ARTSblog

Roger Vacovsky

Last week, I renewed my membership for my alma mater’s alumni association. I understand now, more than ever, that my participation in the program contributes to not only the future success of my university, but also to my own past experiences.

Since my graduation, I have enjoyed watching the University of Houston (UH) flourish, albeit from afar, receiving periodic email updates regarding the upgrades to the campus. This includes the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, a tremendous effort by the university to combine five arts-based departments into one collaborative arts force. Although I am just one alumnus contributing to my university’s growth, I feel as though I played a part in making these improvements possible.

I was even eager to experience the progress of the Houston Cougar football team in 2011—which I had absolutely no part in during my time in school—as it set records for a fierce offense and toppled another, much more storied (and recently infamous) football program in a bowl appearance this year in Dallas.

There are many good reasons why we become members of our graduating university’s alumni association. As I had mentioned before, we begin giving back to the institution that helped us prepare for a successful career. We want to enhance the experience of the future generation of students so that they can go on to achieve greatness.

Believe it or not, the continued success of your alma mater retroactively increases the worth of your degree. By becoming a member of your alumni association, your membership dues help your university realize the success it consistently fights to achieve. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12%

Tim Mikulski

I hate that I have to write this sentence yet again, but I don’t think I can start this entry without stating the very obvious point…

Arts education continues to face budget battles in school districts across the country due to the sagging economy, failing revenue models, and just plain ignorance to the value of music, visual art, dance, and theater to students.

In a recent post, I discussed the use of hyperlocal journalism sites like Patch.com and local blogs to get the word out about your local programs, but just as valuable can be a good old-fashioned protest, utilizing the talent of the students to get the attention of those types of websites, as well as your friends in the local news media.

Here is a great example of a local news report in Ohio:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Rob Schultz

As the population of the United States matures in the 21st Century, data shows that there are as many people over age 65 as are under age 20.

To respond to this demographic shift, the Mesa Arts Center initiated an important pilot program to reach an underserved population of seniors, and early results are very promising!

The center enlisted the services of two marvelous local teaching artists, Tessa Windt (fibers), and Elizabeth Johnson (dance), to work directly with seniors at three Mesa facilities as part of the Creative Aging Program. The goal of the program is simple: uplift individual creative expression in older adults through movement, story, dance, and engagement in art making.

We’re excited that we’ve not only met our goal, but also impacted this special population in meaningful ways and we’re ready to make this program a permanent part of our services to the community.

Beginning with a curriculum map, staff and the artists developed program outcomes, a learning plan, and assessment evidence for the eight-week project. Elizabeth Johnson worked with a group of seniors at an independent-living facility. She quickly found their level of engagement to be unexpectedly high, with people practicing their movements between workshop sessions, and many seniors insisting that they teach Elizabeth about the music and dance of “their” era.  Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15%

Deb Vaughn

While facilitating a panel recently, the need for one-on-one attention to help students achieve their personal goals came up.

This got me thinking about IEP’s (Individualized Education Programs). An IEP is developed to meet the unique educational needs of an individual student who may have a disability.

Here’s my thought: Don’t we all need an IEP?

I don’t mean to downplay the critical importance of IEP’s for students with disabilities (in fact, IEP’s are mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act), but to acknowledge that what works for one student, regardless of their disability status, may not work for the next.

We all have unique educational needs.

As an adult, I fill out a yearly self-evaluation, detailing my goals for the next year and my plan to achieve them. I work closely with my supervisor to make sure I include her feedback, but my self-knowledge is the driving factor in developing the plan. Together, we create an IEP for my professional development. At the end of the year, I identify areas that need continued improvement and go forward from there.

Isn’t this the kind of reflective goal-setting that encourages students to take responsibility for their education? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 17%

Hannah Jacobson

Quick — point to Dublin, OH on a map.

How about Clinton County, MI; Douglasville, GA; or Missoula, MT? (Zero points if one of those cities is your hometown).

For those of us with a few years between elementary school geography and the present, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise if these seemingly arbitrary locations elude us.

