Jaime Sharp's Blog

From Mellon Foundation: "Master carvers are working with the Sealaska Heritage Institute to create the Totem Pole Trail—ten sculptures celebrating Indigenous tribes who had been historically excluded from Juneau's monuments. In a sense, it was a controversial statue of William Seward that kickstarted Kootéeya Deiyí, the Totem Pole Trail in Juneau, Alaska."

"Seward was the United States Secretary of State who brokered the purchase of the Alaska territory in 1867, nearly a century before it became a state. His bronze likeness in the capital city gave Rosita Worl, a member of the Tlingit tribe, a big idea."

"On Oct. 14, unionized employees at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) achieved a monumental contract victory with museum management, ending a 19-day strike," said Vanessa Taylor for Prism. "The tentative agreement, which runs through June 30, 2025, raised the hourly minimum wage, reduced health care plan costs, provided across-the-board wage increases and paid parental leave, and instituted the museum’s first ever longevity raises. Following this victory, union members are hopeful that their efforts may help reshape the museum industry as a whole."

From The Art Newspaper: "In the wake of a global pandemic and concurrent worldwide reckoning with institutional racism, two illuminating studies on the state of cultural heritage at large have just been released. The Mellon Foundation’s latest “Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey” and the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums’ “2022 Art Museum Trustee Survey” both itemise and quantify the experiences of art museum workers and board members, painting a picture of a sector slowly bouncing back from significant Covid-19 job losses with a renewed focus on diversity."

From Filantropía Puerto Rico: Este próximo Giving Tuesday, 29 de noviembre, no te pierdas el primer episodio de nuestro podcast EN VIVO: Somos Filantropía Podcast. En este episodio, Mary Ann Gabino, Vicepresidenta Senior de la Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico, conversará con Glenisse Pagán, Directora Ejecutiva de Filantropía Puerto Rico, para hablar sobre el rol y la importancia del ecosistema filantrópico de nuestra isla.

Join Flannel & Blade and Catnip Comms in an expert panel discussion and open conversation, as we unpack these big and important questions. Our teams are keeping our ears to the ground, reading not only national news outlets, but also the comment sections on TikTok and diving into different subreddits. We're seeing how Twitter users who have taken flight are enjoying their migration to Mastodon to see what we can learn.

"The official podcast of ESII – we dive deeply into the life, practice and experimentation of a person or group who we see as living embodiments of emergent strategy. Hosts are Sage Crump, Mia Herndon and adrienne maree brown."

"Vicki Meek is an artist, curator, arts administrator, and cultural critic whose career spans decades. This week, Vicki joins Sage to talk about Elizabeth's Catlett's influence, collaborating with artists from different disciplines, and reimagining the Black archive."

"Bloomberg Philanthropies today announced the launch of the 2022 Public Art Challenge, which invites mayors of U.S. cities with 30,000 residents or more to apply for up to $1 million in funding to create temporary public art projects that address important civic issues. Submissions for dynamic works of art across all disciplines will be considered, and proposed projects will be evaluated on their ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies. The Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge encourages mayors to partner with artists, elevating the value of including the creative sector when developing solutions to significant urban problems."

The Indigenous Solidarity Network (ISD), a community collective group of indigenous people and their allies seeking social justice, issues an invitation to a free on-line webinar titled for “Rethinking Thanksgiving: From Land Acknowledgement to LANDBACK” on Sunday, November 20 at 1pm PT/4pm ET.

"Long before the pandemic hit, Americans living in rural areas have faced a daunting list of problems—a diminishing number of hospitals, limited transportation options, population decline, lack of broadband access, high levels of poverty, and more."

"According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Rural America at a Glance 2021” report, about 46 million people—or 14% of the total U.S. population—live in rural areas. The report found that people who live in these areas “often face greater difficulties accessing provisions and services or commuting to work, among other economic challenges.” These challenges have made it all the more difficult for rural Americans to cope with and recover from shocks and stresses, including but not limited to the pandemic."

From Wallace Foundation: "​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Arts ​organizations founded by, with and for communities of color are relatively underrepresented in research, with limited information available about their founding histories and how these histories might shape an organization’s purpose, culture and work. That’s why, when we launched o​ur latest arts initiative beginning with 18 organizations rooted in communities of color, we commissioned the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to create a fellowship that could not only ​help document the organizations’ history and culture, but could also build research capacity in the field through the support of early career scholars​."

"SSRC has now selected a group of research fellows, who will receive funding to conduct 12-month qualitative ethnographic studies in collaboration with the organizations in the initiative. The fellowship program seeks to support early career researchers who are deeply engaged with the arts organizations of color. The group will participate in conversations with one another and with the broader network of researchers and practitioners in the Wallace initiative."