ARTSblog

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaks at The National Press Club.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was the keynote speaker yesterday at the National Press Club here in Washington, DC.

As he completes his final term as mayor this year, and as the immediate past president of The United States Conference of Mayors, Mayor Villaraigosa delivered his vision on the main issue that he plans to continue working on going forward—urging Congress to pass immigration reform and create pathways to citizenship, leaving immigration enforcement agents to focus on violent criminals and give those who have not been through the criminal justice system an opportunity to become citizens.

While a direct connection to the arts isn’t obvious, immigration reform is an issue that also impacts artists and nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. For instance, foreign guest artists continue to have problems entering the United States in order to attend their exhibitions and performing events.

Americans for the Arts has been working to amend immigration reform legislation to include streamlining this provision for several years. Here is part of our “Statement of Concern” utilized as part of our Arts Advocacy Day efforts last year: Read the rest of this entry »

Pam Rubert

When Alexander Gottman’s co-workers peer into his cubicle, they don’t see family or vacation photos. They see original art.

Gottman works in the information technology department of Guaranty Bank, accessing potential risk for electronic bank transfers for business clients and monitoring the safety of their accounts.

Locally owned Guaranty Bank is committed to encouraging employee personal development and community involvement. The bank sponsored a Creamery Arts Center exhibition in June, and Guaranty Bank Marketing Director Carlye Wannenmacher suggested Gottman enter the show.

It’s not uncommon for Springfield businesses such as Guaranty Bank to employ working artists. Our community offers many outlets for creative expression, if not as many opportunities to make a full-time living in the arts. Read the rest of this entry »

As your first week of 2013 gets closer to an end, Americans for the Arts wants to be sure to wish you a Happy New Year! Cue music, lights, photos!

Nina Ozlu Tunceli

The following are some quick highlights of the Fiscal Cliff Tax Legislation that was enacted into law Monday night. The legislation only addresses major tax issues, while raising the debt ceiling limits and preventing the automatic sequestration spending cuts from beginning will be dealt with over the next two months:

• Charitable Deductions: Good news is that the charitable tax giving incentives were not specifically capped and no changes were made to the exempt status or classification of charities, such as nonprofit arts organizations. While no changes have been made in this first round of fiscal cliff negotiations, tax reform revenue raisers are still on the table as Congress and the White House negotiate staving off deep sequestration cuts in the next two months. Americans for the Arts will continue advocating the importance of this issue on behalf of the nonprofit arts sector.
• Personal Exemptions and Itemized Deductions: Unfortunately, the new tax law does reinstate both the Personal Exemption limitation and the “Pease limitation,” (named after former Congressman Donald Pease (D-OH)), which will reduce the overall amount of itemized deductions (including home mortgage, charitable, local and state taxes, etc) by three percent of only that amount that exceeds the threshold (but not to exceed 80% of total itemized deductions that would have been taken). These deduction limitations are not a cap and they only kick-in for married couples earning more than $300,000 and singles earning more than $250,000 annually.

Here’s how it works: If married taxpayers earn $1 million and have total itemized deductions of $190,000 (home mortgage interest, charity donations, state/local taxes combined) in 2013, they will not be able to deduct the full $190,000 from their income. They will only be able to deduct $169,000 ($190,000 – $21,000) because the PEASE limitation rule reduces the deduction by the equivalent of 3% of the amount of their income above the $300,000 threshold ($1 million – $300,000 = $700,000 is the amount above the threshold). The reduction would then be $21,000 ($700,000 x 3% = $21,000). These rules were in effect in the 1990’s, but had been temporarily phased out during the Bush-era tax cuts in the previous decade.
• IRA Rollover: extends for two years, retroactive to 2012, allowing donors age 70½ or older to donate to charities tax-free from their IRAs. Important note: donation deadlines have been extended by a month so that donors can designate their IRA distributions to a charity in January 2013, but still have the deduction apply to tax year 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

Gladstone Payton

Last week, I had the privilege of leading a diverse group of advocates from across the spectrum of the charitable sector to congressional offices in support of the Charitable Giving Coalition’s “Protect Giving – D.C. Days.”

You cannot escape talk of the oft-mentioned “fiscal cliff” and the looming lethal combination of major federal spending reductions (sequester) and expiring tax cuts (Bush-Obama tax extensions) set to take effect in January 2013.

“Protect Giving – D.C.” is an ongoing attempt to raise the direct policy concerns of the nation’s charitable sector and the possible devastating effect that last-minute negotiations to thwart the cliff may have on the tax policies around contributions to charity.

Needed: Federal Revenue

I warned in a previous post last June that the resulting mess that occurred after the failed “supercommittee” and debt limit deals of 2011 would probably complicate the bargaining positions of President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress as they struggle to forge an agreement to spare us some of the pain.

