisis reaction skills and of course decision making skills (Matarasso, 1997). This might be another added value from the arts, which contributes very positively to personal development. On the other side on a community art level the artist gets employed, which has a positive impact too. The artist can perform, practice, gain confidence and skills through being in contact with the community. It is always necessary to see the whole Reinisch & Weber 37 picture of the community arts, which causes employment from an organizing and executive level.
3.4.1.2 Imagination and Vision
Imagination and Vision are both essential parts of personal development. Matarasso (1997, pp. 56-62) argues that the interaction with art has, in terms of imagination and vision, a deeper impact than other community activities. We separated these facts from personal development, even if they might have a direct impact on its components in a positive or negative way. This might lead to confusions, but as the sub categories are stated under the banner of personal change, they are influencing themselves anyway. Greene (1995, p. 18) argues that imagination is responsible for empathy. It allows individuals to enter other worlds. If we combine this concept with the interaction of arts, or the community art projects, artists try to create, present, or open new worlds in music, paintings, poetry, theatre etc. to present it to the individual and community. Out of the key studies it emerges that creativity can be learnt. Through the community arts different people join these initiatives with diverse backgrounds: either experienced with arts, so basically also experienced in creativity and newcomers, who are not yet experienced with arts (Matarasso, 1997). It does not matter, because the opportunity of a community art event supports both: the experienced individual can enhance his or her creativity and the newcomers can develop their creativity by observing the artist and getting impressions from others. After that we would suggest learning by doing. We think that a continuous learning and improvement cycle starts. Through observation a person learns and through seeing the personal result and getting positive feedback by others, it motivates this person to keep on improving. It is all about experience and positive recognition. Williams (1995) stated that individuals in community art projects developed their creativity.
Through an identification of possible participants of community art projects there are those who are open for everything and those who meet the artist or the community art event with scepticism. Matarasso (1997, p. 56) stated that a lot of participants came with low expectations, which can be seen as a protective mechanism against disappointment.
One participant in Matarassos’ study in (1997, p. 57) stated the following:
“I did this picture, and when it was in the exhibition, I thought ‘Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever, ever had anything like that put up’, because I’ve never considered I was any good at art. But I thought ‘Gosh, that’s lovely’, so I was very, very chuffed, thoroughly enjoyed it, and went away feeling that the few hours I was doing that, my mind was completely cut off from anything else with this lovely time we had here.” Reinisch & Weber 38 This is a great statement of how community art affects people. It has to be considered that a very high percentage of people might have never interacted with art before, so the community art project can be the cause for further development. It is a legitimate behaviour to be sceptical towards anything new, but we believe it is essential to leave preconceived notions behind and open our mind for something new. This might as well lead to totally different perceptions of the experience. In relation to this Matarasso (1997, p. 57) identified that for a high percentage of community art project participants, the interaction with the artist was a demystifying process. Artists and the arts themselves were viewed differently in a positive way over time, because the interaction caused something attractive.
In an area where creativity can be realised without any boundaries and imagination, arts help to enter other worlds (Greene 1995, p. 18). This involves risk taking. This can be interpreted in that sense that to take initiative to interact with the arts, to take initiative to join a community art project, individuals have to try it, even if they don’t know what might happen. People don’t know at the beginning what they can expect. This can be positive, but it also can be negative. This refers again to personality and personal interpretation. Nevertheless we believe that the arts in certain ways are a medium, which encourage people to take risk and maybe learn how to deal with risk-taking in a professional life. Matarasso (1997, p. 59) puts it very well; risks have to be “associated with self, identity, capacity, ability, relationships and similar intangibles”. It involves a learning process, to get used to risks, which can multiply the result you are aiming for, or diminish it. According to Wallach, Kogan and Bem (1964) individuals who reflect on risk taking opportunities in group discussions lead to higher risk taking than without having a consensus or discussion. We believe that we can relate these findings into a community art project. The project provides the database or gives an occasion for people to meet and exchange certain opinions. Wallach, Kogan, Bem (1964) see this effect in the imagined shared responsibility. In the end the decision has to be made by the individual and of course he or she will either benefit or suffer from such decisions.
If people can diversify their thoughts through community arts, new knowledge can have a fundamental impact on personal goals and vision. We have a simple theory in mind considering means, goals and visions.
We believe all three levels are influencing each other. The means are presenting the way how you want to reach a goal. Therefore the goal has to be an already defined step in life that the individual wants to reach. The characteristic is that a goal seems to be rather realisable. Pintrich (2000) puts goals into two major categories: a learning goal and a performance goal. The learning goal is basically the interest to learn something new. This Reinisch & Weber 39 requires a person’s interest for self-improvement, as well as the tendency to try to outperform what they have already reached. Performance goal interested personalities are characterised through their goal to compare their abilities to others (Pintrich, 2000). Their benchmarks are other people, rather than themselves (Dweck & Elliott, 1983). Vandewalle (1997) demonstrates that goal orientation has a major influence, how personalities seek feedbacks. There you can see an ongoing cycle of how community arts can enhance. Both kinds of personalities can use community arts to define, foster and work on their goals, through inspiration and the availability of possibilities.
Besides the means and the goals you have the vision, as a very important aspect within human lives. We see it as a medium to dream, to let thoughts go, without any limitations. The vision might be above goals, because visions may contain thoughts that are nearly impossible to reach. Nevertheless it stimulates individuals and might lead to happiness and motivation. Matarasso (1997, pp. 62-64) sees this happiness and motivation coming from three aspects of community arts: a raise in expectation, a sense of mission and symbols.
3.4.1.3 Health and well-being
It is not obligatory to attend art projects; it is rather voluntarily based. Certain scholars argue that participating in creative activities or artistic events is supposed to enhance health and well-being (Angus 1999; Baklien 2000; Bygren, Konlaan & Johannson 1996; Thoits & Hewitt 2001; HDA, 2000). Berry and Pennebaker (1993) argue that cultural activity could make individuals resistant to a wide number of diseases, or to be the initiator of how to deal with health problems. The arts might be inspirational for handling personal problems within an everyday life, supports individuals to reflect on their lives, as well as to prepare themselves for coming events in their mind (ibid). Data was found that the humoral nervous system goes through changes, which can be seen in fewer medical visits, rise in immune function, raise in physical health, through writing or talking of traumatic experiences. Evers (1992) found out that the use of music with autistic children as a form of therapy resulted in very positive effects. Beck (1991) and Schorr (1993) found significant proof in their studies that the arts, in their case music, reduces pain and has a positive impact in the treatment of cancer. Besides that the arts are commonly used very effectively to stimulate older people (Synder, 1991). Baklien (2000) argues that the arts reduce stress and that the engagement with arts improves social bonds, which contribute positively to health.
In order to describe the impact on health and well-being we want to present a Swedish research done by Bygren, Konlaan and Johannson (1996): Reinisch & Weber 40 The study’s objective was to find possible influences how reading books, making music, singing in a choir and attending cultural art events are factors that can help us survive. In total 15198 individuals between the ages of 16 to 74 participated in this study. The authors kept 8 variables in mind: age, sex, education, income, long term disease, and education, social network, smoking and physical exercise. These variables were taken into account to find an effective result.
In Figure 6 the result from the study can be seen. It showed that those individuals, who often attended cultural events, lived longer, than those who rarely attended cultural events. Unfortunately the authors mentioned that the study did not clarify what the “influence of cultural activities on other measures of health” is. Nevertheless the study presents an argument and proofs, that interacting with the arts might lead to a longer life.
Figure 6: Illustration showing an increase in health through interacting with the arts
Source: Bygren, Konlaan & Johannson (1996, p. 1579)
At the beginning of this passage, we mentioned interacting with the arts is based on volunteering. Several authors remark that the interaction with arts leads to a better well- being. The stimulation and the reduction in stress might lead to improved happiness and life satisfaction, as well as a better control over one’s life and an improvement of self- concept (Williams, 1995; Weitz, 1996).
Besides that the arts are used to deliver information about health and diseases. To make people aware of consequences of the wrong behaviour with the body and relates to
Reinisch & Weber 41 sustainable thinking. Theatre, poetry and visual arts are sometimes used to pass on information about sexual health, information about child care, nutrition intake and information about physical exercise (Matarasso, 1997). We see the arts as an educator for individuals and communities.
John Davis, Professor Emeritus from the University of Cambridge, has stated that: “Art should not be seen as one of those activities like physiotherapy that is ancillary to medicine; nor as alternative medicine. It is concerned with our common sensibility, and our shared vision of what life is about and how it should be lived. Art should help us in medicine to minister to patients as whole persons living out their lives, enabling us to treat life in its totality” (Speech at A Vision of Caring Environments, Manchester, 2/3 November 1989).
Another component rising from the interaction with the arts is enjoyment. The results in the studies are overwhelming. People like to interact with the arts as it is a fun activity (Matarasso, 1997). We see a combination in enjoyment and effort. The more people enjoy what they are doing, the more they would invest. This can be seen in the outcome of the studies. A very high percentage of participants started with classes or professional workshops in order to get better. This motivation of getting better might come from the originally participated art project. Harland et al. (2000) divide enjoyment in the arts in 6 parts: enjoyment by the art in general, enjoyment by the art form, enjoyment as buzz and excitement, enjoyment of fun, enjoyment as happiness and enjoyment as satisfaction. Here you can see in how many possible ways enjoyment can be felt.
3.4.2 Social Change
3.4.2.1 Social Cohesion
The arts might have an impact besides the individual on the whole community. It might be the reason why community members are coming together. Social Cohesion should be understood as the reduction of isolation and social exclusion, the better understanding of different cultures and lifestyles and the enhancement of relationships between individuals and groups (Matarasso 1997, pp. 26-32).
Bringing people together
Hooper-Greenhill (1991, p. 9) gives an example regarding museums as a community art: “Museums were also given the task of unifying society: they were seen as suitable places where all classes of people might meet on common ground. Thus museums were seen as ideal institutions; institutions that offered radical potential for social equality achieved through learning”. Matarasso (1997) argues that bringing people together is based on Reinisch & Weber 42 isolation in a city, rural connection, developing sociability and developing co-operation and tolerance. Isolation influences the quality of an individual’s life. It is one major driving influence in the social environment (Hawton et al. 2011). Brummet et al. (2001) argues that isolation leads to a negative influence of health, especially heart diseases and well-being. Berkman and Glass (2000) relate it to the supportiveness of social relationships, which provides emotional and instrumental support, which describes health supporting effects. Other scholars argue that communities provide social control, through encouraging (like diet, right nutrition intake, sleep) or discouraging (like alcohol or drug abuse). In general it means simply taking care of somebody else.
We can easily relate that to the arts that provide a possibility and opportunity to meet other people, interact socially and fight isolation. As a result of coming together, communities might develop solidarity for the community itself and its participants. Wellman (1979) argues that it is easier to have one or more common interests and experiences, which can be provided by community art projects. Lowe (2000, p. 366) explains through her study, that a community art project provides “a shared interest and a structured opportunity to interact socially, thereby allowing them to discover additional connections and to solidify social bonds”. As a result participants explored community life and feelings of belonging and unity. Therefore we might be able to argue that the arts lead to relationships while working together and through this interaction people can learn from each other. Through the fact that everybody is different, individuals learn to work with somebody else and how to compromise. People have to co-operate and show tolerance for new cultures and lifestyles of other people. Otherwise solidarity and raising relationships can never work. Building on the discussion before Lowe explains Perlstein’ (2000, pp. 368-369) thoughts that: “the art projects were a common experience that young and old could share as starting point for meeting and learning about each other”. Matarasso (1997, p. 32) sees the intergenerational contact as an incidental outcome where young and old could mix socially through community art projects, because today opportunities to meet inter-generationally are rather rare, as a result of fashion, lifestyles and interests.
Community
Lowe (2000, p. 367) explains that out of the creation of relationships through working together within art projects, the connection between the people can be seen as the support of each other. Scholars argue that it takes time until a community might rise out of a shared art project. It might or it might not work. If it does, it starts with the individual alone, which leads then to a community of individuals. Through the arts the
Reinisch & Weber 43 community interacts and possible common community concerns might come up (Lowe 2000, p. 371). Lowe (ibid, p. 371) explains common community concerns as cultural understanding, peace, family responsibilities, youth involvement, isolation and financial hardship. Figure 7 provides an illustration telling, that: social forces, such as values and beliefs; economic forces, such as the availability of resources and political forces, like government, laws and power are relevant community concerns too (Kirst-Asham 2011, p. 11).
Figure 7: Illustration of social, economic and political forces on individuals and communities
Social Forces Economic Political
Forces Forces (Values &
Beliefs) (Availability of (Government, Resources) Laws & Power)
Individual
Community
Source: Adapted from Kirst-Asham (2011, p. 11)
Through expressing these concerns Lowe (2000, p. 371) experienced in her study that the expression of common concerns lead to “identified collectively shared experiences and enhanced collectively felt sentiments of solidarity”.
Weitz (1996) pointed out that community response to individual creative efforts is directly effecting and developing individual’s definition of self and personal identity. The community response rises from individual’s creative expressions and methods people learnt through community art projects. Therefore it has to be pointed out that the community art could have been responsible for fostering individual and shared identity, through providing social context and symbolism for identity development. In other words, “the groups identified and expressed their identities through the symbolism of the project, while individuals expressed themselves in relation to the collective themes” (Lowe Reinisch & Weber 44 2000, p. 374). Cooley (1902) would have argued that the reflection on social processes is used by individuals to define self, whereas the group defines it through social context.
Within our discussion, the arts might provide social processes and social context. Lowe (2000, pp. 374-375) adds: “through the face-to-face interactions during the community art projects, individuals experienced changes in self-perceptions in the areas of awareness, creative self-expression, and self-esteem”.
Maxine Greene (1995, p. 18) explains: “the arts, in particular, can release imagination to open new perspectives, [and] to identify alternatives”.
This argument fits perfectly in our metaphor concerning art as a school. Maxine Greene touched upon both, the direct and the indirect way art educates people. As she argues that imagination is released, this opens somebody’s eyes to do and to see new aspects. It could be either the art itself, which opens somebody’s eyes or it could be another individual, or the community that learnt from those aspects that were learnt through art and have already embodied them. This shows the double side of the education the arts offer.
3.4.2.2 Community empowerment & self determination
In order to describe empowerment we want to use Matarassos’ (1997, p. 44) clarification. We think his words describe the certain meanings of this term accurately. He adds (ibid, p. 37): “the problem is that it is inseparable from political concepts and based on different analysis of society: one person’s empowerment is another’s democracy, and still another’s revolution. It all depends on where you stand in relation to the centres of power which make up society”. Besides that he (1997, p. 37) adds: “there is nothing automatically empowering about participating in the arts: it is not what you do, it is the way that you do it”.
If you have a look at the illustration above, we wanted to show how individuals and communities are influenced. Matarasso is indeed correct with his explanation that you need to know where you stand in society. This is interesting for us because in a community art project, it depends of course who is participating. Different social classes might perceive the social, economic and political forces differently. It might be the whole range of society, but it might not. This influences of course the knowledge exchange and possible discussions, because as we mentioned before, community art projects lead to discoveries of new ways of doing things and seeing (Lowe 2000, pp. 371-373). If we refer this aspect back to the original term “community empowerment” it shows us, that the
Reinisch & Weber 45 community might be empowered by its members and by the three forces (social, economic and political) differently.
We do not want to go into too much detail on this matter, but we believe to a certain extent, interacting with the arts, might help to gain control over personal affairs, might help to take self-determined action and might have helped to get to know more people (Matarasso 1997, p. 37). This could be seen as empowering yourself through community empowerment.
Enhancing organizational capacity
Another influence on community empowerment through the arts might be enhancing organizational capacity. Organizational capacity should mean management skills, which go beside organizational skills, in order to get a community art project running. Very often community art projects are created not by professionals, professional institutions, nor the government. Instead it is created by normal individuals. Those individuals have to put themselves into business work, whose tasks would be for example negotiation with contractors and artists, fundraising, marketing, controlling of in and outgoing controlling the flow of money and dealing with tax aspects, through accounting (Matarasso 1997, p. 38). Matarasso (ibid, p. 38) argues that working with art activities strengthens communities, where experience and teamwork might be an individual gain in personal skills.
Supporting local projects
In his work Matarasso (1997, p. 39) identifies, that “new skills and confidence, experience of co-operative work and a sense of achievement crystallised in many cases into an enhanced commitment to local activism, and support for local projects”. On the one hand it could be seen that people want to participate, in order to be part of the whole and on the other hand people want to contribute their skills and knowledge. Therefore projects can grow and develop. It is fascinating to see that people with interest, skills and time like to volunteer. They might do it out of personal satisfaction, because they want to learn something, because they want to interact with other people, or because they want to do something good. Thoits and Hewitt (2001, p. 115) found out that volunteer work and six aspects of personal well-being, such as life satisfaction, happiness, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health and depression are correlating. Furthermore their research points out that “people who have greater well-being invest more hours in volunteer service” (ibid, p. 115).
Reinisch & Weber 46 If we take that information into an art context, the arts and community art projects can be the start of engaging in volunteer work and therefore might lead to an increase of these six aspects of personal well(-)being.
Community involvement in regeneration
Certain scholars pointed out that the arts play a crucial role in the regeneration of disadvantaged areas and cities. Urban regeneration reduces urban problems through enhancing social, environmental and economic conditions (Roberts & Sykes 2000, p. 4). In order to do so, many actors have to participate, like local governments, public organizations, private investors and the local community (Carley, 2000). Caborn in Robert and Sykes (2008, p. xiv) puts it the following: “Regeneration involves the public, private and community and voluntary sectors working together towards a clear single aim- to improve the quality of life for all”. Landry, Greene, Matarasso and Bianchini (1996) did a lot of research on this topic that is described in their book “The art of regeneration”. The authors (ibid, p. i) argue that,
“Artists and cultural organizations are urban agents par excellence, and have always contributed to the vitality and character of cities. […] At the same time, many of those working to renew our cities have come to see the human potential of a community as its most important asset. They accept that wealth creation, social cohesion and quality of life ultimately depend on confident, imaginative citizens who feel empowered and are able to fulfil their potential. And they have turned increasingly to the arts as a mechanism to trigger that individual and community development”.
Through cultural expressions a city is given the opportunity to get its own flair and style. How the cities are built up provide certain meaning to its inhabitants and visitors. The authors (ibid, pp. 2-5) are using leadership, identity and distinctiveness, local strengths, turning weakness into strength and going beyond corporate style, as key aspects for what might make a city successful. These aspects are needed for a city or urban renewal. Nevertheless the authors (ibid, pp. 5-7) contribute that real factors for success are the involvement of people, a broadening scope of planning and striking a balance between buildings and activities. In the following we will go into these statements into more detail.
