Dear EAL/LA,

We’re one of five Emerging Leader networks nationwide engaged in an Arts Action Fund membership drive! This is a great opportunity for our network to gain visibility and contribute to the important work being done by the Arts Action Fund. Between now and January 31st, 2013, I encourage all of you to join (it’s free!) and help us spread the word so our network is announced as the winner of this membership drive.

As you may know, the Arts Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit membership organization affiliated with Americans for the Arts. The Arts Action Fund’s goals are to enlist and mobilize 1 million citizen activists who will help ensure that public and private resources are maximized and that arts-friendly public policies are adopted at the federal, state, and local levels. Our network is one of over 30 Emerging Leader networks nationwide, all affiliated with Americans for the Arts.

To join, please click here. Don’t forget to indicate you’re a member of our network!

We’ll be posting on Facebook and Twitter about the competition. Please re-post and help us sign up the most new members

Originally posted on ARTSBlog as part of an Emerging Leaders Blog Salon.

–

Anyone reading on ArtsBlog has likely already drunk the Kool-Aid.  You know the benefits of an arts education and lifelong arts participation.  You know that the arts are everywhere, in everything, for everyone.  I’m not going to be another repetitive voice confirming your beliefs.  I’m going to point to some great activities happening in the Los Angeles and, hopefully, present some subversive ideas for how to make artistry the norm.

The introduction:  I’m Tara Aesquivel, formerly known as Tara Scroggins.  I think I’ve been invited to this blog salon because of my role as the Executive Chair of Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles.  My subsequent posts will be related to several other items on my LinkedIn profile:

• Part 2: Arts + Sustainability-  My full-time job is being the Program Coordinator for the M.A. in Urban Sustainability at Antioch University Los Angeles.
• Part 3:  Arts + Education- I hold a seat on the Young Professionals Advisory Board at Inner-City Arts and have recently joined the Create CA movement.
• Part 4: Arts + Economy- I studied Cultural Economics at the University of Bologna, an opportunity through the Master of Arts Management  program at Carnegie Mellon University.

So what’s behind the title of my blog?  (Just after penning that title, I discovered that I’m not the only one publicly admitting that making the case isn’t working.)  What do I mean by that? First, we know that there are a lot of arts advocates doing amazing, excellent, hard work.  They are wonderful and their work is vastly under-recognized– and that’s my point.  As Diane Ragsdale alludes, there are a lot of resources going into advocating for the arts– there have been for decades– but the overall level of artistic participation and investment is minuscule in comparison to what it could be.  In the US, in particular, artistry is so frequently used as a signifier for something else (product quality, cool factor, social status) that we often have to consciously adjust our perspective to observe something purely for its artistic value.  We’ve been using our precious resources to make the case for the arts, loud and clear, for a long time.  The arts are still not widely accepted as an important part of life and culture.  We need a new strategy.

How do we meet people where they are instead of trying to drag them into a theater?  How do we reveal to people that art is already in their life and they already like it, rather than convincing them of the relevance of art made by dead white guys?  How do we use the American economic and education systems to our benefit?

I’m going to use the formula “Art + ___” and address a few areas of integration.  There are a lot of cross-sector partnerships happening out there, which is great.  However, I’m going to try to uncover deeper, inseparable connections.  I’m going to try.  I hope you’ll join me.

Hi EALs,

Please read a letter below from Jackie Koppell of CA Arts Advocates. She’s presenting a great opportunity to get your hands dirty in some advocacy work and, possibly, to take on a leadership role in the local committee. I worked with Jackie and CAA during the Arts in the CA Governor’s Race and highly recommend this ongoing effort to those of you looking to build your advocacy experience.
Tara

—
Dear Emerging Arts Leaders,

My name is Jackie Koppell and I am the Director of Programs for California Arts Advocates (CAA). CAA’s mission is “to develop strategies and coordinate advocacy that strengthen arts and culture in California.”

Last year, CAA was intimately involved in the successful “Arts in the California Governor’s Race” campaign and with renewed energy it hopes to remain at the forefront of advocacy for the arts and culture in California. As part of this effort, CAA is looking to establish committees around the state to facilitate this work. I am hoping to have the first of these committees in Los Angeles!

I wanted to contact you all in the hopes that some of you may be interested in getting in on the ground floor to help shape the direction and success of CAA. I would love to work with and learn from those of you who may be interested. As for the time commitment, it would be very doable. I envision one meeting per month with some follow up work in between meetings. It is my hope that these committees help represent the voice of the arts in communities around the state and as such want to grow at a steady, realistic pace to ensure longevity and success.

For more information about CAA, please check out www.californiaartsadvocates.org. If you have any questions and/or are interested in being a part of this exciting new endeavor, please email me at jacqueline.koppell at gmail dot com.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best,
Jackie

This post was submitted by Tara Aesquivel.

The Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region is the first study to capture the monumental economic force of the creative industries in Southern California. For more information or to download the report go to: http://www.otis.edu/creative_economy/

Who got to attend the event last week? What are some of the things you learned?

