Gregory Burbidge

The greatest biodiversity in the world occurs at the fringes between two ecosystems. That’s what I heard last month when hearing a panel discuss the intersection of arts and natural resources. The panel included a nature photographer, an education expert from Zoo Atlanta* and a landscape architect amongst others. It was fascinating to hear about people’s work at the spaces between the arts and other fields. It was a technical and ecologically specific fact, but one that likely resonates with all those working at the fringes of very different worlds.

Planning for Diversity
Last summer, the board of our metropolitan planning organization, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), voted unanimously to add arts, culture and creative industries into their scope of regional planning. Arts and culture were brought into a dialogue with transportation, land use, aging services, natural resources, workforce development and other regional planning priorities. The integration of arts into the functional areas of planning means the incredible resources and tools available at the commission are now being leveraged to help create solutions to the challenges that exist within the cultural community.

The creativity of my colleagues never ceases to astound me. While I thought it might be a challenge to talk about the fringes between the worlds of watershed protection and the arts, my peers who work to protect the Chattahoochee River Corridor, for example, were full of ideas about where these intersections occur. Land use planners, those who work with lifelong communities and transportation experts have all articulated what is unique about bringing arts and culture to the table, and what their field will be able to do with these new tools that they would not be able to accomplish otherwise. Diversity thrives where the fringe between ecosystems overlap.

Biodiversity in the Arts Ecosystem
The biggest challenges exist for our work not when we discuss where the creative industries meet other sectors but where we try to find the common ground within our own sector where areas of the creative industries overlap.

When the Atlanta Regional Commission absorbed arts and culture planning into its portfolio, it did so not only because people know that arts and culture are critical components of place-making, but also because arts, culture and the creative industries are crucial to the continued economic success of a region. Atlanta has thriving film, video game and music industries. We have enormous cultural institutions and vibrant street art. Our literary scene is strong. And, the impact being made using arts to create social change does us proud. All of this is work falls under what we often describe as the Creative Industries.

When pressed, I often use the Americans for the Arts definition of the Creative Industries as those “businesses involved in the production or distribution of the arts.” This is the definition and corresponding tax codes that we used in 2011 to compare metro regions. We were able to say that out of 13 peer regions, Metro Atlanta had the highest number of arts-related employees per capita and the third highest number of arts related businesses per capita. These are the same numbers regularly quoted when advocating for positive arts and culture policy.

When I back into the question and use these numbers, it is easy to support a policy that I already feel strongly about. The challenge comes when I look at all the diverse groups that exist in this data set, in our cultural ecosystem, and begin to ask what policies would support this sector as a whole. These businesses, both for- and nonprofit, have wide ranging needs.

Recognizing our Neighbors
It is this conservative and yet seemingly broad definition that we used at the Atlanta Regional Commission when pulling together our advisory committee. In the past when I have participated in groups representing the arts and culture community, these groups have been largely made up of nonprofit leaders. Our mission of including arts, culture and the creative industries extends far beyond that, and watching a broader conversation begin to take shape has been some of the most exciting and rewarding work in this endeavor.

We now have a group of regional leaders who volunteer to act as an advisory committee. They meet every month and include community stakeholders ranging from mayors and county chairs to post-secondary institution leadership and real estate developers. These are individuals who are all willing to be strong champions for the needs of the creative industries. The creative industries stimulating our conversation include the range, from dance organizations and theaters to video game producers and animation companies.

The cultural community has expressed great enthusiasm for the Atlanta Regional Commission’s willingness to face challenges arm in arm, but articulating what those challenges are for the broader community is daunting. What issues could be tackled so they make sense for both a house museum and a blockbuster film production? Many days the hard work of our committee begins with simply determining where our ecosystems overlap and what keeps us together.

