Anne Focke

The following is an excerpt from a longer essay, “Dynamics of Difference,” inspired by several years of work with Peter Pennekamp, then head of the Humboldt Area Foundation. In a 2013 paper we co-wrote, Peter distilled principles that establish conditions for what he calls “living, breathing, on-the-street democracy.” One of these principles is the “dynamics of difference,” the idea that working with our differences can bring about positive outcomes.

In the late 1980s, several hundred people met twice at remote locations on two islands, one on the US East Coast and one on the West, to consider “the creative support of the creative artist.” Sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), the first conference was held in May 1986 at Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, and the second in November 1988 on Orcas Island near the Canadian border in Washington State. Although I attended both, I am deeply grateful to have had sources with agile memories so I didn’t have to rely only on my own.

Peter H. Pennekamp with Anne Focke. 2013, 34 pages, Kettering Foundation, Dayton, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and New York, kettering.org.

Kettering Foundation, 200 Commons Road, Dayton, OH, 45459, (937) 434-7300. http://kettering.org.

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In the past two years, several prominent foundations at national, regional, and local levels have appointed new presidents. Such leadership transitions are likely to increase in the years ahead in keeping with the larger generational shift in the nonprofit sector. Very few of the new foundation leaders are likely to come from the arts sector, and many will have had little direct experience with our field.

Last fall after the Taos Journey conference, Anne Focke and I got together to (as we say in California) process the event. She gave me a journal for my writing and a copy of a beautiful little chapbook, A Pragmatic Response to Real Circumstances, originally published by the back room, Portland, Oregon.

In the past year, the phrase "net neutrality" has become much more frequent in conversation and in the news. What does it mean and should arts grantmakers be concerned? To help answer the question, short excerpts from several sources are presented below. In addition a session will be presented at GIA's 2006 conference, "Keeping the Internet Open," organized by David Haas (chair, Grantmakers for Film and Electronic Media In the past year, the phrase "net neutrality" has become much more frequent in conversation and in the news. What does it mean and should arts grantmakers be concerned?

“Why have we become so inadequate, as arts leaders, at really talking about the inherent value of the arts?” asked Claire Peeps (Durfee Foundation) in a 1999 article titled “Why Art?” in the GIA Newsletter (precursor to the Reader). Claire's question was stimulated by her experience with a sabbatical program through which the Durfee Foundation provided “time off” to leaders in the nonprofit sector in Los Angeles.