Americans for the Arts

So I decided to return to my hotel room to blog from bed.  Vegas is nothing if not exhausting, and I've already seen more fake bodies and drunken frat boys than one San Franciscan can handle. I suppose it's fitting since rumor has it Vegas IS the new Hollywood.  This rumor might also explain the trash items found by one of my colleagues underneath her bed at the Flamingo.  Fortunately for me, the Flamingo and Harrah's were booked by the time I got my act together to make a reservation so I'm reaping the benefits of a great Hotels.com deal at the Signature at MGM Grand.  Just a tip for your next trip to Vegas...

Anyhow, Risk and Reward is definitely the right theme for this conference.  It's risky enough just negotiating the Flamingo casino floor to get to your workshop of choice.  But all and all, it's the best kind of environment for an arts conference - chaotic, loud, unruly, fast, wildly varied in temperature, and challenging to navigate.  It makes you pay attention to where you are going (or staying) which is a fitting metaphor for the state of arts education (in case you haven't had the opportunity to hear Eric Booth so eloquently speak to this yet).

While I am in Wisconsin and South Carolina this week, several partners are unveiling their local reports across the US. One such example is the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington's press conference in DC on Monday afternoon. The Cultural Alliance sponsored the AEP3 report for Greater Washington, including: the District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland; Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia; and the city of Alexandria, VA.

There's been a lot of buzz lately about coaching and I thought I'd extend this invitation to anyone who is interested in finding out more about and actually experiencing peer coaching circles. You'll have an opportunity to find out more at the 2008 Annual Convention in June.

Finding time to rejuvenate ourselves is a constant challenge when we commit our personal and professional lives to nurturing others. Are you asking yourself the difficult questions about your career? Trying to find a life-work balance? Put yourself in a solution-focused state of mind for the annual conference at this Advance Workshop.

Personal Evolution: Peer-Coaching Circles Thursday, June 19 1:30 to 5:00pm at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in Philadelphia. Space is limited to 50 people.

We all know that joint-venture partnerships can yield many benefits. In hopes to spark more creative partnerships, here are some interesting partnership examples formed with arts organizations around the country. Some are likely partnerships between arts organizations; others are “unlikely” partnerships, which sometime can often bring in new audiences.

Success, of course, depends on each partner’s willingness and ability to live up to its part of the bargain.

Public Art In Detroit Benefits Community and High School Students
A dozen or so west side high school students created a mural on a three-story-high exterior wall of a vacant building in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. The project, Detroit Neighborhood Arts Corps, provides high school-aged artists with the opportunity to give back to their communities through the creation of public art. The College of Creative Studies (CCS) project was funded by the Skillman Foundation. This project probably solves two problems, it brings arts education to public schools which may have cut art programs and it brings public art to an under-served community.