Originally from Brazil, Andressa Furletti is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Group Dot BR, New York’s only Brazilian theater company. Group Dot BR's mission is to present Brazilian culture through the performing arts. It serves enthusiasts of multicultural arts, contemporary, physical, and avant-garde theater. Group Dot BR's productions always incorporate the Portuguese language (with English subtitles when present), offering audiences the opportunity to connect with the sound and musicality of the Brazilian language. In the wake of COVID-19, Group Dot BR initiated the NY Brazilian Artists Fund to support immigrant artists from the Brazilian community in New York facing financial hardship because of the pandemic. 

Artworks created in the streets are by nature ephemeral and have the ability to capture raw and immediate individual and community responses; the meaning of these pieces is negotiated and shifts over time. The Urban Art Mapping research team, an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students based at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, began working in early June to collect digital documentation of street art that emerged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, ranging from monumental murals to small stickers and including commissioned art as well as unsanctioned pieces. We have seen that the art made in response to this act of injustice is an expression of the anger, frustration, and pain felt in communities across this country and around the world that needs to be preserved. Beyond serving as a repository for this art, the database was created as a resource for students, activists, scholars, and artists by way of metadata, including a description of key themes, geolocations, and dates of documentation. We are actively seeking contributions to the database through crowdsourcing in order to capture the global scale of this powerful call for change. 

The 2020 economic collapse has been compared to the Great Depression by economists—and the arts and culture sector is not immune to the financial devastation impacting many sectors across the U.S.  Since March, Americans for the Arts has continually tracked the financial impact across the arts sector. As of Nov. 16, 35% of nonprofit arts organizations have had to lay off or furlough staff, and 10% are not confident they will survive the pandemic. The Great Recession of the late 2000s had a direct impact on my employment as the public art coordinator for the City of San Jose, California. The public art funding was tied up with other municipal funds, including bond projects and general funding. By the 2011 budget cycle the city realized that to cover its financial needs, hundreds of their employees were going to have to be let go, and yours truly was swept up in that massive layoff. It took me over a year and a half to find full time work again. During that time, I learned some things that I hope can help some of you out there who may be facing the prospect of unemployment or have already lost a job.

“This toolkit was born out of a desire to fight despair,” shares Candida Gonzalez, artist and consultant to Forecast, a nonprofit for artists working in the public space. “I watched in disbelief as many friends all over the country lost their projects and gigs. Rather than pausing to think on alternatives, many funders’ knee-jerk response to the pandemic was to pull funding and cancel projects.” This despair birthed an idea from the team at Forecast for a toolkit created and launched in April 2020 with artists, arts organizations, presenting organizations, and others collaborating with artists in mind. “Innovation in the Time of COVID” is designed to be an ever-evolving platform that contains strategies for adapting in-person arts-based activities during the COVID-19 pandemic for everyone to share, use, and contribute to. Forecast continues to develop the toolkit based on open-source input from artists and arts organizations and examples of how they are adapting in-person arts-based projects. 

Americans for the Arts is committed to a vision of the arts being recognized as integral to the lives of all people and essential to healthy, vibrant, and equitable communities across the nation. The work of the organization is guided by a board-approved strategic plan with the advice of our leadership councils, strategic partners, local and state arts agencies, and many other decision makers, all of whom have a stake in advancing the arts as core to transforming lives, communities, workplaces, and education systems. The urgency of this vision has never been more apparent than in 2020—amid a global pandemic, heightened focus on social justice and racial equity, a huge economic downturn, and a contentious presidential election. These issues have impacted every community across the country and devastated artists, nonprofit and for-profit creative businesses, educational systems, healthcare, and trust in government. And because of long-term systemic inequities, these challenges have more severely affected people and communities of color. In 2020, Americans for the Arts continued its commitment to our vision and planned work, while also pivoting and taking on new, urgent work like so many of our 5,000 member organizations. Here are highlights of some key areas of the new and urgent work of Americans for the Arts in 2020 that are in addition to our planned work portfolio.

The Sierra Nevada Ballet (SNB), a professional ballet company based in Reno, Nevada, will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2021. The SNB’s founder and artistic director is former professional ballerina, Rosine Bena. SNB is made up of professional dancers from Nevada and from other areas of the country augmented by talented trainees and apprentices from the northern Nevada community. Among these professional dancers is Ananda Bena-Weber, Rosine’s daughter, who is also a founding member of the company and a principal dancer. SNB continues to expand and to encourage talented students at its Academy to remain in the Nevada area to pursue their careers and inspire others in the area to take advantage of the cultural enrichment. The mother and daughter duo spoke with us about the work of SNB, their artistic collaborations, and why they enjoy being members of Americans for the Arts: “Especially during these challenging times, it is such an important organization.” 

Katrina Daniels is the Exhibition and Gallery Sales Director at the Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center, which provides public awareness, education, and enjoyment of the visual arts by promoting the works of Michigan artists. Katrina coordinates exhibitions and public art programming working directly with artists to increase engagment between them and the Lansing community. Katrina is a co-founder of ARTpath, a program developed by the Gallery and the City of Lansing to bring artwork out of the traditional gallery setting and into the public realm. ARTpath offers more accessible opportunities for the community to engage with the work of Michigan artists. Our Member Profile series features the many Americans for the Arts members doing transformative work for arts education, public art, advocacy, arts marketing, and more. An Americans for the Arts Membership connects you with this network of more than 6,000 arts leaders and gives you access to latest professional development and research.

Kyaien (Kya) Conner, PhD, LSW, MPH, began studying West African Dance at the age of six and became a professional West African Dancer at 14. Trained in dance forms of Djembe, Sabar, and Kutiro, she is a member of Kuumba Dancers and Drummers in Tampa, Florida; teaches West African Dance at the University of Tampa; and has taught West African dance nationally and internationally. Conner also is a tenured professor of Mental Health Law and Policy at University of South Florida, specializing in health disparities and the benefits and effects of culturally relevant psychiatric treatments and community-based intervention in older African Americans.

Our Member Profile series features the many Americans for the Arts members doing transformative work for arts education, public art, advocacy, arts marketing, and more. An Americans for the Arts Membership connects you with this network of more than 6,000 arts leaders and gives you access to latest professional development and research. 

Whenever you make public art, there are risks—usually financial. But today with monuments being challenged, politics, history, and community emotions are often also at play. Oh, and we are in a pandemic. When everything was halted in March, I fell into a depression. The prospect of making art with community, if we could do it safely, felt like a mental health salvation. Our Neighborhood Rolls became a beautification project to cover the cinder block wall at the side of a building, but primarily it was envisioned as a point of pride that, in the making, would build community-a meaningful, fun, educational, and engaging project for local kids and residents in Kingston, NY. At a time when everyone is evaluating what risks are worth taking for the greater good, maybe making art with people in public sounds like an unnecessary hazard. However, after my experience in Kingston, I would argue it was an essential action. It greatly impacted my mental health, and visibly demonstrated the importance of placemaking and tangible engagement for community in these apocalyptic times.

Until eight months ago, many arts educators would’ve scoffed at the idea of teaching art, music, dance, or theatre online. Now, virtual learning is a lifeline for arts education. With so many youth enrolled in virtual schooling, the need to design authentic and engaging online artistic experiences is ever more pressing. This challenge is coupled with the reality that so many young people are reeling from trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC reminds us that stark changes in routine, breaks in the continuity of learning, the cancelation of milestone life events, and the perceived loss of safety and security can be very damaging to a child’s social, emotional, and mental well-being. Furthermore, moving arts education online has interrupted social interactions and created limits on self-expression. Can virtual arts experiences still foster the social and emotional needs of young people during this difficult time in their lives? If you ask Maria Ellis and Morgan Luttig, the answer is yes.

Within a week of Boston Public Schools closing its schools due to COVID-19, the district’s nearly 300 BPS visual and performing arts educators quickly shifted to offering remote learning in the arts. The creativity, responsiveness, and community approach educators brought to this task have ensured the arts remain a priority for our students during the spring and moving forward into the new school year. Within days of school closures, BPS visual and performing arts educators congregated on our first Zoom meeting to take stock of the moment and build a plan going forward. In a traffic-jammed city where it can take over an hour to get from one neighborhood to another, meeting online quickly turned into a silver lining, creating a new outlet for collaboration and camaraderie. Discussions rapidly led to an action plan focused on pedagogy and approaches that would make arts learning relevant and sharing resources to do so.

