Readings

I believe it is time to begin a conversation about a new model for building a vibrant arts landscape. Since I left federal service in the fall of 2001, I have had an opportunity rare for former chairmen of the National Endowment for the Arts—the chance to create a research center engaging the very issues that fascinated me during my tenure with the endowment.

It was April 1968: I was out for lunch break with Jim and Mary, co-workers from the general accounting office where we worked in the University District. They were old hands in the office. I was new on staff and excited. This was my first real job out of high school after a string of just so-so jobs. There had been the eyeglass factory where I stood, eight hours a day for three months in a windowless basement knocking lead weights off newly polished eyeglass lenses with a mallet. A friend of my mother's had gotten me that job.

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Catherine Maciariello
This panel intends to examine the purpose and value of what we do from the personal, institutional, and public perspective. We ask your indulgence and ask you to fly with us at 35,000 feet. We are talking about relationships, multiple meanings, and civic dialogue that enable an exchange of ideas that elevate and enrich both art-making and civic life.

During the 2002 Council on Foundations annual conference, Kent (Oz) C. Nelson, the former chairman and CEO of United Parcel Service, said that he believed that all giving, even corporate giving, should come "from the heart." Several people cheered; some groaned. But, Reatha Clark King, then president of the General Mills Foundation, remarked that finding a corporation's heart is the real problem.

This essay is from an address prepared for the Music Educators National Conference, Washington, D.C., March 28, 1990.

The moniker, "Grantmakers in the Arts," could suggest that our job as funders is solely to read proposals and write checks, a straightforward transaction that takes a hiatus when the award letter goes out and revives when the final report comes in. In reality, we know that the most important work we do may take place before the proposal is even submitted and that the impact of our work only improves as the quality of our ongoing interaction with our grantees strengthens.

Recently, while sitting in a coffee shop in Chicago, I overheard a language that sounded familiar. Being a folklorist I'm sensitive to occupational language. You can blindfold me in front of conversations of cowboys or farmers and I will be able to pick out a number of things that distinguish their talk. And having a private language is not bad, it's a reality.

Alternate ROOTS is a coalition of artists and cultural workers in the Southeastern USA; addressing racism and other oppressions has been integral to our mission for a long time. At our 2004 Annual Meeting this past August a panel of ROOTS' founding members discussed the function of ROOTS as a cultural continuation of the civil rights movement - beginning with our founding at the legendary Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee.