ARTSblog

Tim Mikulski

Earlier today at the Emerging Leaders Preconference, Rosetta Thurman held the full attention of her audience as she walked them through an exercise to help participants develop their own personal mission statement. This paragraph, page, or even piece of  artwork reminds you who you are and helps you make decisions related to how you spend your time in your life. It’s a concise statement that reminds you of what’s important. Thurman tapes hers to her computer screen for those moments when she needs to be reminded to walk away from it.

From the beginning of the session, she asked the ballroom full of emerging leaders to ask themselves “Who are you?” and “Why are you here?” as a guide  in both your professional and personal lives. She also challenged the audience to get away from the paradigm of the “work/life balance” and move closer toward being whole—just include everything that you care about in your life in some way.

Then, taking a lead from author Stewart Friedman, she asked the crowd to think about the four domains of one’s life and determine how much time you spend on them: work, home, community, and your private self.

All of the domains are determined by the individual so work can only include the time you spend at your desk at work or it could include volunteer time, board member time, etc. Home encompasses time spent with family, your spouse/partner, children, chores, shopping, cooking, etc. Community includes whenever you are out “doing good” in your neighborhood. Private self is self-explanatory—taking the time to sleep, exercise, improve your mental health, or getting that mani/pedi as Thurman said.

She asked attendees to then assign a percentage (out of 100) for time spent on each of those four domains. The room fell silent for several minutes.  Read the rest of this entry »

Ken Busby

When you hear the phrase, “the new normal,” do you ever stop and wonder what exactly that means? It certainly has become one of the most often-used phrases that we hear today. Everything has a “new normal.” However, there is something important in these three words. Important enough that it’s the theme for this year’s Annual Convention of Americans for the Arts.

Just this past week, the Dow took a dive or a dip (however you want to look at it) because the country isn’t creating enough jobs. Already, analysts are saying that we might be heading toward another recession—just as we are beginning to see daylight from the last one. So what is “the new normal?” Are we in a period of recovery or are things about to look bleak again?

The answer, quite simply, is yes or no—to both or neither. My point being…it doesn’t really matter what the national economy is doing on a daily basis. There are good days and bad days. However, our jobs as nonprofit arts education administrators and providers go on. And we have to find ways to make it all work. Is it easy? No. Is it necessary? Yes! So we do it—we move forward for the good of our organizations and the people and communities that we serve.

To me, “the new normal” is a reminder that every day is a new day, full of possibilities. Whatever we did yesterday, it’s done. We can’t change it. We can learn from it, but then we have to look to the future. What can we bring to the table today that will make a difference in our community tomorrow?  Read the rest of this entry »

A nice welcome sign at the San Antonio airport.

Although some of our staff members were delayed due to weather on route to San Antonio, everyone made it from out our New York and D.C. offices yesterday in preparation for the beginning of our 2012 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention this morning.

Today’s lineup includes the start of our preconferences—Public Art and Emerging Leaders—as well as several meetings of our peer network leadership councils and partners from our Arts & Economic Prosperity IV Study (which will be unveiled live in-person and via webcast on Friday, June 8 at 1:00 p.m. EDT/Noon CDT).

Registration for the main convention officially opens this evening (5:00 p.m. CDT) at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio before we move into the full slate of peer networking, professional development, innovator, and discussion sessions tomorrow morning.

We look forward to the opportunities that our annual meetings bring for our staff and attendees and we hope you’ll join us even if you aren’t in San Antonio via our webcast on Friday and Convention On-Demand (featuring over 30 hours of recorded sessions) which will be available after we depart Texas.

If you are joining us in person, thank you for making the trip and make sure you share your experience with us via comments on new blog posts throughout the weekend (and into next week), tweets (#AFTA12 is our hashtag), Facebook posts, and photos on Flickr.

Nancy Kelly

On Friday, June 8, I’ll be presenting my award-winning documentary TRUST: Second Acts in Young Lives during the 2012 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in a session titled, “Documenting the Importance of Arts Education.”

The film follows Marlin, an 18-year-old Hondureña, who shares a hidden history about her childhood with a theater company in her Chicago neighborhood, the renowned Albany Park Theater Project.

Marlin’s story is about resilience and empowerment. TRUST captures the amazing response from her fellow actors and the unexpected journey her story takes them on together: they transform Marlin’s story into a daring, original play and Marlin re-claims power over the narrative of her life story.

TRUST is about creativity and the unexpected resources inside teens who may be discounted because of their youth, race, or ethnicity or because they come from under-resourced neighborhoods without access to arts programs.

Woven through TRUST are three main themes: the transformative power of art, the continuing challenges facing immigrants, and the trauma of child sexual abuse. Like the legs of a three-legged stool, these themes are interdependent and not prioritized.

Here is a preview of the film:

Read the rest of this entry »

After two years of hard work, our research team is pleased to present the findings from our Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study on June 8 at our 2012 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in San Antonio. Even better, you can watch live as we roll out our new study of the economic impact of the nonprofit arts and their audiences.

