Grantmakers in the Arts

April 19, 2012 by Steve

Three new models designed to strengthen local arts coverage will soon launch with funding through the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge, which sought innovative ideas for informing and engaging people in the arts. The challenge winners were announced today at a virtual press conference. They will each receive up to $80,000 to launch their ideas.

April 19, 2012 by Steve

Today, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced the first class of recipients in the Duke Performing Artists Initiative. The initiative was announced last fall when the foundation allocated $50 million additional dollars to performing arts funding. From Ben Cameron, director of the Arts Program at Duke:

The Doris Duke Artist Awards recognize artists who have produced a significant body of work within the past decade—work that has already been supported and recognized by national citations, awards, prizes and/or grants, including at least one grant supported entirely or in part by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
April 19, 2012 by Steve

From Alex Aldrich, executive director for the Vermont Arts Council:

A recent post by Brooklyn Philharmonic CEO Richard Dare set the nonprofit arts world all abuzz. It gave a lot of statistics about the number of orchestras that are failing and the general fragility of the non-profit art sector—in short, the kind of alarm-ringing I, for one, have heard since the early 1970s when I began my career in the arts.
April 18, 2012 by Steve

From Bob Booker, executive director of the Arizona Arts Commission:

On Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Governor Jan Brewer signed HB2265 into law, reauthorizing the Arizona Commission on the Arts for 10 years.

HB2265’s success is attributable to a monumental statewide effort: a yearlong collaboration between artists, arts educators, administrators, board members, advocates and bipartisan elected officials.

April 17, 2012 by Steve

Here is some freshly posted video of the early part of Alec Baldwin’s presentation of the 2012 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy given on April 16 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC:

April 17, 2012 by Janet

I once said to a gubernatorial candidate, “I want you to take the arts out of the box you’ve put them in and think about it differently.” The state senator who had set up the meeting looked at me like I was crazy. I knew I was in risky territory. This was an elected official who wasn’t an “arts” guy. You wouldn’t find him at the symphony, opera, museum or theatre, at least not willingly. I knew I had to approach asking for his support in a different way.

April 16, 2012 by Abigail

Heather Pontonio joins the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation as program officer for art. Heather will be responsible for managing the Foundation's national biennial Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award and the Marketplace Empowerment for Artists programs. Prior to joining the Tremaine Foundation, Heather was the associate vice president of grants at the Arts and Science Council in Charlotte, North Carolina.

April 16, 2012 by Steve

From Barry Hessenius at Barry's Blog:

It's been a decade or more since our sector embarked on a sea change in our attempt to better position the arts in the public discourse by embracing the wider concept of "creativity". The tipping point was probably Richard Florida's publication of The Rise of the Creative Class. We rushed to embrace the idea that creativity was the new currency of an information world—an asset that was, and would continue to be, critically essential to growing economies in an increasingly competitive marketplace, and that the arts were at the core of creativity. We did this I think in part because we saw it as a way to expand the appreciation for the value of the arts.