Americans for the Arts

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is working on developing inclusive programs that will support visitors on the autism spectrum all year long. In 2016, the museum began partnering with Tapestry Public Charter School to pilot inclusive programming for students on the autism spectrum. Through this program, the museum works closely with educators at Tapestry to create curriculum-based, student-relevant guided tours and interactive workshops. They receive invaluable feedback from both teachers and students. One such student is Glen Sheppard, a ninth-grader at Tapestry who has participated in the program for the past two years. Glen wrote about his experiences at the High, and we’re thrilled to share his thoughts with you on ARTSblog.

Providing constant and protected space for the exchange of ideas is critically important to the health of our business through the active engagement of our employees. All businesses need new ideas, and businesses benefit when the generation of ideas is encouraged and inclusive. To thrive, businesses need to provide a setting where ideas can be openly exchanged and tested. It is the responsibility of business leaders to understand that the work we all do is best done in an environment that’s not based on the ownership of ideas or the rank of those that offer them—but rather one that’s open, collaborative, and receptive to new ways of thinking and doing. Business leaders need to make intentional steps towards creating these spaces. Otherwise, we miss the opportunity to unleash and develop the inherit creative talent of our employees.

Small business is the heartbeat of the economy—that’s certainly the case here in Lakewood, Colorado—population 155,000 in a city that occupies 44 square miles between Denver and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. We have seven large organizations with 1000+ employees, but nearly 7000 entities employ 50 or fewer. Primary employers are critical. But the math is crystal clear … small business rules the road. But as the new millennium arrived, not every part of our City’s economic engine was hitting on all cylinders. Lakewood’s 40 West Arts District is located in the oldest part of our City along West Colfax Avenue—a historic commercial corridor that is just now emerging from 30 years of economic decline, with the arts at the vanguard of its renaissance.

The Business Committee on the Arts, an organization started by David Rockefeller in 1966, celebrated the many ways that the arts bring people together on Tuesday, Oct. 2 in New York City. We at ArtsWave were proud that Cincinnati once again “made the list” with our own Top 10 Business Supporting the Arts in America: Fifth Third Bank. In the midst of stories of arts engagement and creative partnerships that characterized the remarks of each honoree, Fifth Third’s SVP and Chief Administrative Officer Teresa Tanner shared something particularly poignant and timely with the guests. Teresa described how art is being used to foster healing after the horrific mass shooting in the bank’s lobby in September. In the days that followed, bank leaders decided to cover the lobby’s broken windows with huge canvas boards. To show solidarity with one another and build strength in numbers to move forward, employees were invited to dip their hands in paint and leave their handprints on the canvases. Hundreds of colorful handprints now adorn the space and remind Fifth Third employees that they are “Fifth Third Strong” and “Cincinnati Strong.” This simple activity became a profound and hopeful action, something that brought the company together after unspeakable loss.

The arts advocacy season is upon us once again. It’s time to meet with your legislators to help them understand the value of investing in the arts. How to prepare? Start with this list of “10 Reasons to Support the Arts.” It can feel intimidating walking into a legislator’s office—even to experienced advocates. To always feel prepared, I break the advocacy process down into three simple questions: Who gets the message? What is the message? Who delivers the message? Remember the Golden Rule: No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number. The arts are all about stories—often small, always meaningful. Share yours. It’s engaging and draws your listener in—and then pair it with the research-based findings in “10 Reasons to Support the Arts.” Yours will be an advocacy visit that is not soon forgotten.

Annually, the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review recognizes outstanding public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country and beyond. The projects are selected and presented by a jury of three professionals who represent different aspects of the public art field, including artists, administrators, and other public art allies. New this year, the PAN Advisory Council curated the selected 49 selected projects for 2018 under five unique themes to broaden the exposure of the selected works on ARTSblog and social media, and to provide context to the works through national trends and themes that are impacting the field today.

