Philanthropic practice

Opportunities Abound: Antiracism and Arts Philanthropy

June 14, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

While the title of GIA’s 2012 Thought Leader Forum — Racial Equity in Arts and Culture Grantmaking — may have left something to be desired in the excitement department, the content of the discussions that took place was such that the two and a half days we spent together in June and two additional days we gathered in November revealed principles/approaches toward racial equity that I hope will have value to colleagues. The goals of the initial forum were as follows:

June 14, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

I am currently writing an essay for a university art gallery exhibition catalog about how the early nineteenth-century invention of photography marked a change in art and spiritual consciousness; and thus dwelling on the postindustrial trajectories of art and science. I have so many extra notions that I created this separate cloud of thought. Apologies if this musing seems too general. I present it here to excite dialogue and receive feedback through the GIA Reader.

How to Measure Wonder

June 14, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Wonder

To my eye, nothing is quite as uplifting as the startling sculptures that erupt before you as you stroll through Socrates Sculpture Park, home to these stems of welded steel and stone, nestled among gritty iron foundries, masonry suppliers, and auto repair shops in Long Island City, Queens.

June 11, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

As a writer who often ponders music and its many audiences, I spend a lot of time thinking about how some artists thrive, while others don’t, in places far from their first home. As listeners, members of an audience, we hear something that feels real, powerful, to us, and we feel connected to the experience of someone who may seem not much like us. From this experience we have a single urgent response: how can we share this with the world? You’ve got to hear this…

February 15, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Kettering Foundation, 200 Commons Road, Dayton, OH, 45459, (937) 434-7300. http://kettering.org.

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February 5, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

An Online Conversation

February 5, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

A new level of debate about equity began when the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) released its report Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy, by Holly Sidford, at the October 2011 GIA conference in San Francisco.

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

The following is an expanded version of my essay “Creative Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging,” first published on the Arts in a Changing America website. I’ve been asked to prepare it for the GIA Reader audience and to reflect further on the topic of belonging as it relates to my work as a public funder.

An Interview with Rocco Landesman

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Rocco Landesman spoke for the first time in the role of the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts at the 2009 GIA conference, Navigating the Art of Change. The Brooklyn convening was subtitled “The Recession Conference,” which Landesman, stating the obvious, translated as “the news is bad.” Nonetheless, he urged us to be optimistic. “Art is the most optimistic of activities.… There is grandeur in art. There is boldness. There is even, to use a very loaded word, the possibility for change, and we mortals need that.”

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

In May 2012 I was invited to speak at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ Cultural Summit 2012, which took place at the school in September. The school is on Deer Isle, part of the coastal archipelago that stitches Maine to the Atlantic Ocean, and that also includes Vinalhaven Island, my family’s home. This article is adapted from my speech.

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“Only Connect the Prose and the Passion” (12 Mb)