Letter to BeaconArts Community, from incoming Treasurer, Nelson Conde
Dear Friends of Beacon,
I had advised my son, early in his Pratt architecture education – “To be a great architect you will not build structures, instead you will manage the interaction of people’s space between each other and their environment. “ And that is the great intangible tangible of art.
I have had the opportunity to meet and greet a number of Beacon contributors in the last two weeks, and I already know many of you through fostering a relationship that always connected to the artistic endeavors of our Beacon. As the newly appointed treasurer of Beacon Arts I have the responsibility of “finance and reporting”, something I already do for a living. As a board member I have the responsibility to the “artist community”, and it is with this in mind that drives me to volunteer at Beacon Arts. I have had my best engagements with Beacon artists!
Accounting and finance readily remains something to be undigested, static, or perhaps a scorecard view. What I can share with you is that the market which is comprised of artists, buyers, academia, insurers, government, bankers, and funders, to name a few, will have, to a profound extent, their decisions / behaviors swayed by, oh well, accounting and finance figures. It is a tool to leverage or de-leverage one’s mission, whether it is art or business. Nonetheless, it is also our mission to raise the awareness to the marketplace (and others) that the arts renew the sensibilities of one’s value to our living space and societal engagement, values that at times goes beyond monetizing culture into the economy. African American dance choreographer, Bill T. Jones once said, “The government is responsible for the material welfare of the people but as we know, the government is also responsible for a certain type of education of the people. Art, and we’re talking art when it is really doing what it is supposed to be doing, teaches abstract thinking, it teaches teamwork, it teaches people to actually think about things that they cannot see, it is actually an economic engine.”
Sincerely,
Nelson Condé
Beacon Arts Treasurer
