Our friends at Ovation work quickly.
They just posted this video on YouTube covering the early part of Alec Baldwin’s presentation of the 2012 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy given on April 16 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC:
More to come…
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A painting now owned by Alec Baldwin (details/reference to come in a future post): Ross Bleckner, "Sea and Mirrors" 1996, oil on linen 84" x 72"
I had a very strict usher shut down the very tool that makes live tweeting possible. Do attendants have issues with Alec Baldwin and wireless devices? Luckily, I was able to take notes in a different fashion without getting booted out of the theatre. I won’t reveal my secrets.
Mr. Baldwin’s speech was an “attempt to distill [his own] relationship to the arts.”
He divided a period of over 50 years into three groups:
1. “Art is all around me but I don’t know what art is.”
2. “Art is all around me so maybe I should introduce myself.”
3. “So much art, so little time.”
Consider the details of your own childhood. Mr. Baldwin’s past is not too unlike our own, if we grew up in a middle class family, in an age of television, movies, and popular radio. What were the moments that triggered a deeper appreciation for art?
What parts of your early awakening made you want to know more about art? What things made you dream of being an artist? What inspired you to envision a path to the improbable?
I remember singing into a hairbrush, and wanting to be Olivia Newton-John. Mr. Baldwin shared as much. Read the rest of this entry »
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Advocates begin training for their visits to members of Congress.
Over 500 arts advocates are gathering at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC this morning to begin training for Arts Advocacy Day.
This annual two-day event brings together representatives from nearly every state to meet with their members of Congress to advocate for a number of issues near and dear to those who love the arts.
In addition to a day of training in preparation for those meetings, Americans for the Arts with support from Ovation and other partners, will host our 25th anniversary Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts just across town.
Tonight, we are honored to have arts champion Alec Baldwin as this year’s lecturer and singer-songwriter/composer Ben Folds performing (along with musicians from YoungArts).
Stay tuned to ARTSblog for Arts Advocacy Day information throughout the next two days or follow @Americans4Arts and #AAD12 on Twitter to receive up-to-the-minute reports.
You can also take action wherever you are by visiting our Arts Action Center and sending a message to your members of Congress.
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Megan Pagado
In late February, we at the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County hosted our first-ever #CreativeMoCo Tweetup for creatives in and around Montgomery County, MD.
Why did we, a local arts council, host a tweetup?
The tweetup was first announced on Facebook and Twitter, which generated over 40 registrations in two days. As I saw the number climb, I was amazed at the number of people registering that we didn’t know.
Since we used the term “creative community” instead of “cultural community” in marketing the tweetup, we had everyone from magazine editors to restaurant owners to DJs in attendance.
Based on our experience hosting our tweetup, here are some tips I can share with you on hosting your own, especially one that is advocacy-based: Read the rest of this entry »
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Three years before writing Future Shock in 1970, futurist Alvin Toffler first wrote The Art of Measuring the Arts, and noted, “A cultural data system is needed to provide information for rational policy-making in the cultural field and to assist those outside the field in understanding their impact on it.”
This week, Americans for the Arts released the 2012 National Arts Index report, which delivers a 2010 score of the health and vitality of the arts in the U.S.
From its low point in 2009, the Index rose slightly from 96.3 to 96.7 in 2010.
This year’s report bears witness to how the arts sector fared during the Great Recession—and the losses were swift and measurable.
In 2010, half of the 83 indicators measured increased, which is equivalent to pre-recession, 2007 levels. In comparison, only one-third of the indicators were up in 2008 and in 2009, just one-quarter increased.
Here are just a few top-level findings from the 2012 National Arts Index:
1. There has been significant growth in the number of nonprofit arts organizations: In the past decade, the number of nonprofit arts organizations grew 49 percent (76,000 to 113,000), a greater rate than all nonprofit organizations (32 percent). Or to look at it another way, from 2003-2010, a new nonprofit arts organization was created every three hours in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sahar Javedani
If you’re reading this now, chances are that you’re in a place of contemplative or active transition—and I commend you!
Many of you know that after seven years of working as a choreographer with parallel work in nonprofit arts administration and education in New York City, I recently moved to Philadelphia to start the next chapter of my life which included re-evaluating my commitment to a career in nonprofit administration.