Many of 2018’s selected public art projects addressed issues at the forefront of current political discourse — particularly, how history and culture has not represented race, gender, sexuality, and class with fairness. Politically and socially, the issues are playing out through the incoming U.S. House of Representatives and the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, among others. The arts and culture field is not exempt from addressing these national challenges, as demonstrated in recent museum exhibitions focused on decolonization, through the debate on memorials and monuments, and with temporary and permanent public artworks. Of the 2018 selected PAN Year in Review projects, six uniquely addressed the issue of underrepresented histories. 

Annually, the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review recognizes outstanding public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country and beyond. The projects are selected and presented by a jury of three professionals who represent different aspects of the public art field, including artists, administrators, and other public art allies. New this year, the PAN Advisory Council curated the selected 49 selected projects for 2018 under five unique themes to broaden the exposure of the selected works on ARTSblog and social media, and to provide context to the works through national trends and themes that are impacting the field today.

Over the past decade, performative and participatory public artworks have gained in popularity with commissioning agencies and the communities they serve. Typically, public art is seen as a long-term, integrated, stationary, visual arts-based artwork. Performative and participatory projects allow for a new type of public art that that include multiple sensory experiences and a different way of engaging community where a whole community may be considered an artist. Performative and participatory public art projects create music, encourage touch, and utilize participation to be fully realized as a completed art piece. Of the 2018 selected PAN Year in Review projects, 15 uniquely expanded the definitions of artist, medium, and material. These performative and participatory projects are redefining both the commissioning process and what is expected of a finalized public artwork. 

The first time I came to an All Our Kids (AOK) Thursday night dinner at Kathy and David’s, I was greeted with a “welcome home.” This is the spirit of every Thursday night; however, the most powerful representation of the community at Kathy and David’s is the dinner table. Young artists sit elbow to elbow with older folks in the DC world and beyond. Despite differences in class, age, race, and artistic experience, the table is where people convene in a shared love for art and community. It is a sacred space, one where people share the most challenging and joyful experiences of their day. The experiences shared at the table are consistently addressed with radical kindness and love. In a time of political and social turmoil, it often feels like there are few places where people can connect with one another. I have always believed that art can do what policies alone cannot, which is evoke empathy and connect people on the most basic human level. The AOK dinner table is a representation of how art and community can mend us.

The American South is an expansive region, replete with storytellers and rich creative practices, and yet its stories are often misrepresented on-screen and in the media, contributing to reductive stereotypes that disempower our communities. When we look to contemporary art created by Southern artists across disciplines, we can see well beyond dominant narratives that depict a region marred by racial oppression and economic injustice. Artists often reveal what the media doesn’t––resilient communities that value cultural heritage and embrace progressive ideals, communities connecting across differences, fighting for social justice, and espousing an increasingly intersectional view of what it means to be Southern. What do these artists need to continue to tell bold and powerful stories, stories that have the potential to imagine new possibilities for a Southern identity––stories that have the power to reshape the nation’s understanding of our region, and to change how Southerners see ourselves?

Annually, the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review recognizes outstanding public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country and beyond. The projects are selected and presented by a jury of three professionals who represent different aspects of the public art field, including artists, administrators, and other public art allies. New this year, the PAN Advisory Council curated the selected 49 selected projects for 2018 under five unique themes to broaden the exposure of the selected works on ARTSblog and social media, and to provide context to the works through national trends and themes that are impacting the field today.

Site-responsiveness is a hallmark of public art, wherein the artist(s) commits to an investigation of site to inform the work. Creative investigation considers geography, locality, topography, community (local, historical and global), and history (local, private and national)—sometimes re-telling well-known stories and sometimes unearthing long forgotten or unheard stories. The 2018 PAN Year in Review projects featured below each serve as a social agent to explore local histories of what we build, create, and invent. Holding our histories to inform our futures, these works also explore human perception, evolution, conflict, and progress. Many of these projects acknowledge environments or communities that once existed in these landscapes, reinterpreting history of community in a contemporary and, in many cases, interactive way.