When you put so many individuals representing the broad spectrum of the creative industries in one room, there is little family resemblance around the table. There is little sense that these are all my tribe, my people. The response is regularly “I am not sure why I am here?” We creative industries folks are a fragmented lot. We do not all make carpet, cars or clean air like various other industries do. For the most part, we are involved in the “creation and distribution of cultural goods” but have found very different paths within that that and it is hard to recognize that we are on the same road.

I will use my blog post today to shout across the country and try to hear from others whose work occurs at the fringe edges where ecosystems collide, even when it all exists within the creative industries. We have been carving our own path in the metro Atlanta region, and with enough success that every month our committee membership continues to grow and participation has not waned. I would be interested in the response our field might have to the inherent questions: What issues bring the whole field together? For all those involved in the production or distribution of the arts, what story could you tell that would generate nods of recognition from those working in all, or even many, of the hundred of industrial sub-sectors that make up our community?

*Note: One intersection between the arts and natural resources: elephants, gorillas, crows and the black rhino with its prehensile upper lip all spend time painting to exercise their brains.

Tim Mikulski

This is my 149th ARTSblog post as a writer. It’s also my last—at least as a staff member here at Americans for the Arts.

I have been with the organization for almost six years and started blogging four years ago (after becoming ARTSblog editor a little over two years ago).

In those two years, I have tried to write, recruit, or find at least one relevant post per day to publish on the site. Some weeks were easier than others, but it is pretty amazing to see the depth and breadth of the quality of the posts that I have had the pleasure of adding to the site.

And, of course, I can’t help but think of the 20 Blog Salons I have worked on along with the fantastic program staff at the organization who work hard to find the bloggers, gather the posts, pictures, and profiles, and send them along to me for editing, formatting, and social media promotion.

While those weeks are some of the more stressful due to the work that it all entails, I think the fantastic collection of resources in the right side bar speaks for itself.

I’m leaving ARTSblog in the perfectly capable hands of our marketing and communications staff members, but I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for visiting our little corner of the web to read, comment, and share the amazing work of our bloggers.

Americans for the Arts represents a diverse group of interests—from arts administrators to marketing professionals to advocates to arts-education-supporting parents—and I hope that my work on the site has represented you at one point or another. If it hasn’t, I hope you will consider adding your voice to the mix sometime soon.

Until next time…

Tim

Valerie as a fairy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at age 3 1/2.

We recently launched a new series on ARTSblog that spotlights the staff at Americans for the Arts that I call “Ten Questions with…”, in which I will ask everyone the same questions and see where it takes us.

This time I have turned to Valerie Beaman who currently serves as Private Sector Initiatives Coordinator.

1. Describe your role at Americans for the Arts in 10 words or less:

Program planner, council wrangler, seeker of speakers and bloggers, herder

2. What do the arts mean to you?

In my family it was an anomaly if you weren’t involved in the arts in some way. We are all a bunch of introverts and eccentrics who’ve managed to stay sane by participating in the arts. My first stage experience was as a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Redlands Bowl at age 3 ½. I still get goose bumps when I hear Mendelssohn’s music for the entrance of the fairies! Experiences like that never leave you. It’s very important to me to that children everywhere have an opportunity to connect with the arts. They’re a lifesaver.

Valerie returning to Earth.

3. If you could have any career you wanted (talent, education not required), what would it be and why?

A test pilot because I love everything to do with the experience of flight. I took up skydiving because I wanted to know how it felt to step out into nothingness.

4. How many places have you lived? Where?

Five: I was born in Southern California; spent my school years in Pittsburgh, PA; I’ve lived most of my life in New York, NY, taking five years off in Bernalillo, NM to recharge, and Paris, where I always feel instantly at home.

5. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

Someone once said about me, “Look, she even ties her shoes gracefully.” At the time I laughed, but I still think of it every time I tie my shoes.

6. Name three people in history (dead or alive) with whom you would want to sit down to dinner.

Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg. I was a huge fan of the Cunningham Company and would love to hear about their collaborations and their crazy road trips. I’d ask John Cage to provide some delicious mushroom dishes and maybe read from Finnegan’s Wake in the wee hours. I’m sure the I Ching would come into play at some point in the evening.

