These days it is de riguer for arts organizations to have some sort of  socially relevant talk accompanying a performance or exhibition. Liz Lerman and the CFA take it up a notch (or five) because they are masters at combining multilevel arts participation and community collaboration with economies of scale, the more deeply you look at this partnership, the more there is to see. The premiere of Ferocious Beauty sparked another idea for collaboration, and last week the Wesleyan Hughes Program in Life Sciences and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange launched Science Choreography, an online toolkit for the embodied exploration of science through dance.

The evolution of Ferocious Beauty: Genome is inspiring on my levels, the question on my mind this morning is how as arts organizations we can “put our planning where our mouth is.” Alongside our protests of “show me the money!”, attention must be paid to the following:

• What are we doing as arts leaders to show funders and other key stakeholders the vision, scholarship and community benefit to justify cross-sector investment?
• Who in the field is most successful in this, and what can we learn from them?
• How do we convince grass-roots collaborators to invest time now for a project that will take years to develop?
• How do project leaders assess stability in partnerships early on, to ensure that the big-vision, long-term plan succeeds?

No answers today, just food for thought and inspiring examples to start the week off right. Go Wes!

Today, we went to the Luc Tuymans exhibition, which Dan blogged about here.

In addition to the shows, I am also enjoying SFMOMA’s new lineup of bloggers, er, columnists. They just got started and already there’s an interesting post by Renny Pritkin about artists who’ve left town (and those who have stayed). I discovered Pritkin’s Prescription For A Healthy Art Scene on the Open Space blog shortly after moving to San Francisco last year, and it was posted on my office wall for quite a while. Glad to see that he is now an official poster, creating an interactive online space for dialogue.

Speaking of dialogue, there was quite the turnout for SOMArts’s Saturday afternoon talk about politics and printmaking. Sixty-five people showed up to see the work of more than 30 Bay Area artists represented in the exhibition, and to hear the differing opinions of Art Hazelwood, Robert Flynn Johnson, Steve Lopez and Don Farnsworth. Somehow, there is a connection to be made in the tremendous (and growing) local turnout at SOMArts shows, and the response by artists and curators on Pritkin’s blog who are seeking the kind of business, finance and critical rigor that will sustain them here. The lack of posts on my own blog is due partly to a desire not to make this site an annex to my work space … but these artists’ needs, and how to support them with our limited resources, are very much on my mind.

So, over at SOMArts we’ve been doing some advocacy in the face of budget cuts to the cultural centers. We’ve been writing grants. And we have been working damn hard.

And right now, I wish there was another day to this weekend! This one was good, and too short. Thanks San Francisco, for living up to expectations once again.

“Public art can generate big revenues and beautify urban areas. Or it can anger residents. How does one measure its success?”—An article in this week’s Christian Science Monitor.