ARTSblog

Laura Bruney

In front of a sold-out crowd of almost 150 hospitality executives, arts directors and community leaders at the Intercontinental Miami; the Arts & Business Council’s annual Breakfast with the Arts & Hospitality Industry got off to a rousing start. George Neary from the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau welcomed participants by exclaiming, “Miami is what the world wants to be!”

Much of the “Miami” brand features the arts and our world class cultural community. Art Basel Miami Beach is well known for attracting cultural tourists. But it is not alone.

Music fans from around the world come for Ultra Music Festival; half a million arts lovers come for the Coconut Grove Arts Festival; architect buffs visit the New World Center on Miami Beach and take art deco walking tours hosted by Miami Design Preservation League; and, film enthusiasts flock to the Miami International Film Festival. Read the rest of this entry…

(This post, originally published on KnightArts.org, is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage. Visit our website to find out how both businesses and local arts agencies can get involved!)

Sarah Lawson

You’ve probably never visited an art gallery or a classical music concert in Charlottesville, VA.

Though the area is known for its views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, historical landmarks, and local food culture, many people don’t consider it an arts destination. At Piedmont Council for the Arts (PCA), we see this every day.

Residents might know everything that’s happening in one area of arts interest, but nothing broader. Visitors tour Monticello or the University of Virginia, but rarely stay the extra day to explore our museums or see a play performed by one of our many community theater groups.

Very few people ever see the full breadth of the Charlottesville area arts community.

However, data from Americans for the Arts’ Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study in the Greater Charlottesville area showed that our arts and culture industry generates $114.4 million in annual economic activity, supporting 1,921 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $9.2 million in government revenue.

As the Charlottesville community continues to grow this arts and culture sector, we see a greater need to address this issue of coordinated cultural tourism.  Read the rest of this entry »

Laura Bruney

When the board and volunteers of over 1,000 non-profit arts groups in Miami-Dade donned clipboards to conduct surveys with their audience and patrons, they wanted to showcase that the arts are an essential part of the economy. Their hard work paid off in a big way.

The surveys that were collected from hundreds of groups and their participants were compiled and studied. The resulting report, Arts & Economic Prosperity IV developed by Americans for the Arts for cities and states throughout the country shows that even in a declining and difficult economy the arts are relevant and can be considered an essential tool for economic stimulus solutions. The Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs partnered with Americans for the Arts for the local component.

Here are the drum roll worthy results: the arts in Miami-Dade have an impressive annual economic impact of more than 1.1 billion dollars. From Aventura to Homestead, from Coral Gables to Miami Beach, from downtown to the seashore the arts are everywhere. There are more than 1,200 non-profit arts groups in our community and they employ more than 22,000 full-time professionals and workers.

“The arts are an integral part of Miami-Dade County’s economy and our creative design industry is one of the top reasons why companies choose to establish their businesses in our community,” says Pamela Fuertes, Vice President of the Beacon Council. “Under our One Community One Goal (OCOG) study, the creative design industries were identified as a key industry that is vitally important to our present and future growth, and the arts are a big part of that success.”

Every day, arts and cultural organizations act as economic drivers—creating an industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue, and is the cornerstone of our tourism industry, playing a leading role in Miami-Dade’s success.

According to George Neary, Vice President of Cultural Tourism for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, cultural tourism increases visitors and attracts people that spend more time and money in our destination…

Read the rest of this post at KnightArts.org as it was originally published on that site on August 11…

This post is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage. Visit our website to find out how both businesses and local arts agencies can get involved!

Lydia Black

The Southwest Florida nonprofit arts community has always argued the economic and social value of the arts community. We’ve advocated on behalf of our creative community; engaged the public in conversations about the depth and breadth of our cultural offerings; boasted large attendance numbers; and, painted a picture of arts as placemakers and the heart and soul of community.

And until recently, we advocated for the arts by estimating economic impact numbers, by supposing that indeed there was an economic impact. Our advocacy lacked the confidence that would have been buttressed by language informed by hard data. Well not anymore.