The authors (ibid, p. 2) associate with “leadership” a human driving force. They clearly add that according to their studies, everybody can be a driving force. To be a driving force, it includes a vision, a big amount of determination and enthusiasm. Besides leadership, a city needs “identity and distinctiveness”. Identity and local strengths are necessary to build a city that has a distinguished character, regarding its people and Reinisch & Weber 47 place, geographically, where the city is located. Identity is about detail, affection and care. Cultural identities should not be taken for granted, rather implemented in the style of the city, as a characteristic. Each place has local strengths. These may be historical strengths, geographic advantages or its people (Landry, Greene, Matarasso & Bianchini 1996, p. 3). Creativity is another key component, which is necessary. Creativity turns weakness into strengths. A lot of cities or parts of urban areas are perceived as ugly, but the regeneration needs necessary capacity and ideas, how to turn the ugly into beautiful. This might ask for going beyond corporate style (ibid, pp. 4-5). Corporate styles could be used for its beauty, financial efficiency or modernity. If we think of industrial parks, to a very high percentage, they are uniformly made, because of its financial efficiency, rather than its beauty. The financial aspect should not hinder people’s interest for individuality, variety and difference. As to put it into the words of Landry, Greene, Matarasso and Bianchini (ibid, p. 5) people “like the drama of the unplanned townscape, where buildings old and new, good and not so good, tell their own long story of the town”. Art- led developments ensure towns to be different and exciting.
Beside those mentioned aspects, the real key drivers are involving people, broadening scope of planning and striking and a balance between buildings and activities (ibid, pp. 5-7). Those key drivers should explain why people are important in the involvement. As people are living in the cities, they know about certain aspects, the organizing committee might not know. It is about them and their lives, how the regeneration might cause change to start new, or provide new opportunities. Political and financial constraints might not assure this new start, or new opportunities. Even if we think of external solutions, they rather cause resentment, than pleasure, because for some people relevant aspects might not have been taken into account. These are reasons why art communities efficiently support regeneration, because on the one hand they support the city with their ideas and creativity, and on the other hand within communities they support themselves, as often illustrated in this part. Therefore communities interact with the culture of the city.
Art has fundamental influences, not only on the culture of a city, also on culture in general. Landry, Greene, Matarasso and Bianchini (ibid, p. 8) argue: “Culture is a summary term which describes the atmosphere created by people in confrontation to the place they live in. It is expressed in physical form and activity. (…) The potential value of culture to urban renewal is evident if its complex nature is recognized”.
The cultural interest of urban renewal might help to create a basis for people and therefore strengthens social cohesion. People interact and exchange with others, which might lead to a better understanding of culture and different lifestyles. Through personal Reinisch & Weber 48 exchange and through the interaction with the arts, people might gain knowledge for their personal life and for their skill-set. The overall enhanced well-being might lead to stronger confidence in oneself. Another major aspect that urban renewal causes is the importance of creativity. Creativity can be seen in the flexibility people have to go through. To implement all ideas people have might not work, or might not be agreed on in communities, but therefore having the energy to switch in thoughts and to look for a new consensus is from high importance. Creativity can be seen when people look at a problem from a different angle and through that look for different solutions. Basically the arts through urban renewal might teach us to be unconventional.
Example: Barcelona – The city of parks
It is claimed that Barcelona has the largest public art programme in Europe. Indeed the city has flair, charm and attracts its population and tourists. It seems the beauty of the city makes people adapt to it, through their behaviour, style, passions and interests.
Landry, Greene, Matarasso and Bianchini (ibid, p. 49) argue: “imaginative planning processes dependent on teams of design professionals working with artists and architects, and flexible planning agreements, led to innovative schemes and interesting parks. The focus on community life as a key objective combined with interlinking the neighbourhoods, each with its distinct identity, has produced a city which feels good to be in and is easy to get around”.
The authors (ibid, pp. 47-48) inform: the Barcelona’s City Council, which is also called “The Ajuntament” was always very interested to create an impulsive city, where cultural and social traditions are deeply rooted in the neighbourhood identity. The Ajuntament concentrated to a very high extent on community needs and therefore created a constant theme “greenery and water”. Out of its healing connotations, artists, designers, community leaders tried their best to meet the theme. Another strategy of Barcelona is it’s “Micro city planning”, which focuses first on changes for the local residents, leading to the renewal for the whole city. Barcelona’s historical connection to famous artists, like Gaudi, Picasso, Dali and many more is visible. They have given the city an enormous “creative edge”, which gives its population identity through tangible and intangible heritage: e.g. memories, buildings and history. Identity helps the population to get attracted to the environment and associate themselves with the environment. Positive local identity helps Barcelona’s population to feel home and secure. Therefore the government has seen “artists as an essential component of the new design teams charged with assessing and developing the city’s public spaces in consultation with residents” (ibid, p. 47). Individuals and communities want to be included in urban
Reinisch & Weber 49 renewal, because the outcome of changes affects them the most. Furthermore individuals and communities might ensure through their integration that changes done over time do not remove unique neighbourhood and city qualities.
3.5 Conclusion of the impact of the arts
In the third chapter of this Master Thesis we wanted to provide possible answers as to show why the arts are important to people and how the arts affect us. Therefore we depict the arts as a school that has direct and an indirect influence. The direct effects, addresses the individual. The indirect effects address the community. Framing our theoretical setting in order to understand the impact the arts have on communities, we have decided to look into literature that identifies communities with certain groups of people, who share art as a common interest. Certain literature suggests a personal, a social and an economic consequence (Matarasso, 1997; Lowe, 2000).
Figure 8: Personal and social changes are influencing each other through their subcategories
Personal Change
personal development imagination and health and well- Vision being
Social Change
social cohesion community empowerment and self determination
Source: Adapted from Matarasso (1997)
We have adapted Matarassos’ (1997) findings, to show that personal change through the interaction with the arts is built on personal development, imagination and visions, as well as health and well-being. However, social change is built on social cohesion and community empowerment and self-determination. The aim of Figure 8 is to show a reciprocal influence of personal change and social change. This is due to the fact that these subcategories are strongly connected to each other. Personal change influences social change and vice versa.
Reinisch & Weber 50 Figure 9: Key impacts arising from the interaction with the arts
Personal Change Social Change personal development / imagination & social cohesion / community empowerment vision / health & wellbeing & self determination
Builds inter- Builds social capital by personal ties getting people involved, by Increases Increases and Builds connecting organizations sense of sense of promotes individual to each other and by giving individual collective volunteering, social participants experience in efficacy and identity and which networks organizing and working self-esteem efficacy improves with local government and health nonprofits.
Builds community identity and Increases Improves Enhances pride opportunities individuals’ ability to Leads to People come together who for self- sense of work with positive might not otherwise come expression belonging or others and community into contact with each and attachment to communicate norms, such other enjoyment a community ideas as diversity, tolerance and free expression.
Interaction with the Arts Improves Increases human Increases opportunities capital: skills tolerance of for and creative others enjoyment abilities
Increases Relieves cultural Stress capital
Improves school performance Source: Adapted from Guetzkow (2002, p. 3)
Figure 9 presents key impacts that arise from the interaction with the arts. The figure presents a modified illustration by Guetzkow (2002, p. 3) who created his illustration on a typology proposed by McCarthy et al. (2002). In order to come up with these key arguments presented, we used six key studies from the period 1988 to 2000 in order to elaborate the data represented in the graph. Their prime aim was to find out why the arts
Reinisch & Weber 51 matter for individuals and communities, through community art programmes. All studies conducted, reported changes on an individual or community level.
While individuals interact with the arts, certain skills can arise through artistic activity. The arts provide knowledge, creativity and cultural capital, which might arise in the community art participation; something which they didn’t have before (Fiske, 1999; Weitz, 1996). Skills and knowledge can be learnt from the arts itself, from available artists, or simply from other participants. Individuals learn how to use an instrument, a pencil, the use of their body, or their voice for example. Individuals learn from artists how to be successful, which requires self-discipline and planning. In the case of personal success, it leads to personal satisfaction, increased self-esteem and a perceived self- efficacy (Matarasso, 1997). The interaction with the arts might support human capital through the use of creative abilities (Fiske, 1999). It is argued that the interaction with the arts have attitudinal, cognitive and behavioural benefits for students (Harland et al. 2000).
The availability of arts gives people the chance to self-express and enjoy. The arts provide people with the possibility to come together and share common interest, beliefs and passions (Matarasso, 1997). This helps individuals to build social networks and helps people to learn how to work with others (McCarthy et al. 2002, p. 55). Being in a social network, sharing personal interests, believes and passions create a community, which teaches through its member diversity, that not all participants are the same. Therefore community members need to adapt themselves to others. This might establish social cohesion and a better cultural understanding- especially social norms, such as tolerance, diversity and free expression (Guetzkow 2002, p. 16). McCarthy et al. (2002, p. 29) argues: “the communicative nature of the arts, the personal nature of creative expression, and the trust associated with revealing one’s creativity to others may make joint arts activities particularly conducive to forging social bonds and bridges across social divides”. It helps people to attach themselves to a community and supports them to do what they have not done before. This supports people in their risk taking (Matarssso, 1997).
Besides these personal and social changes, the arts are claimed to have a positive impact on health and well-being (Baklien, 2000; Bygren, Konlaan & Johannsson, 1996). This positive impact can be caused through the arts in form of stress reduction, or it can be caused through social bonds. It is said it increases happiness and life satisfaction (Fiske, 1999; Weitz, 1996), through operating with the arts, or being engaged in a community.
Reinisch & Weber 52 To conclude, the research has provided several arguments why the arts might be of enormous importance for individuals and communities. We presented it from a personal and social perspective. In the following chapter, we present our interviews. We asked individuals why they think the arts are important and what impact they have on them.
Reinisch & Weber 53 4. What is your catharsis?
4.1 Preludio
Until now we have addressed the question why art is important from a community perspective. Now we will move on to show the connection between the arts and leadership. Figure 10 represents this connection. It shows how the arts influence the
Figure 10: The path to leadership
The arts might transform individuals and communities, direct over personal and social factors.
indirect
This transformation might have a positive impact on leadership
individual and the communities in two ways. Directly and indirectly was we have explained in chapter three. Now we will move on and partly reproduce out primary data collection. We collected the data from “conversations” (Bjerke 2007, p. 2) that we conducted with leaders who are art- active. These interviews are of great importance for our research. Our interviewees are all leaders, and we have asked them to describe how they perceive the influence of the arts in their live. Both on a professional as well as an private level. For those readers who are interested in the questions we have asked, we have provided the questionnaires in the appendix to this thesis.
We have chosen to reproduce only those parts of the interviews, that we value significant for leadership research. However, as we have stated above, the entire transcripts of the interviews are available on a drop-box folder for the interested reader (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8nzalgykxp879ab/4d5UvHK-ed). We highly recommend Reinisch & Weber 54 to look at these, as the information our interview- partners shared with us are, from our perspective, of great interest even though they might not be of great impact to leadership theory.
The 12 interviewees have been selected according to three criterions. Firstly they had to be in some leadership position; secondly we have been looking for interviewees that are connected to art. Therefore we addressed art- active people only. The third criterion was their availability. We only had a limited amount of time at our disposal. Elaborating primary data is time consuming, as we know. Therefore we wanted to conclude the interviews as soon as possible
The results of our interviews have been gratifying. We believe the insights of our interviewees are of great interest to our thesis. They indeed form a substantial part of our work. Each interview is presented in a similar way. We give a brief information about the interview partner, his background and some observations we have made during the interview. We then represent the ‘key- aspects’ that have aroused in the conversation, and finally we reproduce the most interesting parts of the interview concerning leadership development and interaction with the arts.
Following the section of the interviews, we will show our data analysis. There the key- aspects collected from our interviews, will build a pilaster for the evolvement of our theory.
We state that we acknowledge the fact that though we have abbreviated our interviews, they still form an extensive part of our thesis that to some might seem overproportional. We have considered the fact to cut them further, but have come to the conclusion that this would depredate the reader from insight the interviewees have shared with us. Some may argue that certain information we give concerning our interview partners is to detailed. We believe, however, that it is necessary to provide personal information and report certain discussions that go beyond the connection between art and leadership. In this way, the reader will be able to better understand the connection between art and the individual. This finally is a necessary prior understanding for our theory.
The following table gives a brief overview of the 12 experts we have interviewed. They appear in the table in the order we have chosen to represent our conversations.
Reinisch & Weber 55 Relation to the Name Profession arts
American Drama teacher and management Colleen Mraz Professionalism coach.
Gianpietro Ermacora Italian Architect and Consultant. Avocation
German Singer and vocal coach. Member of Nico Müller ADORO, a successful German classical music Professionalism ensemble.
Roberto Lapi Italian Architect. Avocation
Ewan David Eason British Gallery Manager and Graphic Designer Professionalism
British award winning Actress and Founder of "A Lucinda Lloyd Professionalism little bird whispered".
Austrian Curator and Director of the Peter Pakesch Professionalism Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria.
Swiss Emeritus Professor for Operations Prof. Em. Paul Stähly Research of the St. Gallen University and art Avocation collector.
Austrian Trumpeter, Music teacher and Musical Johann Lassnig-Walder Professionalism Director of the kelagBIGband Klagenfurt.
Austrian Musician, Music Teacher and member Eugen Bertel Professionalism of the Symphony Orchestra Vorarlberg.
Austrian Musician and Violoncellist at the Berlin Knut Weber Professionalism Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kurt Leidl Austrian Artist and Manager. Professionalism
Reinisch & Weber 56 4.2 Colleen Mraz
Personal Clarification
Colleen Mraz is an American theatre-, and choral director, music teacher, manager and member of the Chicago Architecture Foundation. ( Source kindly pfovided by Collen Mraz who has chosen this painting to represent her: Girl at Mirror by Norman Rockwell)
Colleen Mraz has been involved in theatre for the past 50 years. She started out acting and singing and then went on to study theatre education at the University of Illinois. When she finished university she changed directions. From 1979 till 1983 she was the Director of Organizational Development at the employee transfer corporation in Chicago. After a trip to Italy she then decided to remain there and become a High- School teacher and director of English High- School Theatre Group. (Source kindly provided by Colleen Mraz).
Observations and setting:
Mraz Colleen asked me, Sven-Christian Weber, to conduct the interview, the 30th March 2013, in her Italian home town. We met in an elegant Italian coffee bar. The setting was semi- formal, but the atmosphere was still very personal. During the interview Colleen Mraz seemed very enthusiastic and always refereed both to her professional and private experiences. After each question Colleen Mraz thought about it for a moment. She transmitted a lot of energy. The interview was conducted in English and took 62 minutes.
The first time she was standing in front of an audience, she knew: “I want to be a performer somehow”. That was in elementary school. And that has carried over to be a teacher, because teachers are in front of the class. She loved teaching, but she found herself in a position to make money. This door that was opened to her, was management.
Reinisch & Weber 57 Another mentor identified the importance of theatre in school, not only to learn children at school English, but to help students to get more well-rounded people. This mentor made it possible for her, finally, using her degree in theatre education and became a teacher of theatre. She was just so lucky.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: analysis of literature; emphasizing with people; understanding human nature; being able to convince people; passionate engagement, better understanding of human nature and living; feel emotions, and to handle them; communication; closeness; creation of unity; theatre teaches the appearance and rhetoric’s; trust; art makes better well rounded persons; contributes to a more effective person; develops sensitivity in a person
Colleen Mraz definitely believes people benefit from theatre: analysing literature, emphasizing with people, understanding human nature to a deeper extent, being able to convince people that you can do anything. Theatre does engage an individual passionately. She thinks a better understanding of human nature and living life with passion can be learnt from the arts. It helps to feel thrilled and to experience art- To feel emotions, and to handle them.
The abilities needed to do theatre are obviously differently from the abilities need to do music, visual arts, dance. In a certain sense theatre is more available to more people. They don’t need to have the technical ability to play an instrument, or have a good voice, or enough muscles to dance. In a certain sense individuals can reach a certain level of theatre without any particular skills. If individuals want to become great, that is a second stage and requires abilities that the beginning of theatre does not require.
Colleen Mraz goes to the theatre, because she wants to feel something. For her it must come from insights, from the heart, from the head, not from the outside, like gestures and voices. She cares about what an artist thinks and feels in the insight and how this is producing something on the outside. She wants an experience.
I think you always want to have somebody to share it with. It changes completely when you have somebody to share it with. Even to read a book and talk with somebody about it, to mould it over and analyse what has been said. It is the act after consuming. I like to talk about what I have experienced, because I felt
Reinisch & Weber 58 something and I have been through something. Something what involves you on a gut level, you want to share it with somebody.
When the interviewee was in management she directed a play with her co-workers and they loved doing it. It created feelings, emotions and communications. There is no feeling in life, like going through a creation of art with other people. There is a closeness that is produced. She states: “If you give your workers a problem to solve, where they have to work together, it creates unity. Also my management consulting firm was a facilitator for outward bound activities, like climbing in the trees, where participants are scared to death. There is nothing in the workplace that as quickly and effectively creates unity in the group”.
This is comparable to performing a play together, because people are facing an audience. Basically theatre teaches, the appearance and rhetoric’s, how an individual presents him or herself to the audience. She states: “you are facing this fear of: is this going to be good, are the people going to like it, am I going to remember my last lines and if I don’t can I trust in another person that he or she might help me. It is the whole process that is unifying, but here we are together and the curtains are opening. The sense of exultation at the end, it is not that the audience loves us, but that we love each other”.
Her goal was always for example at school, to help her students to grow into better results through theatre. It was always secondary to her that they learn English. She cares about the inside, because she believes a person would be a better person doing theatre. So her goal was always to be a facilitator for people, rather than to be a performer, whether it was as a management consultant, choir director, or teacher at school. She always had a facilitator frame of mind. She gets the satisfaction not from the audience; she gets the satisfaction from the people she helped to face the audience.
It is important as a leader to have a vision. Why is excellence reached, because there are leaders who think there are no limits. As a theatre director she always need to have a vision. Not necessarily in detail, but to know at least where to go. Goals might change on the way to the vision. She states: “it depends on you changing, it depends on the people you encounter, and it depends on the market. These are things, which bring you towards that vision that you have to fix first”.
