Visual arts

Artist Rene Yung's presentation of this paper generated lively discussion at a forum of the Arts Loan Fund of Northern California Grantmakers, in October 2006. It was written just as Arlene Goldbard's new book, New Creative Community, was published. Although Yung refers to an earlier publication (Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, by Don Adams and Gold-bard, 2001), she touches on many of the same themes discussed by the authors of "The Art of Social Imagination" (page 27 in this Reader) and reveals how the ideas have been adopted by an artist in practice.

Over the past forty years, several hundred legal frameworks have been established for cooperative action by governments on ecological issues — treaties such as the Biodiversity Convention, the Climate Change Convention, the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species, and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. How do these relate to art?

Outreach

Intersections
This report began as a standard travelog, factual, but listless. The GIA conference title, Intersections, seemed appropriate, but irritating as it pricked at some memory I could not grasp.

This past April, physicians, hospital administrators, therapists, artists, and healthcare designers from all over the country arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the ninth annual meeting of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, being held this year at Spectrum Health. This year's conference, The Art of Becoming, drew 124 participants, including twenty-seven speakers.

Copies of the report may be obtained from the Alliance of Artists' Communities, 210 SE 50th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97215

The Alliance of Artists' Communities released American Creativity at Risk: Restoring Creativity as a Priority in Public Policy, Cultural Philanthropy, and Education. The report documents a symposium held in November, 1996 and attended by artists, educators, administrators, critics, and grantmakers.

William L. McKnight, for many years president and chairman of the board of the 3M Company, and his wife, Maude L. McKnight, founded The McKnight Foundation in 1953. The Foundation's assets totaled $1.5 billion in 1996 and its grantmaking in that year totaled $68.3 million. The Foundation has no affiliation with the 3M Company.

The book was published by Americans for the Arts' Institute for Community Development and the Arts. Copies may be ordered from the organization at 100 Vermont Avenue N.W., 12th floor, Washington, D.C. 20005.

The Prince Charitable Trusts were established fifty years ago by the Prince family. The foundation has grantmaking programs in three geographic locations: Chicago, Rhode Island, and Washington D.C. The Trusts' assets total $160 million with projected 1998 grant distribution of $7 million in the three locations.

1999, 556 pages, Alpert Award in the Arts, 1414 Sixth Street, Santa Monica, California 90401.

"Somewhere between tête-à-tête and performance” is the way Irene Borger, program director of the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, describes the interviews with twenty award recipients that are featured in this volume marking the program's fifth anniversary.

The Metropolitan Denver Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) is a new member of GIA. It is a six-county regional public funding agency, formed ten years ago this coming November. It was created at a time when much public funding was being challenged, if not actively cut back. The formation of the district and its continuing success have been models for a number of other communities.