ARTSblog

The Creation of Adam, Bob Bosch, used with permission

I always dread the first day of classes. I’m currently getting my master’s in operations research and the first day of class is the time when I start to stand out. In every class, we start by going around the room and saying our name and what we do. It usually goes something like: Bob, military employee; Jim, government contractor; Pete, different government contractor… you get the point. Then comes my turn, “Meredith, Americans for the Arts.” Immediately, heads turn and everybody identifies me as the oddball.  

However, there is a growing and little known area of operations research known as “opt art.” This stands for optimization art and this field utilizes optimization algorithms (operations research technology) to make portraits, pictures, and designs. Some of the pictures are created using the classic “traveling salesman problem” where the goal is to reach every point (city) exactly once in the shortest distance. Others are created with knot problems or using a pointillism approach.  

Dr. Bob Bosch is applying this technology to make portraits using dominos. He has made several portraits of famous people (like Marilyn Monroe) and will even make you a customized portrait of your loved one. Read the rest of this entry »

What an adventure! When Randy Cohen and I started putting the National Arts Index together in 2005, we had little sense of how expansive it would become. At first, we hoped to find about 25 or 30 national and annual measures of arts and culture activity that we could report on annually. We knew of a few national service organizations that kept what we thought were pretty good and robust measures of annual activity in their fields – think symphonies, opera, and theatre. We knew of periodical studies by the NEA and the Census Bureau, as well as some measures at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Urban Institute. When we got going, we thought we could cobble these together into a pretty good annual picture of arts and culture in the U.S. over time.

These turned out to be only a fraction of the data that we ultimately found, as you can see in the full Index report on this site. Our final report, with 76 indicators, really shows a more diverse and multi-faceted system of the arts in America, one that we knew was there, but had not been able to get our hands around. No surprise: there are so many dimensions to the arts system: people, groups, institutions, artistic disciplines, artistic genres, businesses, nonprofit, and government, products, services, experiences, jobs, volunteers, and so much more. Not only “no surprise,” but also “no problem”: we wanted the Index to be as inclusive as possible, so we were happy to find all of the different measures.

Read the rest of this entry »

At a time when the arts and culture community’s understanding of itself is shifting away from traditional conceptions of “arts participation” (i.e. attendance) and focus on publicly-supported business models, creating an empirical index such as the National Arts Index (NAI) is a daunting task. The challenge is that many arts-related data sources are anchored in conventional conceptions of the sector.  Consequently, the NAI makes huge steps forward by including both for- and non-profit indicators, by including indicators of personal participation, and by shedding light on lesser-utilized data sources (see pages 131-134 of the report).

The arts and culture sector seems to be moving toward a broader, more holistic, understanding of itself – one that spans a larger swath of the ‘cultural ecology’ – including professional arts, participatory practice and cultural literacy.  The cultural ecology framework developed by John Kreidler and Philip J. Trounstine in their 2005 Creative Community Index report (page 6) is a simple and elegant depiction of the cultural system. As we in the field continue to develop this broader self-definition, participatory practice and cultural literacy will need to be characterized at the same level of detail as indicators currently included in the NAI. Read the rest of this entry »

As Bill Ivey says, “policy accretes around bodies of data.” If we can develop commonly-accepted metrics for characterizing cultural vitality, then we stand a better chance of influencing policy. You can’t win the game if you don’t know the score. And, if you are filling a void of scorekeeping, then you get to shape the rules for scorekeeping, which means you can change the conversation.  I see the National Arts Index (NAI) as a major step forward on a longer pathway of developing a set of generally accepted standards for assessing cultural vitality in communities, regions and the country. The Urban Institute has already done a lot of forward thinking about the topic, which you can read about here. What matters the most, however, is not the data itself, but the conversation that happens around the data and the extent to which the NAI can be used to galvanize discussion amongst people who can actually change policy.

When the NAI was discussed at the Grantmakers in the Arts conference back in October, it was interesting to see how some people immediately looked through the list of the 76 indicators to see what was included and what was not included. For example, one person pointed out that the NAI includes just one indicator of arts creation (i.e., “participation in music making, painting, drawing, and/or photography”). There are no indicators, for example, of the numbers of people who sing in choirs, or who compose music on GarageBand, or who belly dance.  Those types of data points simply aren’t available, or would cost a lot to generate. But what is the cost of not including them in the national conversation about cultural vitality? This is the risk associated with any aggregate measure like the NAI. Read the rest of this entry »

The National Arts Index is the latest in a series of credible research reports to document the impact of arts and culture on a national and local level. Economic impact studies like the Arts & Economic Prosperity reports, employment data from the Creative Industries Report and other studies have all made significant contributions to our understanding of size and scope of the creative sector, helping to make the case for increased investment in arts and culture.

I know first-hand how valuable this information is to elected officials and policy makers when it comes to setting budget priorities. We continually reply on research from Americans for the Arts and other sources to keep civic leaders and the public informed and up to date on the health of our cultural sector. In difficult budget times like these, the NAI provides a new opportunity to engage in that conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

Galileo Galiliei once said, “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” I congratulate Americans for the Arts and their partners for doing just that by developing the National Arts Index. In so doing they have ignited a crucial national conversation about the arts, their health and vitality, and that of our communities and nation.

