ARTSblog

The August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble
(photo courtesy of Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council)

Join us June 14–16, 2013 in Pittsburgh, PA to continue the national conversation on the “new normal” as the 2013 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention draws attention to how the arts are meeting the needs of communities as demographic shifts continue to take place

The Annual Convention program will explore community strategies to adapt, transform, and revitalize in a changing landscape to build the 21st century American community.

We are seeking proposals for two types of presentations:

1. Convention Sessions: sessions are 90 minutes and should be complete learning experiences with specific outcomes and learning objectives. Sessions can include multiple speakers, but are limited to no more than four speakers per session.
2. Roundtable Discussions for Career, Organization, and Community 360. Roundtable Discussions are a great networking and issue-based discussion opportunity. Roundtables offer a variety of topics related to promoting sustainable careers in the arts and tackling difficult capacity-building issues in arts organizations and your greater community. Roundtables should only include one discussion leader per table.

Proposals should focus on innovative strategies, tested tools, and best practices that relate to the frames of the Annual Convention, including diversity, equity, and access; placemaking; education; social impact; technology; demographic shifts; and building business partnerships and new business models.

Beyond these frames, we welcome sessions addressing fundamental concepts in fundraising, advocacy, marketing, and board development and engagement.

Americans for the Arts is also accepting sessions for the Emerging Leaders Preconference and the Public Art Network Preconference. Both will take place June 13–14 and end by the start of the Annual Convention. The opportunity to designate your session proposal for one of these two preconferences can be found on the Convention Session proposal form.

Submissions are only accepted online at convention.artsusa.org/proposals, but hurry and submit as our deadline is September 19!

We look forward to hearing from you!

You may have read that the Arts Council of Fort Worth is facing a 25 percent budget cut (from $716,000 annually to $450,000) in the proposed city budget that the city council will take up for a vote next month.

It just so happens that Randy Cohen, vice president of research and policy at Americans for the Arts, was slated to be in town promoting the local results of our Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study as this news came out.

As you can see from this local news report, the arts council is doing all the right things and already changing minds as they advocate for alternatives to the proposed funding changes:

When it comes to local arts advocacy, you want to have a utility belt full of reasons to make your case, and the Arts Council of Fort Worth is doing the right thing by using our excellent local research (Arts & Economic Prosperity IV, Local Arts Index) as well as their own outreach to rally community arts leaders, elected officials, and the local media to get their message out in the month before the city council vote.

Although it is too soon to tell if this intense advocacy campaign will pay off when it comes to the city council on September 18, the fact that council members are willing to listen to the proposed use of hotel tax funding (a model that several other cities use to fund the arts) or another source so that funding will be dedicated rather than just another line item in the general fund, is a very encouraging sign.

Stay tuned to ARTSblog for updates on this story!

Stephanie Riven

The findings in the recent 2012 National Arts Index describing the state of the arts are profoundly disturbing.

The Index reported a long list of measures that trend down for arts, music, and cultural organizations, among them: waning program budgets, attendance, funding, expenditures, and a decrease in the overall number of arts organizations themselves.

As arts professionals we have heard all of this before. It’s not time to bemoan our fate but it is time to refocus our energy to reverse these trends. Consider these three core strategies to begin the process:

1.  Setting and communicating a vision: We clearly need to seek out innovative leaders that can communicate big and bold ideas broadly, consistently, and in a wider context. Can we discard our identity as an “underdog” and provide a platform for people to speak about radical new suggestions for the future? By extending the context to include the pressing need for social change in this country, we will attract visibility, excitement, and extend our influence. In addition, we must be willing to listen when new ideas are proposed, give support and participate in implementation.

2.  Developing Collective Impact as a core strategy: Despite our diverse agendas, it’s time that we look past our differences and speak with a more cohesive, unified voice. In the process, we can learn important lessons from our colleagues in the social service and education sectors about collective impact. A commitment to collective impact would encourage us to abandon our individual agendas in favor of a collective approach to policy, practice, and the delivery of the arts and arts education.

