Blog Posts for April 2012 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

Emerging Leaders Networks: Leveraging Impact for the Future

Posted by Stephanie Hanson, Apr 02, 2012 0 comments


Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Hanson

Coming up with the theme for a blog salon is always a challenge.

For the past few years that I’ve been working with our Emerging Leaders Council committee to develop our blog salons, we usually have a kernel of an idea for what to focus on. It’s ideal when the initial inspiration comes from the council, because then it’s truly coming from the field. After all, the point of our blog is to facilitate online discussion about big picture issues in the arts that we feel need to be addressed.

When thinking about this year’s salon, the council knew they wanted to feature the Local Emerging Leaders Networks around the country. Great. Love it. Easy. Done.

But what should we have them talk about?

We already talked about emerging ideas in the field last year. What’s next?

We began to think about HOW those emerging ideas get implemented. In many cases, in order for a new idea to thrive, we as individuals, organizations, the community, and the field as a whole may need to change at a very fundamental level.

Perhaps we need to change our definition of success; how our organizations are structured; how we interact with our communities; and how we make art.

Then, we read Diane Ragsdale’s February 14 blog post; If Our Goal is Simply to Preserve Our Current Reality, Why Pursue It?, where she writes about innovation and arts sector reform.  Diane’s thesis can be summed up in these sentences:

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Tara Aesquivel

The Subversive Tack: Arts + Sustainability

Posted by Tara Aesquivel, Apr 04, 2012 1 comment


Tara Aesquivel

Tara Aesquivel

Sometimes it feels like I lead a double life. Okay, pretty much every day.

Persona A: I’ve been a performing musician for most of my life; I have degrees in music and arts management; I devote what other people call “free time” to EAL/LA and Inner-City Arts, and; most of my social outings at arts events.

Persona B: I grew up in rural Missouri, where my grandpa was a farmer; I’m really concerned about the purity of our food supply; I try to buy clothes only made from natural fibers, and; my full-time job is with the Urban Sustainability program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Deeply and intuitively, I know these two personas are not dissonant and they must have developed from the same place within me.

I have yet to eloquently describe how and why, but being around sustainability folks has given me some big clues. (Guess what? They’re mostly into the arts, too.)

One of these folks is Jenny Price. Whatever brief glimpse into Jenny’s bio I could share would be an under-representation of her awesomeness, so I’ll encourage you to read some of her work instead.

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Stephanie Hanson

Capturing the World of an Emerging Arts Leader

Posted by Stephanie Hanson, Apr 06, 2012 1 comment


Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Hanson

I am consistently inspired by the innovation that comes out of the Emerging Leaders Network, and this week’s blog salon was no exception.

We heard from representatives of 11 Emerging Leaders Networks, and gained some insight into what was happening in their communities. This week, bloggers have questioned and affirmed why they continue to dedicate their careers to the arts; wrote about examples of artists and arts organizations leading authentic community engagement; questioned the social inequity of unpaid interns; and shared a list of Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us at 25.

We gave ourselves permission to fail, permission to have multiple interests outside of the arts that may or may not intersect with the field, and reminded ourselves not to get stuck in a structure that no longer works for us as individuals or organizations.

It’s clear that emerging arts leaders are looking at their careers, organizations, and neighborhoods in a different way than arts administrators who have come before them. I believe it’s important that we honor the hard work of those who started in the field before us. Without them, we wouldn’t have the National Endowment for the Arts, the structure of public funding support, or the diversity of arts, cultural, and community engagement organizations that exist today.

There are four generations currently working and leading in the workforce, and we must find ways to work with one another, share our strengths, and support each other’s weaknesses at all levels of the generation spectrum.

To me, this blog salon demonstrated how many mini ripple effects of change are taking place in communities across the country at the same time. This is change at a very fundamental level that has the potential to reform our field in the way that Diane Ragsdale envisions in her post (and is our muse for this salon).

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Ms. Molly E. O'Connor

“While I have saved lives on a regular basis, it’s the arts that give people a reason to live.”

Posted by Ms. Molly E. O'Connor, Apr 02, 2012 1 comment


Ms. Molly E. O'Connor

Molly O'Connor

If you could get a glimpse of my desk right now you might not see anything Zen about it.

Maybe you could just accept my latest explanation: “I’m an artist and this is my own ongoing-interactive-avant-garde-installation/happening-type performance work?”

Amongst the collage of papers, Post-Its, office supplies, and arts swag, there is one tiny bit of Zen wisdom taped to my computer monitor that stares back at me on a daily basis. It allows me to realign myself whenever I lose sight of the bigger picture of my work, a simple quote from one of those page-a-day calendars:

“A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied ‘To hell, for that’s where help is needed most.’” ~ Roshi Philip Kapleau

Before you assume that I’m comparing my current situation, job, or life in Oklahoma to hell, I would like to add, I feel genuinely blessed to have a career as a cultural worker in Oklahoma, where our work as arts leaders and advocates is always meaningful and definitely cut out for us.

I actually feel this quote is just another version of the Irish blessing: “May you always have work for your hands to do.”

Interestingly enough, both bits of wisdom seem to relate directly to our Oklahoma state motto: “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Latin for “Labor Conquers All Things”).

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Ms. Hillary Anaya

Passion Starts with Positive Thinking

Posted by Ms. Hillary Anaya, Apr 04, 2012 1 comment


Ms. Hillary Anaya

Hillary Anaya

Hillary Anaya

Having received my BA in Music Business from the University of South Alabama back in 2010, I began a career in arts administration working for the Mobile Arts Council.

Yup, I’m fresh off the boat with big plans and a sense of urgency to accomplish giant things. I seek to move the world tomorrow. Okay, fine, in the next two minutes.

Yet as I try to move the world here comes (insert Jaws theme song) a pile of real world inconveniences: paperwork, phone calls, and technological dilemmas. All the while, in the back of my already overloaded mind, I complain, why do they have to happen, do they really matter?

The answer: ABSOLUTELY! These annoyances are just the world’s little positive thinking exercises.

Okay, I have to be honest; this one is a work in progress for me because I’m a natural "Negative Nancy." However, when asked how am I going to engage my colleagues to make an impact for the sake of the arts, I’m learning "Nancy" is not my girl and a positive outlook will help sustain the future of the arts.

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