Some residents of Taiwan, however, might find Dublin as easily as they would their own hometowns. It’s a similar story for students in Shiga, Japan with Clinton County; Denmark with Douglasville; and Neckargemün, Germany with Missoula.

In Americans for the Arts’ December webinar, produced in tandem with the special report entitled Backyard Diplomacy, we found out that cultural exchange—taking various forms of art that are from, inspired by, or headed to a distinctly foreign locale—is happening every day, in cities small and large, through local arts agencies (LAAs).

The major lesson? LAAs of any size and shape can and should feel empowered to take a field trip around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Brian D. Cohen

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” (Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics).

The educational model of learning by doing is nowhere better exemplified than in arts education. Teachers in every discipline increasingly recognize the value of not only what students know, but what they do with what they know.

Educators are talking a lot about assessment these days, but education is too complex an enterprise to measure in one dimension. Measurement in education is too often instantaneous and linear; a momentary capture of what we already know we’re looking for. At one moment, a student shows that he or she knows a certain amount about one thing, and then the class moves on.

Say you’re learning about cell division.

Your class takes a week to study it, at the end of which you have a test. You get 36 of 50 right and you get a C – and you may never learn why you got 14 wrong or how to get them all right. And, by the way, you learn that you’re bad at science (which nobody told you involves observation and experimentation – just like art).  Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15%

In 2012, Americans for the Arts resolves to invigorate political discourse and the nation by continuing to spotlight the importance of the arts in America. Artists, teachers, arts managers and professionals, lawmakers, administrators, and advocates are integral to this mission.

This election year, the urgency is growing to have political candidates and office holders understand how arts are vital to our communities. We ask that you make your own resolutions this year by responding to this question:

How can the arts energize the political dialogue in your community this election year?

Here are some insightful responses to get you thinking. Add yours in the comments below! Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 25%

New Year’s Resolutions for the Arts Administrator:

Stephanie Evans Hanson

•    Participate in one arts and culture activity or lecture per week (okay, realistically – maybe two per month)
•    Finally read the pile of field related books and articles that I’ve been collecting on my desk
•    Volunteer for another arts organization and/or join a board
•    Take a class or workshop totally unrelated to my job
•    Give more public speeches
•    Write more blogs

Do those sound familiar? Are any of my New Year’s career goals similar to yours? Does writing or reading your own professional or personal list of goals for the year feel as exhausting to you as reading mine does to me?

Yes, all of the above tasks and goals I outlined for myself are important to me, and they are things that I’d like to do. But lately, I’ve found myself wanting to unplug more and do less. I’m finding that when I allow myself to disconnect from daily tasks, to do lists, Twitter, and Facebook feeds, a funny thing happens: I’m actually more productive.

During the holiday break, I really did take a break. From everything. When I came back to the office yesterday, my head felt clear. I moved through projects and tasks with lightning speed, and left feeling energized and excited about what I worked on. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13%

Tim Mikulski

Trying to garner the attention of local media for something happening in the arts can be a daunting task — particularly if you live in a major media market with only a few newspapers, a handful of TV stations, and one or two radio stations interested in community affairs.

It’s even harder to find out how your local school board voted on your district’s arts education budget or how your state legislative candidates feel about funding for the arts.

All of that is beginning to change thanks to the world of local blogs and websites that are now becoming what used to be the areas covered by a community newspaper, but with easier access and greater availability to everyone.

Local blog sites are everywhere and should be leveraged for all of the above, particularly the “ist” blogs, as they provide a ton of city/regional coverage for the arts, as well as local government actions, etc.

Large cities like Washington, DC also have neighborhood blogs that serve a smaller niche like Prince of Petworth and Penn Quarter Living.

But, there are two websites (although not quite national yet) that often fill up my inbox when it comes to my numerous Google News Alerts for a variety of arts and arts education news –  Patch.com and Examiner.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15%

Max Donner

Dozens of new records were set at the historic auction of the Elizabeth Taylor Collection December 13-17. This crowned two years of historic new price records for all types of art, all around the world.

The momentum began with the auction of Alberto Giacommetti’s “Walking Man I” for $104 million at Sothebys-London in February 2010. The sale remains the highest auction price for sculpture, but a new record for art at auction was reached just three months later with the sale of Picasso’s painting “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.”