3.  Establishing a commitment to community: Can we engage substantively with our communities and cultural partners, not just to sell tickets or extend the reach of our organizations but to improve the lives of all people in our communities? As Doug Borwick says on his Engaging Matters blog, “It is the creation and support of healthy, vital communities that provide the ultimate justification for the allocation of financial and human resources that the arts require. Communities do not exist to serve the arts; the arts exist to serve communities.” Read the rest of this entry »

Janet Langsam

This year’s summer Olympics has raised sports to an art form. Gymnast Gabby Douglas might have been a ballerina for all her grace and flexibility. Swimmer Michael Phelps might have been a sculptor for all his power and focus. Glued as I was to the TV, watching what to me, was performance art at its finest, I wondered why we don’t have an Olympics of the arts.

That line of thought led me to bemoan once again the absence of the arts at the “real” Olympics. The Olympics after all elevates the value of competition. It celebrates diversity and ambition, and it engages everyone…participants and audiences alike throughout the world. That kind of broad, worldwide visibility is just what we need in the arts.

Imagine if the arts were as fundamental to the Olympics as sports. That fact alone would make the arts more important than they currently are. Let’s perhaps focus on Brazil in 2016. Think about how a four-year outreach for nominations from all corners of the globe would hype the arts and at the same time uncover nascent talent throughout the world. There must be thousands of young people in art and music college programs whose careers could benefit from the exposure. Perhaps Americans for the Arts could take the leadership in this effort?

Years ago, (naturally, way before my time) painting, drawing, sculpture, music, literature, and architecture were all a part of the Olympics, and all categories in which competitors could take home a medal. The idea—the brainchild of International Olympic Committee founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin—was to bind together athletics and aesthetics, body and soul, action and ideas, like in the old days in ancient Greece.

A major flaw in the rules was that artists’ work had to be inspired by sports, thus limiting the quality and quantity of participants. Then too, they simply couldn’t figure out how to maintain the Olympics as a competition for amateurs while at the same time extending eligibility to artists who were also professionals. So, by the time the fifties rolled around, the arts were out of the Olympic games. Read the rest of this entry »

Kim Kober

Last night, the three largest counties in Michigan passed a ballot measure to help sustain the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). Two of the counties, Oakland and Wayne, passed it by more than 60 percent, while the third county, Macomb, came down to the wire at 51 percent.

The museum was founded over 125 years ago, but began to suffer financially when public funding dried up in the nineties, followed by the Great Recession over the past several years. The measure was included on the ballot for the primary elections held in Michigan yesterday and its passage adds a property tax, also known as a millage, that will cost homeowners an average of $15–$20 annually.

The resulting funds will provide approximately $23 million in annual funding for the museum for each of the next ten years, covering their annual operations. During that time, the museum will focus on building their endowment to ensure the museum’s sustainability after the ten years have passed.

Detroit arts advocates employed some creative tactics in the weeks leading up to the primaries.

Free Art Friday, led by Skidmore Studio, invites artists and arts supporters to create art and leave it around the city with a note, for others to find and keep. Last Friday, the event began with a rally at the DIA in support of the museum. Just days before that, Art is for Everyone sponsored a rally in a nearby park. Between the two events, hundreds showed up in support of the museum, and the visibility made a difference.

Mike Latvis, director of public policy at ArtServe Michigan and chair of the State Arts Action Network noted, “This is a great win for arts and culture in Michigan. Yes, it is only one organization out of hundreds, but voters representing counties totaling 40 percent of the state’s population just said yes to funding the arts.”  Read the rest of this entry »

A mosque is destroyed in this video capture from “The Times of Malta.”

The door of the Sid-Yaha, one of Timbuktu’s three 15th-century-era mosques, was supposed to open on the day of reckoning, signaling to all that the end had arrived. Instead, it has been broken down as part of a larger campaign of destruction.

The perpetrators of these demolitions are the Ansar-Dine, a group of Islamic radicals who have seized control of much of the vast northern region of Mali, which is, in itself, a huge nation.

Timbuktu has long been a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the 1400s, it was the premier destination for Islamic advances in medicine, culture, and education. But Mali, like many formerly-colonized nations, has had a rocky road to sovereignty, and as the country plunges into chaos, it is its most important cultural sites that are taking the brunt of the damage.

This is the way of western Africa: the entire region is in a constant cycle of civil unrest, then peace, civil unrest, then peace.

