Around the horn: poolside edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Americans for the Arts hosted a blog salon last month on the Common Core State Standards (“the next big thing in education”) and what they mean for arts education. I particularly enjoyed former colleague Richard Kessler’s “Steal This Blog” entry. Quite interesting analysis from Barry Hessenius of possible future directions for local arts agencies.Read More

The Arts Dinner-vention Project

Readers may be familiar with the name Barry Hessenius from his annual list of the top leaders in the nonprofit arts sector. A former director of the California Arts Council and an elder in the field, Barry has long taken an interest in developing and nurturing the involvement of the next generation of leaders, andRead More

Around the horn: Amtrak edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Really scary stuff about political meddling in editorial content at the Alabama public television network. Seems like one of the underreported stories of the year. MUSICAL CHAIRS Congratulations to Randy Engstrom on his appointment as interim director of the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, replacing Vincent Kitch who left abruptly in August.Read More

Miami Beach, DC

After a brief respite this summer, I’m back on the speaking/conference circuit and looking forward to seeing some new places and new folks! In a couple of weeks, I’ll be livin’ the dream and presenting at the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference about our work with ArtsWave in Cincinnati. October 14-17 Grantmakers in the ArtsRead More

Cool jobs of the month

Lead, Local Arts Advancement, Americans for the Arts The leader of the Local Arts Advancement area is a strong leader who designs and executes programs that provide support and resources to those working throughout the country to advance the arts in their communities. To do so, the position designs, implements and oversees a series ofRead More

Around the horn: Tampa/Charlotte/Chris Stevens/47% edition

It’s been a while! ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Bob Lynch reports out on the recent activities of the US Travel & Tourism Advisory Board. Americans for the Arts was out in force at the Republican national convention, organizing a panel with a Mesa mayor who skipped his own election to be there (he was runningRead More

Early fall public arts funding update

DOMESTIC The big news last month was the campaign for and passage of a millage (property tax) in Detroit to support the beleaguered Detroit Institute of the Arts. Hyperallergic’s Jillian Steinhauer and ARTSBlog’s Kim Kober are celebrating the new legislation, which passed easily in Wayne and Oakland counties but only by a hair in suburban Macomb. The DIA took the campaign very seriously, spending anRead More

Live-blogging the “How Art Works” convening

[7:29] Oops! I ran out of juice (the electrical, not the metaphysical kind) just as things were wrapping up. Anyway, I thought Andrew Taylor did a great job of moderating that last panel and pointing out some of the more interesting features of the model as it’s been developed. At the end of the day,Read More

NEA to announce research agenda, systems map

I’m on my way to American University to take in this event: On September 20, 2012, the National Endowment for the Arts releases a new report, based on research commissioned from the Monitor Institute, entitled How Art Works. Built upon a wide-ranging literature review, and extensive interviews, workshops, webinars, and exchanges with arts leaders, communityRead More

“Discovering Fiscally Sponsored NYC Dancemakers”

That’s the title of a new study published this month by Dance/NYC and produced by yours truly, with (lots of) help from Fractured Atlas Research Fellow Carrie Blake and Dance/NYC Director Lane Harwell. The study examines data from over 250 dance-related projects fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, The Foundation for Independent Artists/Pentacle, New York Foundation forRead More