7. Would others say that you can dance? Explain.

Well you’d think I could dance, having been in an opera ballet company and all the rest of my performing career, but somehow none of that training translates onto the regular dance floor. I couldn’t do the popular dances very well, so I created the Pussy-foot Stomp—not exactly the Harlem Shake—more like a demented Irish step-dancer.

8. What is the earliest memory you have of being an audience member for a live arts event?

Does the circus count? I was maybe five or six and I loved the man being shot out of the cannon, of course. I wanted to be shot out of the cannon too and cried when no one took me seriously. An early indication of my pursuit of flight!

9. What would the title of your autobiography be?

No One Here Thinks I’m Funny! I have a picture for the cover:

10. Finally, if you could paint a picture or take more photos of a place you have been in your life what would you paint or photograph?

I’m a novice with water colors and have been trying to capture the “walking rain” of New Mexico when the rain falls only halfway down from the sky. It’s magical at sunset. I suspect that magic only exists in the moment and can’t or shouldn’t be captured.

That’s it for Valerie. Stay tuned for more “Ten Questions with…” soon!

Steven Dawson

Once again, the Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium (EALS) at American University has proven to be a smashing success. The EALS is in its sixth year of existence. The event is an annual meeting of students and young professionals who work in the arts that is held at American University. As national partners with Americans for the Arts, EALS is the official kick off for Arts Advocacy Day, and is held the day before.

It is an opportunity to engage in quality discussion about issues, unique or universal, that affect arts organizations with students, peers, and experienced leaders in the field. Past keynote speakers have included Rachel Goslins, Ben Cameron, Bob Lynch, and Adrian Ellis. All symposium activities and planning is organized and executed by a selected committee of American University Arts Management students.

The framework of EALS 2013 was “Looking to the Horizon.” Each speaker and panel discussed the new and innovative strategies and ideas coming down the road in each of the topics addressed that day. These topics included international arts management, marketing, audience engagement, career advancement, innovative organization models, and fundraising.

As the Executive Chair, I am elated to report that EALS 2013 was by far the largest and most successful Symposium ever. Counting the speakers, attendees, staff, and volunteers, 225 people walked through the doors on Sunday, April 7. That proved to be well over double last year’s number, a record growth for the Symposium.

EALS also extended its reach throughout the country. Previous years saw attendees mostly from the surrounding DC metro area and within a few hours’ driving distance. EALS 2013, however, saw attendees from geographical locations spanning the entire east coast, the midwest, and as far west as Utah. What caused so many people from so many locales to flock to American University?

The EALS Executive Committee’s focus on quality programming. At the beginning of the planning process, the Executive Committee made the decision to host big names from the industry that have valuable knowledge and experience to share. Doing so would be a financial gamble, but they had faith that presenting the highest quality programming would pay for itself by attracting more attendees. They were right.

The morning began with opening remarks and a welcome from myself, and jumped right in to the opening keynote address by Karen Brooks Hopkins, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Since taking over as president of BAM in 1999, Hopkins has led the organization with stunning competency, riding the waves of financial and philanthropic ups and downs. The annual attendance has exploded, the budget has over doubled, and the organization’s endowment has almost tripled to over $80 million. Her address connected the ideas we were discussing at EALS 2013 with her real and successful organization. A perfect start to the day.

The attendees then split off, as they went to the morning breakout panel session of their choice. One morning panel was International Arts Management. In this panel, Gail Humphries Mardirosian (American University), Todd Dellinger (Rider University), Stacy White (US Dept. of State), and Arts Management professor Ximena Varela discussed the newest research and issues in this growing area of the arts.

The other morning panel, Marketing for Today’s Organizations, saw leading marketing specialists discuss new strategies, as well as multiple points of view on some hot topic issues, such as subscription plans. Panelists included JoAnn LaBrecque-French (The Washington Ballet), Jennifer Buzzell (Strathmore), Khady Kamara (Arena Stage), and American University Museum head curator Jack Rasmussen.