The Ansar-Dine—who are suspected of having links to Al-Qaieda—are led by a former Tuareg rebel who, ironically, decided to destroy these mosques after they were placed on UNESCO’s list.

The Dine claim that the mosques are sacrilegious and idolatrous, a claim that has been overwhelmingly refuted as not in keeping with the Islamic faith. In addition, the Dine have destroyed seven tombs that are also of great cultural value.

The United Nations has already called for the Dine to cease their campaign to no avail. The Dine claim they will not stop until they have destroyed each and every vestige of Timbuktu’s great past. Meanwhile, the Malian government is trying to get the International Criminal Court to consider charging the Dine of war crimes, a charge that some see as extreme in the absence of loss of lives and that others celebrate as a redefinition of a war crime.

I believe that the Ansar Dine should be charged with war crimes. I don’t see this situation as unworthy of the label, I don’t even see it as a redefinition; I see it as clarification, as a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Conventional wisdom: A higher price (P1) results in a lower quantity sold (Q1), whereas a lower price (P2) results in a more sales (Q2).

Harry Truman famously expressed a desire to consult only with “one-armed economists.” Our 33rd president wasn’t fond of counsel that began, “On the one hand, this…” and was followed by “On the other hand, that…” Truman wanted straight talk without equivocation.

So, here is a bit of economic straight talk from the data vaults of TRG Arts. Forget everything you learned in that Econ 101 class you took in undergraduate school. You can also forget what you learned at business school. It doesn’t apply to tickets.

Competitive Freedom

Conventional wisdom holds that higher prices reduce demand. For instance, in the consumer universe of unlimited hamburger availability, McDonald’s will sell many at $1.00 and many fewer at $10.00. And, at $100, demand goes to zero.

But, supply and demand curves do not apply to the world of selling tickets.

Those curves depend upon an “open market” of goods and prices. Corn, wheat, and hamburgers are sold in huge open markets. There are vast numbers of buyers and sellers who are free to compete for the exchange of goods and services.

Price subject to desire.

This condition of competitive freedom does not exist when selling tickets.

For example, nonprofit organizations are run by volunteer boards who set, approve or use their clout to influence prices—prices that these same board members pay when they attend the performances presented by their organization. That’s just one reason why the best seats are frequently undervalued. Read the rest of this entry »

Kim Kober

State legislators met over the past two days to consider overrides of Gov. Nikki Haley’s vetoes to the state budget. Two of these vetoes impacted funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission.

Veto #1 completely eliminated funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission, resulting in the agency closing its doors on June 9.

Veto #21 eliminated $500,000 in additional funding for the arts commission to distribute in grants.

To override a Governor’s veto, the item is first considered by the State House of Representatives and if two-thirds of the House vote to override the veto, it will then move on to the Senate where a two-thirds vote is also required.

Yesterday, the House voted to override both of the vetoes with votes of 110–5 to restore funding and 89–25 in favor of the $500,000 for arts grants.

Today the Senate has done the same, voting 29–10 to restore funding for the arts commission and 29–12 to override veto #21.

It’s great to see South Carolina policymakers recognize the value of the arts commission and it was amazing to see how arts advocates in the state stepped up and make noise when Gov. Haley’s vetoes were announced.

If you’ve been reading about the arts online over the past week and a half, there is a good chance you were reading about what was going on in South Carolina. On Twitter, #SaveSCArts has been mentioned hundreds of times and a Change.org petition received more than 7,600 signatures of support.

On Monday, one week after the arts commission closed their doors, advocates held a rally in the state capitol of Columbia where arts supporters gathered to play music, dance, and paint. We know their efforts did not go unnoticed by policymakers. Read the rest of this entry »

As the South Carolina House currently debates which of Gov. Nikki Haley’s vetoes to override (the Senate will do the same tomorrow), I couldn’t help but post the following video of arts advocates outside the State House last night:

Although the weather didn’t cooperate, hundreds of artists and arts supporters came out to protest Gov. Haley’s veto of funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission budget and a video from The State website captures it nicely (too bad they didn’t include embedding code for me to share it here).