I hate to be right on this one…currently, they are at loggerheads on how to get more money returning to the federal coffers and avert the cliff. Read the rest of this entry »

I won’t bury the lead: Josh Groban was the recipient of the Bell Family Foundation Young Artist Award at our 2012 National Arts Awards and he was tickled pink at the honor. Here’s the video profile that was shown before he received the award:

Beyond Groban, the star-studded night this past October also honored Broadway leading man Brian Stokes Mitchell, renowned painter James Rosenquist, arts education leader Lin Arison, Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, and AXA Art Insurance Corporation.

Support from artists, philanthropists, and corporations alike is what makes the annual National Arts Awards so special—leaders from all sectors come together to honor the individuals and companies whose dedication to the promotion of arts and culture has had a profound impact on American life. This year more than 400 people were in attendance at Cipriani in New York City.

Event Chair Maria Bell has said that this varied group of artists and leaders has left an indelible mark “on the cultural fabric of our nation.” Read the rest of this entry »

John R. Killacky in “Dreaming Awake” (Photo by Laurie Toby Edison)

Sixteen years ago, I had surgery to remove a tumor from inside my spinal cord. Although the tumor was benign, the surgery paralyzed me from the neck down. I spent six weeks in a hospital and months learning to walk again.

I called upon my artist-self during those darkest hours. My fingers were the first part of my body to experience any functional return. While others at the rehab hospital were wheeled off to occupational therapy, I asked to go to the computer lab to tap out sentences with the one finger up to the task.

I felt an overwhelming urge to put on paper the thoughts crowding my brain, make some sense of the experience, and reassert authority over my body. Some of this writing was later featured in the Lambda Award-winning anthology I co-edited entitled “Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories.”

As the weeks progressed, standard physical rehab provided little success. I realized when being transferred from bed to wheelchair my body could hold itself up (although briefly and with assistance). While the kinesthetic connections were lost, I thought I might be able to learn to stand up visually. So I asked to work in front of the mirrors. Therapists were skeptical and reminded me everything is backward in a mirror. “Yes,” I countered, “but as a young man I was a dancer and learned to dance with mirrors”

It took some days with leg braces and a walker, but eventually I stood in front of that mirror. What I could not do kinesthetically, I accomplished visually. Over the next weeks, I began to walk between two parallel bars in front of the mirror. Tentative steps grew ever more confident. The dancer in me taught my mis-circuited body to walk again. Sixteen years later, I continue dancing through life, albeit slowly and with the assistance of a cane. Read the rest of this entry »

On behalf of Americans for the Arts and the Arts Action Fund, I wish to congratulate President Barack Obama and all of the national, state, and local elected leaders across the country who won their elections last night.

White House

President Obama will now have the opportunity to fully realize his vision for the arts and culture as he originally laid out four years ago. By successfully securing healthcare for artists, economic recovery funds that saved artists’ jobs through the National Endowment for the Arts, and ongoing support for appropriations that fund federal cultural agencies, the president has taken many steps in supporting the nonprofit arts sector.

We hope to encourage President Obama and his administration over the course of the next four years to remain focused on maintaining arts education in every classroom; allocating a larger budget for the arts as an economic generator for American jobs, products, and communities; and protecting charitable giving incentives that are the lifeblood of the nonprofit arts sector.

We are proud that the nonprofit arts sector has already played an important role in our nation’s economic recovery by generating $135 billion in economic activity, supporting 4.1 million jobs, and returning $22 billion in tax revenue back to federal, state, and local coffers.

Congress

The make up of the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate, with a few races still to be called, is poised to remain relatively the same with modest gains by Democrats in both chambers. In the House of Representatives, we are happy to report that Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) won re-election in a hard-fought campaign made difficult by New York’s congressional redistricting plan. Also, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) will continue to chair the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, ensuring a friend of the arts remains at the head of that very important panel. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert L. Lynch

Every four years America gets another chance to make its voice heard. And every four years the American arts community, in a way, gets a bit of a fiscal makeover.

How is that? Well, it has to do with how the nonprofit arts in America are funded and how policy affects those funding sources. And every four years, no matter who wins elections across our country, there are new policymakers in town.

Roughly 10 percent of the $61 billion aggregate budgets of the nonprofit arts in America comes from government—mostly local and then state government and finally federal sources. Yes, this is a tiny portion of the whole, and it is actually a lot smaller than many people, including many politicians, think. This 10 percent is indeed a small amount compared to the 30 percent the private sector—(mostly) individuals—chips in and the 60 percent that comes from earned and investment income.

