Why Arts? Making the Case

April 2010, 224 pages, ISBN 978-0-9815593-5-3. New Village Press, PO Box 3049, Oakland, CA, 94609, 510-420-1361, www.newvillagepress.net

January 2010, 21 pages. Fine Arts Fund, 20 East Central Parkway, Suite 200, Cincinnati, OH, 45202, 513-871-2787, www.fineartsfund.org

Supporters of the arts have struggled to develop a national conversation that makes the case for robust, ongoing public support for the arts; but public spending on the arts is too often criticized as an example of wasteful government spending or a misguided government intrusion into an area where it does not belong.

Speech delivered at the Council on Foundations Family Foundation Conference, February 2, 2010, San Diego

In 2006, the Wisconsin Arts Board (WAB) looked back at the five towns that participated in the first "access" grant funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in the late 1960s. This was a seminal rural arts development program managed by the University of Wisconsin's Office of Community Arts Development at the College of Agriculture. The WAB study included interviews with elderly local artists, archival documents, a survey conducted in 1973 and replicated in 20052, and conversations with some of the field's earliest practitioners.

Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics, and the Arts; Edited by Michael Hutter and David Throsby; Cambridge University Press, 2007, 324 pages

Brooklyn, NY - National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman delivered a keynote address today to close the 2009 national Grantmakers in the Arts conference: Navigating the Art of Change.

In his remarks, Chairman Landesman laid out the guiding principle that will inform his work at the agency, which can be summed up in two words: "Art works." Chairman Landesman explained that he means this in three ways:

2009, 102 pages, Common Core, 1016 16th Street NW, 7th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20036, (202) 223-1854 http://www.commoncore.org

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   Why We're Behind: a Report by Common Core (3.6Mb)

2010, 138 pages, Americans for the Arts, 1000 Vermont Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20005, (202) 371-2830 http://www.artsusa.org

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A report from the 1994 arts education conference of Americans for the Arts co-founding organization, the American Council for the Arts. As stated in the introduction, "The historical relationship between business and the arts has been governed by a single set of terms. The arts—and arts education—have looked to the private sector for financial support and patronage, and business has looked to the arts to enrich the lives of their employees and of the community, but not for any strictly business benefit.

This pamphlet presents statistical, case study, and concluding material about at-risk youth arts programs in cities across the US. Citing encouraging results from more than a dozen programs, this resource shows how arts programming is being effectively used to address the problems of youth. It also reviews the issue of funding, spotlighting programs that operate as partnerships between local, state, and government agencies and arts organizations. A "how-to" section outlines specific steps to follow in planning programs, and a two-page resource list gives information on related titles.