Blog Posts for July 2011 Blog Salon

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.


Stephanie Hanson

Innovating Locally, Thinking Globally (from Arts Watch)

Posted by Stephanie Hanson, Jul 20, 2011 0 comments


Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Evans Hanson

Stephanie Evans Hanson

Earlier today, I had the chance to listen in on a talk by National Endowment for the Arts Local Arts Agencies & Challenge America Director Michael Killoren as he was speaking to a group of Americans for the Arts and NEA interns.

As he spoke about his career path and what he’s learned thus far, one thing he said stood out to me: Most innovation is happening at the local level.

We spend a lot of time, energy, and resources advocating for increased dollars for the arts at the federal and state level, which is important and that work should continue. However, I believe a focus on what’s happening culturally at the local level in what we estimate to be 19,000 cities is equally important to pay attention to. This is one reason why I am very excited about the upcoming Emerging Leader blog salon, titled Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation, taking place July 25-29 on ARTSblog.

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Tiffany Barber

Shattering Teenaged Observations of My Hometown

Posted by Tiffany Barber, Jul 27, 2011 17 comments


Tiffany Barber

Stage Center in Oklahoma City

I remember as a teenager vowing to never return to this place. Oklahoma City was by no means 'cool,' and the record-breaking, triple degree summer heat doesn't help. But thanks to the Thunder, a recession-resistant economy, low cost of living, and a booming energy industry, Oklahoma City has become a bonafide destination spot. And its arts sector is responding. What’s even more surprising is that I’m starting to think this place isn’t SO bad.

Local art walks have gained a lot of attention as economic activators and community redevelopment tools, see: downtown Los Angeles. In fact, in researching for this blog post, I read that Columbus, OH, is using art walks as public health stimulators! Oklahoma City's Plaza District employs a similar model.

Though not as large as downtown Los Angeles and without the express interest of improving people’s heart rates, the art galleries and small, independently owned businesses along NW 16th Street have banded together to breathe new life into the once blighted area. Second Fridays are always LIVE on the Plaza, featuring music, rotating exhibitions, special events, and local shopping.

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Mr. Ian David Moss

Conversations with a Curator: Douglas Laustsen (Part 2)

Posted by Mr. Ian David Moss, Aug 16, 2011 0 comments


Mr. Ian David Moss

Ian David Moss

In the spirit of the recent conversation on ArtsBlog, Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation, I thought it would be interesting to talk to a curator about how he makes room for the unfamiliar in his work.

Douglas Laustsen is a music educator and trombonist based in New Jersey who runs a radio program called “Endless Possibilities” on WRSU, Rutgers University’s college radio station. We decided to continue a discussion we began on Twitter a few months ago about curatorship and new music.

Our discussion was published in two parts here on ARTSblog:

You mentioned that the recordings people send you tend to be more polished than you expected. On the one hand, that perhaps makes for a better listening experience, but on the other, it perhaps gets away a little bit from the original vision for Explorations. How do you negotiate that tension in your curation process?

It is interesting, to me at least, that I've had to be more concerned with creating a ceiling for the segment than a floor. Luckily, I have space during the rest of my show to feature music I don't find appropriate for Explorations, and I have played submissions outside of Explorations as a way to promote a piece and maintain the spirit of the segment. Clearly there is a lot gray area in making this determination, but over time my familiarity with the new music world has made this judgement a lot easier.

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Ebony McKinney

Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation

Posted by Ebony McKinney, Jul 25, 2011 1 comment


Ebony McKinney

Welcome to the Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation blog salon. This Salon is part of a larger effort on the part of the Emerging Leaders Council to help Americans for the Arts and the field at-large learn from the best and brightest thinkers and doers in communities around the country.

In January, we decided to initiate a year-long research project by asking, “What lessons can the rest of the field learn or take away from novel, under-the-radar, and locally-based ideas, projects or approaches to old problems?”

We were looking for great examples of innovative, on-the-ground projects or initiatives that deserve wider attention because of their potential to serve as a model for the rest of us.

Hopefully many of you were able to attend our Idea Lab at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in San Diego this year. Several of this salon’s bloggers were gathered in conversation there.

This fall, our committee will present a selection of in-depth profiles on some of the innovative ideas, projects and themes we’ve uncovered throughout the year. This week’s salon is an effort to expand and frame that conversation.

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Ryan Hurley

The Relationship Between Innovation and Impact

Posted by Ryan Hurley, Jul 27, 2011 2 comments


Ryan Hurley

Students display a bench they created for their school/community garden.

I was fortunate enough to attend this year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in San Diego. One of the most engaging ideas that I took home with me was the relationship between innovation and impact.

We talked about how these two ideas are often assumed to go hand-in-hand and although many innovative ideas do have significant impact on large groups of people, sometimes innovation is for the sake of innovation.

One member of my table used the analogy of the space pen – how NASA spent tons of money and research developing a zero gravity pen that could write in space, which is a cool, I want one, but pencils always seemed to work just fine in the past. Was this innovative, probably, did it have a significant impact on a large group of people or was it a catalyst of great purpose, probably not.

I must admit I am a bit biased on what we termed ‘The Space Pen Theory’ because of my arts education background. We are trained to weigh much more heavily on the impact of a project than the novelty of the idea, not to say that we aren’t often able to bring those two elements together but for educational purposes, the process is often more closely examined than the product.

We deliberately tried to balance impact and innovation with the 53rd Street School Community Garden Project. Community gardens and school gardens are not super fresh ideas but the fusion of the two in a project that uses the arts to engage the entire community from the inception, brings new life to both.

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Stephanie Hanson

Conversation and Innovation

Posted by Stephanie Hanson, Jul 25, 2011 2 comments


Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Evans Hanson

Stephanie Evans Hanson

Innovation, change, and new ideas start with a conversation. Your new idea may come from a conversation you overhear in a coffee shop, from a television interview you watch, or from a panel discussion or keynote you listen to at a conference.

Or, it may come from a discussion you are actively taking part in. Innovation can also come from a conversation you first have with yourself, which you reflect on over time, and possibly discuss with family, friends, or colleagues.

It can be easy to overlook the value of a conversation when brainstorming an innovative idea. It’s easy to tell yourself that you don’t have time to go to the next meeting, or listen to that podcast, or read blogs, or…the list goes on and on.

But in actuality, we can no longer afford to continue the status quo in our field. The organizations that are innovative with business models, marketing, fundraising, programming, and reaching new audiences are the ones that will survive in this economy. If innovation starts with a conversation, we must allow ourselves the time for discussing, listening, reading, and reflecting. 

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