Steve's Blog

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In February and March 2014, the Joyce Foundation’s Angelique Power will travel for multi-day trips to four cities in the Great Lakes region where the Joyce Foundation funds the Joyce Awards. She will also host an online eCity Salon to answer questions about the Joyce Award application process. The Joyce Awards give artists of color and nonprofit organizations catalyzing funds to commission new work and engage the community in its development.

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The Board of Directors of the William Penn Foundation announced on Thursday that Peter J. Degnan, Vice Dean of Finance and Administration at the Wharton School will be the Foundation’s new Managing Director as of March 3, 2014.

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The latest post from Angie Kim, on her blog Private Foundations Plus:

For those foundation leaders who want their decision making to be insulated from public scrutiny, this is a moment of growing anxiety. There are signs that foundations will need to do more to demonstrate their public good value. For foundations in California, this anxiety reached an apotheosis in 2008 when legislation was introduced—California AB 624—that would have made it easier to find out how much or how little foundations were supporting the interests of the underserved.
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What can the latest psychological research teach us about creativity, how it's expressed, and how it can be measured? Join this discussion hosted by the NEA Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development. It will include Dr. James C. Kaufman, president of the American Psychological Association’s Division 10, the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

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From Jillian Steinhauer at Hyperallergic:

An organization called ArtsHub has conducted an arts jobs survey in the UK, and the results make clear just how difficult and unsustainable it is to work in the arts. The survey is based on the responses of only 448 participants, admittedly not a huge sample. But even with a limited pool of respondents, the trends are clear: arts workers are overeducated, underpaid, and have little to no job security.
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Jim Canales sunsets his tenure at The James Irvine Foundation and prepares to head to the east coast with some reflection on the types of people who have contributed to his growth:

In a few weeks, I will conclude what has been an enormously satisfying tenure as Irvine’s CEO since 2003. Since the announcement of my appointment as President of the Barr Foundation, I have found myself reflecting a great deal upon gratitude.
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From Mary Stegmeir writing for the Des Moines Register:

The fine arts deserve an equal footing in Iowa’s schools with math, reading and other core subjects, a group of teachers told state lawmakers Wednesday. When times are tight, cuts often hit music, art and drama first, the teachers said. Federal policies that rate schools based on student test scores have also taken their toll, with some districts in Iowa and across the nation reducing arts offerings to carve out more time for math and reading instruction. The Iowa Alliance for Arts Educators urged lawmakers to fight that trend by adding state standards for fine arts education to the Iowa Core.
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The National Endowment for the Arts, Office of the Senior Deputy Chairman, Research & Analysis Division is seeking to fill the position of Program Analyst. This position application period will close on Monday, February 3. More infomation here.

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From Holland Cotter, writing for the New York Times:

Money — the grotesque amounts spent, the inequitable distribution — has dominated talk about art in the 21st century so far. It’s a basic fact of art history. Emperors, popes and robber barons set the model for the billionaire buyers of today. Of course, it is today that matters to the thousands of artists who live and work in this punitively expensive city, where the art industry is often confused with the art world.
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Washington State Governor Jay Inslee has appointed Karen Hanan as Executive Director of the Washington State Arts Commission, effective March 1, 2014. Hanan is a long-time colleague of ArtsWA. Since 2000, she has served as Executive Director of Arts Northwest, the non-profit, regional performing arts service organization that provides a communications network among presenters of performing arts events throughout the Northwestern US and Canada. In her tenure at Arts Northwest, she has overseen the doubling of the organization's membership and budget.