Colleen Mraz thought already about a possible relationship between art and leadership. She believes art makes better well rounded persons, so as a human being you have more to offer to the world, if art is part of life. She thinks that she was born a facilitator leader. The interviewee believes in students centred education not teachers centred education. Art contributes to a more effective person. She guesses art made her more sensitive to Reinisch & Weber 59 people. True leaders must be sensitive to people and must understand human beings. She believes art develops sensitivity in a person.
4.3 Gianpietro Ermacora Personal Clarification
Gianpietro Ermacora is an Italian Architect and construction consultant. He is head of his company, Gesti project- engineering and consulting. The firm operates all over Italy and in confining areas. The company is specialised in the construction of shopping malls and hotels. His company employs 12 workers.
(Source and picture kindly provided by Gianpietro Ermacora)
Observations and setting:
Gianpietro Ermacora asked me, Sven-Christian Weber, to conduct the interview, the 31st March 2013, in a rather informal atmosphere in his home. We sat down in his living room and were surrounded by a wing piano, a modern painting which was hanging on the wall and some glass art which was standing on a shelf. I felt very comfortable and the interview was very smooth. We were interrupted once by another guest. This did not cause a decrease in the quality of the interview. Gianpietro Ermacora gave very long answers. He would repeat each question in his own words, and then give an answer. He primarily referred to his professional experience. The interview was conducted in Italian and took 54 minutes.
His interest in art was caused by attending conferences before he was able to go to university. These meetings were the beginning of his interest to get involved with art. This decision was opposed by some of his friends and family. However, he started to study architecture in the city of canals and unconventional architecture, Venice. He believes art is a fundamental part of life. He goes so far to say that a person who has no interest in art is “dead on the inside”. He sees art as a field where he can experiment his work. There are no limits of gravity or weak materials. Art in this prospect forms a point of departure for his architectonical success.
Reinisch & Weber 60 Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: Not compromise; express a concept; symbiotic; from continuous confrontation; communication; share this vision; harmony; the philosophy is great; concept; transform; is seeking for something innovative; ahead of reality; mental openness; Harmony; Art is beauty; form of experimentation;
According to Gianpietro Ermacora art is important to him because, “it is a form of experimentation for me. It is a field where I can test and trail. I think architects use art in an improper way, but we benefit from it. Art is harmony at the end. Art is beauty- Especially the visual arts. And architecture is, looking at its result. Harmony.”
Furthermore, he thinks that art is essential to all. People who show no interest in art are people who “have no interest in maturing or confronting themselves with others. I think if you have no approach to art whatsoever, you have given up your live and capitulated to routine. Art is fundamental to survival. Art as research, as beauty on the outside and even more so on the inside. Art is the future and the past. Art is the opposite of routine and art is freedom. As Dostoevskij said: “Beauty will save the world” He believes that people can learn from art. “I think what we human individuals can learn that art is a state of mental openness. We can mature thanks to the artists work. Art is a form of liberty and it is always ahead of reality. It is something superior, something sublime. Consuming art helps you to survive.”
He says that art has had an influence on his work as “Art always is seeking for something innovative.” In his office and in his work he has to be innovative. However, he says that, “I do not see myself as an artist”. Nevertheless “art and architecture […] have a common ground”. Architecture can be seen as art only to a certain extent. “We architects are part of the artistic circle- Also if it’s often latent. But architecture is more complex than that. We include the functionality, the collocation of an object on the ground. We must take into account its surroundings. I see it as creating harmony. Harmony in a coherent way.“
To him architecture, “[…]can only partly be an art otherwise we [architects] would be sculptors. In fact many architects, like the Iraqi Zaha Hadid, come from the world of sculptors. Her constructions are big sculptures to me. She has a certain artistic background and thanks to her personal genius she is able to transform objects, such as sculptures, into living buildings. For example Museums and other constructions that
Reinisch & Weber 61 have a utility for society. It is the unification of art and utility that makes architecture unique.”
In fact to Gianpietro Ermacora the education of a person is determining for his approach to architecture. “Architecture contains many different fields and influences: Fine arts, sculpture, music, philosophy. Especially philosophy because architecture is also very conceptual. To modify space is a concept. When I project space, it’s more than just a figure. There is always a bigger concept that stands behind it. Thus the philosophy is great help in order to modify space and objects.”
The “bigger concept” he has in mind is “to create harmony”. Harmony between the construction and the environment that surrounds it. Not only harmony between the construction and the environment that surrounds it, but also in harmony with the man who lives there”.
He says that it is important to share this vision with his co- workers. He states that communication is something very important. Speaking about how he shares his ideas with his employees he says: “Architecture instead arouses from continuous confrontation. We talk for a long time about my concept. Here confrontation with the ideas of my co- workers is very important. In architecture the challenge is to re- form the space in a way that people can live in it. Of course the outer aspect is art. But it also must be very practicable.”
Speaking about the connection of art and leadership Gianpietro Ermacora says that: “I do think there is a connection between leadership and art. I think they are symbiotic. Art is something unique and direct. I see myself as the painting. I express a concept. This concept is mine and I do not compromise it with other ideas. I believe this is also true for leadership. The more I stick to my thought, to my way and the more people accept my way the better leader I will be. The better I can express this concept, the better others will be able to see that mine is the best. I become a leader in that moment when others take my idea and think it is the better than others. Art and leadership are very much connected I think. I cannot say, however, if the influence is direct or indirect. “
Reinisch & Weber 62 4.4 Nico Müller Personal Identification
Nico Müller is a German Baritone, opera singer, music lecturer, member of ADORO, which is a successful German classical music ensemble with over 1.7 Million sold sound recording mediums. He is co-founder of the musical company ShowBizz. He studied singing at the conservatoire “Carl Maria von Weber” in Dresden and conservatoire “Franz Liszt” in Weimar, where he graduated with a diploma in singing and musical theatre. (Source and picture kindly provided by Nico Müller http://www.mueller-nico.de/vita.html, viewed 23.4.2013)
Observations and setting:
On April, 2 2013 I, Peter Reinisch, had the opportunity to have a Skype interview with Nico Müller, who is living in Dresden, Germany. The interview had no connection problems. I called him from my room in Kalmar. The conversation was very informal and relaxed. I had the feeling the interviewee could dedicate himself to the interview without being in a rush. The rather general based questions led sometimes to confusion and caused time to think. Questions were partly answered through life-stories. The interview was conducted in German and lasted for 55 minutes.
Nico Müller thinks the specialty of his person is in his activeness in various fields. Many people would highlight his career with ADORO, which is outstanding, but he would rather focus on the broad spectrum of interests and abilities, like opera, classical music, musicals, crossover music and his didactical activities. He is a lecturer in classical and pop music, as well as musicals. He adds: “I am not one of the world stars, like Luciano Pavarotti, but my speciality is my parallel movements within different music genres. One of the best examples would be, until the end of February 2013 he toured with ADORO through Germany singing crossover, three weeks later he was singing a classical recital of Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler- that makes my voice and my vocal techniques”.
Nico Müller explains that the region Klingenthal in Germany where he is coming from made him familiar with music. He received his first musical education in the subjects’ voice, piano and accordion. Through several contests, he realized that his musical understanding and singing skills were better than others and with the rise of his passion, he decided to become a professional singer. In his artistic development he identified two faces: being a hobby musician and being a professional musician. Reinisch & Weber 63 Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: helps to step down; enhances continuous learning; teaches to move on and to keep the head held high; investing time into oneself; enhances reflection about being and well-being; enhances emotions; feelings and expressions; leads to personal improvement and perfection; creates personalities; leads to interaction with others; enhances knowledge and communication; provides feedback and information; gives incentives; teaches not to subordinate oneself to constraints; teaches discipline and shows how to practice; activates to outperform; teaches not to get influences too much by materialism; society and maximization
Nico Müller states that art teaches and helps to step down, if an individual puts too much pressure on him or herself, or the individual is driven too much by societal and personal norms, he or she has to fulfil and achieve. There are several compositions about “death”, “deprivation”, but also “happiness and “joy”. It helps him to keep in mind how important it is to keep on developing and facing oneself with continuous learning. It teaches to move on and to keep the head held high, but sometimes investing time into oneself is the key factor for success. The arts help to reflect about someone’s “being”, “well-being” and helps to make clear that materialism, pressure and the human need to “maximize” oneself should not be taken to existentially into account.
The arts are very much about emotions, feelings, expressions and he is certain they can enhance someone’s personality. This helps to keep on improving and might bring oneself to perfection. The arts are beneficial in the sense that it makes people aware that emotions, individualism, vision and personal style contribute to a personality. He explains the engagement with professional art was the reason why he developed certain skills in business and law. Through the interaction with knowledgeable people, someone’s knowledge increases as well and the arts are the reason for this interaction. Nico Müller states, it is absolutely relevant to communicate with others and exchange ideas. The confrontation with perceptions and opinions of other individuals help to establish a broad spectrum of views, which provides feedback and information.
The interviewee differentiates theatre with other art genres, through expressing emotions with the voice. In his case, it is the voice how he expresses art, feelings and interpretations. Communication is one of the most important assets for a singer.
Nico Müller’ goal is the ability to earn money for his living through his artistic performances, furthermore the hope to perform art until an old age and the wish to be
Reinisch & Weber 64 able to use his voice. Other goals might address certain artistic performances and the proof to oneself, or somebody else that the goal could be achieved. According to the interviewee, his vision is to help people to find their way to the arts, to leverage them and to show what is possible with the voice. He adds: “This is also an incentive for me. I want to show people that there is no reason to subordinate one to constraints, rather practicing with discipline and always trying to outperform the current stage”. Another vision is the interest to enhance people’s interests for classical music, opera and theatre through his artistic work. The difference between the goal and the vision is the realisation of goals. Visions have to be higher than goals. He adds on an artistic level that the vision is always to come forth, keep on improving, adapt to the environment and always try and stay one step ahead of your current position.
4.5 Roberto Lapi Personal Identification
Roberto Lapi is an Italian Architect and CEO of L+Partners an architect company that specializes in the design and construction of hospitals and other health institutions. Inter alia his studio is responsible for the reconstruction and restoration of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. He is responsible for 10 employees. (Source and picture kindly provided by Roberto Lapi).
Observations and setting:
Roberto Lapi asked me, Sven-Christian Weber, to conduct the interview, the 2nd April 2013, in his studio in Milan. We sat down in a very modern, however warm and open conference room attached to his office. The setting was formal, and the conversation semi- formal. Roberto Lapi made many references to his experience. We were interrupted once by his secretary. Roberto Lapi gave deep insight on his thoughts and made his views very clear. The interview was conducted in Italian and lasted for 44 minutes.
With Architecture Roberto Lapi has always had a very personal relationship. Though his family always supported him, his choice to endeavour in such a career could not have been foreseen. Though art was important for him, it was especially the visual arts and sculpturing to a certain degree that have been of great interest to him. However, he has
Reinisch & Weber 65 always been faithful to architecture as his active art. During this period he was able to see masterpieces of art and studied them in detail. He says that there is a great connection between visual arts and architecture and indeed this has influenced him in his professional work until today. He does not think that this was connected to other fields of art such as drama or music. However, he states that “precision and their [the painters] use of light and depth inspire me and my team. We use these techniques and this art to create the starting point of our work”.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: Calmness and clearness; you oblige decision, confrontation is very good; materials; must never be connected to what is ‘en vogue’; possibility to age with dignity; are coherent within themselves; conception of space and the value of aesthetics are different; cultural differences; limits; great inspiration between the different architects; researching in what we like; share[ing] the information with others; understand; share it with others; be clear about what you want; your inside; vision; technique; expression must be clear; an aesthetic representation; execution; precision; inspiration;
Roberto Lapi states that: “Art is important for me. Looking at a painting of Caravaggio I can learn much for my profession”. He said that the precision in the execution of shadows and lights, the depth and the lines are elements that he also sees in a construction of an architect. Further he sees art as ”a fountain of inspiration for my work”. According to him architecture is also, and most importantly about precision. The precision in the execution of his work.
Roberto Lapi : ”You must have a vision at the beginning. This can be great but if the execution lacks precision the final result will not be good. This is the challenge I also face in my work. I have to know how I can execute my project in the best possible way. The initial idea might be good, but how can I realize it is of the same quality when I am in the construction phase. Looking at art can therefore be an inspiration”. He makes a comparison between a painter and an architect. Both “face the challenge of a rigorous execution”. He believes that, like Caravaggio was careful in every detail, the architect must seek perfection with each step. It is the “challenge to realize the things the way you have planned them”.
Roberto Lapi went on saying that he believes that an architectural project and its execution, just as a painting, must be precise because this leads to an aesthetic representation. A building, just as a painting that is beautiful has much more effect on Reinisch & Weber 66 its observer than a construction or a canvas that does not meet the sense of pleasure in the observers’ eye. Roberto Lapi states that, “a well executed painting or building will give you more than one that lacks precision. People will not understand what the building stands for. Then they will not like it. The expression must be clear”. Art can be also taken as an example. “Though we have to work in three dimensions, we, like painters, start with a design on the paper […]It is the technique through which you are finally able to express an idea or not.”
Further Roberto Lapi went onto express that there is a vision that artists, such as architects must have. “You cannot draw something on a piece of paper that you do not already have on your inside. You must be clear about what you want to do in order to be able do put it down. In the moment you draw something you realize what you are doing. You suddenly understand the project and see what you are doing. You realize what you want right there. You then might share it with others, but primarily with yourself. It helps you understand what it is that you want!”. This also leads to “share[ing] the information with others”. “It will help you explain them what you want and what you see. Of course the paper can also speak for itself.” The first draft is an important mean of communication. It is like a symbol that represents the path you want to follow”.
The communication within his office is very important to him. He states, “in my office we lay great importance on young people. I personally believe that they have fresh ideas that can be realized. Here we believe in the concept of researching in what we like. Of course, that is only up to a point. In the end I decide what we will do because this is my job after all, but that’s how we begin. Discussions on thoughts and views are essential to create a common project. Similar to what Renzo Piano and Gary do. Indeed I also believe that there is great inspiration between the different architects- Not only from the vanguard architect but also in more recent and actually constructed work.”
Another point Roberto Lapi considers is the understanding of what is possible within his field of work. There are “limits” of different nature he has to take into account when he and his team are working on a project. “Working in Italy rather than in Northern Europe makes a big difference. The concept of space and the value of aesthetics are different. Cultural differences are represented in architecture.” “In Italy”, he says, “people are closed. They don’t like things that come from the outside. We have been conserving things for hundreds of years whether they are ugly or not. Especially in the 80s’ then, architects tried to insert new construction in such antique context. Trying to create homogeneity between the new and the old.” He states that “in northern Europe on the other hand it was the building that suggested something new to the environment. The buildings there are coherent within themselves.” This is something I have also Reinisch & Weber 67 implemented in my more recent projects. I believe that a construction must be coherent within itself.” He emphasized, “Architecture is there to last. Buildings will stand for decades, maybe even longer. Architecture is an art that is consumed. It is consumed by many and over a long period of time. That way it is important that it gets old in style. A construct has to have expression over many years to come. It must have the possibility to age with dignity. This means that what an architect makes must never be connected to what is ‘en vogue’. The building must be coherent within itself and this should remain recognizable for decades. I perceive that this can be done by using the right materials. Materials are the expression of architecture, as colours are the expression of a painting. The attributes of the materials determine the forms that can be produced by them. This way it is important to know what material can be used under what circumstances and how. This kind of architecture, I believe, will continuously be coherent.”
Making choices is also a factor that is essential in art. The process of creating a project is “like a great brainstorming. A pool of ideas that come together. It’s a punish free zone in which all ideas are welcome. At the end I always win of course, but those young collaborators can give me great input […]. The confrontation is very good. It is not only me saying yes and not but it is an open discussion. It is good to understand why I like something and why I do not!”. Roberto Lapi underlines that it is important to share a vision. He says that “Whatever we decided our final piece would be, the information is always shared throughout the office. People are free to disagree at the formation stage, but finally we all share the finality. If you oblige a decision, there is no more dynamic in the office. The project is then not carried by all and the outcome will not be at its best.”
Roberto Lapi also says that he wants to convey a message with his constructions. They should transmit a sense of “[…]calmness and clearness.[…] The buildings must be clear and simple to use. They should transmit a sense of serenity, safety and welcome.
Reinisch & Weber 68 4.6 Ewan David Eason Personal Identification
Ewan David Eason is a British Gallery Manager currently working for Flowers Gallery in London. His experience includes sales, curating, sourcing artists, researching, designing promotional materials and developing their online presence. Besides this profession, he works as a freelance artist and graphic designer. His main interest is to investigate the interplay of contrasting colours, which can be found in sculptures, paintings, videos and prints. The interviewee graduated from Bath Spa University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Source and picture kindly provided by Ewan David Eason).
Observations and Setting:
On April, 3 2013, I, Peter Reinisch, had the opportunity to have a Skype interview with Ewan David Eason, who is living in London. The interview had no connection problems. I called him from my room in Kalmar. The conversation was very informal and relaxed. I had the feeling the interviewee could dedicate himself to the interview without being in a rush. The rather general based questions led sometimes to confusion and caused time to think. Questions were partly answered through life-stories. The interview was conducted in English and lasted for 88 minutes.
Ewan David Eason has enjoyed art since he was a youngster. At the age of 11 he was encouraged to practice art. He always showed potential, was amongst the best in the class, got scholarships during his education, won awards- basically he showed the potential and he liked to be encouraged. His grandparents were artists and his parents always supported him. One of the artists in his family was called Edwin Henry Landseer, who designed the lions of Trafalgar Square in London. With that in mind and being encouraged by his parents he was not dissuaded from doing art. He tended to gravitate towards people who were that way inclined, so like creative thinkers, painters and drawers. Ewan David Eason was always being encouraged by something he was enjoying doing. He loves to see the challenge when somebody comes to him and asks can you draw this or that and he responds: “yeah I can do that” and through that he feels encouraged to do it. Ewan David Eason thought it was something where he knew he was good at and wherein he wanted to pursue his life.
Reinisch & Weber 69 Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: therapeutic; enhances creativity; helps to articulate; helps to express; supports individualism; teaches discipline; creates an opinion; it helps to see; supports team-building; assists as an icebreaker; enhances communication; shared understanding and social cohesion; influences goals and visions; gives the chance to be good at something
I do class myself as an artist. When I am not doing art I get frustrated. I think it is that whole left brain- right brain phenomenon. I have to flex the right brain, the creative part of my brain.
