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(Kelly was a participant in the Americans for the Arts Knowledge Exchange, Public Art Master Planning: Developing a Plan for your Community held Dec. 5-6 in Reston and Arlington VA)

What a vibrant and energetic exchange! The room is resounding with willingness to share. Today’s schedule was coordinated masterfully, encouraging learning and interaction, and inspiring individuals toward positive change. The morning began with a presentation by Robert E. Simon on the importance of Public Art to Reston’s early master plan. His passion conveyed how timely the bravery of such an innovative development was.  Some of the success of his bravery is evident through the level of cherish-ment held by current and past community members. Simon led us on a walk around the historic elements of Reston, lit with his references to treasured memories – one in particular worth noting: a child embracing a Reston public sculpture so intently as to refuse to his mother to Ever abandon the new found play scape. Read the rest of this entry »

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I wasn’t sure how many of you saw the broadcast yesterday with President-elect Obama talking with Tom Brokaw.  But I was happy to hear them discuss the topic of culture in the White House!

Below is the transcript of the conversation.  Or you can watch it online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28096829#28096829 (the topic of culture is at approximately 40 minutes and 30 seconds into the broadcast – last but not least). (You can also find this linked in the news section of the Americans for the Arts website, http://www.artsusa.org/news/national_arts_news/default.asp#12/09/2008_meet_the_press

Enjoy!

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Greetings from Chicago!

My name is Scarlett Swerdlow, and I’m one of ARTSblog’s new bloggers.  Here’s a slide show about me:

Okay, whether LOLcats is art is debatable …

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First off, I’m grateful to be a part of this blog initiative. My name is Alan Núñez and I’m from the NYC metropolitan area. I live in northern New Jersey and work in Harlem, New York as the Associate Director of the brand-new Arts Horizons LeRoy Neiman Art Center, I hope I can inspire some dialogue about the state of the arts, as it relates to our situation here. As always, I anticipate being highly stimulated by your responses and reactions, as well as those of my fellow bloggers. What a crew you’ve put together, Barry! Read the rest of this entry »

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Before I start blogging, I thought it would be a good idea to take a moment and introduce myself. My name is Diane Ruggiero and I am the Superintendent of Cultural Arts for the City of Asheville. My division is in the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department and I oversee public art, cultural arts programs at our 11 recreation centers and 50+ parks, and festivals. The position has been here for almost six years and my one-year anniversary is in January (although some days it seems that I’ve been here longer). Read the rest of this entry »

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There’s a story of a farmer who wants to teach his horse to give up eating.  “Think of the money I’ll save,” he boasts to his neighbor.  And every day, the farmer teaches his horse a little more, by withholding a little more food.   A couple of weeks later, his neighbor sees the farmer walking to town.  “Where’s your horse?” he asks.  “Bad luck,” replies the farmer, “Just as soon as I taught that horse to eat nothing at all – he died!”

This isn’t a parable about your marketing budget.  Of course it’s been cut.  It SHOULD be cut.  I don’t know an arts organization that doesn’t need to exercise extreme budgetary prudence.

This is a question about your audience.  How well are you feeding your organization the new audiences it needs to survive? Read the rest of this entry »

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Podcast: Download (4.4MB)

Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, discusses the importance of rallying behind the arts in times of economic uncertainty.  Americans for the Arts is working with several national partners, including the International City/County Management Association and the National Association for Business Economists, to further spread the message to governments and corporations that the arts are essential to the growth of cities and communities and are a powerful economic generator.

ArtCast related resources:

• Arts Funding Response and Readiness Kit
• Arts & Economic Prosperity III Study
• http://icma.org/pm/9009/
• National Association for Business Economists
• Nonprofit Finance Fund

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