But that 10 percent is critical in what is a very conservative funding model for arts in our country. I call this model conservative because a very modest government investment leverages more than 60 times as much private and earned revenue to create a whole industry and support millions of jobs. How?

A $146 million investment from the federal government directly leverages close to $5 billion more in local and state government investment, which in turn helps leverage another $50 billion to create the $61 billion nonprofit arts industry in America.

This model has helped grow an industry from a handful of organizations in 1965—when the federal cultural funding agencies like National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) came into being—to more than 110,000 arts businesses today. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Dick

So much attention is paid to the time leading up to Election Day that people often forget about how valuable the time is after the election to the when the winners are sworn in. This is an excellent opportunity to reach out to the newly elected and an excuse to reconnect with incumbents. Here at Americans for the Arts, we encourage our members to adopt the following “schedule” after any election.

November 6, Election Night: Send the winner a congratulatory email, post to their Facebook, etc. If they have a victory party, attend or send someone on your behalf. (It is even better if the person attending was a campaign donor.)

November 7: Have a grasstop supporter contact the winner via phone or personal email on your behalf and congratulate them. This grasstop supporter should be an individual who has a personal friendship with the elected official. It is important that you provide your grasstop supporter with your talking points, but this is primarily a social call, not a hard sell about your issues.

November 7-13: Send a formal congratulatory letter to the winner via the USPS (not an email). The letter should be on your letterhead and tailored to that specific elected official. Overview your organization and what you do in their district. This is also a great time to remind them of any campaign promises that they made. Enclose information about your organization and upcoming events and offer an open invitation for them to visit or call upon you.

November 14-30: Contact the elected official and obtain a meeting. Ask your grasstop supporter to attend along with representative(s) from local organization(s) in that district. The meeting does not have to be at their office – they might not even have one yet – but can be at your office, a coffee shop, etc. The meeting should not be a hard sell, but continue to introduce you to them and talk about what your organization does in their district, show them any economic data you have on how your organization/industry benefits their district and offer to become an auxiliary staffer on your issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Jenna Hartzell

When the call for applicants went out for the first ever Local Arts Classroom (LAC) program with Americans for the Arts I didn’t hesitate to apply.

I had attended the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in 2011 and returned to work thinking, “I need more.”

I felt the need to stay connected to what’s happening on a national level, but had a desire to learn more about what I should be doing as a Program Director of a local arts agency. I read blogs, followed @Americans4Arts on Twitter, and was connected on a surface level, but missed the sense of camaraderie the convention facilitated.

Enter the LAC and a chance to learn about cultural planning, making space for art, advocacy, board and staff development, fundraising, and making the case for the arts; a chance to learn with arts administrators from all over the country; a chance to absorb different perspectives and experiences of those who know what it’s like to be an arts administrator.

I say “absorb” because that was how I approached the class: to be a sponge, and absorb every concept, idea, and piece of advice I could possibly take in.

One concept that I’ve applied frequently since I graduated from LAC is one about fundraising, planning, and community:

When planning for an event or fundraiser, organizations typically take this approach:

• Name the activity/goal/event
• Plan
• Execute
• Evaluate
• Ask: What is a success for the organization?
• Ask: Was it a success for the community? Read the rest of this entry »

The Americans for the Arts Action Fund, in partnership with NAMM: National Association of Music Merchants, The Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), and The United States Conference of Mayors partnered together to sponsor programs at both the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention with the help of the respective local arts agencies in Tampa and Charlotte (Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Arts & Science Council).

It all began with two events in Tampa for the Republican National Convention.

The first was ArtsSPEAK, a policy forum on the future of the arts and arts education. The second was ArtsJAM, an intimate concert performance featuring national recording artists celebrating the arts.

To kick things off, Arts Action Fund President Bob Lynch welcomed RNC delegates to ArtsSPEAK in Tampa:

Later, he was joined by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who moderated the panel of elected officials, advocates and arts leaders. Featured speakers included: Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert; Mesa (AZ) Mayor Scott Smith; Hillsborough County School Board Member Doretha Edgecomb; Tampa Bay Times Marketing Director Kerry O’Reilly; and Jazz Musician/Former New York Yankee Bernie Williams.

You can listen to the full event via SoundCloud:

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that September is National Preparedness Month? It seems like a strange time of the year to promote emergency preparedness, especially for Atlantic Coast dwellers such as myself. This is one of the most active periods of the year for hurricanes, and I would like to think that any individual or organization would already have a plan in place should they encounter such a natural disaster.

Well, I don’t. I haven’t figured out if the structure in which I live in is sturdy enough to withstand a heavy storm, I haven’t mapped out an evacuation route, I haven’t found a location in my neighborhood where I can seek shelter (I’m assuming it’s a local school, but I don’t even know where that is nearby where I live). I don’t have any of my files stored up in a cloud where I could retrieve them should I lose my hard drive. I’m not prepared.

