ARTSblog

Welcome to the Green Paper discussion on The Future of the Public Voice in Arts Advocacy. We encourage you to read the full Green Paper available in the tab above and make general comments at this time. Be sure to keep your comments brief—Mike Latvis, the Ambassador for this Green Paper will soon begin deeper, threaded conversations around specific paragraphs, sections or themes that appear in this Green Paper. Follow this conversation thoroughly by adding the The Future of the Public Voice in Arts Advocacy feed to your RSS reader!

With the release of President Obama’s budget today, the LA Times Culture Monster blog brings up some important questions about the arts and where they will stand financially in 2011 and beyond.  If the NEA is facing cuts and there are tax hikes proposed for wealthy individuals, where will this leave the arts?  To read more about this, click here.

Stay tuned this week for more on this topic from Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel of Government and Public Affairs of Americans for the Arts.

This past week I attended a U.S. Department of Education “stakeholders” meeting on the reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The meeting was ground-breaking since it was the first time that the national arts education community had been invited to specifically address the reauthorization policy efforts. Since last June, the Department has been holding these meetings on various reform topics, typically broad and encompassing multiple sectors of the education universe. The meeting was led by Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement (OII) Jim Shelton and attended by Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (PEPD) Carmel Martin, OII Associate Assistant Deputy Secretary Scott Pearson, and PEPD Deputy Assistant Secretary Emma Vadehra.

Held in the Department’s auditorium, the meeting began with short introductory remarks by Shelton and Martin and then the arts education advocates in the audience were given time to speak. While a transcript of the meeting is expected, it will be weeks before it is available.  I’ll just simply say that each speaker made a thoughtful and passionate case for strengthening the arts through ESEA reauthorization. In most cases, representatives from each organization cited research or programs their members had run – or the school administrators and arts educators in the audience spoke about their schools and districts and the positive impact that arts education makes locally. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:43 — 5.2MB)

Randy Cohen, Vice President of Local Arts Advancement for Americans for the Arts, discusses the new National Arts Index in this audio podcast. He talks about how the Index was created and how it can be a boon to local arts agencies and to the arts field as a whole.

Read more about the National Arts Index here.

I was a Jacques Cousteau fanatic starting in my preschool years. I flummoxed my family early on as a precocious three-year old, running around demanding “Jockootoe! Jockootoe!” until someone turned on the TV. When he appeared, I was transfixed.

Since then and until the show went off the air, when The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was on, I was lost in the wonders of the ocean, its mysteries and dangers, and general awesomeness. It was cool—and it stoked an already healthy imagination in a little girl growing up in rural Mountaintop, PA.

I was recently fortunate to have the opportunity to reconnect with my inner science/nature geek by communing with 80 professional artists and scientists, along with arts, university, and nonprofit administrators on a surprisingly snowy weekend in December at the first U.S. convening of the British organization TippingPoint. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:45 — 4.4MB)

Americans for the Arts President & CEO Robert Lynch discusses a recent trip to Art Basel Miami Beach in this audio podcast. While the huge arts fair is a boon for visual art collectors and art lovers, it has also provided a great opportunity for Americans for the Arts to find new, influential voices who will advocate for the arts. Take a listen to Bob discuss new partnerships and key meetings with South Florida members.

Last night, PBS NewsHour aired an interview of National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman. The interview provides some good insight into his background and some important questions and answers about his role as NEA Chairman. Click below to watch the video.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:14 — 3.9MB)

Bob Lynch, President & CEO of Americans, discusses the recent arts advocacy work of the artists from the movie “Me and Orson Welles.” The stars and director not only participated in a panel discussion on arts education for the movie’s premiere in Georgetown, but also spent a day on Capitol Hill talking to legislators about the importance of the arts and arts education.

A few weeks ago, business leaders gathered in New York City to celebrate the companies named to THE BCA TEN: Best Companies Supporting the Arts in America.

I was encouraged and inspired by the passion that CEOs from across the country had for supporting the arts and arts education even in a time of economic uncertainty. These CEOs truly value the role the arts could play in recruiting and retaining employees, building communities, stimulating the economy, and inspiring creativity.

