A conversation between essayist John Rockwell and Linda Breneman (Breneman Jaech Foundation) about cultural patronage today, from the perspectives of a journalist and an individual donor. Funders with varying relationships to living patrons, donors' estates, and philanthropic institutions chime in on how risky, enduring art is—or might be—supported.
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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.
Arts and education grantmakers at an historic gathering in Santa Fe in October of 2007 agreed on the need to forge a new vision for public education in the United States and to collectively explore how the arts can help shape and realize that vision.
Convened by Grantmakers in the Arts and Grantmakers for Education, more than 100 foundation representatives met formally for the first time under the aegis of their two affinity organizations to debate and discuss the role of the arts in education.
This article was originally printed in Ford Reports, No. 2, 2007. Reprinted by permission.
How can funders apply what they know about changes in the external environment—in demographics, use of free time, use of disposable income—to best serve and stabilize theaters and other mid-sized arts groups?
Sue Coliton, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation (moderator); Nancy Fushan, Bush Foundation; Lawrence Thoo, San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs; Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (interlocutors).
A working session to review the Coalition's draft publication, "A National Blueprint for Emergency Preparedness, Relief and Recovery for Artists," and other Coalition works in progress. Also, discussion of a draft plan to give grantmakers better resources for learning about emergency readiness, response, and recovery, and to improve and coordinate safety nets for artists during regional or national emergencies.
Cornelia Carey, Craft Emergency Relief Fund (moderator); Carolyn Somers, Joan Mitchell Foundation (interlocutor).
Like Juan Estevan Arellano, Stanley Crawford is a writer and a farmer. He also has taken on the strenuous responsibility of serving as a mayordomo for an acequia (an irrigation ditch system) in northern New Mexico. Readers of Crawford's Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico learn how social ties and shared civic values are sustained alongside a series of ditches and floodgates that draw water from a river for distribution to agricultural fields. We include a brief excerpt.
Our Taos Journey essays depart by looking back at philanthropy's recent past. As the field has become more formalized as a profession, it also has attracted exposés and critiques. Many have called for greater accountability, transparency, and proof of effectiveness. While the critique is worthy and perhaps overdue, historian, philanthropist, and former GIA board member James Allen Smith calls for a deeper, shared understanding of professionalism.
124 pages. Western States Arts Federation, 1743 Wazee Street, Suite 300, Denver, CO 80202, 303-629-1166, www.westaf.org
Proceedings from this Western States Arts Federation symposium that included artists and arts administrators from all over the west-ern states, feature topics related to the emergence of a new generation of arts leaders
The design of GIA's 2007 conference is based on one used in 1993 for a conference in La Jolla, when papers published as the book Alternative Futures fostered lively discussion. We've invited back two authors from that 1993 publication, consultant M. Melanie Beene and conductor Michael Morgan, to revisit themes from their earlier pieces. We reconnected these two particular writers with their shared story in mind.
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.