After a networking lunch, the attendees split again into their choice of three panels. One afternoon panel, Audience Engagement, discussed the importance of engaging audiences…not selling to them…and the strategies to do so. Those panelists included engagement experts Margy Waller (Topos Partnership), JR Russ (Dance Place), Alli Houseworth (Method 121), Doug Borwick (ArtsEngaged), and AU’s Ximena Varela.

The second afternoon panel provided attendees the opportunity to pick the minds of younger arts leaders about starting and advancing their careers in the Career Beginnings and Advancement panel. Panelists included Jojo Ruf (National New Play Network), Christopher K. Morgan (Christopher K. Morgan & Artists), Allison Peck (Freer|Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian), and AU’s Anne L’Ecuyer.

The Innovative Organization Models panel rounded out the afternoon selections. Attendees had the opportunity to learn about some of the most cutting edge organizations, and to pick the minds of the leaders of these organizations. Those leaders were Rachel Grossman (dog&pony DC), Thaddeus Squire (Culture Works Greater Philadelphia), Margaret Boozer (Red Dirt Studio), and AU professor Andrew Taylor.

After a coffee break, attendees headed into the Abramson Family Recital hall to attend a panel that discussed one of the most important parts of arts management, yet one of the most uncomfortable parts: Fundraising. Panelists, moderated by Andrew Taylor, included leading minds in the field: Barbara Ciconte (Donor Strategies), Kendall Ladd (Sitar Arts Center), Pete Miller (Local arts board member and philanthropist), and Russell Willis Taylor (National Arts Strategies)

The day was concluded with Aaron Dworkin’s closing keynote address. Dworkin is the founder and president of The Sphinx Organization, the leading organization focused on cultural diversity in the arts, and President Obama’s first ever appointee to the National Council for the Arts. His poignant and invigorating address discussed racial access to the fine arts, and how we as arts leaders must work to make the arts represent the true diversity that is the United States.

For more information on the Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, and to hear audio recordings of the conference, visit www.american.edu/cas/arts-management/eals/index.cfm. Podcasts are in the process, so they may not be up yet. Check back later this week to see if they are available!

Sara Bateman

Having been engaged with the Emerging Leaders Network for several years now, I remain thoroughly impressed with those whom this network connects me to. These individuals represent a group of next generation leaders filled with great capacity, innovative approaches, and a strong vision for how to strengthen their organizations, the arts field, and their communities.

Over the course of the Emerging Leaders Blog Salon these past five days, we had the privilege to meet 22 more of these arts leaders, each filled with insightful and passionate approaches to what they feel would make where they live a better place or bring it to the next level.

In a time where we are both witnesses and participants to massive change on local and global scales—both in the arts & culture field and in the general landscape of our communities—we as arts administrators need to be ready to tackle the challenge of using art as a catalyst for the betterment of the places and the people we belong to.

And after reading through these posts this week, I’d say we’re up for the challenge.

We’ve heard a wide range of ideas, including incentivizing an arts district and cultural planning; the challenge of making an arts and culture identity known when it sits in the shadow of a major city or a large tourism industry; and ideas on how we can create social bridges, claim public space, and enable the ability of a community to tell their own story.

Throughout all of these posts, the one over-arching theme that emerged time and again was the need for collaboration. As Chase Maggiano mentioned in his post, collaboration is a hot topic in the arts right now, whether you’re talking about programming, funding, or the general scope of cross-sector relationships.

If we are willing to take that step towards action, listen to community needs, and then find the best channels to create partnerships that allow arts and culture to be at the center of our community conversations, we will enable our field to be the creative change-makers needed in so many places at this time.

I want to thank our 22 bloggers this week for taking the time to look into their communities, both inside and outside of the arts, and address such insightful approaches to how to make where they live a better place.

