Abigail's Blog

In September, GIA's website photo banner features organizations supported by the Cleveland Foundation. Established in 1914, the Foundation is the world's first community foundation and one of the largest, with assets of $1.8 billion and 2011 grants of nearly $80 million.

Registration is still open for the next installment of GIA's 2012 Web Conference Series. Arts and Health: New Momentum for Artists and Communities is presented by Anita Boles, executive director of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, and Gay Powell Hannah, executive director of the National Center for Creative Aging. The webinar begins tomorrow, July 10, at 11:00 PDT, 2:00 EDT.

Reporting for the Charleston Regional Business Journal, James T. Hammond writes:

Gov. Nikki Haley on Friday vetoed 81 line items in the General Assembly fiscal year 2012-2013 budget, including all funding for two state agencies: the South Carolina Arts Commission and the Sea Grant Consortium...the S.C. Arts Commission will be closed pending Legislative action, accordig to the organization's website...In order to overturn Haley's vetoes, the House and the Senate must each vote by a two-thirds majority to keep the General Assembly's version of the vetoed line item.

In July, GIA's photo banner features exhibitions and programs sponsored by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. Founded in 1987 by Emily Hall Tremaine, the New Haven-based family foundation makes grants to support art, learning disabilities, and the environment, with a primary emphasis on education. The foundation's two signature arts awards are the Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award, through which the foundation supports curatorial excellence in the presentation of contemporary visual art, and Marketplace Empowerment for Artists, a program supporting professional development training for visual artists.

The next installment of the 2012 GIA Web Conference Series, Arts and Journalism in the Digital Age, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, June 19 at 11:00 PDT/2:00 EDT. Join Douglas McLennan, ArtsJournal, and Bill O'Brien, National Endowment for the Arts, for an overview of the field of arts journalism and initiatives supporting its evolution in a changing culture. The 50-minute Web Conferences is free to members and open to everyone. The non-member rate is $35.

The business section of the most recent Sunday New York Times featured an article by Caitlin Kelly on artists' relief funds and the significant impact they have on an artist's ability to recover from a career-threatening emergency. The article includes interviews with emergency funders like Cornelia Carey, executive director of GIA member CERF+. The article can be found on the Times website, here.

In June, GIA's photo banner features projects supported by Mertz GIlmore Foundation in New York. Founded as the Mertz Foundation in 1959 by Joyce Mertz Gilmore and her parents, Harold and LuEsther Mertz, the foundation was renamed in 2002 to honor the memory of Joyce’s husband, Robert Wallace Gilmore, an active steward of the foundation. The foundation’s program areas, climate change solutions and support for New York City arts and communities, reflect the interest of the founders.

President Barak Obama has nominated Maria López De León, executive director at the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), to become a member of the National Council on the Arts. The fourteen-member National Council advises the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, who acts as chair of the council, on agency policy and programs.

In April, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation jointly launched a free online training for program staff at private foundations to help them navigate the rules of advocacy and lobbying. Authored by the legal staff at these foundations, Learn Foundation Law, is a three-part course that take less than hour to complete.

In memory of Maurice Sendak, who wrote In the Night Kitchen just in time for child me to adore it, an entry in the exceptional blog Letters of Note on Sendak's publisher's response to the news that public librarians were censoring the book, which features a sometimes nude child protaganist. Some books were burned, others were doctored by hand, with tiny diapers added to the illustrations. Included in the post (here) are publisher Ursula Nordstrom's letter to one of the offending librarians and a formal press release.