Last month, the Henry Luce Foundation, in conjunction with its 75th anniversary initiative, awarded the American Folk Art Museum $1.6 million in funding for a national traveling exhibition of masterworks from the Museum’s collection. The exhibition, Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum, features more than 100 works of art that celebrate the singular power of folk art and art by the self-taught. The exhibition will showcase the Museum’s collection – examining “selftaught” as an enduring American art form with changing implications over three centuries.
Steve's Blog
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From now through August 31, 2013, Future of Music Coalition, Fractured Atlas and the Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center are joining forces with artist service organizations across the country to take the pulse of the artist community regarding access to health insurance via an online survey.
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Americans for the Arts and the National Lieutenant Governors Association presented Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon with the Public Leadership in the Arts Award for State Arts Leadership, which honors a public official who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the advancement of the arts at the state level.
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Former GIA Board member Angie Kim posts to her new blog, Private Foundations Plus:
There seems to be two kinds of treatment of people who express any kind of criticism of private foundations. One kind of reaction is to accept their criticism and laud the person for being an important voice in the field. These folks are perceived as being an intellectual scholar or enlightened leader: They are warmly invited to circulate among foundation board trustees and to speak at foundation-only conferences. Joel Fleishman (2009) falls into this camp as do many foundation CEOs and presidents who express self-critical opinions, such as “we need to do more” and “this is not our money.” When I consider why these folks are so well received within the private foundation community, it’s because they are moderate in their ideas of what foundations should be doing.
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Rick Noguchi offers an explainer on the process that The James Irvine Foundation follows in grant selection for one arts program:
One of the common criticisms that foundations hear from grantseekers is that we aren’t always clear about how we make decisions about grants. It can be frustrating for a grant-seeking organization to try to understand why they did not receive a grant, while similar organizations did. Foundation funding can be a critical source of income, particularly in the arts, so it’s understandable that arts nonprofits want better insight into our decision-making processes. With that in mind, I would like to share some thoughts about grant decisions we made for one of our funds in the Arts Program here at Irvine, the Exploring Engagement Fund for Large Organizations (EEFLO).
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Scott E. Walters writes for the Daily Yonder:
Like clear-cutting a forest or blasting the top off of a mountain in order to send wood and coal to urban dwellers, the American arts system extracts artistic resources in the form of talented young people and tells them that the only place they can make a living in the arts is New York City. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a major lie. Let me use a statistic from my area of expertise, the theater, to make my point.
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The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a nice infograph to show how large companies gave in 2012, including their cash gifts, noncash giving, ways they encourage employee giving, and the causes they support. Follow links to a full report and updated information as well as a set of case studies on corporate giving.
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From Mike Boehm, for the Los Angeles Times:
California’s arts grant-making agency announced Monday that it will get $3 million this year from state coffers instead of the $1 million called for in the budget legislators passed in June, thanks to Assembly Speaker John Perez, who’s providing the extra money from discretionary funds under his control.
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From Graydon Royce, writing for the Star Tribune:
The Minnesota Orchestra’s management and musicians — now in the 11th month of a bitter labor lockout — are quietly talking again behind the scenes. Multiple sources close to the dispute say representatives of the two sides met with an independent mediator this week to see whether ground rules can be set for formal bargaining.
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From Mostafa Heddaya at Hyperallergic:
The crisis of print media has been a long time coming, though it feels like it is now, finally, coming home to roost with the seismic umooring of some of America’s most iconic print journalism brands. And the proverbial tallest blade in those once-august pages is, of course, cultural coverage, the type of writing that simply cannot be converted into easy pageviews or, on its own, sell subscriptions to news-focused dailies. Many embattled publications are killing Books and Arts sections, firing critics, and in general demonstrating little regard for the significant role such reportage has held in the history of broadsheets.