Literary arts

Download pdf: http://artspolicy.colum.edu/DVProfiles.html

This unusual literary series of profiles about artists and art leaders explores how their work exists at the "interstices of the arts and democratic life." Featured in the series so far are T. Allan Comp, Umberto Crenca, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Franco Dragone, and Jay Allison. Coming soon is "Nonconforming Uses: Architect Teddy Cruz on the Border of Tomorrow" by Rebecca Solnit.

September2005, 17 pages. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 617-495-1480

PDF available at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

1998, 183 pages. The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, 830 North Tejon Street, Suite 120, Colorado Springs, CO 80903, 719-635-3220, sharpeartfdn@qwest.net

2005, 65 pages. McKnight Foundation, 710 Second Street South, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401, 612-333-4220

Carolyn Bye, executive director of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, writes in the introduction that You Are Here reports on the "small steps" taken by communities in the Twin Cities suburbs since the publication of A New Angle: Arts Development in the Suburbs in 2002. The report features profiles of twelve suburban art projects and a detailed pull-out map showing where to find them and many others.

Beginning in 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a global initiative to strengthen arts education. In 2003, Portuguese delegates to the United Nations called for a global conference to address this aim, resulting in the first-ever World Conference on Arts Education. The World Conference brought together 1,200 artists, educators, policy makers, and researchers from over ninety-seven countries in Lisbon, Portugal from March 6-9, 2006.

These thoughts were sparked by attending the Council on Foundations 57th Annual Conference, "Philanthropy: Investing in the Vision of Progress." I was especially engaged by the plenary remarks of George Soros and Newt Gingrich.

Years ago, after reading a case statement from one of my earliest experiences with fundraising, my husband, who is in the wine business, told me the three "s's" of salesmanship. He said that a salesman should have

Something to say
Say it, and
Stop.

He made it sound fairly easy and apparently it works if you are approaching a reluctant wine buyer who should prefer the rare Aglianico you're offering to an ordinary Chianti from your competitor. Sales have been good and my husband has a thriving company.

This time it was the catastrophic devastation in the Gulf States. Last time it was the 9/11 attack. Before that were the floods in North Dakota, the earthquakes in San Francisco and Seattle, and Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and then

Each time disaster strikes — whether natural or man made — communities face inestimable emotional and economic suffering. When artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions are affected by these disasters, the confusion and bewilderment about what to do and how to help extends very directly to us as arts grantmakers.

When I mentioned to an arts funder that I was reading a book called Integrating Mission and Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations she sighed and said we needed to stop using words like strategy. I asked why and she said, "Funders got arts organizations to start using these business words years ago, but nothing has changed. They are not in better shape." The author of the book, James A. Phills, Jr., might suggest the problem was not so much the concept of strategy, but rather a general misunderstanding and misuse of the word itself.

Can you explain, in simple terms, how you or someone you know is changed by listening to music, watching a dance performance, looking at an artwork, or writing in a journal? I’d be hard pressed to manage a coherent response.

It’s not easy to talk about how art transforms or how we are different because of it. Many who work in the arts, including those of us who do so because of our belief in the transformative power of art, lack a vernacular for communicating its impacts.