All posts tagged Americans for the Arts
Observations

On My Mind: What Press Is Good Press?

My most recent blog posts have been about homebuying and affordability. It’s a topic I find deeply interesting, but it also provides a change of pace from the in-depth—and often intense—conversations about art and activism happening daily over at SOMArts. Writing requires time for reflection, and this fall instead of reflecting on and writing about art I chose to spend my post-work hours running, learning guitar and seeing art in other spaces. No regrets!

This week, however, I am back to writing about art as part of the inaugural Animating Democracy Blog Salon of Americans for the Arts. It’s an impressive cohort and I am learning a lot. A particular favorite is Every Museum Needs A Community Organizer by Damon Rich, an artist who transformed several galleries of the Queens Museum of Art into a place to explore how our society pays for housing, how the system has broken down, and the arguments over fixing it.

Last week I had lunch with a friend who asked me “what type of publicity do you hope for at SOMArts?” CONTINUE READING ]

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W Posted Nov 07, 2011     w No Comments
Observations

Know Better, Learn Faster

And I need you to be better than me
And you need me to do better than you.
—Know Better, Learn Faster by Thao With The Get Down Stay Down

Over a week has passed since the 50th Anniversary Summit of Americans for the Arts, and what a whirlwind week it was. Back at SOMArts Cultural Center we closed out an amazing turnaround year. We more than doubled our gallery attendance, revived our intern and volunteer programming, launched a website, renovated our lobby and office spaces, invested in long-overdue equipment upgrades, fought to protect our city funding, and lived to tell about it.  And yet, in many ways we are just catching up. There’s so much to do and it feels like the more we succeed, the more people we connect to who have urgent needs and high expectations.  Such is the life of a thriving nonprofit.

At the AftA convention, I connected with peers who had similar stories. We’re all exhausted. So we sat in the audience and listened to panels talk about new models, veering between skepticism and hope.

I came to convention still stubbornly hanging on to the idea that a “new model” was a structure I could study and apply to my organization—that magical combination of for-profit innovation, technology application and nonprofit altruism.

I left convention having reached the conclusion that we need to stop treating “new model” like a noun, in panels or anywhere else, when what we’re talking about is changing the system. We’re asking how we can achieve dramatic organizational change necessitated by the factors mentioned above, but succeeding via thoughtful communication and a process of enrolling (vs. influencing) stakeholders in one’s vision.

CONTINUE READING ]

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W Posted Jul 08, 2010     w No Comments

Top 25 Most Powerful People in the Nonprofit Arts ]

John Arroyo tipped me off to this poll on Barry’s Blog . If anyone needed motivation to join Americans for the Arts, it is worth noting that I live in a small town in a small state, and my affiliation with AftA has introduced me to 13 people on this list.

Uncategorized

Back Before You Know/Knew It

I think I broke one of the cardinal rules of blogging by skipping town and blogging on another site without warning. And now, I have just returned from four days in Philadelphia, where I attended the 2008 Annual Convention of Americans for the Arts.

What did I learn? First and foremost, to REGISTER EARLY. Staying at an overflow hotel makes it hard to blog, power-nap, or pace ones’ self throughout the days.

What can I use? Within hours of my Career 360 session with Dewey Schott of Next-Step Consulting, he forwarded me an article about high-functioning teams that I hope to utilize at our next staff retreat. The advance workshop on Better Program Evaluation will be useful in consensus-building with board members and teaching artists about how (enrollment numbers? student testimonials? mission relevance?) to define programming success.

Who did I meet? As Ruby Classen noted on her earlier blog, I traveled far from home to meet some people in my own backyard: Maren Brown of the UMass Arts Extension Service, Brian Hornby from New Haven’s Office of Cultural Affairs. A slightly awkward and rushed meeting between the Emerging Leaders Council and the State Arts Action Network resulted in one of my most enjoyable conversations of the Convention, when Anne Katz and I discovered that we both got early career breaks at the O’Neill Theater Center (many years apart, and many shared memories nonetheless). And, near the end of my stay, a chance meeting with Susan Pontious of the San Francisco Arts Commission revealed that the Hestia Mural, which I enjoy daily in my hometown of Northampton, was her very first public art project, in 1980.

Where will I go? Perhaps the better question is, where won’t I go? Members of the Seattle emerging leaders network were so compelling with their visions of next year’s UNconvention, I might head west in the fall for Bumbershoot or another long weekend. Tucson would be an exciting addition to my list of travels. And the Public Art Year in Review was a reminder that I should drive down to New York, see the waterfalls, and check out fellow emerging leader Marisa Catalina Casey’s new Starting Artists space in Brooklyn.

But for now, it is good to be HOME! Big thanks to everyone who made this convention inspiring, challenging, irreverent, and unforgettable.

Lex

p.s. I am also back to my “home” blog, http://www.lexleifheit.com.

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W Posted Jun 23, 2008     w No Comments
Art Agenda, Arts & Ethos, Friends & Strangers

Art Agenda: Rebecca Borden

Since I am heading to Philadelphia on Thursday for the 2008 Annual Convention of Americans for the Arts, I sat down (via phone) and pre-recorded the Art Agenda. Rebecca Borden, Manager of Professional Development for Americans for the Arts, shed some light on convention highlights, work-life balance, and “Career 360.”

As an added bonus, Rebecca is a trained life and leadership coach. This means that I also got to pester her with my friends’ (ahem) career conundrums, all in the name of journalism.

Seriously though, Rebecca gives some good advice, comments on Richard Florida, shares her must-read list, AND points out the bright lights of the leadership track at Convention.

Interview excerpted from The Art Agenda. Broadcast on 88.1fm, WESU, Middletown on June 12 2008.

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W Posted Jun 17, 2008     w No Comments