There are lots of reasons: it is therapeutic, it helps to be creative, it helps to articulate, for example sometimes he can’t articulate something very well. It’s better for him to articulate something through something visual like a painting, a video, or a print. He needs to express himself and the way he expresses himself is through art. In a professional context Ewan David Eason would refer to his YouTube video; “What makes good art, good?” This video helps to clarify how the arts can touch and effect a human being.
“What makes good art, good? What are the factors that makes a piece of art successful? I have devised certain ways of how an artist or viewer can view the work successfully. It could be through nostalgia- the piece evokes a memory of the past- maybe good, maybe not. Movement- as I walk pass the piece, where I press a button, something- it creates a different shape, different sense, different sound. Humour, the piece makes you laugh- punch line, the narrative is random. Technical ability- it is technically amazing- how has this person done it? Relationship with the artist- you know them by reputation, or you know them, because they have a friend. Pity- you feel sorry for the artist, or feel sorry for the cause of the art. Journey- it takes you somewhere you have never been before, on an adventure. Colour- it is your favourite or at least favourite colour. Maybe the colour goes with your furnishings. State symbol- maybe the piece is famous, maybe the piece is made by somebody famous. The unknown- it is strangely alluring, you look at it and you are going somewhere else with your thoughts. Finally familiarity- you are familiar with the line of work and you want to invest into it. Essentially all of this is a reflection upon your personality, your interests. In thinking of these terms, art is an exciting journey of your discovery (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN0haNVFirw, viewed 25.04.2013)”.
Reinisch & Weber 70
Besides that individuals can learn from art: individualism. Ewan David Eason explains: “I want to be a leader in my art career and look at other art to stimulate me and then become a better artist myself and as a result to become a leader in art”. Individuals create an opinion and their opinion counts. The more an individual practices, the better he or she will get, because practise makes perfect and teaches discipline.
Furthermore he adds: “the more you consume, the more you practise, the better you are at consuming and practising”.
He thinks, in order to call oneself as an artist, the person has to consume art. It is to see what is out there and to take in as much as you can. The more a person sees, the better judgement somebody has on his or her own art. When Ewan David Eason goes to see an art work, he thinks: “wow how did they do that, or that’s fantastic”. He picks up that vibe and when he creates his own art work it is more stimulated. That can be seen as a step to the next level. As well as emotional ups and downs are part of seasons and he can create artwork throughout them.
Ewan David Eason consumes art. He doesn’t like to be pressurized to look at the work on mass. He can look at it in his own time. In a group he gets rather frustrated, either with himself or with other people. Maybe it is his introvert kind of nature to consume art on his own, but it is more beneficial. In the context of university it helped to team build or creates an overall group understanding by experience art together- see a painting together, talk about it afterwards, have a drink and share thoughts. He thinks it assists within icebreaking. Through this exchange and extended communication, community cohesion could be reached. There are different personalities in a group, some who enjoy going around with people and some who don’t- but this is personality driven.
Ewan David Eason’s artistic goal is to create work that challenges him and he wants to create work that challenges people. His professional goal would be to expand the knowledge of the gallery he is working in. He wants the gallery to be bigger and better. His vision is to support his wife and to start a family at some point, as well as to earn money and recognition through his art work. Recognition could be reached through his art that cause some people to be inspired. Stimulation can contain: how did he do that? or that is beautiful. If people talk about his art, he would say it is good art.
Art and its creative industries are the most influential industries in the world. They influence how culture moves forward. He believes that business follows the creative
Reinisch & Weber 71 industries, through marketing and design. Everything is in an artistic context. Ewan David Eason explains, that he has not thought about a possible relation between leadership and art:
I think anyone has the capability of being a leader, because it is contextualized upon what you feel you are good at. If you are good in something, you should pursue it. You will have people who will follow you, if you don’t have that, find somebody who has that and follow them. And by proxy, by default you will become a leader yourself, because if you are following if not your vision, somebody else’s vision.
4.7 Lucinda Lloyd
Personal Identification
Lucinda Lloyd is a British award winning actress and the founder of Coracle Arts, a cross “discipline Theatre Company giving a voice to those on the fringes of society performing original work at The Arcola, The BAC, The Courtyard and The Rosemary Branch Theatre in London” and the founder of A Little Bird Whispered, “a company dedicated to sensory artistic expression. She seeks to stir the imagination and awaken the senses through theatre, art, film, poetry, music and movement. Her goal is to create bold, dynamic and thought provoking work turning personal narratives into shared dialogues collaborating with a diverse range of performers and artists”. In 2004 she graduated from ALRA, after receiving a 3 year scholarship award for the Diploma in Acting (Source and picture kindly provided by Lucinda Lloyed: http://www.lucinda- lloyd.com/?page_id=1158).
Observations and setting:
On April, 3 2013 I, Peter Reinisch, had the opportunity to have a Skype interview with Lucinda Lloyd, who is living in London. The interview had several connection problems, which resulted in the interview taking longer, but did not reduce the quality. I called her from my room in Kalmar. The conversation was very informal and relaxed. I had the feeling the interviewee could dedicate herself to the interview without being in a rush. The rather general based questions led sometimes to confusion and caused time to think. Questions were partly answered through life-stories. The interview was conducted in English and lasted for 84 minutes. Reinisch & Weber 72
Through establishing her Theatre Company and letting her entrepreneurial mind wander, she stopped being dependent on her emotions in order to make art, because she realized there is no reason to do so. Before taking on her career in which she was self- employed, her emotions had an intensive influence on her creativity. She said: “I can’t have control over somebody giving me work, but what I can control is doing my work”. So whatever she is feeling, she uses these emotions as inspirations. Lucinda Lloyd does not have to find equilibrium before making work, there is no reason to be perfect, just use the existing inspiration for your wok.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: a person gets unique; learn how to express; enhances healing; to learn how to listen to oneself and somebody else; helps to connect with the past; it teaches to be open; enhances reflection; leads to inspiration and helps to inspire others; teaches that there is something very illusive about life; teaches how to talk and to ask questions; creates dialogues; eliminates boundaries; enhances conversations; enhances ability to “see”; it inspires; storytelling; helps to be ”present” and in the “moment”; enhances collaboration; inner spirit; releases the genius in a person; is the DNA of leadership; supports individual growth and continuous learning
I don’t think I could be who I am, if there was no art. It is the core identity who I am. It is how I express myself- I think without I would shrivel up or die, if there is no art, like the ability to communicate with every part of you, with your mind, with your body, spirit and soul. It gives you a voice. Every single person’s relationship with art is in the DNA and every single person is different.
The interviewee states, that art makes a person unique. She truly believes that any single person is an artist, whether they know it or not, whether they practice it, is another thing. This is one of the reasons she is in theatre, to engage the audience and to give the audience the chance to express them afterwards, because they might find out how important art is and how important it is to express oneself artistically. A lot of pain, upset, suffering and misery exist today because people have not expressed what they need to express. So whether it is joy, whatever it is, art is the fundamental healing for a human being. To be able to see, cry, laugh, or have any sort of response is incredibly healing. She believes every human being has the same heart and has the same understanding about beauty, good, bad, evil and ugly. Therefore people have to connect with this shared understanding. It can be seen as the heartbeat of society. Reinisch & Weber 73
Art teaches me to listen to others, listen to myself, it helps me to connect with my past, it teaches me to be open, it teaches me to reflect, to inspire others, it teaches me that there is something very illusive about life. Art teaches me to talk and ask questions, to create dialogues, to eliminate boundaries- it opens up. It enhances conversations; it brings something up to the surface. One piece of work can open up so many questions and that brings community together.
There are countless possibilities to be influenced every day, in a concert, in a coffee shop, in an art gallery- “seeing” and filling the well inside of you. An artist is always trying to keep the well inside of them full. The interviewee explains when artists are ready to start a project, they are just ready. Therefore she lets herself to be inspired and is not just simply sitting in her room, thinking about the other side of the industry, which is thinking about being famous and earning money. It is about taking in what is there and what is available and present in the very moment, which influences a person.
The theatre requires immediate connection with human beings that are present. It is the art of storytelling, which is exciting, because anything could happen. Acting helps to connect with other characters, which asks for being in the “moment” and being “present”. Therefore you identify strengths which are outside and inside of you. Lucinda Lloyd thinks theatre is extremely healing, because it is collaborative. Theatre is a fundamental part of society and community, which goes back to Dionysus. It is the essence of truth. Individuals are looking for truth, whether it is difficult to swallow or it is just something very beautiful and poetised. Theatre is the quest of understanding and really having it. The essence of the human condition is very clear from theatre and film.
Education provides a person with a toolbox, but to awaken the inner spirit and to be activated it has to be found outside school syllabus. An artist has to find that on their own. This might be a lonely journey, but it won’t be so lonely, because the artist might slither into existing beautiful things- some are invisible and mysterious. Lucinda Lloyd believes as soon as you commit to a project with your full spirit, with the right reasons, everything in the universe might answer. The artist has to draw the project with whatever he or she is doing, because with that process you keep open and the project gets how it wants to get. The interviewee identified this force that she is in partnership with. In the Greek times they referred to the “genius”, which might come along with an artist, or not. Whenever an artist did something amazing and extraordinary creative in the arts, the genius came along and the individual had the privilege of being part of it.
Reinisch & Weber 74 She explains there are things outside her control, which begin to happen, that sets projects into rounds, which couldn’t be imagined after the first set down.
Her present art work involves how she sees the world and she knows that some people judge that, which is really destructive, if it is not fairly stated. When she looks at somebody else’s work, rather than look at it quickly, she really tries to see and engage in it and tries to understand what the artist is trying to say. Maybe it does not affect her, or move her, but there is always something to learn.
Lucinda Lloyd believes interacting with the arts alone and in a group is equally important. She thinks it is important to consume art and explore it, understand it through yourself, as part of your journey to become unique and distinctive. To collaborate with others, to share thoughts and to hear others opinions keep an individual growing. The answer is often in another person, in the context of agreement or fair criticism. If an individual is with the right people, with the right gut level, he or she just can improve. Every person’s brain works differently. The major difference is about sharing, giving and having the chance to communicate. A personal response can lead to change. Although to get response, personal thoughts and ideas have to be shared.
Lucinda Lloyd’s goal is to approach everything by exploring and uncovering the truth, which she wants to share. Her goal is to enter people’s hearts and to awake them. Her vision would be to have her own theatre and that building will house many different mediums of art: film, poetry, music and dance, which provide collaborative and cross- disciplined activities. Her goals apply to everything she does, but her vision is more long- term, it is where she sees herself.
She thinks being a leader is trying to understand power and trying to make you constantly humble. Art influences these skills especially by example. She believes that art is a powerful transformation in people’s lives. The interviewee adds art is the DNA for her leader- and entrepreneurship.
Leadership requires becoming a servant of others. A leader wants his or her people to use their gifts and gives them opportunities to use their voice. Furthermore it is about creating a nice environment where people have their own opinions, can talk and exchange. The leader has to assure that there is joy in the room. Joy, she thinks is the essence where creativity can be released. Furthermore the leader has to make people feel secure, has to affirm people but also has to be very honest. Having the courage to say no, but thank you, but always accompanied with appreciation.
Reinisch & Weber 75 4.8 Peter Pakesch Personal Identification
Peter Pakesch is an Austrian curator and head of the Universalmuseum Joanneum, Austria’s second biggest museum.
Peter Pakesch first studied architecture, but was active as an artist in his early days. In 1980, he made a study trip to New York, which led to some important encounters and participation in activities associated with Fashion Moda and the Times Square Show. In 1986, he and Graz’s cultural politician Helmut Strobl set up the Grazer Kunstverein art society, of which he was artistic director until 1988. In the following years, Pakesch worked as a freelance curator for the National Gallery in Prague, and in 1996 took over as director of the Kunsthalle in Basel. During his time there, he put on the first museum exhibitions of young artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Michel Majerus and Pawel Althamer, and reorganised the local annual exhibition into a format that still constitutes a significant large-scale regional exhibition involving Mulhouse, Freiburg and Basel. From 1996-1998, he travelled around countries of the post-Communist world as a member of the Soros International Advisory Board. Since 2003, Pakesch has been one of the two executive directors of the Joanneum Universal Museum in Graz, the other being Wolfgang Muchitsch. Pakesch is also chairman of the Regionale (Styrian Festival of Contemporary Art) advisory board.
(Source and picture kindly provided by Peter Pakesch and the Universalmuseum Joanneum).
Observations and setting:
On April, 4 2013 I, Peter Reinisch had the opportunity to have a Skype to landline interview with Peter Pakesch, who is living in Austria. The interview had no connection problems, but the sound quality was rather bad, but this had no influence on the quality of the interview. I called him from my room in Kalmar. The conversation was formal, but Reinisch & Weber 76 calm. I had the feeling the interviewee could dedicate himself to the interview without being in a rush. The rather general based questions led sometimes to confusion. Answers were facts. The interview was conducted in German and lasted for 25 minutes.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: affects through entertainment; education on a personal; ontological and sociological level; teaches methods and skills; gives sense; raise in perception and intellect; stimulates creative thinking; teaches how to handle aspects of life; provides implicit knowledge; enhances creativity; teamwork; individual growth; contribution to the institution and country; influence
Peter Pakesch states that an individual can learn everything from the arts. The arts can be entertaining, the arts can educate and the arts can develop individuals to a certain extent. The arts affect individuals on an educational, ontological and sociological level. The ontological level should be seen as the philosophical study of “being” and the sociological level as the discussion about human society. The arts teach methods and how to accompany the collectivity of things. The arts educate our perception, educate our intellect and gives sense, which guides art from a fruitful, to a constructive and creative thinking.
The interviewee adds, the arts teach how to handle certain aspects of life, provide implicit knowledge and enhances somebody’s creativity. Peter Pakesch explains: “having practical experiences with the arts are helping me today in interaction with artists, because I know how it works, I know how the artist’s creativity works and this helps me to create equilibrium between a standardized system and a non-standardized system”.
His main field of arts are visual arts. The active artist was left behind after he devoted his interests to the activities of a curator. This shift was not based on a lack of interest, rather a shift of interests. Peter Pakesch has identified his passion within curating, which led him into his current position of leading 300 employees. For this job, he could take certain identified attributes arising from the arts, which are stated above. His organization is built fundamentally on teamwork. Teamwork is an aspect, which can be learnt through the arts. He states: “in my organization it is not in my interest to rule over others, it is rather my interest to support everybody in their functions and their work. Everybody is doing his work, but in an organizational context”.
Peter Pakesch’ goal is to support his employees, to give everybody the chance to develop him or herself in their work and to represent his organisation in the best possible way.
Reinisch & Weber 77 Furthermore they work to support the goal of the museum, which is to collect, preserve, curate and through that goals to contribute to Styria and Austria. His visions are always advancing and adapting themselves. Visions are relating the positioning of the museum, the representation to the public, having an impact through the arts on the society and trying to interact as much as possible with the population. Another vision is to contribute to the sustainability and sensuousness of an artist’s work and to take hold of a political role.
The interviewee sees a fundamental connection between arts and leadership. From an artist’s perspective the leadership can be seen in the implementations of visions and represent them to the public. These embodied visions can be done by theatre directors, conductors, musicians, actors, painters etc. All of them have an influence though their work on the public, society and environment. Art is a very broad notion of leadership. Artists’ imaginations are deeply influencing and affect their surrounding area; this is part of the compatibility of their needs. Leadership can be seen within curating art to the public and through transferring artists’ needs to the management of relevant institutions.
Peter Pakesch stresses the importance of the arts in education and upbringing. The arts should be taken into account more seriously and universities should try to adapt themselves to a higher artistic level, with a greater flow of creativity, more encouragement for imagination and starting to use the personal impact from the arts.
4.9 Prof. em. Dr. Paul Stähly Personal Identification
Prof. em. Dr. Paul Stähly is a Swiss professor emeritus for operations research at St. Gallen University.
Paul Stähly has always been very much attached to art. Since his childhood he played music, which he had to stop in order to revise for his A-levels. He feels sorry about such an abrupt ending, but has since then never really started to practice again; nevertheless he kept his passion for the consumption of visual arts.
Reinisch & Weber 78 Observations and setting:
Paul Stähly asked me, Sven-Christian Weber, to conduct the interview, the 4th April 2013, in his private apartment in St. Gallen. Unfortunately this was not possible. Therefore we spoke on Skype. He was in his house in Switzerland and I was sitting in an office room in Milan. The interviewee repeatedly expressed his interest in the topic and gave great insight of his professional and private experience. His answers were very elaborate. The conversation was conducted in German, and lasted for 91 minutes.
Whilst he was at school he visited the arts museum once a week with his arts teacher, in order to discuss and observe in a group, pieces of art. This experience had a fundamental impact on him. Through a scholarship Paul Stähly could spend some time during his studies in Vienna.
There he had numerous possibilities to dedicate his passion towards the arts through visiting the theatre, opera and music houses, as well as art galleries. He married an artist and through their shared interests they invested into a private art collection, especially contemporary art.
The interviewee states since he was a young boy, he was always encouraged and motivated in his private and business life, which found its ways into scientific work.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: diversified view and opinion; their intentions and attitudes; influence on their life; enjoy the beauty; challenged; the character of another person; inner dialog; meet on another level; silent communicators; message is transmitted; discussion; point of common; distraction; inspiration; encourages; inspires; calms down; creativity, stress reduction;
During his time at university he considered that focus and academic excellence could be achieved through the arts. All members of his institute had the opportunity to put paintings on their walls in their offices; that they liked and had a connection with. Therefore he collected paintings through the public funded art sponsorship initiative, which supported artists through buying their art and then offering it to employees in the public field and museums, which have had a lot of art pieces in their basement, because they didn’t have the space to present them all. The motivation beyond that was his certainty that art contributes to creativity, stress reduction, it calms down and it inspires
Reinisch & Weber 79 and encourages further work. He used art in his work as a way of inspiration, distraction and as a point of common discussion other than field of research people had been working on. Also in non-scientific occasions he brought the issue of art into focus, which can be seen in numerous art based cultural activities, like visiting galleries and international city trips. He used art to motivate his students and to motivate himself. Besides that a message is transmitted. Paintings are silent communicators. His co- workers loved it. Through the shared time spent on choosing and discussing pictures communication could be enhanced and leader, follower could meet on a rather personal level. Art provides an inner dialog. Through art a person can understand a lot about the character of another person.