The tremendous support for the arts from the business leaders resonated with all of the people in the room, and reaffirmed the role these companies play in the arts in their communities and nationally. A recent Harris Poll reported that 37 percent of U.S. adults find business leaders to be the most persuasive endorsers of products, beating athletes (21 percent), television or movie stars (18 percent), singers or musicians (14 percent), and former political figures (10 percent). Listening to these CEOs, I could see how this is true. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Sunday, actors, actresses, musicians, and other celebrity artists turned out to show their support for arts education at  P.S. Arts Express Yourself 2009.  This annual event brings out well-known artists such as Jack Black, Lisa Kudrow, and Steve Carell, among others, in an effort to restore arts education programs to all California public schools and to support P.S. Arts programs for students who don’t have access to arts programs in their schools.  While celebrity artists certainly help spotlight the issue of arts education with their advocacy and willingness to speak up for the arts, you don’t have to be famous to be an effective arts advocate. Read the rest of this entry »

When you look back on your love of the arts, was there one person who inspired you? Perhaps it was a high school English teacher that incorporated art history into the classroom. Or it was a dancer teacher that encouraged personal creativity in the dance studio, even among the younger students. Did you take a middle school drama class that allowed you to make lifelong friends and help set a course for your career?

The stars and director of the upcoming movie Me and Orson Welles—Claire Danes, Zac Efron, and Richard Linklater—shared these personal stories and more at a screening in Washington, DC, in partnership with Americans for the Arts and Impact Arts + Film Fund on Tuesday night. The screening panel was moderated by Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss and also included Bob Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts.

While in Washington, the filmmaker and actors joined Americans for the Arts and Impact Film + Arts Fund at advocacy meetings on Capitol Hill and at the White House to discuss with policy makers the critical issues facing arts education in schools today. They met with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Kalpen Modi, Heather Higginbottom, and Rachel Goslins, among others.

The group also sat down for a video interview for Americans for the Arts. Check back on ARTSblog in a few days for the interview and to find out who was inspired by each of the teachers mentioned above. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama continued her show of support for arts and culture by honoring recipients of the Coming Up Taller Awards, given out each year by the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities. The Coming Up Taller Awards recognize and support outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America’s young people, provide them learning opportunities and chances to contribute to their communities. Mrs. Obama recognized the importance of these programs in her remarks:

“Ultimately, each of your programs is using achievement in the arts as a bridge to achievement in life.  And you see all this every day, each and every one of you working so hard.  You see this in your students as they become more confident and more engaged and more willing to take risks and to take responsibility for their futures.  You see it when their academic performance improves, when you see improving attitudes and higher GPAs.  And you see young people who never saw themselves as college material, you see them getting those acceptance letters and you see them going on to pursue their degrees.  So we all know in this room the power of the arts to change young people’s lives.”

To read all of the First Lady’s remarks, click here.

Today brings great news for the arts from Washington. Yesterday, the House and Senate each approved $12.5 million increases for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The FY 2010 Interior Appropriations Bill sets budgets for the two federal grant-making cultural agencies at $167.5 million each. President Obama will sign the bill into law by October 31. With the President’s signature, the NEA will be funded at its highest level in 16 years.

The bill also includes increases for other national arts and culture institutions such as the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Overall, federal cultural funding continues to see incremental, but significant, increases. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:45 — 5.3MB)

Gladstone Payton, Associate Director of Government Affairs for Americans for the Arts, discusses his recent attendance at the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit.  This yearly policy summit covers many important topics that affect musicians and other artists and this year included topics such as artist protection, copyright control, intellectual property, and net neutrality.  In addition, Gladstone discusses a meeting with Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and Kramer’s involvement in bringing the Jail Guitar Doors initiative into U.S. prisons.

In his recent acceptance speech for the 2009 Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, Steven Spielberg described the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the writings of leaders like Jefferson and Lincoln as not only the eloquent expression of incredible ideas, but great works of art.  With this in mind, Speilberg emphasized the importance of the arts and arts funding in America:

“The commercial success of some of my films have made it possible for me to create foundations, build organizations, to try to have an effect on the world. But I’ve never believed that all art must prove itself in the marketplace; or that the marketplace is a congenial environment for all artists. Poetry, theater, serious fiction, symphony orchestras, dance companies and museums require the material support of the society to which they make a vital contribution, or they won’t exist. Read the rest of this entry »