For information on advertising, contact info@huntingtonarts.org | 631-271-8423 | SPRING 2024 Arts Cultural Magazine | 3 Letter from the Executive Director I don’t know if I can think of an artist who hasn’t worked in the service industry. I was contemplating this after a nightly scroll brought me to my favorite “parenting” Instagram page Blakeoftoday. He starts off with the age-old adage of “There is a statement in the service industry that the world would be a better place if everyone had to be a waiter for a day.” We agree on this same point, and it is not because of some revenge on customers who would suffer a triple seating on Friday at 11pm, or working in the upper deck of a stadium selling sunflower seeds to only make thirtynine cents (not a typo) for a home stand that was 9 games long. Working in the service industry, you thrive on creating real bonds and being a team that has to work together to provide the customer with an enjoyable experience. Whether that means chef/waiter/busser/host/checker/porter/or vendor in my case. Most days I would spend the time between a 2 hour early call until 30 minutes before game time sitting on third-base talking about how to be producers for a new play a fellow vendor was writing. Some days I would argue the finer points of Lenard Skynard vs Estrasphere with a high school principal while waiting to find out if I had been assigned to sell water in Lodge or cotton candy in the Mezz. I still can feel the sudden dread of how long my night would be if I heard “Duck and Run” by Three Doors Down at the start of the game. Working in the non-profit field feels the same way. We are a service industry. There are days and weeks where dread from the human embodiment of a rain delay is replaced with weekly checks on pledged government contracts. The walk-in “crisis” is now the HVAC system that just couldn’t hold out one more day after 15 years, and you have to cancel an event with 2 hours’ notice. But then you get that win that makes it all perfect. When you get to be the one thing a child was looking for the whole game, and the smile is brighter than the stadium lights. Now it is when your “home team” gets to be the place where a student learns that their work has value after a person, not their guardian or friend, purchases it. You get to award the first grant someone has ever received and encourage them to make a go at this art thing, and then it becomes their career. You get to be the place where parents who have shared custody bring their child because it’s more of a positive memory than a sad one for their kid. The service industry, in all its forms, is seen as this place that you start in, and you work your way out of. As Blakeoftoday says, “…there are those who never need to get out of this place, that the dignity of feeding people is enough. Particularly when it is done with care and love.” That is what we are here for as HAC, as part of your art service industry. To work with everyone to feed their creative and cultural needs with care and love. Kieran Johnson Executive Director Huntington Arts Council The Service Industry KIERAN JOHNSON Executive Director
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