Keep your thoughts with your fellow artists, administrators, board members, and advocates in The Palmetto State over the next few days and be sure to follow along on Twitter using the #saveSCarts hashtag as well as via the South Carolina Arts Alliance on Facebook and Twitter.

I hope everyone can take a moment to send a tweet or post on the Arts Alliance wall in a display of solidarity with our friends in South Carolina today and tomorrow.

And, although I probably shouldn’t, I’ll have to leave you with a picture of my new favorite arts advocacy bumper sticker:

Bumper sticker created by artist Ellen Fishburne protesting Gov. Nikki Haley’s veto of S.C. Arts Commission budget. (From The State via Ellen Fishburne)

Theresa Cameron

Well its official, our Local Arts Agency Blog Salon (catch up and read all of the posts with that one easy link) was a home run!

We heard from more than 20 bloggers representing all parts of our great nation about ways communities and their arts economic development strategies are being harnessed to create the 21st century creative community.

This week, bloggers have given very specific examples of how having the right message and the right data can help propel a community forward. The arts at the local level are being taken seriously because of the data, the stats, and the vision.

We all know that the arts are very important for many reasons but it was particularly interesting to hear from bloggers about how having the right data can get you a seat at the table to make your case.

In particular, it was interesting to learn from the corporate side about how to present arts and economic impact data to corporate funders—and that there are many layers of messengers before the data gets to the CEO—and that doing your homework will help you overcome the objections and obstacles with that potential funder.

I loved seeing the photograph of the Mona Lisa on the dollar bill from The Omaha World-Herald.

And what about Boise? Who knew that Boise is the most geographically-isolated urban area in the lower 48 and that the arts infrastructure has helped shape the city create a haven for arts organizations?

So, many thanks to our wonderful, diverse group of bloggers. They are the “rock stars” of using the research and data to shift ways community leaders are thinking and using the arts as a local development strategy!

A quartet plays as part of Beet Street’s Streetmosphere summer program.

It seems like the arts are finally gaining some traction—the whole country is paying attention to arts as an economic driver.

The National Governors Association just released a great new study that identifies five tactics for using arts, culture, and the creative industry as economic development tools.

They are actually encouraging state governments to include the arts and creative businesses in their economic development strategies, providing new incentives and programs that can help our industry grow and finally be counted for the incredible impact we have on the economy.

Here in Fort Collins, our community has embraced the notion that our community is better because of its arts for years. We have won numerous nationwide awards including Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live.” The awards are due the incredible quality of life we enjoy—thanks in large part to the many artists and arts organizations who make our whole town buzz with activity and creativity.

Last year, Fort Collins was also awarded the 2011 Governor’s Arts Award by Colorado Creative Industries and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade that recognizes a Colorado community for their collective efforts to enhance their community and their economy through strategic use of the arts.

What helped set the stage for the Governor’s Award included the Downtown Development Authority’s formulation of Beet Street in 2007 and the adoption of the City of Fort Collins Cultural Plan by the Fort Collins City Council in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Hawthorne

The Arts & Economic Prosperity IV report comes at an interesting time for Portland as we prepare to launch a campaign for a transformational arts funding measure that’s headed for the November ballot.

If approved by voters in November, a new income tax capped at $35 per person will raise $12 million per year to support arts organizations and arts education in the City of Portland. Specifically, the measure would restore 65 arts specialists in elementary schools and allow our local arts agency to provide general operating support for about 50 leading arts organizations at a rate of at least five percent of their operating budgets. (Our largest organizations currently receive about one percent of their budgets from local public support).

The measure would also help our Regional Arts & Culture Council set up a fund to increase access to arts and culture, specifically within communities of color and underserved neighborhoods.

The Creative Advocacy Network (CAN) is leading this initiative, and even the most recent polls have been strong, earning 75 percent approval of the actual ballot language among likely voters; we are cautiously optimistic about our chances for success.

However, inexplicably, our local newspaper recently published an appallingly ignorant editorial that dismisses the notion of public funding for the arts, and value of arts education in particular. We’re not quite sure what rock they’ve been living under, but we know they don’t represent the opinion of the vast majority of Portland residents. The letter writing campaign to enlighten them has begun! (Thank you, Bob Lynch, for your letter.)

