GIA Blog

Some look at the city of Flint and see only urban blight, a city drained of its soul. Others, like Natasha Thomas-Jackson, Executive Director of RAISE IT UP! Youth Arts and Awareness, see a city alive with creativity, a community on the brink of rediscovering its voice. Her non-profit was founded to ensure that the creativity and collective voices of the youth in her hometown are discovered, nurtured and expressed.

The San Francisco Arts Commission voted unanimously on Monday to appoint its vice president, JD Beltran, as interim director while the commission recruits a permanent new director of cultural affairs. Beltran is a conceptual artist, filmmaker and writer. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally. Mayor Edwin Lee has sole authority over the appointment of Arts Commissioners.

The Joyce Foundation today announced that Angelique Power will join the organization as senior program officer for the Culture Program in late August. Ms. Power comes to Joyce with more than 15 years experience in communications and outreach, most recently serving as director of communications and community engagement at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Read the full announcement.

Been thinking about your organization's social media plan at lot lately? Us too. Here's a tidy little history of why we're grappling with this, posted to Mashable by Jolie O'Dell. If you read to the bottom, you will find links to other social media infographics, including a few that might inform your (all of our) ever-evolving social media strategies.

Watching the local news recently, there was an article about public art funding being in jeopardy in the state of Washington. The reporter ended the story by implying the big losers here would be the artists who have received funds from the program. This was a reminder to me of how we are losing the public relations war about the importance of the arts in our lives and communities. Actually, it is not the artists who are the big losers (although they are one loser). It is all the people who live and visit the state of Washington.

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has announced the release of the State Arts Agency Fiscal Year 2012 Legislative Appropriations Preview report. This document summarizes how state arts agencies fared during this year's budget deliberations and includes information on the appropriations each state arts agency expects to receive for FY2012.

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the inaugural round of "Our Town" funding, totaling $6.575 million in grants to 51 communities in 34 states that have created public-private partnerships to strengthen the arts while shaping the social, physical, and economic characters of their neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions. NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman made the announcement during an online press conference today. A full listing of grants is available here.

Re-aired and released via podcast last weekend, Act V is a 2002 This American Life episode about the piecemeal performance of Hamlet by a group of prisoners at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. The performance was organized by St. Louis-based Prison Performing Arts, a multi-discipline literacy and performing arts program that serves incarcerated adults and children.

Join us next Tuesday, July 12, at 2:00 EDT/11:00 PDT for the next webinar in our 2011 Web Conference Series, Cultural Participation in a Changing Society, presented by Salvador Acevedo, President of Contemporanea.

The BC Arts Council received $16,831,000 from the provincial government to help fund artists and cultural organizations in British Columbia for 2011-12.

Arts groups large and small apply to the BC Arts Council – an independent agency of the Province – to support opportunities for artists, strengthen local economies and enhance quality of life for citizens in communities across British Columbia.