Abigail's Blog

On his blog, The Artful Manager, Andrew Taylor reflects on a recurring theme of the recent Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in New York: boundary crossing, the unexpected unions between arts organizations and a variety of non-art planning and service organizations. Rather than discussing these unions as silo breakers, he coins a new term, "edge-perts," to describe the individuals who are successfully fostering and navigating these collaborations.

A new year, a new month, and a new slide show of member-supported projects on the GIA website! Our January featured member is 3Arts. Based in Chicago, 3Arts works to sustain and promote Chicago artists through validation, promotion, residencies, and unrestricted cash grants. The organization focuses on women artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities in order to encourage a diversity of voices and visions in the communities it serves.

To wrap up 2011, a new slide show of member-supported projects on the GIA homepage! Through the end of the year, our featured member is Rasmuson Foundation. Based in Anchorage, AK, Rasmuson Foundation promotes a better quality of life for all Alaskans by making grants in the areas of arts and culture, health, and social services. Our thanks to Jayson Smart, Rasmuson's acting vice president, for his photo selection.

New to the TED site last week: Neuroeconomist Paul Zak uses his talk on the hormone oxytocin to explore the biological impulse behind empathy, morality, and generosity. Providing an overview of his lab activities, as well as charming evidence gathered in the field (at a wedding, for instance), Zak explains the social benefits of a population flush with oxytocin-rich individuals.

New to the Talk Back blog, a post by Vilcek Foundation's new media & IT coordinator, Brian Cavanaugh, on the online creation and distribution of art. He announces a new Vilcek initiative, a digital art space called dARTboard slated to launch in winter 2012, and presents (with terrific graphics) a group of innovative and inspirational websites that includes Artport, the Whitney Museum of American Art's pioneering portal to net and digital art.

Please join us tomorrow, November 8, at 2:00 EDT/11:00 PDT for How To: An Overview of GIA's New Web Tools, an online presentation by Steve Cline, GIA's Web & Knowledge Manager, on the simple and effective set of collaborative tools developed by GIA to support both new and ongoing activities of GIA member groups.

The latest installment of GIA's Talk Back blog continues with a second post by Vilcek Foundation staff. Anne Schruth, event and programs assistant, writes about the foundation's alignment of organizational mission and goals with strategies for providing support to individual artists. She writes:

In our efforts to spotlight the contributions of immigrant artists and scientists to U.S. society, we have also found that the work produced by the artists is only a piece of the story. It is, in part, the personal experiences of the featured foreign-born individuals that leave a lasting impression on the audience.

In a post for Common Core, Lynne Munson addresses the ongoing lack of results from education reform, as evidenced by recent NAEP data, noting:

Maybe we need to give content a chance. What I mean by “content” is the actual knowledge that is imbedded in quality curricula. Knowledge of things like standard algorithms, poetry, America’s past, foreign languages, great painters, chemistry, our form of government, and much more.

We are pleased to announce that Rick Kinsel's inaugural post is live on GIA's Talk Back blog. With this comes an open invitation to you and your colleagues to contribute to the conversation on immigration, art, and grantmaking by commenting on the Vilcek Foundation's posts, which will appear throughout the week, and by sharing your own experience of working or funding in this area. Stay tuned!

No coincidence that the photos featured on the banner this month are provided by a Bay Area GIA member! The San Francisco Arts Commission was established in the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco in 1932 to ensure that the arts would be incorporated into the civic infrastructure for the City’s residents. SFAC meets these responsibilities through an extensive set of programs and special projects, including community arts and education, civic design review, and cultural equity grants.