The orgy of blogging going on at the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference Blog and the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Salon prevented me this week from getting out Around the Horn on its usual Monday schedule (or Tuesday, or Wednesday). Late is better than never, however, and so here is the latest round-up of interesting items from the web:
- Arts community consultant Arlene Goldbard has launched a new website that synthesizes the conversations that came out of the May 12 meeting between arts activists and the White House. The site provides an opportunity to get involved if you like.
- Our good friend Adam Forest Huttler of Fractured Atlas is interviewed by CultureBot’s Andy Horwitz.
- Our other good friend, Alex Ross of The Rest is Noise fame, has packed up shop and re-opened at the New Yorker‘s website. The blog is called Unquiet Thoughts and is better than ever.
- Friend of the arts Rocco Landesman, better known as Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, is everywhere this week after laying low for his first couple of months on the job. First, he gave the closing keynote at the aforementioned GIA Conference, the full text of which you can read at his blog. Oh, and second, he (or rather, the NEA) has a blog! Third, he’s going on a six-month tour across the USA looking at how “Art Works” (the NEA’s new slogan) works in downtown communities, kicking off, of course, in Peoria, IL. And he has interviews in the LA Times and Variety. Unstoppable!
- The Great Recession continues to take a toll, even at the top. The Wallace Foundation announced, while GIA was in mid-conference a borough away, that it would be laying off 15 members of its 51-person staff, including two in the arts program.
- Hells yeah! The Chronicle of Philanthropy linked to me!
- New models R us! Chris Ashworth opens up the discussion with a proposal to increase access to the artist and the artist’s process for $$$. Scott Walters comes out with his own paradigm that brilliantly blurs the lines between producer, presenter and community center, and adds some inspiration from a Danish health club to boot. Great stuff.
- Isaac asks theaters, “Do you actually want younger audiences, or do you just want their money?” Great question. Also in the social media outreach vein, check out Beth Kanter on the subject.
- Turns out a Carnegie Hall propmaster made more than a half-million dollars last year, with several of his cohorts close behind. The general phenomenon is not new, but the size of the paycheck is. Leonard Jacobs asks so what? Well, this is why I continue to be unconvinced that unions and nonprofits make for a good mix. Carnegie makes a good chunk of its money from charitable sources, and the thought that taxpayer, foundation, and individual funds are essentially lining the pockets of the already-well-to-do, whoever they are, doesn’t exactly sit well. I would imagine that there are quite a few stagehands in NYC who would be perfectly willing and capable of doing a fine job for Carnegie Hall for less than $530,444, don’t you?
- Two new publications of note: first, two grad students on all-ages music spaces and their role in the community (haven’t read the whole thing yet, but what I’ve seen looks very promising); second, Animating Democracy takes it to the next level with a mapping initiative.
- Did you know that Andrew Taylor’s MBA in arts management at the University of Wisconsin is free? I didn’t until this week, when I met a 2007 graduate from the program at GIA who is now Director of Research for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Check it out, emerging leaders! In other MBA news, apparently social entrepreneurship is ascendant because of an “underlying sense of guilt about what happened during the crisis.” You don’t say.
- Are we ready for lifelogging?
- We’ll know we’ve made it when the arts are part of visions of the future like this one.