I can remember my first field trip to a music concert at the Symphony Hall when I was in kindergarten. That sole field trip event hardly takes the credit for my entryway into the arts, but trust me, there were many more learning journeys that same year that shaped my appreciation and quest for wanting more of the arts. We were fortunate, when I was in school, to be able to take many field trips to countless arts centers and cultural venues; one: due to our school’s close proximity to downtown Atlanta, and two: field trips were insisted upon decades ago. Not to mention, my arts trajectory was shaped by my mother’s unwavering encouragement. But in so many districts and schools today, arts and cultural field trips are in decline due to the prioritization of math and English-language arts curricula over other subjects. If cultivating (life-long) learners and student achievement is the goal, what field trips provide is a connection to the real world that stimulates the quest for more content knowledge equaling increased student achievement.

International Sculpture Day (IS Day), on April 27, is a worldwide event celebrating the many ways sculpture and public art impact and improve people’s lives. IS Day, first initiated by the International Sculpture Center (ISC) in 2015, occurs on the last Saturday of April. On this day, artists and groups interested in the arts host events including workshops, studio tours, gallery openings, performances, project dedications, and more, all celebrating how sculpture, in its many forms, improves lives. The definition of sculpture is expanding to include both traditional forms and works including performance, video, installation art, public art, and more. IS Day is a great way to engage with sculpture and its power in communities. As a Board Member of ISC and a Public Artist, I am participating in IS Day by dedicating Aurora Bright Dawn. This public artwork combines space, color, and form on an aging pedestrian bridge, promoting community connectivity and safe crossing.

Art schools are a funny thing. I know because I went to one. I spent five years making work across various media, trying to develop a voice as an artist, and at the end of it all I graduated with no real sense of what was next. I think this is a fairly common experience for a lot of art school students and it’s an experience that’s dramatically different from a lot of other degrees one might pursue in college. I know that too because I returned to campus five years later to get an MBA, and the education and professional opportunities I received after that were in stark contrast to my undergraduate experience. I went back to study business not because I couldn’t find work with my art degree (well, not entirely), but because I realized years later that I was interested in the way businesses can solve problems and I wanted to build one that solved a real problem.

I conducted my first survey of local arts agencies in 1991. It was all paper in those days. We didn’t even ask for fax numbers because too few had one! Over the years we have fielded dozens of local arts agency (LAA) surveys—some were short and easy to fill out and provided useful information, but lacked adequate depth; others were comprehensive and extremely informative, but were too long and hard for respondents to complete. While the paper surveys became online surveys and technology has made distribution more expansive, what remains as pressing as ever is the need for reliable, relevant, and easily accessible information about the LAAs—research that provides early alerts about new trends, drives discourse about how the industry is evolving, and simply allows LAAs to see how they compare to their peers. In 2018, Americans for the Arts implemented a new annual survey to accomplish just this—The Profile of Local Arts Agencies. There are multiple ways you can put the Profile findings to work for you! 

During this past school year, Dr. Lauren Neefe with Common Good Atlanta reached out to the High Museum to do a guest lecture experience at Metro Reentry Facility, a state prison reentry program in Atlanta. We came to one class during a series of art and art history lectures at the facility. This blog post features Dr. Neefe’s experience with incorporating art from the High Museum and music in her curriculum.

Last fall, as the volunteer site director for Common Good Atlanta’s education program at Metro Reentry Facility, the newly reopened and “re-missioned” state prison in southeast Atlanta, I was given the opportunity to give a series of lectures on art and art history to the 28 incarcerated students in our college course. My doctoral training is in English literature and poetry, not art history; but I knew I was up to the task of introducing art as a contested category of culture and knowledge. Maybe I could reframe the obligations of punitive discipline as the pleasures of an aesthetic one. Maybe the students and I could write over the indignities of one kind of suffering with the dignity of another, the kind artists and scholars know as passion.