In my last two years in New York City I had aligned myself with an organization that channeled some of my greatest strengths (dance education, career/professional development, nonprofit administration) into one role. After years working at least three simultaneous jobs, I convinced myself that I had “arrived.”
What followed was one of the greatest learning periods of my life.
Holding the reigns of running my own program within a larger organization confirmed that I was indeed entrepreneurial, self-driven, motivated, an excellent networker, etc. These talents were coupled with equal frustrations in communications, core values, and logistics within the organization.
I will refrain from going into detail, but I do feel compelled to share some valuable books that encouraged me along the way. Read the rest of this entry »
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Nancy Biberman
Last month, The New York Times documented an incredible group of local artists coming together to turn a rundown (but not forgotten) Bronx building into a work of art.
The canvas was the Andrew Freedman Home, which originally opened in 1924 as a home for New York’s high society elders who had fallen on tough times in their senior years.
Decades later, when the building itself was in economic turmoil, it was saved by a community group and used for services, but “much of the rest of the vast building has been kept sealed off like a tomb, a time capsule monument to the Bronx’s grand past, awaiting a new kind of future.”
Much of the Bronx is on the threshold of this “new kind of future.”
In spite of being dealt a nearly impossible hand when the city systematically disinvested in the borough in the 1970s, the Bronx survived, and in many ways, flourished.
A haven for new immigrant populations since the early 1900s, the Bronx became a melting pot where music and culture were shared. Its diverse neighborhoods fostered both the passing on of traditions and musical mash-ups. Read the rest of this entry »
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In this minute-long clip, Stanley Tucci talks about what surprised him most about his new film The Hunger Games, which opens today across the country.
This video is the conclusion to his short interview before providing testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior regarding 2013 appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and other programs.
Besides his current film, what has been your favorite Stanley Tucci performance to date?
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Graham Dunstan
Academy Award© nominee Stanley Tucci joins Americans for the Arts President and CEO Bob Lynch before Congress today, providing testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior regarding 2013 appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and other programs.
Tucci dropped by our offices yesterday and talked to us about his arts background and what he hopes to convey to the Congressional Subcommittee.
He also spent a few moments discussing his role of Caeser Flickerman in the upcoming blockbuster The Hunger Games. Who do you think may have inspired his portrayal of Caeser in the movie? He gives that away at the end of the interview.
Visit ARTSblog tomorrow for more on the Congressional Hearing and for another short video with Stanley Tucci about The Hunger Games.
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Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Todd Platts testify at an Arts Advocacy Day hearing.
For 25 years of the Congressional Arts Caucus¹ 30-year history, arts advocates have convened for one day on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill to flood the halls of Congress to share their views regarding arts initiatives.
On this day, such active engagement by the arts community provides our representative government with a first-hand account of the state of the arts in our country. The opportunity to meet with our constituents and businesses with a personal connection to the arts helps to put a face (and a talent) to the idea of supporting the arts at a federal level.
Arts Advocacy Day (AAD) is a day to celebrate the vibrancy of the arts and the wide array of talents here in the United States of America. There is no better place to embrace the great diversity of our country’s artistic identity than in the nation’s capital.
For the thousands of you who have participated in AAD, chances are you have met with a congressional staffer or two (or 435). As the staff members that manage the Congressional Arts Caucus on behalf of its Co-Chairs, believe us when we say these meetings have a tremendous effect on gaining the attention of your Representatives and help to keep the arts community in the Members’ thoughts throughout the year.
Because of this, arts staffers are your greatest allies in making positive change for the arts with federal investments. Read the rest of this entry »
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Theresa Cameron
Being an executive director or board member for a local arts organization is tough work.
For the board leader it is often difficult for them to know enough about the organization’s work to have informed opinions, yet feel comfortable offering opinions.
Executive directors often deal with board members who don’t know enough about the organization’s work to have informed opinions yet feel free to offer opinions anyway.
In the eyes of many arts administrators, board members many not know much about day-to-day operations or often “get in the way” of the work the organization is trying to accomplish.
Executive directors often pay lip service to the importance of the board, but in practice they do everything they can to keep the board marginalized and out of the way.
This relationship is often described as a partnership in a carefully-choreographed dance, a marriage, and like that of an orchestra and conductor.
Let’s face it-this relationship is complicated. That’s why I wanted to pass on a very good set of guidelines written by my friend Rick Moyers of the Meyer Foundation. I think these are terrific and applicable for our local arts organizations… Read the rest of this entry »
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Max Donner
Government budget deficits and budget limits of charitable foundations have made alternatives for financing arts projects more important.
