Blog Posts for Young arts Professionals

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.


Floyd Hall

St(Art) Up Entrepreneurship

Posted by Floyd Hall, Apr 16, 2015 4 comments


Floyd Hall

Over the past several years in Atlanta, the startup entrepreneurial community has grown as many aspiring moguls have put their creative and technical capital to work to secure funds and buzz around their latest digital products. This energy has been fueled by Atlanta's unique characteristics has a hub for transportation, education, and culture, not to mention the comfortable climate and affordable cost of living.

Similarly, there's been tremendous growth in emerging Arts organizations that have begun to impact how Atlanta's citizens view the role of art in their daily lives--everything from appreciating "art for the sake of art" to realizing how the arts serve as a platform to address other aspects of society (e.g. Transportation, Politics, Sports, etc.). Again, the same characteristics of education, culture, and comfort have played a role in attracting art talent to the city in a similar fashion to the entrepreneurship community.

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Mr. Eric Booth

Teaching Artists in the Post-Silo Era

Posted by Mr. Eric Booth, Aug 05, 2015 0 comments


Mr. Eric Booth

A number of trends discussed at the 2015 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention resonated with my personal experience as a teaching artist. One trend arose frequently, in a number of different contexts: we all need to consider it since it is clearly top of mind in our field, and prominent in our experimenting with change.  Different presenters used different words to describe this trend, but the gist is: the longtime silos of practice and identity within the greater arts field are coming down. We have stayed within them too long, and now necessity and good strategy are bringing them down.  

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Terrie Temkin

Boards Risk the Future of the Arts When They Ignore Young Professionals (from The pARTnership Movement)

Posted by Terrie Temkin, Jul 25, 2013 1 comment


Terrie Temkin

Terrie Temkin Terrie Temkin

I’m an arts buff. I love the theater, live music, dance, and the visual arts. You will often find me attending two or three plays in a weekend, or going to a museum and then on to a performance of jazz or modern dance. The more I dive into the arts, the happier I am personally, but the more fearful I am for the future of the arts. Why? I’m in my 60s, and I’m usually one of the youngest people in attendance, regardless of the genre. (Okay, so I’m not going to the rap concerts, but still….) I constantly worry about the future. Who will occupy the seats in another 20 years, especially in our classical venues?

Yes, there will always be a few young people who love Mozart or Swan Lake. In my own family I have a nephew and niece that are classical musicians. However, while young people will continue to make art, as people have done since the beginning of time, I worry whether there will be anyone who will support their art, who will buy tickets and attend the performances, allowing them to work at what they love.

This is an issue that too few boards seriously grapple with. Yes, you see organizations that create young professionals groups, open up their space after work for networking and wine and cheese, and experiment with “hip” programming, but is that going to convert generations of younger people into dedicated audiences for the future? I think not. After all, it hasn’t yet. And if I’m right, what will?

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Elizabeth Sweeney

The Design Process: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Posted by Elizabeth Sweeney, Jun 05, 2014 0 comments


Elizabeth Sweeney

Elizabeth Van Fleet Elizabeth Van Fleet

Stop. Before you start thinking about the pretty wrapping paper you’re going to use for this awesome new website you’re about to give your audience, make sure you’ve done your research, organization, and started working with staff on content.

Why do you have to do that first?

Because to get good design you have to answer the hard questions; you have to know WHO you’re designing it for and WHAT message you want your design to send to your audience.

As Manager of Publications and Communication at Americans for the Arts, part of my job is to manage the design process for many of our printed and online materials. I work with a variety of vendors on a regular basis, and I was part of the team that decided on the design direction for our new website.

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Ms. Amy Webb

A Sea Change in the Volunteer Landscape

Posted by Ms. Amy Webb, Oct 24, 2014 0 comments


Ms. Amy Webb

Adapting to a shift in the volunteer landscape is one of the exciting challenges that the Arts & Business Council of New York (ABC/NY) and many arts organizations now face. As a new team running ABC/NY, my colleague Caleb Way and I are putting our heads together to come up with innovative ideas to expand and modernize our local volunteer matching program. To give some context, the Business Volunteers for the Arts® (BVA) program was founded by ABC/NY in 1975 with the mission of serving to connect nonprofit arts organizations with pro bono volunteers. However, as web-based volunteer matching services such as VolunteerMatch and Taproot have taken off, and businesses expand their volunteer or corporate responsibility (CSR) programs to include more expansive and flexible options for employee engagement, the old model of staff-managed volunteer matchmaking is simply not enough. ABC/NY’s new strategic direction combines the idea of volunteer matching with a much broader menu of employee engagement options.

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Dr. Brea M. Heidelberg

Cards Against Humanity: Arts Management Expansion Pack

Posted by Dr. Brea M. Heidelberg, Apr 15, 2015 0 comments


Dr. Brea M. Heidelberg

Cards Against Humanity is marketed as a party game for horrible people. It is essentially a politically incorrect, dark humored game of mad libs. Gameplay with Cards Against Humanity is very simple. Each round someone asks a question from a black card and each player responds with his or her funniest white card. There are holiday, 90’s nostalgia, and science expansion packs available. While there is currently no official arts management expansion pack, arts management education is preparing an increasingly diverse student population to handle the smorgasbord of circumstances, from hilarious to heartbreaking, that arts administrators tackle every day.

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