This February reflection takes me squarely into the midst of the incredible people working at the intersections of arts, health, and the military. One of the fastest growing networks at Americans for the Arts is the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military (NIAHM) Facebook Group. I am feeling the love for everyone who shares their programs and stories regularly in the NIAHM group, whose contributors represent a dynamic mix of individuals and organizations, state and local arts agencies, VA programs, arts and veterans service organizations—representing all branches of service, and all forms of art and art-making. Each day brings new postings of happenings across the country, new programs, new milestones, new art, and new inspirations. Our member postings run the gamut of understanding the deep historical roots of the arts in the military, to examples of how today’s veteran artists are carving out the unique history of the 21st century through their art. A sampling of the postings from just the last two weeks tells a rich story of the history and diversity of the arts as part of the military culture.

For email marketing success in 2019, you need to do two things: Be real and be really great. Here’s how to bring some humanity back to the inbox.

ARTSblog once again was a vibrant space for sharing and learning across all sectors of the arts field in 2018. All told, we published more than 215 blogs by authors working in public art, healthcare, government, marketing, local arts agencies, the private sector, and at Americans for the Arts, plus artists, arts educators, leaders at every stage of their careers, and many more. We hope you got your fill of your favorite topics and posts—but if you’re looking for a quick snapshot of the year that was, here are the 10 most viewed ARTSblog posts from 2018.

Over the last 18 months I’ve gotten to work with 10 different planners at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in a variety of departments: Land Use, Public Health, Environment, Government Affairs, and Strategic Initiatives. I was also involved in project development conversations with Municipal Collaboration, Transportation, Clean Energy, and Data Services. Many of these projects grew out of the conversations I had in the first couple months of my residency, when I met with directors from all the dynamic practice areas at MAPC about how they imagined arts and culture could be woven into their work. I was inspired by the depth and breadth of their focus areas, and the opportunity to not just to imagine possibilities together, but to put the ideas in action, was very exciting. I’ve met so many community members, leaders, and youth who shape our region. It’s been a rich residency and I am grateful for the experience.

January 2019 marks two years since I launched the Arts & Culture practice at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), an independent state agency serving the 101 cities and towns in Metropolitan Boston. MAPC has an entrepreneurial and innovative culture for a government agency, and our Arts & Culture practice was conceived and operates in that spirit. We deliver technical assistance in cultural planning, creative placemaking, creative community development, arts and cultural data collection and analysis, and cultural policy. And we have an Artist in Residence who serves MAPC as an agency and works with some of the cities and towns we serve. It has been quite a ride! The impetus for our launch came from two sources: a desire to implement the arts and cultural priorities in our agency’s MetroFuture regional plan, and my dogged determination since entry into the urban planning field in 2009 to do place-based social justice work that engages arts, culture, and creativity at the core.

A few years ago, the District of Columbia Office of Planning (DCOP) launched an ambitious local government creative placemaking initiative. DCOP designed a multi-year, multi-neighborhood effort that would build community in areas experiencing rapid change. Supported by the Kresge Foundation’s Arts and Culture Local Systems Program, “Crossing the Street: Building DC’s Inclusive Future through Creative Placemaking” used arts and culture to activate space, foster conversation, promote inclusive experiences, highlight neighborhood assets, and advance planning. What became apparent as we embarked on this journey with curators, artists, and communities was the impact that an artist-municipal framework could have: planners began to think like artists, and artists began to think like planners. We also had not fully accounted for the unique lens, approach, and connections that artists make when working in a community. There are many lessons learned from our Crossing the Street, but we will focus on two distinct areas: 1) a new way to engage community; and 2) systems change. Inherent to both areas was a single underlying facet: the role of artists-municipal partnerships.