Arts & Economic Prosperity IV demonstrates that the nonprofit arts and culture industry is an economic driver in communities—supporting jobs, generating government revenue, and securing tourism.

Improving upon our 2005 study, with the help of over 180 research partners, we have collected 150,000 audience intercept surveys from cultural event attendees, as well as detailed budget and attendance information from 8,000 nonprofit arts and culture organizations across the country. This will be the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind ever conducted!

Tune in to this link on Friday, June 8 at 1:00 p.m. EDT/Noon CDT to watch Vice President of Research & Policy Randy Cohen present the new findings. (The AEPIV presentation is expected to begin at 1:20 p.m. EDT/12:20 p.m. CDT, so you may see our attendees enjoying their lunch when you first go to the site.)

In addition to Randy, you’ll also hear from panelists Michelle Boone, Julie Muraco, and Michael Spring about how to effectively use this study to make the case for the arts across various sectors.

For more information on Arts & Economic Prosperity IV visit our updated website or contact our research staff.

Liesel Fenner

A ‘lucky 13’ total number of public art blog posts were published this week from public art administrators, artists, designers, educators, and students.

Thank you to everyone in the Public Art Network (PAN) community for contributing and sharing the posts with your networks. Let us know your thoughts on the Blog Salon (you can view all 13 posts with this link) and future public art topics that you would like to see discussed through blog posts, webinars, and other information resources.

A cogent comment by Barbara Goldstein asked “does it work?” and emphatically stated, “It would be virtually impossible to measure whether one work of art has an economic impact in a specific place.” When public art administrators are asked for public art economic impact studies from elected officials, city commissions, and constituents it is incumbent on the public art program to look more deeply at how the artworks work within the larger urban and cultural context.

As Goldstein proposed, “questions that can be asked are more subtle—what makes a specific place memorable? Can you describe what you experience there and how it makes you feel? What do you think when you see a particular artwork? Does it improve your experience of this place?”

Studies are tackling the challenging approach of how to cull one’s personal experience of place, as Penny Balkin Bach introduced us to The Knight Foundation and Gallup Corporation’s Soul of the Community study that states, “community attachment creates an emotional connection to place.” The study determined that the key drivers of attachment are social offerings, openness, and the aesthetics of place—all attributes of public art. Read the rest of this entry »

Angela Harris

When I received the call from Americans for the Arts saying that I had been selected to receive the 2011 American Express Emerging Leaders Award, I had so many emotions.

I was thrilled that the panel appreciated the impact that I was making in the community. I was proud that all of the hard work and countless hours that I had invested into starting a nonprofit and growing from the ground up were being recognized; and I was nervous about the future and committed to making sure that I lived up to the honor of the award.

2012 has been a wonderful season of accomplishments for both me and my organization, Dance Canvas. Since June, when I received the award, I have cultivated a new choreographic partnership with Kennesaw State University, which will be developed into a new track and choreographic options for the students of the dance department.

I also began a new partnership with Career Transition for Dancers, and worked in conjunction with the Los Angeles-based organization to provide career training to dancers and choreographers in Atlanta.

Artistically, Dance Canvas partnered with the Rialto Center for the Arts to provide creative connections to involve the community in educational outreach and residencies. These community connections allowed Dance Canvas to work with The Trey McIntyre Project, and with the French Consulate of Atlanta to present a master class by Pierre Rigal’s production, Asphalte. Read the rest of this entry »

MA Senate President Pro Tem Stan Rosenberg

This blog continues my conversation with Harvey White that took place during the “Heating Up STEM to STEAM” session at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention earlier this summer. Read Mr. White’s initial comments here.

Sen. Stan Rosenberg:
“No, it’s not dumb, but I also want to do a little counterpoint here to see where you might go with this…OK, so I think the key role for the business leaders is to provide the leadership to push the government in the direction to make the investment and make the investment in a wiser way.

We spend $5 billion on education K-12 in Massachusetts. I don’t think it’s fair to go to the business community and tell them to give us another $1-2 billion to run that system. But I would sure love to use the leadership and capacity that they have to push the governor and other people to use some of that money more wisely.

Harvey White:
But you have no qualms at all in saying to the business that you ought to spend another billion on factories? Read the rest of this entry »

Harvey White

During the “Heating Up STEM to STEAM” session at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention this past summer, I engaged Massachusetts Senate President Pro Tem Stan Rosenberg in a tête-à-tête about workforce development. Below is the first half of a conversation we had on the panel (You can access the full session via Convention On-Demand):

“This [educational] system that we have today was created by industry to create the workforce they needed. We’re going to need to get business leaders [involved], as it happened in Massachusetts. If you [arts education advocates] want to talk to somebody other than your arts friends or your educator, talk to your business man—that if you’re going to have the workforce that you want, you need to have the kind of education system that will give you that workforce.

