ARTSblog

Americans for the Arts had the pleasure of interviewing iconic filmmaker, director, writer, actor, and photographer John Waters during the Half-Century Summit in Baltimore, June 25-27, 2010. In the interview, Waters talks about his early art influences, his arts experiences in Baltimore, getting his start in filmmaking, and the connection between art and politics.

What do you think?  Is all art political?

Check out more videos from the Half-Century Summit at convention.artsusa.org

Popularity: 10%

Tim Mikulski

On Monday, July 26,  the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring the week following the second Sunday in September (September 12-18, this year) as Arts in Education Week.  While there are a number of established arts education-related recognitions already (such as Music Education Week, or National Dance Week), this is the first congressional resolution to recognize all the disciplines: music, theater, visual arts, and dance.

Sponsored by Congresswoman, Rep. Jackie Speiers (D-California), the resolution  states many important advocacy messages that the arts education field has been touting for years including:

Whereas attracting and retaining the best teachers is vital and can be achieved by ensuring that schools embrace the arts, becoming havens for creativity and innovation…”

The resolution ends by recommending that cities and states join the House in declaring the same week as Arts in Education Week across the country, so don’t let it end here. Write to your state and local officials, asking them to do the same! Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16%

Alie Wickham

It has been awhile since I posted, much longer than I had expected, and I have a couple of thoughts in regards to this unexpected break that I have taken:

1. I’m hoping that since I’ve last posted something, some of you have taken the time to process previous posts, and are hopefully ready to shout out what you have been wanting to say since the last time I posted a discussion topic.
2. WHY HAS NO ONE SAID ANYTHING IN THE LAST MONTH?? I realize I am partially to blame for this, but, I am going to agree with another fellow Amabassador of mine – Mike Gagliardo, Strings…. We cannot do this alone!!

I believe another Ambassador (Jennifer Armstrong, Leadership) used this as an example of why us Ambassadors cannot do this alone:  As leaders, we reach for the sky.  However, at some point or another, our arms are going to get tired.  We will either a) become to exhausted and burned out to move on, or b) look from one side to the next hoping to find someone who is willing to stick by us and raise their arms up as well.

So, I ask the simple question….Is ANYONE out there who is willing to make some noise about the future of this field and reach for the sky, too?? Furthermore, if you are out there, where are you? How can we find you or find others who are interested in sharing their thoughts about the future of this field? There is a future, but unless we start thinking about how we are going to shape it now, the future will soon become the present, and our ideas and discussion about the future will not have the opportunity to happen; they will simply have to take place and hope everything goes as we imagined it would.  However, if we talk about it now, couldn’t we make our imagine a little more concrete?

PLEASE – say something, and let us (the Ambassadors) know you are there.  We want to hear from you, we HAVE to hear from you – YOU, the future and present life of this field!!! So speak up and share your voice…trust me, I’m sure my voice will start to get on some of your nerves, eventually.  I would prefer to avoid this.

What do you want to be the next discussion topic?

Popularity: 12%