ARTSblog

Carol Bogash

In Anne Midgette’s February 2013 article for The Washington Post magazine, the headline asked “Can the Arts Save Students?” After spending many years working in the arts and education arena, I think the better headline might read, “Can the arts plant seeds for a brighter future”? And, I believe the answer is a firm and resounding—YES!

During the 1950s and 60s, school systems in the United States believed in the importance of the arts as part of an excellent education. I actually began my career as a music teacher in the Baltimore City Public Schools during the ’60s.

At that time, there were music teachers—indeed departments—in every elementary, middle, and high school. There were bands, orchestras, choirs, and general music throughout the grades. There were performing opportunities for the students. Thousands of children attended Baltimore Symphony Orchestra education concerts. Some of those students went on to become musicians and teachers. Most went on to other professions.

One of my fondest memories is of giving blood at a Red Cross blood drive, and while laying there with a needle in my arm, the nurse began to sing the Western High School song. She had been my student decades before and still loved to sing. I was stunned that she actually remembered the song!  Read the rest of this entry »

Karen Stults

At the Baltimore Art + Justice Project, we generally do not debate the merits of scale. We are a citywide project based in Baltimore. Our scale is fixed. What we have wrestled with, adapted to, and been challenged by is the question of scope.

Scale is about numbers. Scope is about variety.

A project designed by Director of the Office of Community Engagement at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) Karen Stults, the Baltimore Art + Justice Project was originally designed as an asset inventory for the newly-minted office. In building the office, there was a distinct and urgent need to more fully understand MICA’s impact and role as a community-engaged campus in Baltimore City.

The asset inventory was to identify where, how, and with whom MICA was engaged in arts-based social change in the city, as a framework for the creation of new programs that avoid duplication, build on strengths, and increase impact.

When presented with the opportunity to receive national funding from the Open Society Foundations in New York, and to use the data collection process as a means to also contributing to a larger dialogue about the role of socially-engaged art and design, the MICA-specific inventory expanded to a citywide initiative. Read the rest of this entry »

Rebecca Yenawine

In reading people’s Blog Salon posts I am glad to see innovative approaches to assessing the impact of public art, how inviting people to tell stories can be used as an assessment tool, and how one can look at arts impact on well-being and social cohesion.

I am even more convinced that it is important that the evaluation process be one that is engaging and inclusive of arts richness rather then an empty distillation of findings that caters to a potential funders need to assess impact.

This process must be more then about giving funders what they want or about being able to tell whether one program, artist or project is better than another, but rather, to help us understand arts role in our communities and on the individual so that we might advocate for a change in the way investment takes place.

If art is in fact offering a space for developing social understanding, for connecting and building relationships, and for developing greater cohesion, part of the story that needs to be told is about how and why this is a valuable counterbalance to a society whose bureaucracies emphasize productivity, economic success, and competition without fostering the larger social fabric of communities.

One possible way to frame evaluation is to make clear the problems that art addresses. Read the rest of this entry »

Rebecca Yenawine

I have been a community arts practitioner in Baltimore City for the last 15 years.

After years of being asked by funders how my program evaluates its outcomes and answering with anecdotal stories and satisfaction survey results, I decided to try to find more meaningful ways tell the story of this work so that its potential for impact could be better understood and attract investment and resources. To this end, I began some small research projects.

In 2010, Zoe Reznick Gewanter and I conducted a study of 14 community arts practitioners. Practitioners were interviewed and asked how they define community arts, what their methods are and what outcomes they see as a result of the work. Here’s a video of that work:

After transcribing and coding their interviews, several clusters of outcomes emerged: Read the rest of this entry »

Graham Dunstan

This is my 13th Americans for the Arts Annual Convention—that’s if you count me crashing the closing reception at the World of Coca Cola Museum in Atlanta in 1999 even though I wasn’t a registered attendee. (That took effort, so I count it).

I spent some time yesterday thinking about what Convention offers me and if I rely on it now for different things than I did earlier in my career. When I was working at the Fulton County Arts Council in Atlanta from 1999 to 2004, Convention for me was all about helping grow the fledgling emerging leaders program and gaining the tools I needed as a new arts administration professional.

And I’ll tell you, I looked forward to Convention all year long. When I arrived on site I’d absorb the information from the program book—circling sessions I wanted to attend and creating a complicated schedule with different colored highlighters so I best take advantage of every session and networking opportunity that interested me.  Read the rest of this entry »