2006, 53 pages. National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts, 520 Eighth Avenue, Suite 302, New York, NY 10018, 212-268-3337, www.nationalguild.org
In the weekend leading into the 2007 Taos Journey conference, members of Grantmakers in the Arts and Grantmakers for Education will spend two days together in Santa Fe seeking better understanding of one another's priorities in arts and educationfinding common ground. In the spirit of building this bridge between education and the arts, we sought an educator rather than an artist, a practitioner rather than a researcher, to write about arts education.
The design of GIA's 2007 conference is based on one used in 1993 for a conference in La Jolla, when papers published as the book Alternative Futures fostered lively discussion. We've invited back two authors from that 1993 publication, consultant M. Melanie Beene and conductor Michael Morgan, to revisit themes from their earlier pieces. We reconnected these two particular writers with their shared story in mind.
Poet, novelist, and dramatist Denise Chávez lives in the borderland between New Mexico and Mexico. There, following in the footsteps of the women of her family, particularly her Tiá Chita (who created a lending library in a small town in Texas), Denise is a founder of the Border Book Festivalcreating a sense of community through books and writers. In visiting New Mexico, we wanted GIA members to experience the difference between its northern and southern regions.
Changing media policy has affected and will continue to shape how art is made and distributed, whose voices are heard, and who has access to those voices. To take an angle on this multifaceted subject, we invited two articulate media experts into a conversation about their workwork that has profound implications for artists and for social justice activists. Jenny Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, interviews Loris Taylor, executive director of Native Public Media.
GIA member and board member Ben Cameron (Doris Duke Charitable Foundation) called this opportunity to our attention. We are grateful to Jean Cook at the Future of Music Coalition for putting this article together quickly as we went to press.
