Blog Posts for Leadership

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.


Priya Sircar

This is why we all need to be arts advocates!

Posted by Priya Sircar, Oct 25, 2010 2 comments


Priya Sircar

Priya Sircar

Co-authored by Priya Sircar & Jonathan Lewis

Student Advocates for the Arts is thrilled to be a winner of the Why Arts Matter video contest. Of course, we are pleased that so many people viewed and responded to our video. And we are excited because this experience has opened up a dialogue with Americans for the Arts about possibilities for future collaboration. But we truly are thrilled because it gives us the chance to advocate more powerfully and broadcast our video's message more widely: “You Need to Be an Arts Advocate!”

Student Advocates for the Arts (SAA) is a grassroots student organization dedicated to educating on and advocating for public policy affecting the arts in the United States. Founded in 2002 by graduate students in the Arts Administration Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, SAA engages students in hands-on lobbying, workshops on advocacy and cultural policy, and discussions on the American system for funding the arts.

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Marisa Catalina Casey

Why Art Matters

Posted by Marisa Catalina Casey, Oct 25, 2010 5 comments


Marisa Catalina Casey

Students from Starting Artists

When I was 16 years old I desperately wanted to do something—something to express myself, something to make a difference. For me, that something became a fundraising calendar that I conceived of and photographed as a high school student and then again as a college student. I photographed portraits of internationally adopted children, worked with graphic designers to put them into a calendar and then sold the results to family, friends, teachers, community members and later at Barnes & Noble. The two calendars raised thousands of dollars to benefit international orphanages, including the Colombian orphanage I was adopted from at the age of three.

This project taught me that I could use both creativity and entrepreneurship to positively affect the world. Today, this is what I teach my students at Starting Artists, Inc. (SA). I founded SA in 2006 as a graduate student in the Program in Arts Administration at Columbia University Teachers College. I wanted to create a place where young people could use media arts and business skills to be just as artistic and innovative as I was at their age.

During the SA Afterschool Program, students learn the professional tools to make a statement—a statement about their lives, a statement about their communities, and a statement about their world. Through classes in photography, graphic design, printmaking, crafts, mixed media, video, animation, music mixing, and entrepreneurship students transform from passive media consumers into active media producers and catalysts for change.

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Stephanie Hanson

The Creative Economy Has Our Attention. Now It Needs a United Voice. (from Arts Watch)

Posted by Stephanie Hanson, Sep 29, 2010 3 comments


Stephanie Hanson

Stephanie Evans

There has been a lot of talk about the creative economy coming out of Washington, DC, lately—from the NEA’s recent panel discussion last week on Creative Placemaking, to the Center for American Progress’ panel which discussed The Creative Economy:  How to Keep the Fuel of Creation and Innovation Burning (If you have an hour and a half, I highly recommend watching the video of this panel). Also last week, Partners for Livable Communities hosted a forum on Building Livable Communities:  Creating a Common Agenda. 

I was lucky to have snagged a seat at the sold-out and standing-room-only Center for American Progress Creative Economy panel, which took place on September 21. There were some key takeaways and important points that are worth repeating and sharing.

It’s also interesting that within the span of less than two weeks, three separate organizations (a federal government agency, a progressive think tank, and a national nonprofit) felt it important to invest the time and energy into the topics of creative economy and livability. I believe this is a reflection of the years of hard work and advocacy put in by many artists, arts administrators, advocates, journalists, and citizens who have pushed to get arts and culture to the center of the discussion around how we can begin to solve the economic and social challenges that are plaguing our country.  It’s uplifting to note that in some corners of our world (and U.S. government) that there are those who “get it.”

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Letitia Fernandez Ivins

bang Bang BANG

Posted by Letitia Fernandez Ivins, Aug 12, 2010 3 comments


Letitia Fernandez Ivins

This title is neither violent onomatopoeia nor a Femi Kuti reference, rather I quote my mom’s favorite phrase which is synonymous to “check, check, check.”  While I’d cringe whenever my mom exclaimed this in her Filipino accent, I think it captures my enthusiasm around the three key accomplishments (some unexpected) that resulted from the Los Angeles emerging leader mentorship program.

People rarely wield the science to invent and hand-craft their own mentor. I’ve observed that mentors tend to emerge in unlikely places and heighten or recede in their presence throughout one’s life. But, in 2007, a nine-member taskforce of Los Angeles Emerging Arts Leaders (EAL/LA) had lost patience with an organic model of mentor acquisition, and began scheming on how to meet a dream career mentor through professional connections and a structured program.

After a year of monthly meetings to strategize recruitment, the matching process, the structure, marketing, and evaluation, we officially launched the Arts Professional Advisors Link (APAL) in the fall of 2008. Each emerging leader member completed an “application” which described professional development needs and wants in a mentor. As a team, we reviewed one another’s applications and leveraged our connections, to help match advisors to the profiles drawn up in the applications. Advisees were charged with all of the administrative work around the program and were to initiate and organize all advisor meetings (four at the least) over the course of the program year. The advisee was to steer the content of the meeting conversations and bring clear, yearlong goals to the table around which the advisor might provide guidance. Over the course of the year, we threw a kick-off orientation mixer, a mid-year opera outing and mixer and a culminating mixer.

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