With the Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study in hand, we can definitively say that our arts and culture industry is an economic and social powerhouse. In 2010, during arguably the worst economy in recent memory, Lee County’s nonprofit arts and culture industry generated $68 million, supported more than 2,000 full-time jobs, and pumped $9 million into local and state coffers.

For a county that speaks the language of baseball, that number is more than the estimated $45–50 million generated here by the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins, combined.

Many in the cultural community have lamented the fact that the arts industry is always justifying its existence to state and local officials in return for small investment dollars. Yet, at the same time, many of us in the arts community were doing nothing to change our language to that which public officials and business leaders could relate—namely dollars, jobs, and return on investment.

The economic impact study results have already helped to shift the discussion of the arts industry from one of entertainment, education, and inspiration to one of the arts industry as an integral economic engine in the county. Read the rest of this entry »

Cathy Malloy

One of our favorite catchphrases is “the arts are the backbone of our region.” And that is especially true of the City of Hartford, where arts, heritage, and cultural organizations are so ingrained in the local economy.

They are a primary driver of tourism, welcome millions of visitors each year, and support hundreds and hundreds of jobs; the arts have a huge impact on the service sectors—like restaurants, parking lots and small businesses—that depend on an influx of patrons from the surrounding suburbs.

Without the arts, Hartford would be just another commuter town, a nine to five destination for state and city employees.

The best illustration of the importance of the arts to the city’s economy is the Hartford Arts and Heritage Jobs Grant Program, one of the many grants initiatives managed and administered by the Greater Hartford Arts Council. These grants are a partnership between the City of Hartford and the Arts Council, and are specifically designed to really quantify and measure the impact of arts, heritage, and cultural programming on the city’s “bottom line,” and to show how a vibrant arts community can generate jobs and play a vital role in redefining the urban environment.

Since 2009, the city has invested over $2 million in arts programming, events, and micro-enterprise businesses in the arts—everyone from graphic designers to local vendors providing much-needed services to artists living and working in Hartford.

The program has seen tremendous success, generating almost $4.5 million in economic activity and, most importantly, supporting dozens of full and part-time jobs. “Job creation” initiatives have certainly become the latest national craze, and this program has a three-year track record of creating and supporting jobs through the arts—a testament to the impact of the arts. Read the rest of this entry »

María Muñoz-Blanco

Preparing for a briefing to our (Dallas) City Council’s Art, Culture, & Libraries Committee on the Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study, I thought about doing a bit of random testing on the research findings.

I just wanted a few talking points, really, to localize the fantastic data collected, analyzed, and interpreted by the dynamic duo of Randy Cohen and Ben Davidson. I didn’t quite finish my “scientific” research in time for the briefing, but but then Theresa Cameron emailed with an invite for this Blog Salon…and so here it is.

Totally random, not quite scientific, some would say rather biased research. But it does add up.

My first test: event-related spending. To check on the non-local audience spending, I volunteered myself as the test subject and trekked to the lovely city of Fort Worth (38 miles from home, across municipal and county boundaries) to spend the day visiting the Fort Worth Cultural District.

I started at the Amon Carter Museum to view the fantastic exhibition American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning & Their Circle; followed by a personal pilgrimage to see one of my favorite artworks in North Texas; then a quick peek at the construction of the Kimbell’s expansion; then checked out the work of local artists at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. I still had the Cowgirl Hall of Fame Museum on my to do list, but at 104 degrees, it was time to stop walking around.

So…like a good Texan, when the heat gets to you…a bit of retail therapy always helps. On my way in, I spied the Montgomery Street Antique Mall, so it was only fair to stop by on my way back to Dallas.

The tally for my day-trip as a cultural tourist in Fort Worth: $209.32. Read the rest of this entry »

I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) last week to see Levitated Mass.