You think I would have learned better. In September 2005, I was living in Houston when Hurricane Rita hit, and that was right after Katrina devastated New Orleans. Luckily, back then I did have a plan. The fourth largest city in the United States was trying to evacuate and jammed all major thoroughfares to the point where folks ran out of gas trying to get out of the area. My roommate and I mapped out a network of side streets that took us all the way out of the city to his father’s place north of the beltway and out of harm’s way.

So, having escaped that hardship unscathed, you would think I always have a preparedness plan in place, no matter where I live. The truth is, always being prepared for a seemingly rare disaster is a hard thing to keep up with. I’m willing to bet that many of us don’t afford the time to back our work up on a second hard drive, or store extra cans of food and water in case of a power outage, or know where our evacuation location is.

I think it is ingenious that South Arts developed an emergency preparedness tool called ArtsReady for arts organizations. The ArtsReady toolkit tells you what you need in place to have a solid emergency plan. They have the ability to store your files in their cloud for you, they give you all of the information of emergency contacts for you and have even developed a network of participating organizations that you can go to for help should you encounter an unfortunate situation. Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Lynch at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa.

The Convention Halls are creative chaos. The streets are jammed with animated participants holding placards, engaged in heated dialogue and performing all kinds of issue-based street theater. The scent of policy is in the air. And it’s just the way I like it.

Here at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the role of the arts is alive and well. What you see on TV is only part of what happens. Inside, actual policy is being discussed—not just broad themes, not just ideas, but approaches that will actually have an impact on lives and on communities.

I am here talking to these very political leaders about the value of the arts and arts education in American society, and I simply have to ask them to look out the window for them to get the point. My US Airways Magazine told the story clearly on my way in, ticking off dozens of cultural destinations awaiting convention delegates.

During our ArtsSpeak panel discussion in Charlotte on the future of arts and arts education in America, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright spoke about cultural diplomacy, a critical foreign policy tool. She also noted how the arts helped shape international political dialogue both formally through U.S.-sponsored jazz and dance and other art forms, and informally by every day actions.

On a personal level, Secretary Albright—famous for her collection of handcrafted brooches—told the story of how she would wear them as subtle symbols of mood or maybe a hint at national policy intent. For example, she wore a serpent pin when meeting with Saddam Hussein. It also turns out that she is a pretty good drummer—and goes by the nickname “Sticks.”

The discussion also showcased how the arts have proven to be so far-reaching. Former Secretary of Education Richard Riley discussed the need for continued focus on national education policies that would steer local and state decision-makers to enhance and support expanded art and music education in the local curriculum. The only state-level cabinet member in the country dedicated to arts and culture, Secretary Linda Carlisle of North Carolina, highlighted how cultural tourism is a huge job creator. Read the rest of this entry »

Tiffany Hsueh

I’ll speak frankly and concisely: art is not my thing. Coming from a liberal arts background, I feel as if I am straddling two worlds, one of the strictly rational and one of the creative. It is an amalgamation of two worlds that requires abstract thinking, but also real life application of solutions to problems that arise; a world deeply seeped in theory, but living in reality.

I do not think of myself as particularly artistic or creative or musically inclined, even though I’ve tried many times. But art has become, to me, a method of thought, a mindset in which to think, and a lens though which to observe.

Art has moved beyond the physical and literal motions of creation into the realm of the theoretical underpinnings that drive it forward; its genesis. I don’t always agree with a piece of art or the artist, but I respect the thought behind it, the point of view of the artist, and the eventual creation. It’s the process that interests, but also befuddles me. To gain the ability to see, feel, touch, or taste a sensation or concept is enlightening and complicated; complex. I think it’s our ability to empathize with others that allows us to interpret art. It’s the next to best thing other than being the artist his/herself. I would say that the arts are part of our human nature. It is embedded within us just as human emotions are part of our genes.

I was not immersed in theater or band or painting or writing nor did I go to an arts-focused high school. Art was an elective class I took throughout elementary school and middle school and picked up for two years in orchestra during high school. I’ve never taken an art history or photography class, which isn’t to say that I’m not interested in art; I just wanted to explore other things. However, my summer interning at Americans for the Arts has opened my eyes to something so much grander than my notions of art.

While I understand the vast scope of the arts and its importance in society, I did not understand it beyond its textbook definition—that art has been, is, and will continue to delineate culture, history, and life. Art sustains life even in the face of economic trials and political upheavals. It is the process of art that makes it invaluable to me. The arts bring many immeasurable additions to the table and should never be debased to its most tangible form because that’s not all art is. Read the rest of this entry »