Artists, arts administrators and arts patrons may ask, “Why is this Index necessary? Why must we quantify the arts?  The arts are important for their own sake and they are good for our souls, for our children, for the world.” They are, but unfortunately that message doesn’t get through to many policy makers. I liken the arts community’s failure to verbally articulate the value of the arts to a conversation between two people who speak two different languages. One yells louder, figuring sooner or later the other person will understand. We must be able to translate what we value into what the person or audience to whom we are speaking values.  The National Arts Index will be an important aid in this translation process.   Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, the National Arts Index is a real game changer. By widening the frame to look at music royalties, movie screens, and personal creative practice, Americans for the Arts has basically said to the nonprofit fine arts, “You’re now one of many; part of a sector but not the be-all and end-all.”  This new reality, coming at us from the premier US cultural advocacy organization, will have profound implications for policy actors and community leaders all over the country. Do we pursue policies to help out record companies undermined by interenet sales of singles and non-paying file sharing? What’s our position on extending artist and record-label performance royalties from the digital realm into terrestrial radio? How do we connect with the boom in social dancing, as documented by the Wolf-Brown California study?

Well, I for one think we do care about all these things and more. Now that we’re talking about the entire cultural sector, and not just about the nonprofits, we’ve got a fighting chance at creating a policy arena important enough to get the attention of big-time Administration and congressional players.  Americans for the Arts has decided to care about public policy as it affects all of America’s expressive life, and to me that’s a great thing.  Now we need to move on to think about how Fair Use, the overall intellectual property environment, trade in movies and TV shows, and mergers in the arts industries shape the ways art gets created, distributed, and consumed. Read the rest of this entry »

On January 20, Americans for the Arts released the National Arts Index—a new framework to measure the vitality of the U.S. cultural sector based on 76 national indicators grouped by 4 overarching themes: Financial Flows, Organizational Capacity, Arts Participation and Competitiveness.  In a field where obtaining data can be like pulling teeth, assembling the breadth of this information is an accomplishment in itself.  For me, the real value is that we finally have in place an annual, national reflection of a creative sector that embraces a range of activity inclusive of both nonprofit and commercial cultural delivery models.

Reflections aren’t always pretty though. The National Arts Index shows us definitively over an 11-year period that the rules of engagement have changed. Buffeted by changing demographics, the economic business cycle, technology and increasing diverse cultural choices, traditional art forms that have been historic cornerstones of American public life and cultural identity are struggling to compete successfully to obtain the sources of financial support and the audience numbers they need to survive. By revealing long term trends and a key annual measurement of the vitality of the sector, the Index provides an additional incentive to seriously rethink how we support the development of creative expressions and access to the creative process through new models of engaging individuals and communities in the arts.   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.

The Emerging Leader Council and Americans for the Arts needs YOUR help!   As we celebrate the last few months of the Emerging Leader Network’s 10th Anniversary, we are launching a survey to identify the current professional development needs and trends of emerging arts leaders. 

This survey has a few objectives:

• To strengthen the connection between Americans for the Arts and the Emerging Leaders Council and Networks, as well as to connect with new emerging leaders
• To help shape future emerging leader professional development offerings
• To help form and prioritize Emerging Leaders Council goals
• To provide insight to Americans for the Arts on how to better assist emerging leaders in their career development

Click Here to access the survey.

And use this link to share the survey with your community and colleagues:  http://research.zarca.com/k/SsVWVWsSRsPsPsP 

We hope to reach as many Emerging Leaders as possible, and we encourage you to invite others to participate. The survey should take you about 15 minutes of your time to complete. 

Individual survey responses will be anonymous, but combined results will be shared with the field. 

Email Stephanie Evans, Local Arts Agency Services Coordinator, at sevans@artsusa.org with any questions.

Reporting from Seattle! Wednesday was a pre-conference workshop for local arts agency administrators who are also engaged in private sector initiatives (like my organization, the Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, Oregon is doing with its United Arts Fund, Work for Art). Americans for the Arts datahead and amateur comic Randy Cohen presented an overview of arts giving in America, supported by three recently released reports that are, I’ll just say it, discouraging.

A study conducted every 4 years by the National Endowment for the Arts tells us that the percentage of Americans attending live arts events decreased in 2008. It had been fairly steady at 40% in the 80s, 90s, and earlier part of this decade, but now stands at 35%. Now because the study tracks “benchmark” activities – theater, opera, professional dance, classical music, jazz, and art museums – it’s possible that some of the decline is simply attributable to the fact that many Americans are consuming art in different ways — poetry slams, participatory arts, contemporary music festivals and the like. We also discussed our theories on the extent to which technology is playing a role. Randy pointed out that record and CD stores have declined by 50% during the same period, but that certainly doesn’t mean we’re listening to less music, we’re just downloading it.

