Around the horn: Lion of the Senate edition

Well, as we learned over the weekend, a lot of state arts councils are in bad shape. Now we learn via the Clyde Fitch Report that NYS Arts is organizing pre-emptive lobbying for the New York State Council on the Arts (currently the best-funded state arts agency in the country) in anticipation of further cutsRead More

State Arts Funding Update

Any way you slice it, it’s been a rough year for state arts councils. According to the National Assembly of State Arts Associations (NASAA), states have reduced their funding for arts agencies an average of 7% (14% if you take out Minnesota, which recently enacted a kickass new arts tax that tripled the money available).Read More

Around the horn: town hall edition

Barry Hessenius is out with his second annual list of the 25 most powerful and influential leaders in the nonprofit arts sector. Bob Lynch (president of Americans for the Arts), who took the top slot last year, has to share it this time with the Curb Center’s Bill Ivey, who has increased his clout thanksRead More

Around the horn: public option edition

I promise most of this post will not be about the NEA, but here are some loose ends to tie up: Rocco Landesman’s Peoria comments have not surprisingly rubbed some people the wrong way, and as predicted, Arlene Goldbard has arrived with an essay about it (though she’s more generous to him than I expected).Read More

Fun with data: arts organizations and grants in New Haven

A little while back, I posted a summary of my end-of-semester arts policy brief for the New Haven region. As part of that effort, I downloaded some Foundation Center and IRS data and played with it a bit to see what was there. Here were some of the more interesting findings: My quick-and-dirty search foundRead More

Around the horn: NEA edition

Fox News’s misleading attacks on the NEA, coming as they did just prior to the confirmation of a new Chairman for the organization, seem to be raising a lot of hackles in the arts world. Is the concern justified? Barry Hessenius thinks so, and warns that things might get a lot worse as conservatives gearRead More

Landesman confirmed as NEA Chair

It’s official: Rocco Landesman will be the next Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He was confirmed by voice vote by the Senate yesterday along with Jim Leach for the National Endowment for the Humanities and a host of other public officials. Sitting down for an interview with the Times‘s Robin Pogrebin, LandesmanRead More

Around the horn: hello Providence edition

I’m writing from sunny Providence, RI, where I’ll be based for the rest of the summer while I work on some projects and continue the search for a permanent landing spot. In other housekeeping news, Createquity is getting ready to move permanently to createquity.com, with a snazzy new design and blogging platform (WordPress). We’re workingRead More

Around the horn: bye bye New Haven edition

Long overdue, but Atul Gawande’s incredible article on the economics of health-care costs and the dark side of competition offers many lessons for the current debate in Congress and, indeed, for policy in general. The artists = crazy people thing just won’t go away. (Though, as Holden Caulfield might say, maybe it’s everyone else that’sRead More

Gifts of the Muse: the Cliffs Notes version

I’m realizing that, by making my Gifts of the Muse write-up so long, I might have gotten a bit in the way of the Arts Policy Library concept. (They won’t all be like that, I promise!) So, out of deference to those of you who didn’t make it all the way though and perhaps neverRead More