Certain art genres provide different impact towards people, who interact with the arts. Out of his network he made an interesting discovery. A very high percentage of leading personalities are very interested and acknowledged in the arts. All of these personalities have one thing in common; they are inspired by the arts. They buy paintings, because they want to live with that painting, they want to get motivated and challenged by this painting and they simply want to enjoy the beauty of the message. It might be possible to abstract an influence on their life, their intentions and attitudes.
Paul Stähly states, the shared consumption of art is the ideal case, because it leads to discussions and argumentations, it helps to get a diversified view and opinion and it helps to interact with somebody else. Nevertheless every individual has a different strategy how to enjoy art and through that different “tempi” exist. He had a simple explanation for this: “first each group member goes through a gallery by themselves, after a certain amount of time they meet and start analysing and discussing each individual’s preferences. The more you interact with the arts, the more experience you get and the better you evaluate and see”.
His leadership within the university contained 4 main areas: teaching, science, director of the institute and initiator of marketing. As the initiator of marketing he had to find other financial support in order to enhance science and academia. The institute had up to 25 members, who were all to a certain extend dependent on him. During this time he wanted to be an example for his team. Therefore he did not concentrate just on teaching and science, but committed himself to the needs of both his students and the institute. As a result, the interviewee adds: “the interaction with motivated students kept me young”. He argues art had a significant impact on his leadership. Art provided knowledge and enhanced creativity. There is a synergy effect, which therefore supports personality.
Reinisch & Weber 80 Paul Stähly wanted to transmit a message to his co-workers and students, which stated: “I want you to learn from me; therefore you don’t have to love me”.
4.10 Johann Lassnig-Walder Personal Identification
Johann Lassnig-Walder is an Austrian jazz musician, music teacher and head of the "kelagBIGband”. He is currently teaching music education and orchestra at the Bundesrealgymnasium Spittal /Drau. Besides that he is musical director of the “kelagBIGband”, which is a professional bigband sponsored by a Carinthian electricity enterprise (kelag). Furthermore he is co- founder of the Jazz- Club Kammerlichtspiele in Austria - he was responsible for its management in terms of organizing, planning and financing. He studied Jazz-Trumpet and Composition/Arranging at the University of Graz and Newschool University NewYork and Business Administration at the Universities of Graz and Klagenfurt. (Source and picture: kindly provided by Johann Lassnig-Walder)
Observations and setting:
On April, 6 2013 I, Peter Reinisch, had the opportunity to have a Skype to landline interview with Johann Lassnig-Walder, who is living in Austria. The interview had no connection problems, but the sound quality was rather bad. However, this had no influence on the quality of the interview from my room in Kalmar. The conversation was very informal and relaxed. As he dedicated his interest as well in this direction of our research, he was very direct and precise with his answers and gave facts. He invested time in this interview. The interview was conducted in German and lasted for 65 minutes.
Johann Lassnig-Walder focused his interests on music and business during his education. In his research papers, he was looking for analogies between business and art. His current field of research is “what can managers learn from music” and is putting up a strategy for a workshop series. In his everyday work as a musician, teacher and manager, he experiences the uncertainty a Jazz-Musician and a manager have to face. Both have to solve problems, which are not predictable. He explains: “jazz musicians and managers need a toolbox with skills, which should not pre-built, but combinable and adaptable in different situations”. Jazz music is enhancing creativity to a very high extent. The combination and adaptation of this toolbox can be seen as creativity, because
Reinisch & Weber 81 the more routines are cognitively predefined, the lower the creative output. Johann Lassnig-Walder uses this approach in his didactics: “I don’t want my students at the beginning to play all tones on the whole C major scale for example, rather 3 tones. If the student knows how to handle these three tones, he or she has much more possibilities to interpret these tones, than if they have to play the whole C major scale. I believe the whole C major scale rather diminishes creativity, because there are too many options”.
Johann Lassnig-Walder started to play the trumpet when he was 12 years old. The family had a strong impact on him, because his father played the trumpet too. He loved to experience the big variety of chords and to use them in his own songs and song arrangements. In fact music was particularly used in emotional downs. The interviewee perceives the music as a “valve”, because it helps him to assimilate his emotions. He argues that his creative flow seems stronger in emotional downturns. The appreciation of his work is very important for him, just then he reached his goal, which is to touch people.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: to solve non predictable problems; creativity; to have a goal; self- affirmation; self-actualization; creativity; spontaneity; lack of prejudice; acceptance of facts, to bring thoughts into actions, personality enhancing satisfaction; observing; body movements; interact and communicate with others; learn how to communicate and listen; practicing with discipline; imagination; how to view parts of the whole; how to analyse and implement and how to create concepts; mentally fit and young; health benefits; well-being; learn respecting and attention for others needs; storytelling; ambiguity tolerance
Music is for him a beautiful form of self-affirmation. It is a personal need, which can be explained through the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: the peak of the pyramid is self- actualization, which consists out of creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts. Johann Lassnig-Walder believes music, or in general the arts can be a key to the fulfilment of self-actualization- which is human’s highest desire. In the context of music, it is the ability to bring thoughts into action and in case of a success; it is a personality enhancing satisfaction. Furthermore music teaches a lot about individuals, their behaviour and different personalities- you learn the need to observe the conductor, other musicians and their body movements, in order to know
Reinisch & Weber 82 what has to be done. Music gives individuals the opportunity to interact and enhances therefore the communication. Communication starts with listening and listening is a major part in music, it demands and teaches. It is necessary to listen to the conductor and co-musicians what they are trying to tell. In a musical context it can be the intonation, speed and volume etc. Especially Jazz requires interacting with people, listening to their performances and adding through improvisation other relevant ideas, which fit the overall picture.
Art comes from skills and abilities, which have to be practiced and trained with discipline. The amount of practice and discipline leads to impressions. Discipline for cognitive concepts, in terms of improvisation and discipline for instruments can be learnt from music. Cognitive concepts come from imagination, which gets multiplied through the arts. Other aspects Johann Lassnig-Walder was able to learn from music are: how to view parts of the whole, how to analyse and implement and how to create concepts. Music keeps you mentally fit and young. Improvisation goes deep into cognitive processes and concentration. It might have health benefits, but he knows it contributes absolutely to his well-being.
The major difference to other art genres, according to the interviewee, is definitely the improvisation. Improvisation can also be found in the theatre and paintings. One line on a piece of paper, one performed tone over an instrument or voice cannot be taken back. Johann Lassnig-Walder directly refers to leadership and management: “a leader cannot easily take back his or her decisions”. Another major difference is the caducity of music. Music can be felt and preserved, but it is not touchable and visible. It can be recorded, but the originality can never be recreated again.
He thinks it is essential for humans, that they get recognition and feedback from others. This leads to a further expansion of personal skills and this expansion can be initiated through music. Musicians can practise their technical ability, their sound; their embouchure, their rhythm- practice and discipline which are necessary components for success. These elements will turn into music, if the musician will combine them with other parameters. There are a lot of musicians, who are not suitable for orchestras, resulting from their personality. In a leadership context, the leader is not only leading, rather respecting, listening and paying attention for others needs and this is similar to the behaviour in music, because each single contribution has to be a part of the total work of art.
Johann Lassnig-Walder’s goal is to convert his ideas to reality. It can be a visual goal, like a Big Band choreography or an acoustic goal, when he composes a song. He feels
Reinisch & Weber 83 successful, when the result is congruent with his imagination. Another goal, which might sound poetic, is to touch the memory of the audience. The goal is to create an as long as possible lasting positive impression of his work- either through a beautiful sound and a diversified performance in order to embank the caducity. The interviewee adds: “if I consume art, I want to perceive a nice feeling, which takes me on a journey and tells me a story. This is exactly my goal as a musician”. In his particular case the goals equal the visions.
The interviewee states that through his academic education and research interests he has thought about the connection of art and music very specifically. Skills, musicians have to acquire are also claimed by leaders- Especially improvisation as a form of problem-solving and flexibility. It is good to find a permanent solution, no doubt about that, but staying flexible might enhance efficiency and might help to reach the goal. This requires a feature, Johann Lassnig-Walder found in literature research, which is called “ambiguity tolerance”. It is central to successful people, musicians and leaders. The interviewee explains: “I can practice tone sequences, sound performance and sound sequences at home, but I know I might not reproduce the same quality on stage, either through physical condition, it does not fit into the music context- played by co- musicians, or the acoustics. I learnt to deal with that dilemma and try to adapt myself to the situation, in order to reach the best result possible under these circumstances”. He learnt this behaviour through music and can profit from it in his didactical and leadership tasks. He explains it with an orchestra class. The conductor has a goal in front of his or her eyes, but he or she knows the goal might not be reached straight, rather that they have to find compromises on the way and adapt to them. This can be seen in practicing an etude, which rhythm should be possible to be learnt and understood in one month. There might be one or more parts of the orchestra, who have either difficulties to learn the rhythm or do not understand it. Therefore the conductor has to switch his or her strategy and find a compromise. In a leadership perspective, the leader has to adapt his or her answers to the environment and circumstances as well, in order to succeed.
Reinisch & Weber 84 4.11 Eugen Bertel
Personal Clarification
Eugen Bertel is an Austrian flutist and music lecturer.
Eugen Bertel studied at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory in Feldkirch. During this time he won 1st prize at the national music competition "Jugend Musiziert" in 1985. In 1987 he studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, before changing to Wolfgang Schulz’s class at the same Institute. In 1994 Eugen Bertel completed his studies – a master’s degree in music performance and teaching - with honours. He received further artistic impulses at master classes with Aurèle Nicolet, Maxence Larrieu, Peter-Lukas Graf, Andras Adorjan und Konrad Hünteler. In 1994 the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture awarded Eugen Bertel the Prize of Recognition (Würdigungspreis). Since 1991 Eugen Bertel is principal flutist with the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra and has served as principal flute with the Wiener Kammerphilharmonie, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the RSO Vienna and the Camerata Salzburg. His busy chamber music activity includes the Trio Swete-Bertel- Sepec, which has performed regularly at the Schubertiade and at other international festivals and concerts, such as Wigmore Hall in London. As a member of Ensemble Plus he has performed at the Bregenz Festival, Styriarte Graz and has recorded a series of CDs of contemporary music. Since 1998 Eugen Bertel is professor for flute and chamber music at the Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium. He has held masterclasses in the United States, France, Italy, Spain and Austria. (Curriculum Vitae kindly provided by Eugen Bertel)
Reinisch & Weber 85 Observations and setting:
Eugen Bertel and me, Sven-Christian Weber scheduled a Skype meeting, the 13th April 2013, in order to conduct this interview. Eugen Bertel was sitting in his private office and I was conducting the interview from my home computer. The setting was very informal, as the conversation. Eugen Bertel made a lot of references to both personal and professional experience. He would stop to wait and think some time before answering the questions. The interview was conducted in German and lasted for 51 minutes.
He was supported by his parents and in certain ways was influenced through family music. To start with, the flute was his personal decision. He was constantly hindered by people from his surrounding area who did not understand why he had chosen to play the flute as a professional career. However, his parents recognised his ability and motivated him to engage himself in music education. He perceives his artistic development as rather linear.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: helps to express; authentic; supports communicating emotions, ideas and storytelling; communicating to inside and outside; causes endorphins; learn how to listen; helps to understand the architecture of life; experience silence; use voice; good rhetoric; leads to interaction with others; raise in self-esteem; learn how to see; stimulates concentration, cognitive processes and emotional well-being; helps to clarify “who am I”, reflection; nonverbal communication; management, dramaturgical development, placing of breaks, arrangement of phrases and melody interpretation; curative force, source of energy; piece message; combining medium
Eugen Bertel states: “music is essential for my survival”. He can use his instrument to express himself and he can communicate his emotions, ideas and is able to tell a story. A painter can use colours and an actor can use gesture and facial expressions to do so. In other words, he needs music because it helps him to communicate to the world, but also to the inside, as a writer needs words, he needs notes to feel something. The interviewee states: “notes and tones cause endorphins and make me authentic”.
Furthermore an individual learns how to listen. Sometimes a symphony takes an enormous amount of time and this symphony is built on different parts. The audience needs to listen to the full symphony in order to understand the architecture of a piece of art. Music teaches you to have patience. Many people are not able to sit calm for a certain amount of time in a concert, therefore they start coughing for example. Music
Reinisch & Weber 86 teaches the experience with silence. Eugen Bertel explains: “During Baroque times, the art piece had an introduction, which introduced the piece, a thesis and an antithesis followed and in the end the thesis and antithesis reconciled and the piece ended with a conclusion”. This structure and the arguments in that structure can be taken in a leadership perspective. Leaders should be able to use their voice, should have good rhetoric and should know how to write a speech. This can be learnt from a piece of art from Baroque times. Music teaches architecture, which can be directly implemented in life. Furthermore music teaches about human beings and their behaviour. An orchestra is a big social structure, which can be seen as a very well-run working organization, if they perform and interact well. All musicians, as well as the conductor, are dependent on each other. Nevertheless the role of the conductor has changed drastically. These days the conductor has to face him or herself much more with democracy and the social belonging of the musicians. This might be connected with the raise of self-esteem of the musicians. The interviewee states, that there are also leadership courses existing for the conductor, in order to clarify the issue of, how the conductor should interact with musicians. This fits perfectly into the schematic of a business. The business works well, if all parts efficiently interact and work together.
Eugen Bertel sees the big difference from music to other art genres in the acoustical component. If somebody listens to an audio drama, the listening component is more strongly pronounced, than through watching a theatre. To see, reduces the ability to hear. Music makes an individual aware about this phenomenon. The experience of listening might be the strongest within all art genres. Besides that music is fugacious. The most beautiful situations a musician might experience might be in the memory.
Eugen Bertel tends to interact with arts more in times of uneasiness. Music stimulates concentration, cognitive processes and emotional well-being. According to him, the most stimulating experiences with art have not been on stage after the third, fourth repetition of a concert, rather in private and personal sessions and during premieres of concerts.
Music helps to clarify “who am I”, because it enhances not only reflection, but also the financial dependency restricts a musician in his personal and artistic development. The aspect of breadwinning forces an artist to offer him or herself in certain ways.
To interact with chamber music, which is a social act, helps Eugen Bertel to react on incentives from others and lead others over incentives he provides. Within chamber music the artist offers and receives incentives, over nonverbal communication. Music offers a deep understanding about the issue of nonverbal communication. On a soloist Reinisch & Weber 87 level, the artist is the solo entertainer. He or she is responsible for management, dramaturgical development, placing of breaks, arrangement of phrases and melody interpretation. The artist is the focus of all events.
Eugen Bertel’s goal is to take the audience on a journey and offer insights into his emotional world, through touching them emotionally. A concert, which ensures this, has just satisfied participants. All individuals draw strengths from visions and desires. His vision regards music as a curative force, source of energy, as a peace message, and means of communication par excellence and as a combining medium. Music has to be felt and experienced.
4.12 Knut Weber Personal Identification
Knut Weber is an Austrian Cellist and member of the Berlin Philharmonics. He is co-founder of the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra and member of the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonics.
Knut Weber was born in 1974 in Klagenfurt (Austria). He studied at first with the Slovenian Milos Mlejnik, then with Claus Kanngiesser in Cologne, and also with Wolfgang Boettcher in Berlin. He also received decisive stimulus in master-classes with Heinrich Schiff, Siegfried Palm, William Pleeth, F. Helmerson, David Geringas, Bernhard Greenhouse, the Alban Berg Quartet, and the Beaux Arts Trio. Knut Weber has been the recipient of, among other distinctions, the 1st Prize of the International Cello Competition in Liezen, Austria. Since 1998, he has been a member of the Berlin Philharmonic. (Source and picture kindly provided by Berlin Philharmonics and Knut Weber)
Reinisch & Weber 88
Observations and setting:
Knut Weber and I, Sven-Christian Weber, scheduled a Skype meeting, the 14th April 2013, in order to conduct this interview. Knut Weber was sitting in his living room and I conducted the conversation from my home computer. The setting and the interview was very informal. Knut Weber was quick and precise in his answers. He would take little time to answer the questions and was very precise. He referred mainly to his professional experience- Only to a little extent from personal experience. The interview was conducted in German, and lasted for 39 minutes.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: culture and identity; learn how to express; a means to reflect and process emotions, impressions and thoughts; treatment of past, the presence, the future and the phantasy; creativity, ensures interaction; helps to learn how to enjoy art and life; instrumental skills, listening skills, expression skills and personal development skills; personal growth and well-being; shared experience; authenticity; improvisation; leadership, stepping back; seduce the audience; stage presence; enhances the ability to hear
Art is deeply imbedded in our culture and identity. Knut Weber states: “an individual is only whole, if he or she can act out of once life, wherein art captures a big part”. It is a necessity to express oneself and the arts support individuals to do so. He speaks about art as a means to reflect and process emotions, impressions and thoughts. Anything that happens mentally can be processed through music. A person can learn several aspects of life from art. Basically it is a treatment of the past, the present, the future and the fantasy. Individuals can learn how the artists handle this treatment and how creativity arises and is used. Furthermore individuals learn skills through the interaction and how to enjoy the arts and therefore how to enjoy life. Skills can be seen as instrumental skills, listening skills, expression skills and personal development skills. Knut Weber argues: “necessarily art has not to be done actively, to profit out of the arts, also the passive component contributes to a personal growth and well-being”.
The interviewee states, it is totally different to consume art alone or in a group, because within a group it is a shared experience. He explains it through a metaphor: “If you climb a mountain the personal feelings might be stronger than shared feelings with the group,
Reinisch & Weber 89 but it is shared. I give something and therefore I get something back. In the moment I do something in a group, something shared gets created”.
Knut Weber did not have certain phases where he interacted with music more or less, although he claims that in certain periods he craves for more music. As he is a reproducing musician, it does not get expressed as much as with an artist, who expresses his reflections and emotions into his music.
He believes the main interest of a reproducing musician is to interpret the song as authentically as possible and in the interest of the composer. Authenticity is honesty. His goal is to identify all nuances and all details and present them to the audience, which creates a fascinating atmosphere. A goal is very fundamental and essential for an artistic success. Another goal is to subordinate oneself to the composer and the conductor. His vision is to create something actively. It does not matter if it is on stage, through composition, or through an improvisation. Knut Weber explains, his goals connect his activities and his vision is above it. Maybe nearly impossible to reach, because the interviewee is a reproducing musician and he is not sure if he would ever compose. The interviewee identifies himself as very realistic and pragmatic. Therefore realizable means are his goal.