This [expanded arts education] will not, in my opinion, happen if it does not get embraced by business. And I could go on for a long time about what I think that may mean. But talk about wanting to expand this—the next person you want to talk to besides your neighbor and your arts advocate [is the business man]…

Why do business people not embrace this? And [not] give money to it? What I saw was that individual business people give a lot of money. From a philanthropic standpoint, most every community prospers from the rich people from the business world that give money. But businesses don’t. Why is that? I think it’s really very simple…it’s called quarterly earnings. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from this year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention. I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

Here are the second half of my picks for the 50 top tweets from AFTA 2011:

26. @GordonJayFrost The #afta11 sessions on #philanthropy will be available on-demand: http://t.co/id3vwYc

27. @SheWhoTravels Go Marcus! RT“@artfulmanager Sidewalk Poetry project in St. Paul. Turning concrete into canvas. Wow. #afta11 http://t.co/b6mcrgK”

28. @trishamead oooh. Direct link to mobil-ready video trailer? I’m thinking how to maximize QR code on coffee s hop poster, i.e. #2amt #afta11

29. @crystalewallis oooh! RT @wkradio: #AFTA11 DO NOT be fooled into using QR Codes >>> Excellent design will always transmit more information. #techfads Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Evans

I wasn’t able to attend the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention this year, but I did get to participate in the next best thing: following the conversation on Twitter.

There were lots of great discussion and opinions. But unless you were following 24/7, you may have missed some gems.

So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from AFTA 2011.

I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

A big thank you to these great posters for posting meaty tweets – If you like something you see, follow the author on Twitter.

So here goes, from oldest (public art pre-conference) to newest (end of conference) order… Read the rest of this entry »

Harlan Brownlee

I recently attended the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in San Diego and I return from these conferences inspired and energized.

Of particular relevance to our work at the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City is the changing role of the arts in community development.

We often talk about how nothing like the arts can serve to build community. The arts create multiple points of view and bridge the gaps between social class, race, gender, and even political differences. The arts are a great unifier, allowing us to experience our common humanity.

The convention confirmed that there is a growing movement across our country in which arts organizations and arts councils, in particular are serving a meaningful and significant role in the building of community. The arts sector can work in partnership with community development agencies to be a part of the solutions needed for a neighborhood, a city, or a region.  Read the rest of this entry »

Candance Clement

In mid-June I flew from my tiny western Massachusetts town all the way to San Diego for the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention (click here for information on how to buy the Convention On-Demand). Though I have been to their annual advocacy day in D.C. before, this was my first AFTA event that wasn’t focused exclusively on policy. And though I may be able to slap the label “artist” on my life for all those hours I clock playing music in the DIY scene, I’m no “arts professional.”

That meant that I did a lot of listening for three days. As someone who tends to be a bit of a talker when I’m in my element, there’s something to be said for sitting quietly, absorbing, and identifying themes.

The conference brings together about 1,000 people from the arts world – most of them administrators from local and state arts councils, but many serving double duty in the world as artists, too. Read the rest of this entry »

Public art sheep takes a coffee break (Photo by Jed Berk)

You’re walking to your morning coffee shop passing by the regulars sitting at outdoor tables reading and sipping coffee. But wait, something is different. A guy is seated at a table with a sheep. Not a live sheep, but a white fluffy sculptural object placed on the chair next to him. Huh?

Ahhh…the beauty, surprise, and often, humor of temporary public art in spaces where one wouldn’t normally encounter art.

Who was behind this sheep ‘spotting’ moment? The City of San Jose Public Art program – the 2011 Public Art Network Year in Review Program of the Year!

A Champion Flock of Weed Eaters created by artist Jed Berk was reported and digitally recorded  being spotted around the city of San Jose. A temporary public art project for the San Fernando light rail corridor, it was a partnership between the city and the 01SJ Biennial.

Weed Eaters was an anchor artwork on the front lawn of the Diridon Station where a makeshift ‘barn’ housed the flock of sheep and their ewe, a four foot tall ‘Mother Sheep’ complete with an internal computer sculpturally placed in her ‘belly’. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Mikulski

For those of you who were able to attend our local arts education advocacy session at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, you know all about the work of the San Diego Alliance for Arts Education.

For those that couldn’t make it to San Diego a few weeks ago, the Alliance was created as part of a statewide effort by the California Alliance for Arts Education to launch local advocacy groups.

Led by Americans for the Arts’ Arts Education Council Chair Victoria Plettner-Saunders, the group has recently been attempting to restore funding to the San Diego Unified School District’s (SDUSD) Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA). (You can read more about their efforts in an earlier post from ARTSblog or by purchasing our full slate of sessions on our Convention On-Demand site and viewing the local arts education advocacy session).

On June 21, all of their relationship-building and advocacy efforts led to a unanimous vote by the board of education that restored full funding to arts education programs for the 2011-2012 school year. Read the rest of this entry »