I love Michael Heizer’s work and travel miles to see it. His commissioned projects in Seattle and Reno are my places of cultural tourism. I saw Double Negative in decay in 1980 and City Complex in its early nineties form. I also love rocks. Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic—I find in them extraordinary sculptures of time.

I loved the celebration of the journey of the rock (check out this video of the voyage) as it traveled from the quarry to the art museum at 11 miles per hour.

So the odd thing is that the rock isn’t the star in Heizer’s new commission. It’s the trench.

The trench is the star of “Levitated Mass.”

Levitated Mass is about the channel, the journey through the land. The 456-foot channel offers a tour of construction excellence and fetishistic form work. The concrete is polished to a matte marble finish; the finished edges and surfaces align perfectly over a huge distance. Even the discrete railing is a perfectly formed negative channel worthy of detail photos. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Bowers

I would characterize our relationship with our local business community as “maturing” and “promising.”

As a united arts fund agency, Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga has received significant support from our businesses over our 43-year history. Thanks to an influx of significant new businesses and a fresh look at our cultural resources, our future relationships with corporations are even more promising.

Despite our nation’s economic challenges, Chattanooga is experiencing a renaissance thanks to the impact of major new industries locating in our community, most notably Volkswagen (Did I mention that the Passat is a GREAT car?).

Fortunately for our arts community, when Volkswagen announced their decision to build their new Passat production plant they chose to do so at our fantastic Hunter Museum of American Art.

In their announcement, Volkswagen noted that in making their decision “the intangibles became tangible.” We, of course, have been touting to everyone that they were referring to the arts and the role they play in making Chattanooga a great place to live and work.

In addition to our Volkswagen boost, during the past two years, Allied Arts has facilitated a community cultural planning process that we named Imagine Chattanooga 20/20 (IC 20/20). Through this process we have deepened our connection with the community and have increased the perceived value for the arts. Read the rest of this entry »

Narric Rome

On May 10, U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson and the U.S. Secretary for the Interior Ken Salazar released the U.S. National Travel & Tourism Strategy as developed through the Task Force on Travel & Competitiveness.

The task force had been set up through a Presidential Executive Order in January that called for a strategy within 90 days. President Obama announced the Executive Order at a visit to one of the most popular tourist sites in the world, Main Street USA in Disneyworld.

That same day in Orlando, FL, a new slate of members of the U.S. Travel & Tourism Advisory Board was sworn in by Secretary Bryson, including Americans for the Arts President & CEO Robert Lynch and Linda Carlisle, the Secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Cultural Resources—both critical voices representing the arts and cultural tourism community within the larger tourism sector.

In its first three months of work, The U.S. Travel & Tourism Advisory Board (TTAB) developed a set of recommendations to Secretary Bryson to inform his work, and that of the task force, on the development of the national strategy.

Among the TTAB recommendations that relate to the arts and culture were:

(1) the inclusion of the arts as an objective to attracting tourists to secondary markets throughout the country,

(2) how an “authentic” experience is critical to a quality experience, and

(3) the need to include local tourism partners, such as city agencies and destination marketing organizations as partners with the federal government. Read the rest of this entry »

Wayne Andrews

Where we live is important to each of us. It is a key part of our identity. It’s a source of pride, even if our hometown is the punch line to a joke.

Is it really the good schools, parks, and access to shopping centers that make us live where we live? Many people find a fulfilling sense of community in smaller towns and rural regions that do not have all the advantages of larger communities.

Maybe it is not the measurable elements that give a place a sense of community but rather those intangible qualities that create the feeling. Could it be that working with your neighbors to build a park is more important to the sense of community than the actual park? The arts have always been one of the focal points around that help to build a sense of community.

Town festivals, cultural events, and celebrations are often the most visible signs of a community working together. Each pumpkin festival, summer concert series on the town square, or art sale pulls together diverse elements of the community.

An example of this can be seen in Oxford, MS, which has worked to define itself as an arts community. Numerous programs have been launched in partnership between various segments of the community.