The Berlin Philharmonics require their musicians to actively engage themselves with aspects of leadership, as well as requiring them to step back and adapt shared understanding and shared interests. Otherwise a musician is not suitable for an orchestra. It is said that the Berlin Philharmonics are rather on a soloist level, which contains leading, adapting and being led. A harmony can be created through adaption. The orchestra asks every musician to implement their character and their musical intention, therefore every musician has to be very actively engaged. It is indispensable to have leadership in classical music and jazz. He argues: “even when having a solo performance, I have to seduce the audience in a positive way. I need to have a stage presence, which gives me the main attention of the audience”. He wants to bond his audience to the music and the story he is telling them. This he does even though he is not alone on the stage. In a certain sense he wants to take the hand of his audience and lead them to his interpretation. The interviewee believes that both being alone and together as an audience and a musician can be a beautiful experience.
Knut Weber sees the main difference between music and other art genres in the opportunity to ignore and oversee. If somebody does not want to see a picture, a side performance in a theatre or a building, or is not interested in it, he or she could close their eyes, but to switch off the sense of hearing is impossible. This means: “if music is
Reinisch & Weber 90 available, you are at its mercy”. The interviewee does not believe that music is fugacious. Appreciation is needed by every individual. It is impossible to separate the artist and his or her work, it is the same.
4.13 Kurt Leidl Personal Identification
Kurt Leidl is an Austrian manager, artist and owner of Litho- Art.
He was born in Austria in 1943. In 1962 he tried to enter the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but without success. Therefore he decided to study food and fermentation technology at the University of Vienna. After graduating Kurt Leidl was active in the pharmaceutical industries for the East European market until his retirement. Besides his education at university he always has had a workshop where he could live his passion of lithographic print. This workshop helped him to enjoy the arts, to calm down and to relax. (Source and picture kindly provided by Kurt Leidl, http://www.litho-art.at/, viewed 16.04.2013)
Observations and setting:
Kurt Leidl and me, Sven-Christian Weber, scheduled a Skype meeting, the 14th April 2013, in order to conduct this interview. Kurt Leidl was in his living room in Croatia, and I was conducting the interview from my home computer. Kurt Leidl made many references to his personal and professional experience and was happy to tell anecdotes from his life to show his experience. His answers were very clear. The interview was conducted in German, and lasted for 35 minutes.
His Family had no impact on his choice to get involved with art. For him many managerial aspects are more present than the artistic ones. He is always concerned about what to do with the art produced. Though he is happy to be part of the production cycle of an artwork, he distances himself from it. Kurt Leidl sees that he can be considered part of the creative and productive cycle as he shares his thoughts with the artists who are working in his workshop, but he sees his role as rather superficial. He is Reinisch & Weber 91 happy to share his knowledge and thoughts, and it seems he would often like to help “his” artists more to reach economic success. For him economic success was also not a priority at the moment, but that is probably because there is no need for such as he is retired.
Another very interesting point is that he thinks art must be straight forward. He likes things that say what they mean. An artist should say what he or she means, and a person who uses his or her paintings should not be afraid to be judged by others. As within lithographic art only few colours can be used, it requires to be straight forward and to know what somebody wants.
Statement to the research question: Why is art important for me?
Key aspects: create moods, emotions, insights and thoughts; teaches to be straight forward and to know in advance what somebody wants; interested in change; achievement oriented individual; enthalpy; handle loneliness; enhances communication; it calms down; it helps to express; gives meaning;
Kurt Leidl takes from the arts, what the arts create: moods, emotions, insights and thoughts. An artist creates within his pictures a world and some of those touches him and invites him to participate in this journey. His personal assessment whether art is good or not is not directly linked to art itself. For him art is good, if he can enter the painting and gets the feeling the picture gives him something. There are probably good pictures, which do not cause any emotional reactions.
The interviewee tries to understand what the message of an artist might be. Although he thinks artists might not think too rationally, rather having thoughts containing possible scenarios and stories. He criticises the gutlessness of the non-representational art. The artist wants to tell what he or she thinks, although it depends on interpretation and through interpretation everything is possible. Nevertheless through the non- representational art, the artist does not have to declare his or her work and the art buyer does not want to declare him or herself either.
The graphic reproduction differentiates itself from other genres of visual arts, through its main characteristic of reduction. Within the graphic reproduction three dimensions are reduced to two dimensions. The key is the abstraction. Kurt Leidl explains that within the lithography every stone has one colour and therefore need to be coloured. Before work is started it is necessary to know how colours are put on each stone, because the lithography does not give the opportunity to remove colours easily. Before the interviewee
Reinisch & Weber 92 starts with his actual work, he knows what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. Somebody who is interested in change is rather interested in the goal, than the means, in the first place. This can be even seen how individuals responds differently to certain situations. He gives a metaphoric example: “A power oriented person is rather interested in the goal. This person will be satisfied flying with a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest, just so that that he or she has been there. The achievement oriented individual is the typical climber and won’t be in any form satisfied to use the helicopter. The power oriented individual is satisfied with adapting their means, and the achievement oriented individual orients him or herself through the means”.
What constitutes human nature is the desire for the enthalpy, which can be seen as the value system. In other words everything what is good for the enthalpy, is good for human beings: a longer and healthy life, more intelligence, everything human’s aspire. To complete this picture the entropy is missing, which is the destruction of the enthalpy. Both art and leadership are vectors in the direction of enthalpy. The artist can create out of nothing an enthalpy, through painting a picture e.g. Mona Lisa. The artist tells a story and creates meaning. Generations of human beings can delight themselves with her smile. This is art and this is what makes art astounding.
Management, although, has a pre-given structure. The aim of the manager is to optimize the current situation. It is very rare that a company looks for a manager, who has to keep the current situation as it is. The main difference between an artist and a manager is that the work is done after the artist has finished his or her work. He or she is not brought to justice. Even if the artist is very successful, the artist is always in the position to say, that people did not understand what he or she was doing. A manager won’t have the opportunity to downgrade or neglect his or her work. The real artist does something without thinking if it is appropriate, or if it will be appreciated by individuals. The artist does it, because he or she wants to and because it is the order condition he or she wants to create.
Nevertheless there might be a connection between management and art. Art is lonely, such as management. Kurt Leidl identifies a certain loneliness he had to live through his 25 years management career. An organisation has a hierarchy. Very often he had difficulties to face superiors as to what was required by his subordinates and vice versa.
Certain people might believe concerts and galleries are social events, but this is not his character. Nevertheless to have pictures in office rooms are beneficial, because they might lead to communication and during stress periods or bad days they might calm
Reinisch & Weber 93 someone down. Pictures on the walls have expressiveness. It can be conscious or unconscious, in both ways the person benefits.
Reinisch & Weber 94
5. Analysing our findings
5.1 Open coding
In the antecedent chapters 3 and chapter 4, we discussed why art is important. Chapter 3 approaches the question from a community art perspective and chapter 4 approaches the question through individual interviews. These represent individual opinions and statements. In chapter 5 we analyse the data we have collected. What we want to show to the reader is how the data we have collected leads to a substantive theory we have constructed, which arose from the data. The process of construction is represented in the following pages. We see our theory as bridge between the arts and leadership. A bridge that is joined in the arts and that gives individuals the possibility to walk on it in order to join it in the other side in the field of personal leadership. A person can use the impact that the arts have on his or her leadership. Our theory is grounded both in the outcome of the community art literature review of chapter 3 and in the individual opinions, statements and represented experience of our interviewees in chapter 4. As explained, we have taken it upon ourselves to use the methods from those suggested by Corbin and Strauss (2008) in order to identify elements that our interviewees have in common. We grouped them into different categories. The identification of core elements required 3 steps. In step 1 we established the “key word” boxes from each interview and summarized the main outcomes of the community arts discussion. In a step 2 we classified those key- words and the community arts discussion outcomes in 7 identified categories:
1. The Arts as a mean for Aesthetics. 2. The Arts create Personalities. 3. The Arts support the Cognitive Process. 4. The Arts as a fact of Culture. 5. The Arts as a supporter of Health and Well-being. 6. The Arts as a School for Skills. 7. The Arts and its Social Consequence.
It has to be mentioned that elements in these categories are highly effecting each other and might also fit in to other categories. Nevertheless we made choices that best fit to our identified categories.
Reinisch & Weber 95 The following tables show how we have divided the key words that we have identified in the interviews and that have been relevant in the community studies. Each title represents one of the seven categories and under it the reader can find the key words we see associated to the category.
Figure 11: Categories through the impact of the arts
The Arts as a mean for Aesthetics The Arts create Personalities aesthetic representation develops sensitivity in a person helps to define what is beautiful supports dramaturgical development enjoy the beauty encourages a person enthalpy, as a highly ordered energy enhances emotions, feelings and expressions learn how to execute The Arts support the Cognitive Process experience silence a means to reflect feel emotions, and handle them acceptance of facts form of experimentation communicating to the inside and to the outside gives incentives Distraction leads to harmony enhances reflection about being helps to be ”present” and in the “moment” enhances reflection helps to understand the architecture of life sense-giving it inspires enhances sense making it teaches to be open helps to connect with the past leads to a lack of prejudice enhances imagination leads to interaction with others supports inner dialog leads to personal improvement and perfection raise in perception and intellect enhances nonverbal communication stimulates concentration enhances the ontological and sociological level supports a vision passionate engagement enhances learning ability shows when a break in life is needed possibility to age with dignity The Arts as a fact of Culture it teaches discipline piece message raise in self-esteem impact on philosophy learn how to see provides feedback and information shows how to practice is the DNA of leadership supports spontaneity teaches to be straight forward and to know in silent communicators advance what somebody wants assists as an icebreaker strengthens intentions and attitudes Regeneration influence on their life
body movements
The Arts as a supporter of Health and Well- helps to step down being helps to process emotions a person becomes unique releases endorphins activates to outperform health benefits ahead of reality creates moods be clear about what you want emotional well-being enhances calmness enhances healing offers a challenge it calms someone down Clearness keeps mentally fit and young Confrontation stress reduction handle loneliness Therapeutic learn respecting and attention for others(‘) needs enhances personal well-being mental openness Precision The Arts as a School for Skills stage presence ambiguity tolerance stepping back rhetoric’s teaches to move on and to keep the head held high Reinisch & Weber 96 decision making to bring thoughts into actions being able to convince people creates an opinion Communication educates an opinion enhances continuous learning leads to an achievement oriented individual creates dialogues to be coherent within oneself enhances creativity creates a well-rounded person curative force Authenticity enhances discussion better understanding of human nature and living emphasizing with people contributes to a more effective person enhances ability to “see” enhances a diversified view and opinion enhances conversations enhances knowledge enhances the ability to hear gives the chance to be good at something enhances expression skills and personal helps to clarify “who am I” development skills continuous confrontation helps to learn how to enjoy life helps to articulate individual growth helps to express inner spirit how to analyse, implement and how to create Inspiration concepts how to view parts of the whole interested in change ideas and storytelling investing time into oneself enhances impressions and thoughts Innovation enhances improvisation skills shows but enhances limits instrumental skills personality enhancing satisfaction interact and communicate with others provides implicit knowledge Leadership releases the genius in oneself leads to inspiration and helps to inspire others self-actualization Management self-affirmation to compromise supports individual growth enhances observing skills supports individualism teaches not to get influenced too much by how to seduce others materialism, society and maximization stimulates creative thinking teaches not to subordinate oneself to constraints teaches that there is something very illusive about Storytelling life teaches how to handle aspects of life teaches the appearance teaches how to talk and to ask questions to have a goal teaches methods and skills trust to learn how to listen to oneself and somebody else vision to solve non predictable problems Transform use voice enhances understanding enhances continuous learning
The Arts and its Social Consequence creates a closeness combining medium contribution to the institution and country creation of unity to understand cultural differences culture and identity eliminates boundaries enhances collaboration ensures interaction meet on another level point in common shows how to share with others shared vision share[ing] information with others shared experience shared understanding social cohesion supports team-building Reinisch & Weber 97 is a symbiotic medium supports teamwork understanding human nature enhances communities
5.2 Axial Coding
The attributes in these seven categories represent the impact arts have on individuals and communities. These possible impacts, arising from the interaction a person has with the arts, gives us the opportunity to show how the arts and leadership are connected. Many of these characteristics are associated to effective leadership, as we will show later.
In step 3 we started to identify three core elements from these seven categories. These result from a continuous comparison with leadership literature that is part of our theoretical framework. The Master Programme that this thesis concludes, and additional research, has provided necessary information to understand the relationship that can be drawn to leadership.
We established three core categories that form the basis of our theory. Those three core elements arose from the seven identified categories that are based on the community arts literature review and individual interviews.
What these three concepts that we have highlighted have in common is that they are the result of a human’s interaction with the arts. Our interviews have been conducted with people who are art- active and therefore interact regularly with the arts. These “conversations with arts”, as Gianpietro Ermacora called it, have provided our interviewees, and those people who have been taken into consideration for the community art studies, with certain features, as we will now show.
This moment of reflection and learning, where people confront themselves with art and subsequently gain something from it, we consider to be a catharsis. Within this study, the catharsis forms an abstract concept that stands behind our theory. It is the culmination of the comparison of our data with each other and the theoretical framework in a conceptual way. This is a concept that unites all our findings. We are neither explaining nor describing what happens during this very personal moment of catharsis. We show what effects it has provoked within our interviewees and within those who have been active in the community arts. From there we conclude that through experience with the arts, art- active people can gain qualities that are helpful for successful leadership.
Reinisch & Weber 98 The three core categories that we have formed show part of the outcome of a catharsis through the arts. They are most appropriate to be seen as the bridge between the arts and leadership.
The three categories are the following:
1. The catharsis through the Arts: Cognition. 2. The catharsis through the Arts: Health and Well-being. 3. The catharsis through the Arts: Personal skills, social skills and personality development.
In the following paragraphs we want to show how and why we came up with those three arguments. They are a concentrate from the seven categories, based on community art literature review, leadership literature review and the interviews we have conducted. Therefore they are necessary in order to answer our research question, what is it that we can learn from the arts and what can we provide to leaders and leadership theory from our findings? Further it will show how we came to our theory. In a certain sense this process refigures our researcher catharsis.
In the following paragraphs the readers will be able to identify a continuous circle. The circle that can be detected inhibits a relationship between the individual and the arts. They are in continuous interaction. The arts are the stimuli and as long as an individual is concerned about receiving the stimuli, the circle is on-going. The impact is based on our three arguments. These arguments have to be seen from a holistic perspective, as they are intertwined. This is the beauty and feature that the arts create in each individual’s catharsis.
5.3 The catharsis through the Arts: Cognition
The cognitive process varies from individual to individual. Donald (2006, p. 4) said that the arts have to be seen as cognitive engineers. It is the human mind; it is the perception, the understanding of aesthetics and human skills, which are under enormous influence from the arts. Through the catharsis with the arts, those understandings have been strongly influenced as we have seen in our data.
The influence can emerge from an enhancement of the inner dialog, as Prof. em Paul Stähli and Eugen Bertel argue, or an increase of reflection, as Lucinda Lloyd, Nico Müller, Eugen Bertel and Knut Weber state. People become aware “who they are” and realize what they can do, because they are coherent with themselves. An influence in cognitive skills might lead to enhanced problem solving skills, improvisation, reasoning, decision making, imagination, increase in perception, action and learning skills. More Reinisch & Weber 99 about skills can be seen in the next paragraph- nevertheless all our interviewees corresponded positively to the fact that the catharsis through the arts has an effect on their cognitive skills. Furthermore we identified in the community art literature review that the interaction with community arts provide an enormous impact on individuals. The pleasure of the arts motivates people to acquire new skills and to face the unknown. This ensures a mental widening and an increase in the outcome of learning (Gardiner in Matarasso 1996, p.18).
“The arts, in particular, can release imagination to open new perspectives [and] to identify alternatives” (Greene 1995, p. 18). Imaginations are the outcome of cognitive concepts, which are multiplied through the interaction with the arts, as Johann Lassnig- Walder puts it. The arts help to create concepts, which influence through different environments people’s imaginations. Lucinda Lloyd argues it is the environment in a next step which stimulates cognitive concepts and its imaginations. Peter Pakesch draws the connection to an individual’s perception. The arts give sense and therefore enhance the sense making process. Peter Pakesch explains: the arts educate our perception, educates our intellect and gives sense to something. This sense-giving process of the arts provides fruitful, constructive and creative thinking. The arts provide knowledge, incentives, inspiration and ideas.
Furthermore the catharsis through the arts enhances concentration and the ability to study. Johann Lassnig-Walder argues: improvisation goes deep into cognitive processes and concentration. Eugen Bertel sees the interaction with arts as a stimulation of concentration and cognitive processes. Lucinda Lloyd and Nico Müller perceive the interaction with the arts as means for learning and continuous learning. Gardiner in Matarasso (1996, p. 18) states in the community art literature review, the arts help to get educated more effectively from other sources, like schools or universities.
Lucinda Lloyd mentions that the arts help to connect with the past. In addition Knut Weber sees the arts as a helpful connector with the presence and a possible future in form of fantasy. Kurt Leidl mentions: what constitutes human nature is the desire for the enthalpy, which can be seen as the value system. The artist can create out of nothing an enthalpy, through painting a picture as Michelangelo did with his Mona Lisa. The artist tells a story and creates meaning. Generations of human beings have since delighted themselves with her smile.
Another concept that arises through the interaction with the arts, is a higher understanding of the concept of aesthetics. The catharsis through the arts provides its observer and his author with the opportunity to confront him or herself with the notion
Reinisch & Weber 100 of abstract beauty. In our research, interviewees have stated that the interaction with the arts make people aware how to “see” and how to “hear”. What is seen and what can be seen varies from person to person. It is the trained eye that makes us see what can be viewed and is responsible for what we omit. It is the trained eye which opens perspectives and the detail for the “new”. Ewan David Eason states people have to see what is out in the world and people have to take in as much as possible. The more someone sees the better judgement someone has. The more someone precepts the higher level he or she can climb. Prof. em. Paul Stähly agrees on that fact that the more someone interacts with the arts, the better he or she can see and evaluate and therefore judge. Within the community art literature review Lowe (2000, p. 375) describes community art projects as possibilities to make new discoveries on how to see things from different perspectives. Lucinda Lloyd states that the arts provide the opportunity to hear the thoughts and opinions of others. The answer might be often with another person and the collaboration enhances individual growth. Eugen Bertel provides another fact, to see, reduces the ability to hear. The catharsis through the arts makes people aware of that.
Prof. em. Paul Stähly and Gianpietro Ermacora state seeing enables people to enjoy the beauty of a message in the arts.