Five programs in Los Angeles this February showed that many other approaches to funding the arts can work well—and help arts organizations boost participation at the same time. Each program has taken a different approach to raising funds from private sources, demonstrating that there are many different choices that match the needs of different communities.
The Princess Grace Foundation USA celebrated its 30th anniversary with a reception for past grant winners in Beverly Hills and a gala for patrons in Orange County. Generous contributions from patrons of the arts and several corporate sponsors have raised much of the $8.5 million in grants that the organization has awarded to promising artists and arts administrators.
But a significant source of funding for these grants comes from licensing projects and exclusive commemorative “Princess Grace” limited editions. The licensing program is highly selective and this has furthered traditional fundraising by prestigious associations with licensors, including Estée Lauder Cosmetics and Mikimoto Pearls.
Seven private companies and two nonprofit film festival organizations joined the Italian Trade Commission and public cinematic arts academy to present a weeklong festival of Italian art, fashion and cinema called “Los Angeles Italia.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Dilek ALP PERCIN
This year, the world is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of UNESCO. At that time, the U.S. adopted the UNESCO Convention for the “Safeguarding of World Cultural and Natural Heritage,” so that places like the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, and the Grand Canyon could be recognized globally as unique cultural heritage sites in this country.
However, the United States has never adopted the UNESCO Convention for the “Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage” that many nations did when it was first presented in 2003. As a result of our absence in this world convention, unique American art forms and cultural practices, ranging from jazz and blues to baseball and Thanksgiving traditions are not formally being recognized as this country’s unique intangible cultural heritage.
Other participating nations have prepared national inventories, established the list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, and are busy submitting applications to secure valuable UNESCO recognition.
According to UNESCO, cultural heritage is the complex of monuments, buildings, and archeological sites of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art, or science. From the other point of view, cultural heritage is quite broadly defined as containing all the signs that document the activities and achievements of human beings over time. Read the rest of this entry »
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Seniors benefit from ballroom dance. (Photo from The Payson Roundup)
I recently received my alma mater’s College of Visual and Performing Arts newsletter and was blown away by the enriching work of a former classmate.
It is becoming common knowledge, thank goodness, that the arts are vital to the proper mental and physical development of our youth as well as the maintenance of a high quality of life for our aging population.
My classmate Emily McKinney, a junior at Radford University, took advantage of the university’s class and degree offerings to combine two of her loves: dance and teaching children with disabilities.
Specifically, she teaches private and/or small group dance classes to autistic children in the community around Radford. Her work has given children who have difficulties communicating and expressing themselves an instrument to “be their true selves.”
Despite the challenges she faces working with them, Emily knows patience and careful guidance help her dance students discover immense amounts of joy that would seem otherwise impossible.
In addition to these findings and personal accounts, I found it interesting that the same is applied for the elderly, namely patients being treated for dementia and Alzheimer’s. Read the rest of this entry »
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Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:07 — 1.4MB)
John R. Kilacky
(Editor’s Note: Play the podcast above to hear John read his post. Both were first published by Vermont Public Radio earlier this month.)
Recently I served as a panelist for the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Forty-nine applicants wanted to be embedded in scientific research teams. They sought to explore the ethos, mythologies, and realities of this extraordinary continent.
Composers wanted to listen to the wind, water, animals, and shifting ice. Visuals artists hoped to delve into infinite striations of whiteness: the effects of transparency on ice, the glitter of ice crystals, and light and shadow patterns on the surface and internal features of the frozen landscape.
Photographers and documentarians were drawn to the heroics of transformative research under such harsh conditions. Poets and writers wanted to go with a blank page free of hypothesis. Choreographers aspired to locate themselves in the overwhelming immensity of endless horizons.
My panel duty did not ignite a travel-lust of my own for Antarctica; instead I have been inspired by these artists to pay more attention to my own home environment. Seeing anew, I observe how the longer days continually shift the light in the woods behind our town house to reveal an ever-evolving panorama. I never realized before, just how many different kinds of birds live there even in winter. Read the rest of this entry »
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Alec Baldwin and Nigel Lythgoe talk about the state of the arts in America at Arts Advocacy Day 2012. The acclaimed actor and famed producer discuss arts education and what inspires them.
