ARTSblog

Our Arts Advocacy 2012 advocates at the Congressional Arts Kick-Off.

It’s difficult to write an event recap post when you are still energized/exhausted as a staff member often can be following 48 hours of festivities surrounding Arts Advocacy Day, but I will certainly try.

Following last night’s Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy by Alec Baldwin, the Congressional Arts Kickoff brought together our 500+ arts advocates in the Cannon Caucus Room alongside our artist-advocates and friends from Ovation and elected officials stopping by to express their support for the arts.

Armed with my smartphone in one hand and a flip cam in the other (several flip cams actually—batteries drain very quickly in those things), I witnessed an outpouring of support and passion for the arts like I have never seen (including an amazing performance by VSA artist Alicia Ucciferri).

In addition to our own President & CEO Bob Lynch and Ovation Chairman Ken Solomon (and encouraging words from Rep. Jim Moran, Rep. Todd Platts and Rep. Rosa DeLauro) the following artist-advocates took to the podium to give brief remarks:

• Hill Harper (“I’m an arts advocate and I vote”)
• Nigel Lythgoe (“I believe you’re losing your musical heritage”)
• Alec Baldwin (“I’ll be having lunch with Rocco [Landesman] to talk about using the profits from Book of Mormon to settle the national debt”)
• Pierre DuLaine (“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get the republicans and democrats to dance together?”)
• Melina Kanakaredes (“If it wasn’t for the NEA in Akron, OH, where I grew up, I never would have gotten my start”)  Read the rest of this entry »

A painting now owned by Alec Baldwin (details/reference to come in a future post): Ross Bleckner, "Sea and Mirrors" 1996, oil on linen 84" x 72"

I had a very strict usher shut down the very tool that makes live tweeting possible. Do attendants have issues with Alec Baldwin and wireless devices? Luckily, I was able to take notes in a different fashion without getting booted out of the theatre. I won’t reveal my secrets.

Mr. Baldwin’s speech was an “attempt to distill [his own] relationship to the arts.”

He divided a period of over 50 years into three groups:

1. “Art is all around me but I don’t know what art is.”

2. “Art is all around me so maybe I should introduce myself.”

3. “So much art, so little time.”

Consider the details of your own childhood. Mr. Baldwin’s past is not too unlike our own, if we grew up in a middle class family, in an age of television, movies, and popular radio. What were the moments that triggered a deeper appreciation for art?

What parts of your early awakening made you want to know more about art? What things made you dream of being an artist? What inspired you to envision a path to the improbable?

I remember singing into a hairbrush, and wanting to be Olivia Newton-John. Mr. Baldwin shared as much. Read the rest of this entry »