The ability to see should by no means be limited to the arts. The arts are rather a very powerful starting point to do so. Interacting with the arts form aesthetical understanding through seeing and hearing. This helps to make evaluations and judgements. Through our research we see that the aesthetic understanding is deeply influenced by the arts. The human mind, the perception, the understanding of aesthetics and cognitive skills can be enhanced through interaction with the arts. Our interviewees and research in the community arts agree on that.
5.4 The catharsis through the Arts: Health and Well-being
The community art literature review and our primary data collection support the concept that the catharsis through the arts increases the individuals’ health and well-being. We want to emphasise that the discussion about well-being and health cannot be taken on a general level. Nevertheless health is human’s most valid asset from our point of view. As our interviewees have all stated it has a positive impact on their personal health, we must represent these findings here.
Kurt Leidl and Prof. em Paul Stähly state that the arts can cause differing emotions and help to calm people down. It is important for individuals that their emotions, thoughts
Reinisch & Weber 101 and amount of stress are in equilibrium. This enables a healthy appearance. One of the reasons Ewan David Eason uses the arts, is its function of therapy. It contributes to a personal well-being. Lucinda Lloyd identifies the arts as incredible healing, because the well inside of someone is filled and the arts are the catalyst for this process. Johann Lassnig-Walder, Nico Müller, Eugen Bertel and Knut Weber are constantly experiencing their raise in well-being through the arts. Johann Lassnig-Walder states that the arts keep people mentally fit and healthy. Nico Müller explains the arts help to make clear that materialism, pressure and the human need to “maximize” oneself should not be taken too existentially into account. Endorphins caused by the arts are, in the eyes of Eugen Bertel, one of the necessary components for an individuals’ well-being. Knut Weber is certain that the pure interaction with the arts contribute to the overall well- being of a person.
In the community arts literature review it is the community as the main driver of an individual’s catharsis, which leads to health and well-being. We identified several authors who argue interacting with arts enhances health and well-being. Berkman and Glass (2000) relate it to the supportiveness of social relationships that provides emotional and instrumental support, which describes health supporting effects. In other words the community takes care of its members. The arts are inspirational and lead to reflections, which address the handling of personal health problems, or help to prepare minds for upcoming events (Berry & Pennebaker, 1993). Berry and Pennebaker (1993) state the interaction with the arts lead to fewer medical issues, rise in immune function and raise in physical health, because the arts give the opportunity to talk and exchange personal problems. Furthermore music reduces pain and has a positive impact in the treatment of cancer (Beck, 1991; Schorr, 1993). The arts reduce stress (Baklien, 2000). Bygren, Konlaan and Johannson (1996, p. 1579) even identified that the interaction with the arts lead to longer lives.
The catharsis through the arts is a possibility to enhance health and personal well-being. This occurs either through the arts themselves, or through the impact of community arts. It is the interaction what matters. On the one hand it provides satisfaction or an equilibrium in emotions, positive stress and thoughts, which stimulate the personal well- being. On the other hand the arts contribute to serious health issues. Individual behaviour and actions are directly affected by health and well-being. The arts therefore can be seen as one mean to stimulate those essential aspects for human life and enable oneself for further development.
Reinisch & Weber 102 5.5 The catharsis through the Arts: Personal skills, social skills and personality development.
The interviewees and scholars in the community arts gave deep insights of how individuals can benefit from the interaction with the arts in form of the improvement of personal skills, social skills and with regard to personality development. The main finding that arose from the interviews was that the interviewee’s characters, behaviours and personalities transformed through the interaction with the arts.
Personal and social skills have a non-replaceable value for any person. The catharsis through the arts, gives the opportunity to enrich oneself with personal and social skills. We have divided the category into its single properties to make it easier to comprehend.
5.5.1 Personal skills
The most mentioned personal skill was communication. Both in the community art studies presented in the literature review and in the personal interviews. People can learn to express themselves thanks to interaction with the arts. They get in touch with others and therefore they interact with others which has a beneficial impact on skills such as rhetoric, proper articulation, how to ask questions and story-telling. Advantages they can gain are such having the opportunity to practice rhetorical skills, proper articulation, how to ask questions and storytelling. Randall, Maggie and Miller (1997) and Harland et al. (2000) argue in the community art literature review, chapter 3, that the arts are a medium that empowers communication and social interaction skills. In the interviews Ewan David Eason, Prof. em. Paul Stähly, Johann Lassnig-Walder, Gianpietro Ermacora, Kurt Leidl, Colleen Mraz, Nico Müller, Roberto Lapi, Lucinda Lloyd, Knut Weber gave positive feedback towards communication. Ewan David Eason identified a form of enhanced communication skill, teambuilding and icebreaking capacities after having interacted with the arts. Prof. em. Paul Stähly could profit from the communication coming from the arts, as he could meet his co-workers on another level. Johann Lassnig-Walder identifies a higher individual interaction through the arts, which results in more communication. However, communication regards not only the verbal perspective, but also the non-verbal. Non- verbal communication occurs through the entire body. This includes the use of body language, mimic and gesture. The artist has to be aware of co-artists, or players from the outside, who provide the artist with incentives. Lowe (2000, p. 363) highlighted in her study: “through the face-to-face interactions during the community art projects, individuals experienced changes in self-perceptions in the areas of awareness, creative self-expression, and self-esteem”. Gianpietro Ermacora connects communication coming from the arts directly with his personal Reinisch & Weber 103 vision. He states it is all about continuous confrontation and sharing ideas. Roberto Lapi states: “You must have a vision at the beginning. There is a vision, people already need to have in their inside, before they start to express their actual work”. This is a key point in communication, the ability to express oneself. Lucinda Lloyd explains: a lot of pain, upset, suffering and misery exists today because people have not expressed what they need to express”, or because they don’t know how. Communication is also about communicating emotions and feelings. Nevertheless the arts are an opportunity to do so and the catharsis through the arts helps people to foster their skills. Knut Weber argues that it depends mainly on the storyteller and his or her “presence” how he or she communicates a story. Therefore the ability how to seduce and manipulate a person arises out of the interaction with the arts.
Creativity is another key personal skill enhanced by the experience with the arts. Johann Lassnig-Walder explains: individuals “need a toolbox with skills, which should not be pre-built, but combinable and adaptable in different situations”. The arts are enhancing creativity to a very high extent. The combination and adaptation of this toolbox can be seen as creativity, because the more routines are cognitively pre-defined, the lower the creative output. Furthermore creativity is part of self-actualization of Maslow’s pyramid of needs (Maslow, 1987). Its fulfilment is human’s highest desire. Johann Lassnig-Walder argues improvisation needs creativity which is directly linked with spontaneity and problem solving. It is the ability to bring thoughts into action and in case of a success; it is a personality enhancing satisfaction. Lucinda Lloyd adds that joy and the right atmosphere are the essence for creativity. Peter Pakesch explained that through interacting with the arts he learnt how to use creativity and he understands how it can be created, which is very helpful in his everyday work. We believe that the interaction with arts stimulates human senses and greater skilled senses respond more effectively to input stimuli in an enhanced form of creativity. It is the catharsis through the arts that cause this transformation. Lowe (2000) and Matarasso (1996; 1997; 1998) identified in their community art studies creativity and vision as fundamental outcomes of community arts.
The arts provide instrumental skills and therefore observers and practitioners acquire better perception, improvisation, reasoning, decision making and action. It does not matter which art is consumed or produced, music, rather drawing or a painting, or performing theatre. All interviewees gave positive feedback towards several of them. In addition Matarasso (1996; 1997; 1998) explains in his studies that the arts equip its participants with certain skills. We identified two necessary components for this process: vision and ambiguity tolerance. As already mentioned Roberto Lapi sees a vision at the Reinisch & Weber 104 beginning as essential. Someone must set a goal. This is the first step in order to give meaning to vision. However, it requires actions to realize the goal and for that the vision. This vision can fail with the execution. Therefore it is of great importance that the execution does not lack in precision. The arts teach you the challenge to realize things as planned. The arts also teach the challenge to improvise the solving of a problem. The personal vision, however, anticipates both. The arts are continuously envisioning. Very often already found solutions might not work to reach the said goal. In this regards Johann Lassnig-Walder mentioned the ambiguity tolerance. Even if artists are practising and working hard, there always is the possibility that due to the conditions on that day, the environment and other factors a goal cannot be reached. Therefore they have to look immediately for compromises and change, in order to reach the goal as best as possible. People interacting with the arts can learn to deal with this dilemma through the arts. This helps to reach the best result under these circumstances.
We can see here that communication, creativity, instrumental skills, vision, ambiguity tolerance and their side effects, are personal skills that the catharsis enhances through the arts.
5.5.2 Social skills
The arts are a combining medium. They ensure inter- relational benefits because they create closeness and unity. The interaction with other people removes boundaries and enhances collaboration. Without art some people who would never have met come together and bond over a mutual interest. All interviewees stated in a certain sense that the arts are a social act. People in the arts lead others over incentives they provide and are led by others over incentives others provide. Nico Müller states the interaction with knowledgeable people increases personal knowledge as well. Müller add that the arts are the reason for this interaction. Knut Weber, Johann Lassnig-Walder, Eugen Bertel, and Colleen Mraz identified instrumental skills, listening skills, expression skills and personal development skills as a result of social benefits out of the catharsis through the arts. Through a shared vision, a shared interest and a shared understanding a social cohesion will be developed. The interaction with the arts form communities and provide understanding for cultural differences. This can be seen in Matarassos’ (1996; 1997; 1998) and Lowes’ (2000) community art studies. Peter Pakesch describes that the ability to be a team player can be enhanced through the arts. The arts provide a shared understanding and shared experience. Knut Weber identifies the shared experience as something personally enriching. He says in arts there is a continuous taking and giving
Reinisch & Weber 105 process. The social impact from the catharsis through the arts provides these inter relational benefits that are beneficial in every day’s life.
5.5.3 Personality development
Nico Müller learnt from the arts, that there is no reason to subordinate oneself to constraints, rather to practice with discipline and trying to outperform the current stage. Prof. em. Paul Stähly and Matarasso (1996; 1997; 1998) take a challenging incentive from the arts. This challenging behaviour influences life, intentions and attitudes. Roberto Lapi states that the arts provide a person with precision. This precision is also adaptable in everyday life and sharpens the understanding that clearness towards what somebody else wants is necessary. Johann Lassnig-Walder sees in the context of art, the ability to bring thoughts into action. Kurt Leidl states, this causes achievement oriented individuals, who are interested in the means of a goal and not only in the goal.
The arts are a source for self-esteem. People feel appreciated within the arts. The produced outcome of artistic action that is either evaluated by the artist himself or by others no comma transmits positivity. All interviewees state that positive recognition enhances a positive attitude. Besides that, Lowe (2000, p. 376) identified in her community art study self-esteem as a result coming from community arts. The arts develop effectiveness and sensitivity in a person. Colleen Mraz argued that art makes people more sensitive. She is convinced that art makes better well- rounded persons. It helps to be in the present and the very moment, as it is required in music, performing arts and visual arts. Another major effect is the establishment of harmony within oneself. Harmony has to be created with the in- and outside. The inner spirit is touched through the arts. Eugen Bertel states that the interaction with the arts makes people authentic and people get coherent with themselves. Authenticity reflects the true personality. Through continuous reflections the question “who am I” can be answered. The arts provide personality enhancing satisfaction, through the possibility of self-actualization. It got already stated by Johann Lassnig-Walder, but it is very important for us to emphasize that the arts provide the fulfilment of human’s highest needs according to Maslow’s pyramid of needs. It is the interaction with the arts which releases the genius in one, as Lucinda Lloyd puts it. The arts stimulate the genius to come along and do something extraordinary and creative.
It depends on each individual to face the arts. The catharsis through the arts can be responsible for an increase in personal development. Behaviours, characteristics and in a further step, personalities can change. Individuals become more well-rounded people
Reinisch & Weber 106 who are able to increase understanding of themselves and their environment, as well as increasing our understanding.
5.6 Review
Our theory that the arts have significant effects on leadership is built on three core arguments:
1. The catharsis through the Arts: Cognition. 2. The catharsis through the Arts: Health and Well-being. 3. The catharsis through the Arts: Personal skills, social skills and personality development.
We selected these three arguments out of the seven categories, which provide fundamental insights about the catharsis through the arts on individuals. Therefore we built our theory on key messages from the community art literature review, secondary data and our interviews. This, in order to present key arguments that underline our theory: Through the interaction with the arts, a person can experience catharsis. The catharsis with the arts, leads to the improvement of skills, conduct and intellect- Skills that are necessary for successful leadership. The arts are the keys to all learning. Continuous learning is also required in leadership.
As Plato once said: “I would teach the children music, physics and philosophy, but the most important is music, for in the patterns of the arts are the keys to all learning”.
The analysis and interpretation of our data provides insights that show opportunities to leaders how they can profit from the interaction with the arts. We have done this by dividing our findings into three arguments. Leadership is dependent on cognitive capacities. Leadership is carried out through skills and depends on personal development and finally leadership can never be executed if the components of health and well-being are not being taken care of.
In the following chapter 6 of the thesis, we will give evidence of the fact that our three core arguments arising through the art catharsis are important to leadership and leadership theory. Indeed, our three core categories represent arguments that are already discussed in leadership theory. As wee see it, their representation is useful in two ways. First, it shows why those characteristics we have identified, that are influenced from the art catharsis, are important to leadership development. Secondly, it provides the reader
Reinisch & Weber 107 with a context where our substantive leadership theory stands and with which other theories it might be fruitfully combined.
Reinisch & Weber 108 6. Building a bridge to leadership
6.1 Setting the stage for leadership
In the following section we will show the reader why our findings are of relevance for leaders and leadership theory. We take our three core- categories and confront them with existing papers, books and theories. Further, we locate our theory within a matrix of leadership research, to provide the reader with an overview of relevant studies.
The contribution this thesis can make to leadership might have already been visible for those readers who are familiar with leadership theory. For others it may not have been so clear. That is why we want to provide the reader with some insights to leadership studies, which underline the importance of our findings, and might suggest to some readers a base for further leadership investigation.
The three categories we have constructed and that are linked to the possibility of learning through emotion are related to leadership. Their properties have been a matter of leadership discussion and research as we will state now. We will now give a short outline who has discussed these aspects. This, we believe, will support our leadership theory, providing the reader with information how it can be connected to leadership and how it can be beneficial to leaders.
We start this chapter by providing the reader with a map (Figure 12). This map represents the following section. It shows our categories, and locates them within the field of leadership studies, and leadership theory. This gives you the opportunity to identify with one a glance, where our findings can be applied in connection with leadership.
Reinisch & Weber 109 Figure 12: Locating the Leadership Catharsis
Reinisch & Weber 110 6.2 Category: Personal skills, social skills and personality development The importance of personal skills, social skills and personality development, has been of interest to leadership research at different stages. Transformational (Bass 1985; Tichy & Devanna 1986) and visionary leadership (Westely & Minzberg 1989), charismatic leadership (Conger 1989) and authentic leadership theories (Shamir & Eilam 2005) are all connected to the description of certain traits and characteristics of a leader. We have identified such personal attributes in our thesis in the category personal skills, social skills and personality development. The research of the impact of social skills for leadership have become of greater significance to leadership research since there has been more focus on followership studies (Hansen, Ropo & Sauer 2007, p. 544).
According to DuBrin (2010) leadership effectiveness in different situations can be measured by the following traits of a person: Self- confidence, humility, trustworthiness, sense of humour, authenticity, assertiveness, extraversion, enthusiasm, optimism and warmth.
Our interviews have shown that the arts have impact also on these traits. The results of the secondary data we have analysed shows further that also individuals who have been art- active in communities felt such impact on the these personal traits. Also Bass and Stogdill (1990, p.11 et sqq.) have discussed these leadership traits. In fact, leadership research has been characterized by the study of leadership traits since the beginning of the 20th century. It was until the 1940s that the trait approach was predominant in leadership studies (Bryman 1997, p. 277). More recently, social skills in connection to leadership have been a matter of research interest. Mumford and others (2000) have described them as the phenomenon that makes leaders more effective through experience. Bennis and Thomas (1997) did research in the same direction. Their publications have shown that successful leaders have at least four characteristics in common: adaptive capacity, engaging others by creating shared meaning, voice and last, but not least integrity (ibid, p. 123 et sqq.). According to these authors such features develop through an elaboration of experience and the organization of meaning (ibid, p. 123 et sqq.). We have found these four distinct features among those leaders we have interviewed for our research as well. All our interviewees, as has been shown, felt effected by the arts on their adaptive capacity, their capacity to share meaning, their voice as a means of self- awareness and communication and further, arts has influenced their personal integrity. We state that through the experience with art an effect similar to Bennis’ and Thomas’ ‘crucible’ is reached. According to our theory, it is due to the
Reinisch & Weber 111 catharsis an art- active person reaches when interacting with the arts that the above- mentioned four competences, among others, are developed.
Another field of research within leadership theory is creativity. Especially recently this has become a field of great interest to leadership scholars. Adler (2005) states that this is due to the economic environment we find ourselves in. The need for more creative and inventive leaders comes from the need to have leaders who “inspire people, not simply […] motivate them” (ibid, p. 496). Adler also addresses the aspect of improvisation. She argues that this is another aspect of the highest importance for future leaders (ibid, p. 490). Here a link can be established to Schrage (1999) who argues that innovation is a social process necessary for companies to successfully compete on today’s markets. Similar statements are further put forward by Afshari and others (2011).
Authenticity, another key term that has emerged in our research, has also been greatly discussed within leadership literature. Shamir and Eilam (2005) for example have discussed the connection between authentic leadership development and a leader's self- concept. They show how life stories shape the leadership- style and how successful leaders are driven by values, conviction and ‘eudaimania’ (gr. εύδαιµονία = felicity, happiness) (ibid, p.397). Further Sparrowe (2005) and George (2004) have discussed authenticity thoroughly from a leadership perspective. The importance of teambuilding capacities for leaders are also displayed in Ashby and Miles (2002) who show that companies will only be able to function effectively by building up leading competencies in the form of group or team leadership (ibid, p. 48).
6.3 Category: Health and wellbeing
Health and wellbeing are of essential importance to the happiness of any person. Especially the consumption of arts often represents a moment of relaxation and search for psychological and physical regeneration. Indeed, it was to no surprise that our interviewees stated that their encounters with arts have stress reductive effects and happiness creating impact. We did not expect that arts would also create a feeling of physical wellbeing however.
