Joanna Chin

Sometimes, I like to take a step away from the art itself to ask what art does for society.  In a world that often portrays our field as frivolous or boils our work down to how it can stimulate local economies, it’s a nice exercise to imagine how the thing to which we dedicate our lives actually contributes, and has even more potential to contribute, to bettering the world at large.

Shifting gears a bit, let’s talk about one of the most global issues facing…well, the globe: climate change.  A 2009 report by the Pew Research Center claims that the number of Americans who believe manmade global warming is real has dropped 14 % from 2008.  And, according to a Brookings Institute study, even among Americans who believe that global warming is occurring, there was an 18% decrease in respondents who said they were very confident that this phenomenon was taking place.

Speculation about the reasons behind the climate change movement’s loss of momentum abound.  While some popular hypotheses for its decline include the current economic crisis and the radicalization of the Republican Party in the wake of Obama’s election, one of the most interesting to me was in a Newsweek blog entry suggesting that many Americans are indifferent or unable to comprehend the long-term effects of climate change.  That indifference has emerged more strongly now because it’s much harder to prioritize abstract, far-away problems like climate change when compared to the daily threat of losing one’s job.

Marete Wester

With New York City baking in the east coast heatwave for most of the month of July, it was refreshing to head to the relatively cool, rainy, high mountains of Aspen, CO, in August for the third Americans for the Arts Seminar for Leadership in the Arts, held in collaboration with the Harman-Eisner Program in the Arts. 

This year’s program entitled “The Artful Entrepreneur: Exploring Philanthropic Innovations for Arts and Culture in the 21st Century" attracted 30 arts philanthropists, corporate and foundation leaders, arts administrators, and activists to the Aspen Institute.

Hailing from a wide range of diverging experiences, the participants ranged from individual arts patrons to foundation executives to venture capitalists, from grassroots community leaders to cultural policy experts to board members involved in major cultural capital campaigns. They rolled up their sleeves and spent two days wrestling with the particularly disturbing idea that on top of the arts losing their traditional philanthropic market share, we are also not on the radar screens of the growing number of social entrepreneurs who are sending their venture philanthropy dollars to causes other than the arts. What we can do to collectively change the trend was the question at hand?

Liesel Fenner

For artists and/or arts administrators new to public art, two public art professional development opportunities are coming soon: a 3-day conference, Public Art 360, and the Public Art Academy, a series of three online webinars for artists. Understanding the multi-layer components of what is required to not only create artwork for public space, but also to understand the tandem administrative requisites are paramount in developing public art in your community.

IF you live in the southeastern or mid-Atlantic states, get yourself to Asheville, North Carolina! Public Art 360 is a 3-day public art conference for artists and administrators – Thursday, September 23 through Saturday, September 25, 2010 at the Crest Center and Pavilion on top of Crest Mountain in west Asheville.  

Yours truly will be co-presenting with Brendan Greaves of NC Arts Council, You Are Here: Defining Space. Understanding the context of the site and place before you begin designing is one of the keys to creating successful public art. The conference will have two tracks – one for artists, coming into the field of public art (or thinking of coming into the field of public art) and one for administrators/organizations with public art programs (or starting a public art program).  Other highlights of the conference include sessions by Barbara Goldstein, Public Art Director for the City of San Jose and creator of the Public Art Academy, a keynote address by Bill Ivey former director of the National Endowment for the Arts during the Clinton administration and a closing address by conceptual visual artist Mel Chin. 29, October 13, and November 3. You will get all the tools and connections you need to move forward successfully.

Justin Knabb

Downturns. Busts. Shortfalls. Cutbacks. Flat-funding. These oft-cited buzzwords, which we have all heard ad nauseum (and which I am guilty of gluttonously using as well, ironic intro included), seem to particularly embed themselves in the discourse of the arts world. As the writer of a publication which tracks state and local funding trends in the arts, I’m keenly cognizant of the topics on which I rarely get to write: Upturns. Boons. Surpluses. Increases. Robust funding. (Okay, I was reaching with that last one.) But over the past few weeks, I have noticed a new, encouraging trend developing in both large and small cities all across the country: the establishment and expansion of arts districts.

These districts, usually designated through city zoning laws, with tax benefits, house the collective creativity of a community. They contain city streets lined with art galleries, theaters, studios, museums, performing arts centers, and of course, the individuals who make it all possible: artists.

As advocates, we constantly espouse the economic benefit of investing in the arts—pleas that often fall on deaf ears during times of financial turmoil (another clichéd phrase of the recession). But some cities appear to be hearing those pleas, and are engaging in concerted efforts to revitalize their economies and their infrastructures through the arts.

Here is a look at some promising new developments: