For decades the prolific Jack Loeffler has attended to the sounds of New Mexicosounds from nature, conversation, song, and storytellingwhile also hanging out with its legendary iconoclasts and characters. Loeffler's extensive recordings, chronicles, and transcriptions have contributed to the revival of the traditional music of New Mexico. We invited Loeffler to steep us in the place through his medium of sound.
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The GIA Library is an information hub that includes articles, research reports, and other materials covering a wide variety of topics relevant to the arts and arts funding. These resources are made available free to members and non-members of GIA. Users can search by keyword or browse by category for materials to use in research and self-directed learning. Current arts philanthropy news items are available separately in our news feed - News from the Field.
The following article was first presented as an address at "Selling Yarns — Australian Indigenous Textiles and Good Business in the 21st Century,” a conference hosted by the Australian National University and held at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, Australia on August 13, 2006.
As is often the custom among Native peoples of the Americas, I want to share a story with you that serves as deep background for everything I will be talking about today.
"I believe that if we can keep our values close, our imaginations open, and our stories fierce, we can and will win." - Thenmozhi Soundararajan
Introduction
122 pages. Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), 1743 Wazee Street, Suite 300, Denver, CO 80202, 888-562-7232 or 303-629-1166, staff@westaf.org
May 2005, The Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20037, (202) 833-7200, www.urban.org
"The idea that expressive activities contribute to building and preserving communities has become an increasingly important part of economic development and community revitalization discourse in cities, towns and nations around the world."
Carole Rosenstein, Ph.D.
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.
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.
October, 2004. Convened by the Alliance of California Traditional Arts, the Presidio, San Francisco, California
At the annual GIA conference last fall, a group of twenty or so participants gathered together for a roundtable session devoted to funding individual immigrant and traditional artists. Organized by staff or board members of the Bush Foundation and the Flintridge Foundation, the roundtable session provided one of the first opportunities for foundation program officers engaged in this type of support to share information and to identify common concerns and strategies to meet them. And, indeed, common concerns and themes did emerge in the discussion.