Public Art

Two streams of thought come together here. On the one hand, we want the Reader to reflect the continuing impact on our lives of the events of September 11, 2001. On the other, we want to follow an emphasis in GIA's current plan on the organization's second purpose — to increase the presence of arts philanthropy within philanthropy in order to strengthen support for arts and culture.

January 2002, 19 page pamphlet. Western States Arts Federation, 1543 Champa Street, Suite 220, Denver, CO 80202, 303-629-1166.

• An Artist's Guide to September 11 Relief Efforts
• A Non-Profit's Guide to September 11 Relief Efforts

November 2001, 29 pages (artist's guide), 19 pages (nonprofit's guide). The New York Foundation for the Arts, 155 Avenue of the Americas, 14th floor, New York, NY 10013, 212-366-6900.

November 2001, 24 pages. Working Group on International Collaboration in the Arts, Arts International, 251 Park Avenue South, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10010-7302, 212-674-9744, 212-674-9092 fax.

Overhaul of Elementary and Secondary Education

Last October I attended my first "Social Theory, Politics and the Arts" conference, speaking on a panel with playwright Brian Freeman, writer Karen Clark, and puppeteer/actor Jonathan Youtt to offer reflections from artists at the conference's culmination. The gathering's international scope was refreshing and eye-opening.

The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture by John Seabrook
2000, 215 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

American Culture, American Tastes Social Change and the Twentieth Century by Michael Kammen
1999, 320 pages, Basic Books

The cultural landscape of Maine is as rich and diverse as its natural landscape, although it is less well known. Recent initiatives have brought attention to the arts and culture of this rural state that is home to 1.4 million residents and covers two million acres, 2,000 miles of rugged (and increasingly developed) shoreline, and a vast area of working forest, farms, and urban settings not unlike its northern NewEngland neighbors.

Allen Ginsberg begins his essay "Meditation and Poetics" with this paragraph: "It's an old tradition in the West among great poets that poetry is rarely thought of as 'just poetry.' Real poetry practitioners are practitioners of mind awareness, or practitioners of reality, expressing their fascination with the phenomenal universe and trying to penetrate to the heart of it. Poetics isn't mere picturesque dilettantism or egotistical expressionism for craven motives grasping for sensation and flattery.

The Minnesota Regional Arts Councils (RACs) system is one of a kind. Established in 1977 by the Minnesota State Legislature, the Regional Arts Councils work in partnership with the Minnesota State Arts Board to share responsibility for equitably distributing legislative arts funding throughout the state. The result of this system is decentralized decision- making for providing arts grants, establishing programs, and providing services.