Leadership research has confronted this argument to a small extend only. However, there are some who have seen this gap in leadership research and haven taken the opportunity to investigate in this field. Further, we point out that those studies made are also often connected to leadership positions in educational systems. Most studies are the result of cross- disciplinary research and often have a quantitative approach. Psychologist, medical physicians and researchers in the field of gender studies accompany leadership
Reinisch & Weber 112 researchers in the process of knowledge creation. Some researchers (inter alia Romanowska, Larsson, Eriksson, Wikström, Wetsterlund & Theorell, 2010) have looked into the relationship between certain types of leadership styles and their effects on stress and the status of employees’ illness. They have conducted their research by creating two parallel running leadership effectiveness programmes. One based on an art- leadership approach and one on a ‘conventional’, so a non- art based leadership approach (Larsson et. al 2011, p. 79). To measure the effect of the different leadership programmes they have consulted both the leaders and their followers who formed a sample for their research. The results have been measured through qualitative questionnaires and quantitative biological parameters. The authors suggest that thanks to the use of art in leadership, “long- term health- promoting effects” (ibid, p. 84) can be achieved.
Other research teams have asked themselves how stress and unsuccessful leadership are related (Peró & Rodríguez, 2008). Peró and Rodríguez argue that companies should implement modifications in the work place that increase the employee wellbeing and health as part of their corporate social responsibility measures (ibid, p. 68). In order to increase employee wellbeing, the claim, can be achieved by making business managers aware of their leadership style. They approach organizations and analyse through secondary data the leadership styles of certain managers and confront them with numbers of days staff was registered ill. They show how some leadership styles are positively related to burnout syndromes within followers (ibid, p. 72) and report, “ineffective leadership can contribute seriously to damaging employees’ health and wellbeing” (ibid, p. 73). They suggest that collective and supportive leadership can diminish the stress level and lead to positive stress (ibid, p. 76). Further, they vividly suggest that leaders must be made aware of their influence upon the personal wellbeing of their followers.
Alimo- Mecalfe et al. (2008) made research concerning the relationship between the “quality of leadership, reflected in the way that staff perceive the leadership culture/climate and the leadership capabilities of their organisation” (ibid, p. 589) to show how it effects organizational performance. The organizational outcome was measured through staff attitudes towards work and their sense of wellbeing at work. The results show that satisfied and motivated staff are directly related to “engaged leading” (ibid, p. 592). Motivated and satisfied staff are people who have a “high level of job motivation” and a “sense of wellbeing” (ibid, p. 592). Also Rad and Yarmoammadian (2006) have come to the result that the wellbeing of the personal depends on the leadership- type of a formal leader. In addition they suggested that leaders must be made aware of these correlation (ibid, p. xxiv), in order to improve the working environment. Reinisch & Weber 113 Firth- Cozens and Mowbray (2001) have chosen to look at the effect leadership has on the health of patients and staff in a healthcare working surrounding. To compare the impact of a transactional leader (Bass et al. 1977) and the impact of a transformational leader on the stress and health level of those two groups. They show that “stressed staff produce inferior care” (ibid, p. ii5) what they have analysed by cognitive testing. They show that the psychological health of leaders stands in a positive relationship the effectiveness of their followers work (ibid, p. ii5). Another point that emerges in this study is that shared- leadership and team- leadership has a positive impact on stress levels and overall wellbeing of both followers and leaders (ibid, p. iii6). This suggests a better care for patients the researchers claim. However, they conclude their study by suggesting that both, transformational and transactional leadership have beneficial outcomes for the health and wellbeing of leaders, followers and clients (ibid, p. ii7). The most important thing is that the leader is aware of his faults and that he consequently gives others the opportunity to support him in those areas.
Moore, Grunberg and Greenberg have made a study in 2004 with the interest to see if the wellbeing and health of female followers varies according to the gender of their leaders. Working also with great amounts of secondary data, the authors show that a gender- alike, leader- follower relationship will lead to more working autonomy for the follower (ibid, p. 89). Though this may be because of the greater application of the transformational leadership style by female leaders as the authors suggest (ibid, p. 91), they conclude that having female leaders leads to greater social support. Greater social support as emerged from their data, has been linked to “lower depression, a greater sense of personal mastery and lower work- family conflict” within the followers.
6.4 Category: Cognition
Another key issue that has been repeatedly mentioned by our interview partners is the influence the arts have on cognition. Art enhances learning, understanding and helps people to acquire experience and laces senses.
Different publishers in the leadership field have written and spoken about the importance of cognition. Most state the importance for leaders to be aware of actively inviting their followers to find means that enhance their cognitive processes. Another aspect that most authors have in common is that they suggest to potential leaders to remain open to life long learning.
In our category cognition, we have seen that the arts influence problem solving skills, sense-making capacities, creative thinking and opportunity creation. These are areas
Reinisch & Weber 114 that have also been the focus of the new leadership approach (Bryman 1997, p. 282). Cognition is strongly connected to sense- making and sense- giving. Smirchich and Morgan (1982) see in the very activity of sense- giving, that occurs through “the attempt to frame and define the reality of others” (ibid, p. 258) an activity processed by potential leaders. Leaders must try to create an environment where meaning is shared. In such way potential leaders create the opportunity for better communication and understanding. This subsequently creates a ground for shared meaning. Smirchich and Morgan (1982) precise that, “leadership is realized in the process whereby one or more individuals succeeds in attempting to frame and define the reality of others”.
Sternberg (2003) has offered a model that represents his approach to an understanding of leadership based on three cognitive factors that give the name to his model. His model is called the WICS- model of leadership. WICS is an acronym and stands for wisdom, intelligence and creativity, synthesized. These three cognitive factors interact with each other. Through this interaction certain results are achieved that foster “highly effective” (Sternberg 2005, p. 97) leadership. The author argues that thanks to creativity, the leader produces ideas and visions, and is able to formulate problem-solving skills. Subsequently, through confrontation with previously acquired academic knowledge of a person, his or her analytical intelligence, selects whether an idea is useful or not. The practical intelligence is experienced based- knowledge that helps a person to convey his ideas to others in the best possible way (DuBrin 2010, p. 57). Wisdom builds upon intelligence and creativity. It represents the ability to use those factors successfully in order to reach a balance between one’s own (intrapersonal) interests, other people’s (interpersonal) interests, and larger (extrapersonal) interests (Sternberg 1998, p. 227). Our interviews have stated that their interaction with art, has caused, though to different degree, impact in creativity and creative thinking. Further, the decision- making ability our interviewees was influenced and some have stated that it influenced their intellect, and their self- awareness.
Another aspect that we link to cognition is the influence arts have on the perception of aesthetic. The very concept of aesthetics has become of great interest in leadership theory. In the mid- 1980s scholars start to analyse the relationship between aesthetics and leadership (Patrik nn, p. 4). Since then there has been an increasing number of publications in this field (Dean, et al., 1997; Gagliardi, 1996; Ramirez, 2005; Strati, 1999; Taylor and Hansen, 2005, as cited in Hansen, Ropo, & Sauer, 2007). Aesthetics is not merely identified with the conception of beauty or taste. In leadership theory aesthetic is put into context with a process that occurs between a person and his
Reinisch & Weber 115 surrounding (inter alia Smith, 1996; Adler, 2011; Stedman, 2008). In fact, Strati (2000, p. 16) shows that the understanding of aesthetics in leadership theory is linked to the antique Greek meaning of aesthetikos (gr. αἰσθητικός = aesthetic, sensitive, sentient). Rather than to a substantive he connects it to a verb, aisthananomai (gr. αἰσθάνοµαι = perceive by using the senses). This suggests an “active stimulation of the abilities related to feeling” (Patrik nn, p. 3). Smith (1996) sees leadership as an aesthetic process. He states that the aesthetic comes from the arts, but is not totally identified with it (ibid, p. 46). It is the experience with art that creates a feeling for and of harmony through which the personality of a person is shaped positively, that produces “feelings of self- integration” (ibid, p. 46) and “offers prospects for developing greater sensitivity” in the relations between a person and his environment (ibid, p. 47). He also states that leaders who study arts will develop, inter alia, reflective intelligence, sensitise their cultural understanding and develop deeper personal values (ibid, p. 49).
Guillet de Monthoux, Gustafsson and Sjöstrand (2007) in their publication present the aesthetics in leadership as an opportunity creating concept and as a means of problem solution. Thanks to aesthetics, a “feeling of flow” (Guillet de Monthoux, Gustafsson & Sjöstrand 2007, p. 251) is generated or enhanced. The concept of field of flow is Csikszentmihalys’ defintion and stands for a feeling of clear goals that allow imminent feedback in equilibrium between opportunity and capacity and that deepens concentration (Csikszentmihaly 2003, p. 42 et sqq.). In such field only the present situation matters. In fact the sense of time is altered and control is not an aspect of concern (ibid, p. 42 et sqq.). According to Guillet de Monthoux, Gustafsson and Sjöstrand (2007), this finally leads to the loss of ego and therefore to a better understanding of the social environment. Decision making processes are facilitated by connecting, in business arenas, management, administration and the personal understanding of aesthetics (ibid, p. 265 et sqq.).
A further key concept that has shown itself to us during the research is improvisation. In leadership research this topic has been brought into direct connection with music. Especially with jazz music. It is Newton (2004) who shows how leaders can learn from jazz music to become a transformational leader. He offers a model that leans on the instruction of jazz music in order to show how leaders may learn to be sensible to change (ibid, p. 86).
Reinisch & Weber 116 7. Conclusion
7.1 Reflecting our work
The conclusion of our thesis shall briefly sum-up our work and suggest possible starting points for future research. Our research questions could only answer some aspects of the research field we have been working in. Therefore we hope that also others will continue to investigate the matters considering the connection between art and leadership. We will provide the readers with some suggestions that we consider worthwhile examination in future studies.
With our Master Thesis “The arts: an experience. What leaders can learn from artistic catharsis” we have tried to bring some light into an area of leadership research where many shadows are still drawn. Our research questions aimed at understanding what we can learn from the arts and further, what it is that we can take from these findings and suggest it to leaders in order to improve their personal leadership capacities.
As we have displayed, our chosen path to tackle the research occurred in two different ways. On the one hand we have taken empirical findings from Matarasso (1997), Lowe (2000), Harland (2002) and others to show that arts have an impact on people taking ‘art- active’ actions within a community. We have shown what influence art had on these people both on a personal and a social level. On the other hand, we have carried out interviews. Those were made with leaders working in different fields, who, however, share at least one quality. They are all ‘art- active’. Meaning, they all are somehow involved with arts either as regular consumers, or as producers or as both.
We analysed our primary and secondary data according to the grounded theory utilizing the methods suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1998).
What we have found we presented as a “substantive theory” (ibid, p. 23) that has emerged from our data collected. This theory became evident to us after having confronted the data with each other and with our theoretical framework.
Our findings suggest that interacting with arts leads to a reflection upon experience. Through this reflection people are stimulated to confront themselves with others and start interacting with their environment. Further, the primary data has shown that our interviewees could learn something from contact with arts. We have analysed these findings, and we identified three key arguments that unite the experience of all interviewees and the secondary data that we used.
Reinisch & Weber 117
1. The arts and its impact on Cognition 2. The arts and its impact on Health and well-being 3. The arts and its impact on Personal skills, social skills and personality development
The three key arguments mentioned above have one common aspect. They aroused as a consequence by the interaction of a person with the arts. The interaction led to some kind of reflection that caused the evolvement of the characteristics we have shown. These properties are relevant in leadership theory and therefore we have depicted this interaction as the catharsis through the arts relevant for leadership. This builds our core category: The backbone of our study.
Our theory, though limited to the group of art- active people contains certain implications that might aliment the creation of a formal theory (Glaser & Strauss 1967, pp. 32 et sqq.) in future research. Such are the following. In order to learn from the arts it is necessary that a person actively confronts herself with the arts. The influence of the arts arguably can be seen as ubiquitous, it is the individual that consciously confronts the arts. The person can interact with the art also by not being an artist. The catharsis we see happening, requires an active participation of the individual, not professional knowledge. The catharsis through the arts we believe to be responsible for personal development occurs within interested participants.
Further, we must state that we could not see that the knowledge taken from the catharsis with the arts is equal to all. We have found that the experience with the arts is a very personal matter. The intensity differs, and variation of the impact is great. We could not look into those factors that cause such variation. Partly because we believe this requires a more psychological background. However, the people tend to use their attained knowledge for similar purposes. As we have shown the experience that the arts have provided influence peoples skills, health and cognition. Those points have formed the origin of our theory that leaders can learn through the experience with art.
The novelty of this work is the direct link from art to leadership. We have constructed a bridge, which is our theory of the catharsis through the arts, from the arts to leadership.
We have provided a ‘map’ (figure 12) to show in what areas of established leadership research our findings can be inserted and to which leadership theory it can be connected with. This has shown how useful it is for leaders to interact with the arts.
Reinisch & Weber 118 Using the arts both as a means for leadership and as a source of inspiration has given our interview- partners the opportunity to improve their leadership skills. This shows that there exits a connection between art and leadership. Therefore we could answer our research question, and provide our readers with a content, valuable to leadership research and to leaders.
7.2 Discussion
The arts have been discussed throughout history and have been recognized as the fundamental component to all learning (Plato). There exist many examples of how art has been used as a means to teach and used as an inspiration to help learn. Leaders and followers have acquired knowledge, have transmitted stories and shared ideas and visions using the arts throughout human history. It seems, however, that its importance as the key to all learning has been forgotten in society. The role of arts in education has continuously received less attention. This can not only be observed by looking at the decrease in art lessons in schools but also by the ongoing reduction in the ministerial budget for art funding.
However, especially in the last decades with the growing need for new morals in society (Adler, 2008), art is newly looked at with the interest to learn. We suggest that future studies take into account a cross- scientific research. As in our study, the combination and use of more than one field of scientific research might show new ways for developing leadership theory.
To start, we suggest that research should focus more on the connection between businesses and the arts. Business needs arts, in order to face new challenges in the 21st century. It has been that companies rely on strategies that had been successfully implemented by others already. The most recent economic cycle downturn has shown that this road has come to a dead end. Companies, now more than ever, have to find new, more creative and more visionary strategies. With this thesis we have shown that art helps leaders to achieve certain competencies that are necessary to be competitive in the future. Creativity is linked with innovation, and today we need innovation more than ever. At the same time leaders must be reliable and be trusted by employees and customers . It is their capacity to show others the direction they have to take in order to be successful. Such competencies, we argue, can be gained from the use of art. The arts represent experience. The arts represent emotions. The arts represent vision. The arts represent beauty. Continuing to research, focusing on the possible mutual relationship between business and arts can be of great contribution to the leadership discussion. We suggest that research questions on the arts can be of additional value. Further, Reinisch & Weber 119 questions concerning the importance of businesses and their activity as art conserving agent and art supporting agent as well as their impact on the organizational structure seem to us sensible research topics. Also questioning what role state financial assistance might have both in the field of art, and on the image of leadership of the state.
As our interviews have shown, art is a means and a medium of inspiration. A means as it provides a feeling of wellbeing and it helps to create a common framework. Art can add value to the understanding of aesthetics. As we have shown, our interviews have all stated, in one way or another , how art affects our understanding of what is beautiful. We have shown the link between aesthetics, art and leadership and believe it should form a major field of future research. Clearly it is not about the taste that these discussions should focus on. Guillet de Monthoux (2004) suggests that aesthetic leadership occurs in the liminal zones between management and art, structure and chaos, or work and play.
Leadership research is also insufficient in the field of art and well-being. Is it possible to maintain organizational well-being through the arts? Can leaders maintain a healthy working environment thanks to the use of the arts and the involvement of artistic workshops?
Future discussion of the research field of art and leadership should also consider the different influence the production and the consumption of the arts have upon leaders and followers.
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Reinisch & Weber 133 Appendix
Appendix 1: Questionnaire - English
Our research question is about describing the impact of art on an individual and therefore on his or her leadership behaviour. We refer art as an umbrella term for music, paintings, architecture and performing arts. To get a better understanding of the whole situation we are also interviewing different leaders. Therefore please note that the questions are not specifically regarded to the single areas of art. We decided to keep them general. Nevertheless we kindly ask to answer the questions as authentic as possible and to relate the questions to your personal background, in order to create a diversified arena of opinions.
Before we start the actual interview, we would like to ask three administrative questions:
1. Do you agree that the phone call will be digitally recorded? 2. Do you agree that the content of this interview is published in our Master Thesis? 3. Do you agree that personal information is taken from your Curriculum Vitae and is published in our Master Thesis?
Is there anything from your Curriculum Vitae, you would like to highlight?
1. What is your relationship to art? a) Since when? b) How did you find your way to art? (personally/family/education) c) Could you explain certain phases within your artistic development? (Can you identify differnet phases in your artistic development?)
Personal Opinion:
2. Is art important for you? a) Why is art important for you? b) Which influnce has art on you? (private/ business) 3. What destinguishes your field of art from others? 4. Do you believe there are certain periods in your life were you have consumed art more or less intensively? a) Can you identify similarities? (ups / downs) 5. Do you believe there is a difference to consume art in a group than to consume it alone? a) Where do you see the difference? 6. What is your goal as an artist and your artistic activity? 7. Do you have a vision? a) Can you explain why it is important to have a vision (as an artist/ as a leader)? 8. Do you see a connection between a vision and a goal? 9. Have you already thought off a connection between art and leadership? In case you do it now where would you see it? 10. What do you believe can an individual learn from art? Skills? Knowledge? 11. How important is it for you that your work is appriciated? (use 1-10 as a measure, 10 is the highest)
Reinisch & Weber A Appendix 2: Additional Results from the Questionnaires
Name Q2 Q4 Q5 Q7 Q9 Q11 Eugen Bertel yes more during uneasiness yes yes yes 10 Ewan David Eason yes more in downs yes, but enjoys to interact alone vision is goal no 8
Gianpietro Ermacora yes no influence yes, but prefers to interact alone yes yes 5
Johann Lassnig-Walder yes more in downs yes yes yes 10 yes, but not Knut Weber yes no influence yes yes 6 to 8 reachable
2 to 3; Kurt Leidl yes no influence yes, but prefers to interact alone yes no business 8‐9
Lucinda Lloyd yes no influence yes yes yes 10 Mraz Colleen yes yes yes yes yes 8 Nico Müller yes no influence no yes no 10 Prof. em. Paul Stähly yes ‐ yes yes yes ‐ Peter Pakesch yes ‐ yes yes yes 10 Roberto Lapi yes no influence yes yes yes 10
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