Arts for All
Arts Education Roundtable

Engaging School Leadership to Advance Arts in Schools

Using Project Zero’s The Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education, experience the exercises from Arts for All’s Leadership Fellows Program that changed school district leaders’ thinking about arts education.
Through collaboration with fellow attendees, explore how you can use similar strategies with your school partners to build their understanding and their support for arts education.
Conversations will be guided by Ira Toibin, former Superintendent of Palos Verdes Unified School District and Mark Slavkin, Vice President, Education, Music Center, who both served as co-facilitators of Arts for All’s Leadership Fellows Program.
When: Wednesday, June 1, 2011. 10:00am – 12:00pm
Where: Los Angeles County Arts Commission
1055 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800, Los Angeles, CA 90017

Established by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Arts for All is the dynamic, county-wide collaboration working to create vibrant classrooms, schools, communities and economies through the restoration of all arts disciplines into the core curriculum for each of our 1.7 million public K-12 students.

The Arts for All Arts Education Roundtable is a forum for arts education organizations, teaching artists, and advocates to raise issues pertinent to arts education, advance the work and knowledge of the field, network, and share best practices. Through the Roundtable, Arts for All supports the diverse network of community artists and arts organizations who partner with Los Angeles County schools to ensure all students experience a high quality arts education.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1657667127/efbnen

This post was submitted by Krystal Boehlert.

Rebecca Nath, Programming Chair for the Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles, blogs on her trip to Washington, DC for Arts Advocacy Day 2011.

As my long weekend in DC came to a close, I removed the ‘Arts Wonk’ button I had proudly worn as I strode through our nation’s capitol. Merriam Webster defines wonk as “a person preoccupied with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field; [a policy wonk]; broadly : nerd” (italics mine). Yes, for three straight days I had self-identified as a nerd—and I was more than happy to do so.

I received the pin earlier where my weekend as a bona fide arts wonk began: at the Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium at American University. The symposium was a professionally inspiring and encouraging launching pad, and presented three phenomenal panel discussions and an inspiring keynote address delivered by Rachel Gosslins, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

In her speech, Gosslins was realistic and did not shy away from stating the glaringly obvious point that we emerging arts leaders have our work cut out for us. She reminded us that times are tough and only getting tougher for the arts. But, she said, that should not dissuade us. There is much to be hopeful about, and we young professionals have the knowledge, skill, and inspiration to create a sea change for and within the arts.

This theme of undeterred optimism resonated throughout my time in DC. At the Americans for the Arts Arts Advocacy Day training session I, along with a good number of other novice art wonks, attended a full day of training to become better acquainted with federal arts policy, as well as government budget processes and the historical framework of government support for the arts, so that we could be effective advocates before Congress. As you can imagine, we learned that the outlook is pretty bleak, and there was no shortage of charts to prove just that.

One of AFTA’s more dismal charts showed the appropriations history for the National Endowment for the Arts (click to enlarge chart at right). On it, a nosedive in funding after 1994 is unmistakable. Also unmistakable is the snail’s pace at which funding for the NEA thereafter increased. In fact, it was only last year—a full sixteen years later—that funding levels finally reached something near 1994 levels. A grim reality indeed.

And just as I began to feel real trepidation for the task at hand and an overwhelming sense of ‘the cards are stacked against us’ and ‘what have I gotten myself in to?’… enter Kevin Spacey, stage left.

As keynote speaker for Americans for the Arts’ 24th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy, Spacey shared the following call to action which he received from his mentor, Jack Lemmon: “If you have been successful in the business that you wanted to be successful in, then it is your obligation to spend a good portion of your time sending the elevator back down… ‘cos it doesn’t matter what floor you’re on. In life, there’s always someone just below, just waiting for the chance to be invited up.”

As an emerging professional who has been happy and successful because of, through, and for the arts, it is my civic duty to be a part of ensuring that the elevator continues to get sent back down. For students to have equal access to quality arts education, for all communities to have the right of admittance to productions of Shakespeare, for service members to have the opportunity to enjoy Opera at military bases—my charge is to ensure that the elevator gets sent back down, and down, and down again.

As I learned last week and as was demonstrated with the near-shutdown of the federal government, garnering federal support for the arts is not an easy commission. It is one that has great leadership and momentum, but one that can always use additional voices. Voices from the likes of emerging arts professionals, seasoned professionals, or those who simply think the arts have a fundamental role in society, we all have a shared responsibility to ensure that this arts elevator is fully operational, very well-funded, and on unremitting rotation. We do not all have to be full-fledged arts wonks, spending our free time flying to DC, but we can make our voices heard simply through our vote, by talking with our members of congress, or by sending a letter of support. This arts wonk can tell you first-hand that each and every little action counts.

On this final note, I will leave you with the following call to action from Henry David Thoreau: “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”

I would like to give a special thanks to the good folks at the Center for Cultural Innovation for helping me further my ambition to be an arts wonk through the Creative Capacity Fund’s NextGen Arts Professional Development Grant.

Rebecca Nath is an arts wonk by night and Programming Chair for the Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles by day.

Photos: The author, Rebecca Nath; NEA Appropriations History Chart by Americans for the Arts, ArtsUSA.org; small group & full group of Californian arts delegates at Arts Advocacy Day 2011.