Arts Entrepreneurship is nothing new. It is fair to assume that artists have always been entrepreneurial. Educators in higher education have been earnestly addressing this topic as early as the 1970s, first at the Eastman School of Music. However, what is new is a formalized system of education that teaches artists how to, specifically, act entrepreneurially. Today, there are over one hundred colleges and universities addressing the topic, and at least 33 Master’s programs around the world focused on arts, creative, or cultural entrepreneurship. In academic literature, there is absolutely no consensus as to what “entrepreneurship” means, much less “arts entrepreneurship.” In this post, I will address the key components found in one definition, and speak to the importance of arts entrepreneurship and its potential to help artists make a living from their creativity, artistry, skills, and talents. I will speak to increasing chances of success while decreasing risks associated with a career in the arts.

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.

Due to increased public discourse over social issues that include marginalized communities, and the current state of our welfare infrastructure, artists are creating works for public space that demand closer examination of our society and our treatment of one another. Indicative of the evolution of public art practice, these works suggest the expanding role of public art in framing and directing public thought and activism. Of the 2018 selected PAN Year in Review projects, three projects represented the intentionality of artists in centering marginalized identities and geographies. These works help frame social justice and inclusion within their communities in a number of ways.

Why is it important that we get these terms right? As we work to communicate the value of the work that we do, it’s important to paint an accurate and authentic picture. It is only once we acknowledge the work we are currently doing that we are able to grow.

Americans for the Arts, like any national nonprofit advocacy and research organization, is a complex, multifaceted smorgasbord of programs, activities, and goals. Our modest number of employees not only work to make fundamental changes to society using the arts and culture, but we also work to change how people view the arts and culture by getting them to recognize its value to the economy, education, and to the health and wellbeing of our nation and its communities. For a nonprofit of our size, we often do the work or see successes similar to much larger nonprofits or even for-profit companies. We owe this success to our members and the thousands of arts organizations across the country who work with us to accomplish our goals. But, there is another group of organizations that Americans for the Arts partners with who also help us accomplish our goals. These organizations are not arts-centric groups, but they do see the value of the arts and culture in accomplishing their goals. We call this group of organizations our Strategic Partners.

No matter where you are in your career as an artist, you’re probably used to wearing a lot of different hats. You likely do your own bookkeeping, maybe your own accounting, definitely your own marketing and promotion. As your creative pursuits grow and expand, you may even find yourself staring face to face with some sort of legal issue. Now, you might be saying to yourself, “I’m an artist, but I don’t have any legal issues to worry about.” Well, I have some bad news for you. Every artist has legal issues to worry about (they aren’t all bad legal issues, though!). Every artist is a small business, and every small business has legal issues and needs. Just as small business has accounting, banking, and insurance needs, so do artists. While it may be difficult to know exactly what your legal needs might be, there are three categories of activities that artists participate in that are directly related to legal issues relevant to your artistic livelihood.

We’ve had the great fortune of working with multiple programs that have helped shaped the lives of young people through arts education. It’s incredibly fulfilling to see impact happening at that moment ... but what about after? Those of us who work with underserved communities know how critical our work is in leveling the playing field, and are so proud when we see our students finishing school and utilizing those skills to move on to the next phase of their lives. But what about those who can’t make that leap quite as easily? They have all the lessons and skills from what we’ve taught them through the magic of an arts education; they should be able to figure it out, right? Not always. This is an experience any young person could struggle with, regardless of what resources are available to them. What would happen when arts education programs considered it a moral imperative to support our alumni in the transition from childhood to adulthood?

Since my enlistment in the US Air Force, I have conducted group classes on military installations since 2013. As part of my DC-area dance company, Moving Rhythms, I began Dance4Defenders, which aims to provide dance-related programming to military members and veterans wherever I am stationed. Most recently, in February 2019, I hosted a dance class at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore. But, let’s talk about the benefits of dance! In the last few years, dance and health professionals alike have touted the numerous benefits of dancing, from both physical and mental standpoints. These include every aspect from improved heart and lung function to increased confidence and psychological wellbeing. However, dancing can have even more positive implications for military service members and veterans.