New artist and category records have continued to impress the art world almost daily ever since.

Research indicates that art market prices will continue to increase for several years and that art organizations need to plan ahead for this.

One important trend is “White Glove Auctions.” These are auctions at which every single work offered for sale is sold. While they used to be rare, this phenomenon accelerated at the auctions of photographs by Richard Avedon in Paris in November 2010 and drawings by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt in December 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Tim Mikulski

It’s become a tradition that ARTSblog offers up a question as part of our annual New Year’s card (our 2012 question will be posted in two weeks), so I didn’t want to take away from that when I started writing a “Happy Holidays” post this morning.

As I began writing a simple message thanking our members, friends, arts leaders (both emerging and emerged), artists, arts administrators, arts educators, social media readers, bloggers, advocates, funders (current, past, and future), partner organizations, business leaders, and (insert anyone I accidentally missed here), I searched the Internet for a quote that would be appropriate for the holidays or New Year that also included the arts.

I found a few that I liked, but then it dawned on me. I need only look back to our 2009 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy given by Wynton Marsalis. His performance/speech was titled “The Ballad of the American Arts.”

As he covered our country’s history, the end of Marsalis’ speech talked about the future and I think this passage sums up the end of year/holiday feeling that many of us have this time of year: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12%

A solitary blue ribbon replaced Jerry Sandusky in this mural by artist Michael Pilato. (Photo from BusinessInsider.com)

We often see examples of art used as a way to heal a community following tragedy, whether it be something catastrophic like war or a sudden death, all of the arts can be used as an escape, a catalyst for further examination, or in countless other ways.

While reading through news articles last night, I happened upon a piece written for a student newspaper of Penn State.

It wasn’t very long ago that the name of the institution wouldn’t cause a shudder within me. Having grown up across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the school’s football (and sometimes basketball) program often appeared on the local news thanks in part to sharing a state with Philly and a huge number of alumni living the the Delaware Valley.

Having gone to a small, liberal arts state school in New Jersey, I will probably never understand the culture of an enormous university like Penn State (although I think NPR’s This American Life shed some light on that for me a few weeks ago).

As most of America sat on the proverbial sidelines watching the fallout from the horrifying child molestation scandal unfolding in State College, PA, you could see that the town has a lot to work through as the case continues on into 2012.

This is where an artist can make an impact.

Local muralist Michael Pilato revisited a previous work (pictured above) and created a new one to honor victims of sexual abuse… Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Stephanie Riven

Perhaps you have been following David Brooks’ series of op-eds in The New York Times. He asked people over 70 to send him “Life Reports” — essays about their own lives and what they’d done poorly and well.

No need to wait until we turn 70 to reflect on these “life lessons” and devise our own, especially as we approach the time for New Year’s resolutions.

Formulating lessons are important for all of us who work in the arts, whether as a performer, an administrator, an advocate, or an educator. These lessons are especially important because of the nature of our field — low wages, long hours, competition for jobs, among other obvious challenges.

What can we learn from Brooks and those who submitted “Life Reports?”

Divide your life into chapters: Brooks talks about “the happiest of his correspondents being those that divided time into (somewhat artificial) phases.” He describes these people as those who could see time as “something divisible into chunks” and they could more easily stop and self-appraise. This approach, he says, “gave them more control over their lives.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 17%

David Armano of the Harvard Business Review recently published six 2012 predictions for social media.

Although he made some inaccurate predictions about 2011, here is what he is suggesting for 2012 (with links added by me):

“Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with “real life,” we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could “swipe” their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino’s Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of “trans-media” experiences are likely to define “social” in the year to come.

The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout’s attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we’ll continue to see play out in the next year.  Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15%

Throughout the country, many performing groups have taken to public forums to display Random Acts of Culture™ (supported generously by the Knight Foundation) covering all art forms including music, dance, and theater.

Just a few weeks ago, the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte captured this dance performance from their local airport:

But there are so many other examples to choose highlight including a string quartet at an outlet mall in Georgia:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13%