We’ve also done polling to make sure we understand which messages are most likely to resonate with the voters, and we found that economic impact was not very high on the list. The fact that our local arts organizations constitute a $253 million industry, supporting 8,529 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $21 million in state and local government revenue was deemed “persuasive” by slightly less than half of the likely voters we surveyed. Read the rest of this entry »

My community (Minot, ND) is in a very unusual position.

In 2011, a 500-year flood devastated our community and displaced 12,000 residents (nearly one-third of our population). This week marked the one-year anniversary of the evacuation sirens and many homes have yet to be “mucked out.”

On the other hand, the oil industry here has created a growing economy, increasing our tax revenue and boosting airport boardings to record levels. Our airline traffic has increased from four flights daily to 18. We have had growth and devastation all in the same year.

During the time, Minot arts organizations and artists have helped to raise funds, raise spirits, and raise awareness. Our Fifth Annual Integrity Jazz Festival is a perfect example. Sponsors from the community stepped up to the plate to present this event free of charge to the public in cooperation with the Weekend of Hope, a celebration of a community rebuilding. Survey responses indicated that 30 percent of our attendees came from outside Minot. They bought food, gasoline, and artwork, putting dollars into our local economy while hearing some great jazz music in a beautiful outdoor setting.

The evidence of the economic impact of the nonprofit arts industry in Minot is detailed in the Arts and Economic Prosperity IV (AEP IV) data. The nonprofit arts industry has a $9.9 million impact that supports 225 full-time equivalent jobs. That number represents an increase of $1.4 million from the 2005 AEP III data! Read the rest of this entry »

Jennifer Cover Payne

Eighteen years ago there was little research documenting the economic impact of arts and culture in the Greater Washington DC metropolitan region. The key advocacy message focused primarily on the intrinsic value of arts and its ability to transform communities.

Most of the information conveyed was subjective or limited to research conducted by specific arts organizations for their marketing purposes. The organizations, all part of the DC metropolitan region, did not cross jurisdictional boundaries to collaborate as research partners. The Arts & Economic Prosperity (AEP) studies eliminated the regional jurisdictional research barriers.

The Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington connects the six leaders of the arts councils and commissions representing: the District of Columbia; the City of Alexandria in Virginia; Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia; and, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland. The arts council and commission leaders meet several times a year under the umbrella of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington to discuss their arts projects, regional arts challenges, and successes.

Before the economic downturn, when local governments had more money, the AEP studies were part of the rationale that the city and council members used to grant millions of dollars to arts organizations that were building new or renovating old venues. Now the data supports the budget decision-making process for the arts and is essential to the vitality of arts programs throughout the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Bensen

Like so many of my colleagues across the county, I eagerly awaited the results of Arts and Economic Prosperity IV, and when the initial results arrived, I started meeting with community leaders to help spread the word, get their insights, and in a few cases, a juicy quote for a PowerPoint presentation.

I expected several folks, particularly those who support the arts in our community, to be impressed by the numbers and totally supportive of the study. They did not disappoint.

I also wanted to get the reaction from local economists, those who know more than the rest of us about these kinds of studies, but this also made me nervous. What I feared was a response along the lines of “You really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Or, “Why don’t you all just focus on art and we’ll deal with the economy.”

Because we are in the business of advocating for the arts, I was afraid that this study would be criticized for overstating our case, that we’re all just pumping up the numbers to make us look good and to justify our existence.

So I was not prepared for this criticism from Larry Swanson, director and chief economist for the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, a regional studies and public education program at the University of Montana in Missoula:

“It is difficult to truly gauge how the arts benefit a community and area economic vitality by only looking at expenditures tied to non-profit arts organizations, even though these are important. Communities that are well-endowed in the arts are more vibrant and interesting places and tend to attract more educated and talented people who, once they make your community theirs, contribute in many other ways to area economic vitality. They first add to the area work force and to area economic activity and production, but they also buy homes and other area goods and services, they use area healt care, they send their children to our schools, and contribute in a variety of other ways to area economies. So, it becomes very difficult to fully gauge the importance of the arts to area economic growth and vitality, simply by looking at yearly expenditures by arts organizations and by patrons of the arts attending events.”  Read the rest of this entry »