Thank you to the many people who have been blog contributors to, and readers of ArtsBlog over the years. ArtsBlog has long been a space where we uplifted stories from the field that demonstrated how the arts strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically; where trends and issues and controversies were called out; and advocacy tools were provided to help you make the case for more arts funding and favorable arts policies.

As part of Americans for the Arts’ recent Strategic Realignment Process, we were asked to evaluate our storytelling communications platforms and evolve the way we share content. As a result, we launched the Designing Our Destiny portal to explore new ways of telling stories and sharing information, one that is consistent with our longtime practice of, “No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number.”

As we put our energy into developing this platform and reevaluate our communications strategies, we have put ArtsBlog on hold. That is, you can read past blog posts, but we are not posting new ones. You can look to the Designing Our Destiny portal and our news items feed on the Americans for the Arts website for stories you would have seen in ArtsBlog in the past.

ArtsBlog will remain online through this year as we determine the best way to archive this valuable resource and the knowledge you’ve shared here.

As ever, we are grateful for your participation in ArtsBlog and thank you for your work in advancing the arts. It is important, and you are important for doing it.


Alix Refshauge

Survey Monkey; meet my Facebook friends

Posted by Alix Refshauge, Jun 16, 2010 0 comments


Alix Refshauge

I recently created a survey through Survey Monkey and sent it to my Facebook friends who are not involved in the arts and do not live in my town.  The purpose was to get a sense of how connected people who don't work in the arts are with the arts in their communities. 

One question that I struggle with is how do artists who don't teach but aren't at a professional stage of their career - make it in the real world?  Residencies are a fantastic place for them to go to focus on their work but what happens when the residency is over?

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Michelle Dean

Creating Meaning Through Relationships

Posted by Michelle Dean, Jun 15, 2010 6 comments


Michelle Dean

In terms of relationships and the ability to bridge at least two terrains, I personally like Hermes as a possible mascot for art therapy.  All humor aside, Hermes was most commonly described as a Greek Olympian god of boundaries and travelers who cross them.  He was a translator and messenger from the gods (the spiritual realm) to the humans (an earthly realm). He was a psychopomp, meaning he was a conductor of the soul, on of his responsibilities included bringing newly dead souls (akin to those struck by symbolic illnesses in response to personal conflict or cultural affliction) from the Underworld or Hades (metaphorically - a dark underworld, a shadow world) and was attributed to bringing dreams to the living. Hermes gives us our word hermeneutics, the art of interpreting hidden meaning. 

Art therapy is very much about creating meaning, although too often meaning making is confused with interpretation. Art therapy involves both the creative emergence of meaning and the revealing of existing but veiled meanings. At its best, art therapy is a co-created experience, one in which mutual admiration and respect is given to the art making process and to the symbolic material of the individual, family or group.  It is a therapeutic experience in which art materials are used to facilitate insight, process and integrate experiences. It need not be a set of coveted techniques although they are spoken of frequently as interventions but instead covers an orientation and attitude towards everything that is creative in life. For it is the nature of imagery and creativity, like Hermes, to transcend boundaries, to dissolve them, recreate, and redefine them. Hence art therapy shares this distinctive quality of defying easy definition.

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Joanna Chin

The Forgotten Spaces In-Between: Technology and changing definitions of community

Posted by Joanna Chin, Jun 14, 2010 0 comments


Joanna Chin

Match.com.
Video conferencing.
Avatars.
Smart phones.
Chatroulette.
Facebook.

How has technology affected the way we interact with one another?
The proponents would say that it has opened up new doors, expanded possibilities. On the other hand, critics would claim that new technology and interconnectivity is negatively distorting the way people socialize.  On occasion, I’ve stopped and wondered whether we make relationships less significant when our primary means of interactivity is a collection of Facebook messages.

Thus, if technology is mutating our relationships, how has it affected our definitions of community?
Already, we see the expansion of communities online that are defined, not by geographic proximity or traditional social groupings, but by participation in chat rooms, tweeting, and wall posts.  The definition of community is morphing from neighborhood gatherings to encompass these web exchanges and, consequently, poses interesting challenges and opportunities for those using art in community development.

John Ewing’s 24/7 Interaction: Brookline – Roxbury, which opened this past Friday, demonstrates that, while technology is changing the way we interact, an inspired artist can harness new methods of communication to not only build community, but build community between geographically defined neighborhoods.

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Michelle Dean

HARDENING OF THE CATEGORIES LEADS TO ART DISEASE

Posted by Michelle Dean, Jun 14, 2010 4 comments


Michelle Dean

The quote “Hardening of the categories leads to art disease” is attributed to Kenneth Snelson, and his defiance to define his work as science or art. He described his work, a cross between aesthetic vision and the scientific inspiration behind the engineering of his sculptures, which defy the neat categorization of art or science. Art therapists too grapple with the continuum of the artistic and scientific but it is evident that hardening of any category related to a creative function can lead to a malady and stagnation.

Art, psychology and religion share a fluid symbolic nature. Thus it is the symbol, which is the lens that we may see the world.  It both consolidates and expands. And all symbols are relational, meaning when taken out of context they often lose their significance. Although some have their misconceptions about art and psychology, or should I say stigmas about either as a profession, they are often equally dumb-founded at the mention of combining the two into the profession of art therapy. Most of this is due to unfamiliarity with the concepts. So for clarity sake, let’s start with some of the basics.

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