GIA Blog

Bringing art to people: 8 ways a cultural event can transcend genre, geography and demographics
Posted on by Steve

From Scott Cunningham, founder of the O, Miami festival, writing for Knight Arts blog:

Three years ago, I and a group of friends started to dream up what a lot of people considered impossible: a festival that would bring poetry to all 2.6 million residents of Greater Miami. At that time, Miami’s cultural scene was exploding. Art Basel was in full force, and we wanted to do a festival that was the opposite of the “pipe-and-blazer” readings that most people associate with poetry. We wanted to do a festival that reflected Miami’s diversity and personality.
Resource for Artists on 2014 Individual Health Insurance Requirements
Posted on by Steve

Springboard for the Arts is getting the jump on the individual health insurance requirements that go into effect on January 1, 2014 as part of the continuing implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A crash course info page is now available with preliminary information.

The individual health insurance requirement is a complex thing to understand, so the best way to prepare for the upcoming changes is to get familiar with them today! Below are three things to know about the requirement and how artists’ access to health insurance is expanding in 2014.
East Bay Community Foundation Weaving Artists into Community Fabric
Posted on by Steve

Animating Democracy has a new Funder Portrait by Ann McQueen that profiles the East Bay Community Foundation from Oakland, CA. The portrait includes an audio interview with Diane Sanchez, Director of Community Investment at the East Bay Community Foundation as well as a report, “Weaving Artists into Community Fabric,” that investigates the foundation's arts grantmaking programs:

In the arts, East Bay’s grantmaking is entirely donor supported. Three separate funds—the Open Circle Foundation, a supporting organization; Macpherson Fund for Small Arts Organizations, an endowment; and the East Bay Fund for Artists, a funder initiative and field of interest fund — together distribute close to $250,000 annually through separate grant making rounds.
The Strength of Diversity: The Strength of the Arts
Posted on by Steve

Robert Lynch writes for Huffington Post:

With immigration reform at the forefront of political life and the ongoing discussion about equity in our workplaces and military, I was pleased to participate in a recent gathering in Detroit called SphinxCon, which took a look at diversity in our lives and in the arts. It couldn't have come at a more important time in our national consciousness. Regardless of specific demographic numbers or predicted change, every community right now holds within itself an extraordinary amount of difference, diversity and smaller sub-communities that make up the whole. And we are more fortunate for it.
More on Issues of Whiteness and Diversity...
Posted on by Steve

Roberto Bedoya's guest-blog post last month for the Engaging Matters blog raised questions that carried the discussion to other blogs, including a pair of great posts from Nina Simon from her Museum 2.0 blog and Clay Lord from his New Beans blog:

I think it’s important to say that I feel a little like a lamb in the woods on this diversity stuff, not so much because I am innocent to the effects (or causes) of casual racism as because I was naïve about the extent of the issue. As I continue to delve into this data, much of which (at least in relation to race—other forms of diversity, which I’m also looking at, are not really touched on here) paints a picture where whiteness, this giant mass that surrounds almost all institutional arts presenting in the US today, should be excruciatingly obvious, and is instead so large and ever-present as to become invisible, like air.
Are Arts Relevant in a 21st Century World?
Posted on by Steve

From Katie Koch for The Harvard Gazette:

Americans themselves, as repeated Gallup polls have found, say that the variety of social offerings — primarily arts and culture — is the most important factor in keeping them attached to the place they live. But as many artists and cultural groups know all too well, public money hasn’t always followed public sentiment. With that in mind, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations is launching a multiyear project to analyze links among funding, participation, and the vitality of the arts in six U.S. urban centers, starting with Detroit and the San Francisco Bay area. The hope, its leaders say, is to use hard data to develop bold policies to support the arts at the local and national level.
Sequester Cuts Cultural Agencies
Posted on by Steve

Gladstone Payton posts to ARTSblog on the latest information regarding the effects of the sequester on arts and culture funding:

As you have no doubt been following in the headlines, specific parts of the federal budget, including that of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), have been impacted by a budgetary control called “sequestration” beginning last Friday.

This sequester, totaling $85 billion, will reduce funding to almost all areas of domestic social programs by about 5 percent, which would mean about $7.3 million at the NEA.

$20,000 Artists Fellowships Announced by Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis
Posted on by Steve

Beginning in 2013, ten St. Louis artists will each be awarded a $20,000 Fellowship. This new funding of individual artists from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis (RAC) is based on the results of Artists Count, a comprehensive survey of regional artists and creatives which was conducted and analyzed by William Cleveland, principal of the Center for the Study of Art and Community along with his research associate Dr. Patricia Shifferd. The Kresge Foundation funded the survey.

“This is a sea change for RAC because we only have funded nonprofit organizations and consortiums since we were created in 1985,” said Jill McGuire, executive director of RAC. “This decision is in step with our visionary plan to support an environment in which artists are valued and thriving as part of a robust creative community.”

TAAC Requests Proposals for Open Dialogue
Posted on by Steve

The Association of American Cultures (TAAC) has a call for session proposals out for Open Dialogue: People, Places, and Policy. Deadline for submitting a proposal is Monday, March 25. The event will take place August 2-4, 2013 at the Providence Biltmore Hotel in Providence, RI.

McKnight Foundation Announces Departure of Laura Zimmermann
Posted on by Steve

The McKnight Foundation's arts program officer, Laura Zimmermann, also a member of the GIA Board of Directors, will will step down from her position in May, according to this note from Vickie Benson, Arts Program Director:

Dear colleague: I am writing today to let you know that Laura Zimmermann has decided to leave her role as arts program officer and director of artist fellowships at The McKnight Foundation. Laura’s last day at McKnight will be May 3. Of course, I am sad to lose Laura as a colleague, but happy to know she is leaving to concentrate on other important loves in her life. In her own words, she and her family have “hatched a plan to buy some time to write regularly, think expansively, and parent conscientiously.”