Community Arts

A New Take on Crowdsourced Grantmaking: Creative Culture Grants

September 16, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Imagine what would happen…

If you started with a century-old, robust, and diverse arts and culture community…

added new grant funds for innovative, large-scale projects completed in teams…

and then invited area residents to participate in selecting the projects that would receive funds.

What would you get?

September 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

September 2013, 9 pages. Grantmakers In Health, 1100 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 452-8331, gih.org.

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Innovative Crossroads: The Intersection of Creativity, Health, and Aging (221 Kb)

Establishing a Creative Economy

August 5, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

July 2013, 40 pages. First Peoples Fund, P.O. Box 2977, Rapid City, South Dakota, 57709, firstpeoplesfund.org.

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Placemaking: Provenance and Prospects

June 14, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Every decade or two, the professions of architecture and city planning are captivated by a movement with a particularly catchy name. Currently, the popular term is placemaking — a fairly loose term that is running neck and neck with “sustainability.” Within the design professions, this movement — really more a philosophy — suggests that people’s lives can be made better by intentionally designing interior and exterior spaces to embrace a wide range of users, provide for safety, and create artful expressions that endure over time.

February 5, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

On October 12–13, 2012, a consortium of arts and social justice organizations hosted the Arts & Social Change symposium in Seattle. With inspiration, participation, learning, and community building as pillars, the goals of the event were to:

inspire action and activism; to motivate for change
have dialogue; make recommendations for systemic and social change
gain new awareness; to listen, participate, communicate, share, and engage
meet, to connect and build relationships with other networks beyond the symposium

February 5, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

“As this has never been done before, we have no idea what we’re doing today,” Joanna Haigood half-joked at the launch of Paseo, less a walking tour than a movable, danceable feast, a peripatetic block party that, for one delightful hour, would twist through the South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Longwood.

Getting SMART

February 4, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

About four years ago I attended an extraordinary meeting in Philadelphia. Susan Nelson, principal of Technical Development Corporation (TDC), was presenting the draft of Getting Beyond Breakeven to the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and many other stakeholders associated with the work.

Fuzzy Concepts, Proxy Data

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

Creative placemaking is electrifying communities large and small around the country. Mayors, public agencies, and arts organizations are finding each other and committing to new initiatives. That’s a wonderful thing, whether or not their proposals are funded by national initiatives such as the National Endowment for the Arts’ Our Town program or ArtPlace.

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

The following is an expanded version of my essay “Creative Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging,” first published on the Arts in a Changing America website. I’ve been asked to prepare it for the GIA Reader audience and to reflect further on the topic of belonging as it relates to my work as a public funder.

February 3, 2013 by giarts-ts-admin

In May 2012 I was invited to speak at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ Cultural Summit 2012, which took place at the school in September. The school is on Deer Isle, part of the coastal archipelago that stitches Maine to the Atlantic Ocean, and that also includes Vinalhaven Island, my family’s home. This article is adapted from my speech.

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“Only Connect the Prose and the Passion” (12 Mb)