Few of us are taught how to do civic dialogue. How do we develop and improve our ability to facilitate groups made up of individuals with potentially vastly different life experiences, identities, vested interests, and communication styles? Here’s one answer: Theater. When we want to literally incorporate new skills in our work, we need a body-based practice that can allow us to explore the interplay of subject matter, emotional response, social identity, and physical bodies in a physical space. That is the theater of civic engagement. And the methods of theater are learning tools that can and should be central to the training of public officials and community leaders who shape our interactions in the public sphere. Drexel University is currently working to ensure that urban planners have the skill set to facilitate civic engagement, and its Masters of Science in Urban Strategy (MSUS) program has drawn on embodied and theater-based methods as a core training methodology.

I often get questions from up and coming leaders about what it takes to “break in” to the arts education field. I can relate—I love the career path that I’ve taken and yes, arts education can feel like a specific field that no one really envisions themselves doing from a young age. I fell into the profession with no set path but a vision of wanting to do good and contribute to a more just and equitable society. While I have a background in multicultural education, and was able to eventually blend my academic training and my interest in visual arts to impact communities that do not have access to formal and experiential programs in the arts, for many like myself the path is far from being clear cut. 

As we close the book on 2018 and open a new edition for 2019, the world of arts marketing and marketing in general continues its furious pace. What trends we should be keeping an eye on for the coming year?

The High Museum of Art believes in the power of teens’ voices. This past summer, the High had a group of 16 teens from the metro Atlanta area who learned the ins and outs of the museum, and who worked with local artists, dancers, choreographers, and writers to create programs. The Teen Team is a dynamic group of rising juniors and seniors who help create and host public programs at the High, including the teen-only Teen Night and monthly free admission day, Second Sundays. The Teen Team program is a paid, year-round commitment, and the teens are considered Museum employees. They explore the Museum’s collection and special exhibitions, meet museum staff, local artists, and get the inside scoop on museum careers through hands-on experience. This blog is written by Teen Team members and is a reflection of the political and social context in which they are growing up.

In recent years, there has been an increase in smaller scale, temporary public art projects that encourage community participation and conversation. This is an exciting moment as community members are taking the initiative to create public art that fosters a sense of ownership and pride in their neighborhoods. As the interest in localized public art grows, the individual artists and communities who pioneer these projects are looking for new ways to fund their art. Crowdfunding, a grassroots method of funding a project through raising many small amounts of money from a larger number of people, typically via the Internet, has grown in prominence as a way to pool resources towards a project. In the recently published paper “Crowdfunding in Public Art,” I explored the ways crowdfunding has been used to implement public art, and I’ve been inspired by what I’ve seen.

Imagine yourself among over 100 educators from throughout the world whose conversations are focused on innovation! Pinch me—is this real? Over and over that question entered my mind as I traveled to Helsinki, Finland to attend the Innovation Summit planned by HundrED during the first week of November of this year. It was an honor to be invited to participate in the summit. HundrED is a non-profit organization that discovers, researches, and shares inspiring innovations in K12 education, and was born from the notion that in a world becoming increasingly connected and globalized, education can still be very local and isolated in its practices. HundrED has identified 100 innovators for 2019 and highlighted their work so others can learn and apply ideas to their own work. Some of the innovators are working against all odds. But the one thing they have in common is starting with a seed of an idea and figuring out how to impact the learners in their communities.

As arts educators, we should always try to dream big. We don’t need a Broadway budget to create good educational theatre. What we need are dedicated arts educators who are passionate about the message of the production and how it can be a transformative experience for young people. So many students often tell us that this may be the first play they have ever seen and how powerful the storytelling experience was for them. Rain, sleet, or snow, like the post office, we always deliver an authentic theatre experience; no matter where we go or how we get there, the rewards are always worth the effort.

