Last week I provided daily summaries of The Robert E. Gard Foundation's Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts at The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread's conference center. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 To be honest I have not had the courage to go back an re-read them as I am well aware of the fact that my listing of topics and key points was without synthesis and with very little context. With the advantage of a few days distance (and … [Read more...]
Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Day 3
Today was the final day of The Robert E. Gard Foundation's Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts at The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread's conference center. New Ideas for a World in Transition: A Next Generation of Work Savannah Barrett, Tatiana Hernandez, and Laura Zabel explored elements of structure and operations from the perspective of the youngest generation of community arts workers. This was for many a highlight of the conference. … [Read more...]
Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Day 2
Yesterday I began my reporting from The Robert E. Gard Foundation's Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts at The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread's conference center. Today was a full day presenting the history and current status of community/arts relationships and an introduction to thoughts about future directions. As you may well imagine, there is virtually no way to do justice to the presentations and discussion in a blog post or even a … [Read more...]
Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Day 1
Today marked the beginning of The Robert E. Gard Foundation's gathering at the The Johnson Center at Wingspread's conference center outside Milwaukee. Announced here earlier this year, Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts is a reflection on the state of arts/community connections on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Robert Gard's The Arts in the Small Community. To begin, tonight featured introductory welcomes by … [Read more...]
Gard Foundation Symposium–Our Communities: Begins Today
Today marks the beginning of The Robert E. Gard Foundation's gathering at the The Johnson Center at Wingspread's conference center outside Milwaukee. Announced here earlier this year, Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts is a reflection on the state of arts/community connections on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Robert Gard's The Arts in the Small Community. Since this is a by-invitation-only event, I have been … [Read more...]
Gard Foundation Symposium at Wingspread
As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Robert Gard's Arts in the Small Community, the Robert E. Gard Foundation, along with the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread and the Wisconsin Arts Board, is sponsoring a gathering of thought leaders in arts-based community development (and related fields) at the Wingspread Conference Center in Wisconsin September 7-9. While due to the size of the Wingspread facilities this is … [Read more...]
AftA Thoughts 2015: The Arts and . . .
This is the final installment in a series of posts reflecting on last June's Americans for the Arts convention in Chicago. (But don’t get too hopeful, there are several other impressions from the event percolating that I won’t label with this group.) A focus of Americans for the Arts over the next several years is going to be pairing of the arts with other disciplines. Conversations and work around the arts and medicine, the arts and … [Read more...]
Call for Mini Stories
In April I posted the Robert E. Gard Foundation's call for stories about the arts and community engagement. Many have been received. We are working on editing them and others for inclusion on our website. However, this work is important and examples are one of the best ways of explaining the concepts. So, in the interest of expanding the pool of examples, we are seeking responses to a new call for "mini stories." These are even shorter examples, … [Read more...]
And
Last fall, Francesca McKenzie of ArtsFwd posted about a pair of improvisational comedy schools/clubs (The New Movement) in Austin, TX and New Orleans: "Yes, and." Ms. McKenzie begins with an acknowledgment of a fundamental truth about the competition faced by the arts today: In order to sustain meaningful audience engagement, many arts organizations aim to market themselves as uniquely different, providing a service or experience that movies, … [Read more...]