Last year working with local business owners, artists, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a monthly art crawl was launched to highlight the visual artists in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Greaves

I just returned from several days in Wilson, NC, where I am assisting with the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park Project. This ambitious project involves conserving twenty-nine of local artist Vollis Simpson’s monumental wind-powered kinetic sculptures and relocating them from a field outside his repair shop at a crossroads in rural Lucama to an expressly designed downtown sculpture park in nearby Wilson.

This weekend was the annual Whirligig Festival, a street fair inspired by the community’s affection for Mr. Simpson’s artworks, which already adorn several public locations downtown, providing an aesthetic identity and metereological indicator for Wilsonians.

Despite enthusiastic sanction and financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts, ArtPlace, the Educational Foundation of America, the North Carolina Arts Council, and many others, the true power of this remarkable placemaking project resides in its grassroots foundation.

The concept of using vernacular art to leverage investment in the community for the goal of cultural tourism and arts-driven economic development originated with local stakeholders concerned about both Mr. Simpson’s legacy (he is 92 and can no longer climb the 55-foot sculptures to grease bearings and repaint rusting surfaces) and the economic future of Wilson in a post-tobacco economy (Wilson once boasted the title of the world’s largest tobacco market). Read the rest of this entry »

Downtown Niagara Falls

After our amazing visit to Cooperstown, my family headed farther upstate to Auburn, NY. (We also stopped in Elmira to see where Mark Twain wrote most of his books.)

When we arrived in Auburn, we headed for the Seward House. The Seward house was the home of William Seward who was Governor of New York, a U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. In addition to serving as the family home, it was also a stop for the underground railroad.

The house has been perfectly preserved as the family kept everything, including receipts for many of their purchases. The Seward family resided in the house until the late 1950s when it was made into a museum.

The next day, I was lucky enough to meet with representatives from a few of Cayuga County’s arts and history organizations, along with the economic development director, the director of the Cayuga County Office of Tourism, and the head of economic development for the county. We discussed cultural tourism in the county and how they might enhance the visitor experience by developing a cultural district in downtown Auburn. Read the rest of this entry »

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Well it’s the end of August and I have just returned from a very American vacation where I traveled throughout upstate New York.

The trip was mainly designed around visiting one main attraction — an iconic American museum. None like it anywhere else in the world and attracts thousands of visitors every day! Have you guessed it yet?

It’s located in little Cooperstown New York.

Yep, it’s the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum!

It was really an experience to visit this amazing place full of history about our national pastime. There was a feeling of reverence and silent worship around the exhibits as people starred at all these players and their magnificent abilities. I was in awe at how many people talked in hushed, respectful voices about their favorite players. It was like Valhalla for so many visitors, including my family. Read the rest of this entry »

Olga Garay

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) is pleased to announce that we have received an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), one of only 51 grants awarded nationwide.

DCA will receive a $250,000 award, the largest grant amount available, to support the design of the Watts Historic Train Station Visitors Center and Artist Pathways. Principal partners are the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which is already providing preservation services for the Watts Towers.

Our Town is the NEA’s new leadership initiative focused on creative placemaking projects. In creative placemaking, partners from both public and private sectors come together to strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeanie Duncan

(Continued from Part 1 posted earlier this week)

Process: Constituency Research Yields Insight

As we surveyed our situation, we knew our approach could not be a typical strategic planning process. Board and staff discussion charted an outside-in strategy for data gathering. Our selected consultant was a branding, PR, and market research firm whose representatives reminded us from the beginning that “it doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what your customer – the community – thinks.”

With the potential for change to be significant, it was essential that the United Arts Council of Greensboro (UAC) communicate openly, early, and often to the constituents who relied on our funding, as well as their core audiences and supporters. For some agencies,our investment comprised as much as 20 percent of their contributed revenue. Regardless of the percentage, the resource was critical; we wanted to mitigate negative impact while giving historically funded agencies ample lead time for planning and preparation.  Read the rest of this entry »