Arts Policy Library: Arts & Economic Prosperity III

Perhaps no arts-related research study is cited as frequently in the mainstream media these days as Americans for the Arts’s gargantuan economic impact survey, Arts & Economic Prosperity III. Its key message, that the nonprofit arts sector is responsible for $166.2 billion in economic activity nationwide, has been hammered home relentlessly to policymakers, politicians, grantmakers,Read More

Around the horn: WordPress edition

The arts blogosphere (artosphere?) has been buzzing lately with the news of the demotion of the NEA’s erstwhile Director of Communications, Yosi Sergant, in response to Glenn Beck’s paranoid delusions about two conference calls that Yosi helped to organize to get artists involved in community service. Jeff Chang says this is the new shape ofRead 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: 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

Further thoughts about Gifts of the Muse

I’ve been mulling over my Gifts of the Muse write-up for the past few days, and have come up with a few more reflections on the implications that the document holds for advocacy and policymaking. I hinted at this one at the end of my summary, but here it is fleshed out a bit more:Read 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

Arts Policy Library: Gifts of the Muse

A close look at the implications of a far-ranging report on the benefits of the arts.

Around the horn: dog days edition

The IRS says not so fast on the L3C, stressing that it has not yet weighed in on the tax implications of the new legal form. Generation Y likes to talk a big game about change, but Rosetta Thurman says that if we really want it we’re going to have to prove it. Stephanie EvansRead More

Wow.

So, Tom Garvey’s takedown of Emily Glassberg Sands’s undergraduate thesis on sexism in theater is pretty much a must-read. Now the ultra-articulate Sands had been in high gear from the very start of the conversation, but as I got closer to my concerns, she began to power-chatter at a nearly alarming rate. I kept tryingRead More