When I write to you about the importance of the arts, I know full well that I am preaching to a large and supportive choir. But we are living in unique times. We are fighting inequality, cynicism, otherism, disconnect, disease. The arts have the powerful ability to remind us who we are, to remind us how to celebrate our similarities as well as our differences. So to you, the choir, I write to you because now more than ever we need to sing our loudest. Without the arts, stories like mine, and millions more, will go untold. The connectivity that makes us who we are, that releases the better angels of our nature, will fade into the dark. Americans for the Arts is here to ensure that we never fade. They are fighting that fight from the capitol building to the streets. They are working to ensure that the mission of the arts, the millions of jobs they provide, the heartbeat they give our humanity, the spark they give our youth, is never muted. 

Across the nation, communities have taken to the street to express their feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement in paint. Public art is an effective tool for local government expression because it amplifies messages of political and social importance with a clear and powerful statement. It also brings people together, creates social understanding, and aids the healing process. That’s just what it did in Asheville, N.C. After a month of planning, on Sunday, July 19, 2020, dozens of artists and volunteers came together on behalf of the City of Asheville to create a Black Lives Matter mural in the heart of downtown. Having been through this process, I have 5 tips for arts agencies looking to serve in a similar role. I also recommend reaching out to other organizations in your area, state, or region that have played a role in the installation of a street mural project for additional insights.

The idea to exchange visual art and musical performances for healthcare was hatched in a conversation over a beer between a Kingston, NY, dentist and a painter. From that creative brainstorming session a small group of underinsured artists and providers was formed to found the first O+ (pronounced O Positive) Festival in 2010. The inaugural festival featured a parade, paste-up murals, and concerts in empty storefronts, and volunteer providers built a small pop-up clinic to care for the participating artists and musicians. Their simple idea of exchanging “the art of medicine for the medicine of art” acknowledged the value that everyone brought to their community. The festival was a way to both celebrate that and bring attention to the inequities of the American healthcare system. At the heart of the festival is the Artists’ Clinic and Greenroom. Participating artists, musicians, and volunteers receive care from volunteer nurses, doctors, bodyworkers, and mental health professionals in a clinic we install in a community hall and from dentists in their offices. An insurance navigator from The Actors Fund is on hand to provide information and guidance. The hall also houses our Greenroom, a place for participating artists, musicians, volunteers, and healers to relax over a home-cooked meal.

As public health guidelines limited social gatherings and encouraged social distancing, arts education and social justice programs needed to reconsider their traditional in-person activities—creating a collaborative activist mural, for example, or performing an original play—for the safety of their communities. How did they bring together young people in meaningful, socially engaged arts experiences without being together physically? I had the opportunity to speak with representatives from three organizations who have fearlessly navigated the complicated world of re-envisioning onstage performances, keeping students of various ages engaged over Zoom, and creating a sense of community among young people who may have never met in person. In their interviews, each leader explained how their organization has adapted and reimagined programs to engage youth in arts and social justice virtually and offered insight on how your community can do the same.

At your core, your organization and its mission haven’t changed. You want to make your patrons happy and continue to share your love of the arts with them. Reframing your image is a simple way to refresh your understanding of who your patrons are so you can better respond to their needs and ensure you’ll remain a vibrant part of their arts community.

This last post in our ARTSblog series featuring nominees for the 2020 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities celebrates Eddy Kwon—musician, educator, program designer, and facilitator of equitable community development. Integrating music as a fundamental component of Price Hill Will, a community development organization in Cincinnati, Kwon’s impacts are many and draw upon their own unique artistry and artistic vision, sustained work in creative youth development, and innovative initiatives in creative citizenship. First, Eddy Kwon is a composer, violinist, jazz musician, and improviser, performing as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and with musicians from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Kwon is equally a community leader who works daily at the intersection of creative youth development, creative citizenship, and equitable community development.