Okay, I am back at my desk after a nice break in that week or so between Christmas and New Year’s.
Here are a few quick items:
1. There’s a very interesting book out there, you might want to take a look: Spin Cycle. It’s by Jeffrey Henig, of Teacher’s College, Columbia University. He takes a very thoughtful look at the politics of research and the research of politics. He’s looking at this issue through the lens of Charter Schools, but there are important lessons for everyone who hopes to advance arts education through a combination of advocacy, policy, and research.
2. I heard a wonderful episode of This American Life (what else is new…). It is episode 88, Numbers, originally aired in 1998. The episode is in three acts, the second of which was about two guys who conduct research on what people most want to see in paintings, and hear in music. Then they go about having works of art created based upon their market research. It’s fascinating, funny, and sad, when you think of how much market research influences artistic decision making.
3. There was the sad news yesterday of the death of Betty Freeman. Betty was without question one of the most important patrons of contemporary art in the 20th Century. Here is an interview with Betty on NewMusicBox.org, from 2000. The list of artists she supported and works she made possible is truly extraordinary. She was an artist in her own right: I have the most wonderful book of portraits she took of composers. She produced a film biography of the great American experimental composer Harry Partch. When I think of Betty, I think of two things, first, of the many composers and whom she supported with annual grants to help with their living expenses, including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and others, particularly during lean times. Somehow, these grants spoke volumes about her philanthropy, and her commitment to the actual artists as people, well beyond the product or commodity. The second: once during lunch, where after talking a bit about the Internet, she asked me a sweet question that you would have only heard from someone her age and during the tech boom of the 90’s: “where can I get an Internet?” When Frank Oteri and I tried to answer that question, we all started laughing.
Click here to see some of her photographs.
Thank you Betty, for everything you made possible.
i love the way he looks!!