Not sure how to take this...
On Friday, I attended the Southwest Arts Conference, a conference not unlike many I'm sure you've all attended... This one is made up of arts professionals from around the state and is sponsored by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the state funding agency for the arts...
One of the workshops I attended was being run by a guru from the Wallace Foundation and was a rather dry discussion of participation and the difficulty of expressing to funders, legislators and the general public the extrinsic as well as intrinsic values of the arts... something we have to do every day in our business...
At one point I spoke up and made a comment... I don't even remember what it was, but all I know is I was pretty bored with the whole hour and a half... Very, very dry guy... and later some of my colleagues said the same thing...
Fast forward to last night... Bob and I were meeting some friends out for dinner and were waiting outside of the Barrio Cafe where the wait was an hour and a half (the same length of the the boring class on Friday, come to think of it)... We had decided to wait until our friends arrived and we'd suggest somewhere else to go...
While waiting outside, I ran into a guy I know that works for the AZ Commission on the Arts... He runs the visual art program... and he was sort of the staff rep at the particular discussion I'd attended on Friday... I've always thought he was such a cute guy and we've seen each other at things for years, but only recently started to get to know each other at all...
As we're standing on the sidewalk, he says to me, "You have the most amazing skill set."
I almost said, "Well, thanks, but how do you know? You've never seen me with my clothes off." Instead, I muttered a very salient, "Huh?"
He proceeded, " Well, you know that discussion was pretty boring and then when you spoke up, all of the energy in the room just focused on you and the level of participation drastically rose for the 30 seconds you were talking. You just brought a whole level energy to the room with your voice, which is powerful anyway (side note: yes, that's true... I'm always being to told to use my "inside voice," which most people don't seem to understand, I'm almost always using my "inside voice." I can't help it if my vocal chords are unusually long...) and I even noticed the way you were moving, the way you looke down and made this certain gesture with your hand. It was very commanding."
I have to admit, this really took me aback. That someone was actually studying me so closely during this little comment I made in a classroom setting.
I looked at him blankly and said, "Well... Is this a good thing?"
And he looked right back and said, "Sure, if you have something important to say.... I just thought it was amazing that you could instantly bring up the level of energy in that room."
We said our good-nights, our friends showed up and we went to eat at Sophie's, a French bistro on Osborne.
I couldn't stop thinking about this all night... What certainly would've been a compliment, in my mind, is "Wow... I couldn't believe how insightful your comments were on Friday. You're so damn smart and we're all so fortunate to have you leading the charge for the arts in America." But he certainly didn't say that... It was almost like he was saying, "You know, you should really be careful when you speak because you can command a room... Make sure you have your shit together before you talk about a subject."
I don't know... In my typical fashion, I'm sure I'm turning around a compliment to make it a criticism, but for some reason it's stuck with me all day... Mainly because I guess you never know when you're making an impact on someone... I tend to think that I go through life relatively unnoticed unless I make the effort to be noticed... That's not a self-deprecating statement at all... I just sometimes like to blend in and sometimes I like to stand out... And I always thought I was pretty good at controlling these times... but apparently not... None of us are, probably...
Anyway, I haven't drawn any real conclusions from it other than you never know when someone's watching you... but it's certainly made me think about the power we ALL wield even when we aren't aware of it...