Over the last decade, you’ve probably known someone who took up dance or music classes, or maybe someone who joined a knitting or craft group, or started a novel. According to a 2008 NEA study, 74 percent of Americans participate in the arts through attendance, art creation, or media. Whether you call it the Pro-AmRead More
Informal Arts: the informal version
This is a short overview of my full article for the Arts Policy Library. Informal Arts is a series of case studies on the little-researched topic of adult participation in informal arts. By following twelve groups ranging from a quilting guild to a hip-hop collective, this 431-page report delves into the social and artistic valueRead More
Arts Policy Library: Informal Arts
Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity and Other Cultural Benefits in Unexpected Places (Chicago Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College, 2002) sheds light on the little-studied topic of adult participation in informal arts. The report was commissioned by the CAP in response to “The Arts & The Public Purpose” (American Assembly Consensus Report, 1997), theRead More
Supply is Not Going to Decrease (So It’s Time to Think About Curating)
A response to NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman’s controversial comments about the arts market.
Around the horn: Libya edition
(Note: this ATH is already quite long, so I’m going to split it up into two parts. Look for the rest of the links in a few days.) A quick note about some upcoming speaking engagements: I’ll be on a panel next month at the annual Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium hosted by American University, speakingRead More
Audiences at the Gate: Reinventing Arts Philanthropy Through Guided Crowdsourcing
(This article originally appeared in 20UNDER40 anthologyi edited by Edward P. Clapp, and has been republished with permission.) Spurred on by major technological advances, the number of aspiring professional artists in the United States has reached unprecedented levels and will only continue to grow. The arts’ current system of philanthropic support is woefully underequipped to evaluate thisRead More
New article at NewMusicBox.org
Yesterday, the good folks at NewMusicBox (the web magazine of the American Music Center) published a rather massive article of mine called “Composing a Life, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dollar.” It’s my plea to composers and the new music community (which is the world I come from) to getRead More
Interview with National Arts Strategies
While at the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit in Baltimore last month, Dallas Shelby from National Arts Strategies caught up with me and interviewed me for a video series NAS is doing of “conversations with leaders from inside and outside the field, [which] are meant to inspire and challenge you to take aRead More
Fictional Foundation Fun, part III
So, a few weeks ago while we were working on this project, I asked Adam Forest Huttler to post a question on the Fractured Atlas blog asking what types of bills artists find difficult to pay — either because of fundraising restrictions or because they’re just too expensive. My basic goal with this was toRead More
Fictional Foundation Fun, part II
So, yesterday we took a look at the $800 million Ortiz Foundation for the Arts (OFA), a hypothetical new organization focusing on promoting cultural vitality in New York City. After some discussion, we settled on a mission statement as follows: The Ortiz Foundation for the Arts (OFA) works to foster the visual, musical, theatrical, andRead More