Literary arts

2000, 46 pages. The McKnight Foundation, 600 TCF Tower, 121 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402, (612) 333-4220.

This monograph celebrates poet Robert Bly with photographs, essays by friends and colleagues, and Bly's own poems. The Distinguished Artist Award, now in its third year, recognizes and celebrates Minnesota artists who have founded and/or strengthened Minnesota's arts organizations, mentored and inspired younger artists, and attracted audiences and patrons who enable art to survive.

Cultural Policy Research was the topic of two breakfast roundtables at GIA's 2000 conference in Minneapolis. A combination of scheduled presenters and other participants gave brief summaries of current research underway. The cumulative impact of hearing about so many projects at the same time inspired Reader editors to want to share the reports with our readers. This overview does not pretend to be exhaustive, but rather is a snapshot based on roundtable participation and the ability of the following report contributors to respond quickly to our invitation. We extend many thanks to them.

Sitting around tables at a conference center last May, we each joined five other participants in imagining and illustrating possibilities for artists who work in community arts programs for youth. We were part of a group of around thirty people convened as a working group first in San Jose, California in May 2000 and again in October in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our aim was to explore how to build understanding and action toward the sustainable involvement of artists and arts professionals in youth and community development.

2000, 16 pages, Business Committee for the Arts, Inc., 1775 Broadway, Suite 510, New York, New York 10019, (212) 664-0600.

Consider using arts images in advertisements to associate your company with quality and performance, giving a museum membership to new employees as a signing bonus, having an arts and crafts event in the workplace for employees' children, or inviting artists to show their work in your office or retail space to create traffic.

2000, CD-ROM, The McKnight Foundation, 600 TCF Tower, 121 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402, (612) 333-4220.

This CD-ROM contains the results of The McKnight Foundation's recent study, the Cost of Culture, which polled 405 Minnesota artists about their economic and creative well-being. In 1996 the Foundation reported on the state of the arts in Minnesota, and now, as board chair Noa Staryk stated, "we felt it was time to take a closer look at the condition of individual artists."

2000 reprint edition, first published in 1992, 296 pages, paper. Arts Extension Service Press, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, ISBN 0-275-94054-3

A Report on the Ford Foundation Initiative
Edited by Mindy Levine

1999, 64 pages. Developed by New England Foundation for the Arts, edited and published by Arts International, ISBN 0-9676467-0-7, 212-674-9744

Executive Summary and Report
Based on interviews by Morrie Warshawski and Dinah Zeiger
Contributors to preparation and editing: Sonja K. Foss, Krista Lewis, Glynis Jones, Daniel Buehler, and Daisy Whitney

1999, 54 pages; Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), Denver, Colorado, 303-629-1166.

The so-called new economy, driven by an explosion in technological innovation and new communication tools, has especially affected California's San Francisco Bay Area, where web-based start-ups are overabundant and everything seems to be preceded by an "e". Perhaps because of their innovative nature, technology firms often locate offices in marginalized neighborhoods or abandoned industrial zones. At first this trend seemed to revitalize former nadirs of economic activity with new neighborhood restaurants, cafés, and other service-oriented businesses.

The theme of GIA's 2000 annual conference is The Source which refers literally to the beginnings of the Mississippi River and figuratively to the tributaries that together make art happen: the creativity of individual artists, the desire to come together in community, and the impulse to give. Author Paul Gruchow lives in Two Harbors, Minnesota, and writes of the Mississippi from first-hand experience. He is a participant in a GIA preconference, "Artists and the Natural World: Art-Making and Environmental Advocacy." This essay is published with his permission.