The annual Giving USA report, released just last week, shows that overall giving to arts, culture and humanities is down, from $13.67 million in 2007 to $12.79 billion in 2008. Yes overall giving was down during this period, but even more distressing is the fact that the arts are losing ever-more market share of all philanthropic contributions. In 2001, 4.9% of every philanthropic dollar went to the arts; in 2008 the arts’ share was 4.1%. That might sound like only a small gap, but the trend is concerning (when does it end?), and it represents a very significant sum: $2.3 billion (which is how much more American businesses, foundations and individuals would be giving today if they were still giving 4.9% to the arts).

Meanwhile, the national BCA (now merging with Americans for the Arts) has a new report that focuses on business support for the arts. Between 2003 and 2006, the percentage of businesses that contribute to the arts increased from 36% to 42%, but total cash support decreased 5%, from $3.32 billion to $3.16 billion. That was during a period of economic growth; obviously, this number is going to worsen over the next couple of years. I’ve read many reports that a majority of corporations plan to hold their contributions flat in 2009, but I’m thinking, yeah right.

Which brings us to the convention proper, which begins today (Thursday). I’ll be following the Private Sector track throughout the conference, with some dabbling in the advocacy and civic engagement tracks, to see if we can’t uncover some best practices and other forms of inspiration to combat these conditions and reverse these trends in the Portland area, if not nationally.

The National Assessment Governing Board released the 2008 NAEP Arts, which presents the educational progress of eighth-grade students nationally in visual arts and music.

Theatre and dance were not surveyed because of budget restrictions and difficulty in previous years finding enough theater and dance classes to yield reliable results. In addition, the questions that assessed student creation of music were eliminated for budget reasons.

In both music and visual arts,

• Average responding scores were higher for White and Asian/Pacific Islander students than Black and Hispanic students. The pattern was the same for the visual arts creating task scores.
• Female students had a higher average responding score than male students. Female students had a higher average creating task score in visual arts.
• Students who were eligible for free/reduced price school lunch had a lower average responding score and a lower average creating task score in visual arts than those who were not eligible.
• City students scored lower than suburban, town and rural students.

Additional findings included the following:

• Eight percent of surveyed schools do not offer music instruction. Fourteen percent of schools do not offer visual arts classes.
• Eight percent of surveyed schools offer music instruction less than once a week. Ten percent of schools offer visual arts instruction less than once a week.
• Fifty-seven percent of eighth-graders in 2008 attended schools where students received music instruction at least three or four times a week.
• Forty-seven percent of eighth-graders in 2008 attended schools where students received visual arts instruction at least three or four times a week.

Although this survey is not designed to assess the frequency of instruction (unlike the 2012 F.R.S.S. in the arts will do), today’s press release began with the headline, “Frequency of Arts Instruction Remains Steady Since 1997 on the Nation’s Report Card in Music and Visual Arts.”

Read more:

1. Executive Summary
2. Today’s Press Release
3. Report Homepage
4. Download Page

If you have questions, please contact Narric Rome, nrome@artsusa.org or 202.371.2830.

By Merryl Goldberg, Ed.D., Professor of Visual and Performing Arts, California State University San Marcos

The selfish or shallow person might be a great musician technically, but he’ll be so involved with himself that his playing will lack warmth, intensity, beauty and he won’t be deeply felt by the listener. He’ll arbitrarily play the first solo every time. If he’s backing a singer he’ll play anything he wants or he’ll be practicing scales. A person that lets the other guy take the first solo, and when he plays behind a soloist plays only to enhance him, that’s the guy that will care about his wife and children and will be courteous in his everyday contact with people.
- Art Pepper, from Straight Life excerpted in Gottlieb (1996), p. 278.

The arts may have lost their way with regard to a purposefulness in today’s education, perhaps even in society, but it is not too late to revolutionize the wheel. I started this piece with a quote from Art Pepper, a great jazz saxophonist. Arts education is often framed as if it is outside the realm of life, as if it is simply a subject to be studied (or not studied). Pepper, in musing about musicians and their attitudes, stumbles upon key parallels to the role that arts can, and over the years have played, in education. Namely, what one learns in order to play music well, or for that matter, what one learns in practicing any art form, can transfer to what one does in everyday life. Read the rest of this entry »

By guest blogger Don Glass, Ph.D., Director of Outcomes and Evaluation, VSA arts, Washington, D.C.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is getting a lot of airplay in Washington this Fall. In addition to several conferences and a virtual forum, the United States Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) just released a Tool Kit on Universal Design for Learning on the web.

The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) defines Universal Design for Learning as, “…a framework for designing curricula that enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning. UDL provides rich supports for learning and reduces barriers to the curriculum while maintaining high achievement standards for all.”

Why is UDL important for arts educators to get to know better?

Read the rest of this entry »

Engaging the Arts for a Creative Workforce
Graduation season is now upon us and soon the job market will be replete with fresh eyed graduates, eager to apply the skills they learned in school to their first jobs.  After listening to speeches that troll the smorgasbord of opportunities available to them after they leave their alma mater, they will depart their schools convinced that they have been adequately prepared for success. 

But to what extent is this true?  Both the art and business communities have been buzzing with the claim that the workforce in the United States is far from where it needs to be creatively.  Read the rest of this entry »