When we think of health and wellness, we think about the mind, body and spirit. We imagine wholeness. … Why? Because every day, we have the opportunity to make conscious decisions about what we allow into our bodies. This includes not only what we eat, drink, watch, and listen to, but also our thoughts. To us at heidi duckler dance (HDD), wellness is how we realize our self image, and as artists, it is the overall practice we promote in our daily lives. HDD transforms non-traditional spaces, provides learning opportunities by engaging diverse communities, and promotes the concept that the arts can change our vision of the world and of ourselves. Through working with HDD’s Artistic Director, Heidi Duckler, I have had the pleasure of seeing firsthand the power of utilizing all types of venues while simultaneously using arts from across different disciplines to uncover powerful stories. This process has allowed me to see how I, as an artist and an administrator, can incorporate wellness into our work. 

Many arts organizations approach change efforts this way: they operate on the surface with small adjustments to tactics or processes and encounter some of the same self-defeating results. In my career, I’ve observed this reality emerge among many different types of arts organizations. Maybe an organization is trying to improve their operations, or prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion, or consider how/if they can ensure that their impact is aligned with their mission, or effect systemic change. The common theme in most of these change efforts is that tactical strategies don’t yield transformational and sustainable results. So how do we do it? First, it’s important to examine what is at the core of the issues. We do this only after committing to a process that’s built on shared agreements, that prioritizes intellectual curiosity, trust, patience, compassion, and transparency. It’s work that doesn’t happen overnight, because our issues and/or challenges don’t happen overnight. 

A few years ago, the City of Seattle Race and Social Justice Initiative Team started looking more closely at how the individualist, perfectionist, paternalistic, and compartmentalizing culture of white supremacy within ourselves and across the institution got in the way of the progress toward racial equity that we were making with trainings, policy tools, and interdepartmental organizing structures. We began to develop a strategy to shift that culture. We adopted the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond Anti-Racist Principles as our guideposts. We developed trainings to begin to understand and heal from the dehumanizing impacts of internalized racial inferiority and superiority. And we began working to de-center ego and lift up spirit, collective action and the belief that no one is disposable. We started getting real about practicing grace for ourselves and for each other. Cultivating creativity in our work has become a central piece of this strategy.

The first time I tried to get a job as an artist in government, I failed. I was recruited for a position focused on community engagement, visioning, and imagination. The hiring agency was excited by my artwork, and sought me out for the skills I’d honed through social practice. But as we negotiated the terms of my position and I asked that my title be “artist,” I quickly got shot down. To call this work “art” would somehow make it harder for it to be taken seriously by other stakeholders. Plus, my colleagues feared, they were already seen as “soft” for their focus on community engagement, and would be further ostracized from the real decision-making work of the agency. I could do the work however I wanted, they said, but I couldn’t call it art. The second time I tried to get a job as an artist in government, I kept my artist identity to myself. 

This summer the LA County Arts Commission (LACAC) kicked off the artist-in-residence Creative Strategist Initiative. One of seven recommendations from the Cultural Equity & Inclusion Initiative that were funded by the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2017, the AIR Creative Strategist Initiative places individuals with artistic expertise in County departments to assist in the implementation of special County projects. Creative Strategists are placed as artists in residence (CS-AIR) for a minimum of 12 months, and work alongside department staff. Together, the department and CS-AIR collaborate with project partners and community stakeholders to effect change and impact a specific project or initiative. The Arts Commission implemented extensive field research and months of conversations with these departments to prepare for artist placement, uncovering critical lessons through the process.

The purpose of the Restorative Justice + the Arts program is to enable artists and arts organizations to provide dynamic program opportunities for youth and families who have interacted with the criminal justice system. Our aim is to equip teaching artists with the tools they need to bolster their practice in ways that lead youth toward productivity, resiliency, and well-being. In FY 2018, the artists have been able to serve 424 youth who have been incarcerated, had other involvement with the court, or who are deemed at-risk due to poverty, school attendance, neighborhood crime, poor school performance, or living in an area where fresh food is scarce. Through this program, Metro Arts is able to live more fully into its theory of change and recently adopted cultural equity statement: that the arts are a tool to create opportunities for citizens to deepen their arts participation, foster vibrant neighborhoods, and cultivate a strong creative workforce.