Readings

We live in a world of "widespread hostility toward the United States and its policies."1 This antipathy is not limited to the countries and peoples that are directly affected by the U.S. "war on terror" and its attendant pol-icies, but includes many of our former allies and fellow democracies. A friend who just returned from a year in Spain reports that she spent a significant amount of time and energy convincing people she met there that the U.S.

As grantmakers, we have choices. Finding the right tool for the job and experimenting with tools to learn the range of their usefulness is what grantmakers do.

In the Grantmakers in the Arts boardroom, when my fellow board members speak, I sometimes feel like my little mutt Duffy must feel when I say "Go outside, Duffy, and take care of business."

"Blah blah blah, Duffy, blah, blah, blah."

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I understand some of what my colleagues say. More than Duffy, for instance. (Duffy is part cocker spaniel, and there is truth to the saying "dumb as a cocker spaniel.") But I am running to catch up, just as Duffy on her four-inch legs scurries after me on a brisk walk.

Immigrant and refugee communities historically have played key roles in the Bay Area's growth and rich diversity. As California enters the twenty-first century, demographic figures reflect significant increases in immigrant pop-ulations. Amongst these communities are myriad performance ensembles, in-dividual artists, teachers, and participatory arts events that strengthen comm-unity ties, reinforce a vibrant cultural heritage, and enrich the lives of Bay Area residents.

The summer 2005 issue of the GIA Reader contained an article consisting of excerpts from a group blog discussion on ArtsJournal.com titled, "Is There a Better Case for the Arts?"² The blog was inspired by Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts, a study commissioned by the Wallace Foundation "to improve the current understanding of the arts' full range of effects in order to inform public debate and policy."³ Twelve individuals participated in the online d

"We have a term in our language called gW3dZadad— it is a form of wealth. It's the wealth of knowledge of culture of our peoples, our laws, our ceremonies, our songs, of the names of our ancestors...Our ancestors live today as long as we pass it down to our children.”
Bruce subiyay Miller, Community Spirit Award recipient

Emily Dickinson couldn't have found a more perfect way to describe how so many artists and artist advocates approach the world.¹  It is tempting to give ourselves over to the rare work that fires our inspiration, and shut the door on everything else. It is often only in nurturing isolation and fringe communities that new ideas find their full flower. But there is a danger in the isolation.

As Tia Oros Peters so eloquently states in her essay that follows, there is no particular word for art in the thousands of Indigenous languages of the world. While there are hundreds of Native American languages, the same holds true; Native Americans do not and cannot separate the importance of art and culture from everyday life. It is one goal of GIA's Indigenous People's Network to bring this important way of life to the fore of grantmakers' thinking.

The fall 2002 issue of the Reader (volume 13, number 3) introduced an ongoing feature, "Why Art?" as a response to GIA's goal to strengthen the role of arts and culture in philanthropy and in society as a whole. This Reader feature aims to help members and others make stronger arguments for the support of arts and culture by sharing examples of arguments, case statements, insights, and stories that convey the multifaceted role that culture, the arts, and artists play in our society, neighborhoods, and individual lives.

The full text of this article is not yet available on this site. Below is a brief excerpt.