I’d also like to extend a thank you to our Emerging Leaders Council for creating a great question to guide our blog salon and for leading the process to locate individuals from across the country to share their ideas.

Based on your comments as readers that have come in over the course of the salon, I think we all resonate with the issues and potential solutions these emerging leaders are identifying in their communities.

I look forward to being a part of this new generation of arts leaders and sharing the work of bringing the places we live to the next level.

If you’d like to continue discussing many of the topics presented during the blog salon, please consider joining us in Pittsburgh this June for the Emerging Leaders Preconference just prior to the Americans for the Arts 2013 Annual Convention. Generously supported by the Carnegie Mellon University Master of Arts Management Program and featuring a keynote from Richard Evans of EmcArts, the Emerging Leaders Preconference will help participants to understand the changes happening in our field – from the way audiences are interacting with arts and culture, to how we as arts administrators can manage organizations to respond to the fluctuating needs of our communities. Register today!

Janet Owen Driggs

My headline was intended to be something of an eye-catcher—who can resist a story about crime and scurvy, right?

Best of all, my claim is true. The thinking goes something like this:

• Scurvy, the clinical manifestation of vitamin C deficiency, is on the rise in developed nations. In the United Kingdom, for example, reported cases of childhood scurvy rose 57% between 2005–2008.
• Public health studies indicate that poverty is driving the re-emergence of the disease.
• Access to free, fresh, vitamin-c rich foods will reduce incidents of scurvy.

Ergo: planting fruit trees and vegetables in public spaces will reduce scurvy.

And what about crime, I hear you ask? Well, since 2008, a project in Todmorden, UK, has been growing fruits and vegetables in seventy public beds dotted around the town.

The produce is free to whoever chooses to pick it, and, as Incredible Edible co-founder Pam Warhurst explains: “The police have told us that, year on year, there has been a reduction in vandalism since we started.” She continues: “If you take a grass verge that was used as a litter bin and a dog toilet and turn it into a place full of herbs and fruit trees, people won’t vandalise it.”

Ergo: planting fruit trees and vegetables in public spaces reduces crime.

Not exactly quod et demonstrandum perhaps, but an equation well worth exploring in Los Angeles, my home, a city in which:

• 20.2% of people live below the poverty level
• The American Diabetes Association has just set up permanent shop in downtown to address the “growing concern and epidemic in Los Angeles”
• Full-service supermarkets make up less than 2% of the total number of food stores in the South and Central parts of the city

It’s an equation that artists have been making for a while now: initially via guerilla activity, more recently with some venturesome civic support.

Take Ron Finley, for example. In 2010 the artist and designer planted the strip of scrubby grass in front of his South Central home. His fruits and vegetables flourished, neighbors and passersby ate well, and the city Bureau of Street Services served Ron with a citation.

To cut short a longish story—which is chronicled by Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times and by Mr. Finley at his recent TED talk—with the help of L.A. Green Grounds, City Councilmember Herb Wesson’s office, and the South LA community, Ron’s garden continues to grow, and he continues to fight the good fight for public produce.

More recently, the L.A. County Arts Commission dedicated the Del Aire Fruit Park, an artwork in the form of an urban orchard, by collective Fallen Fruit. Described as the first public fruit park in California, it is the located in public land, and “will be sustained, nurtured and harvested by the public.”

Are we getting closer to the realization of Ron’s vision, as described by Steve Lopez, in which “one street would grow peaches, the next would grow peppers or tomatoes, and everybody would meet at the corner to share the harvest”?

Are Fallen Fruit of Del Aire and Ron’s garden the thin end of the wedge? My hope is that these glimmers of civic support for public produce can herald a policy shift in L.A. and modification of the “public nuisance” ordinance.

Because I have only 900-words maximum with which to make the case for public produce, suffice to say that I’ve written lots more about that particular inhibitor at KCET.org. Meanwhile, in addition to its potentially huge impacts on public health and crime statistics, to say nothing of the environmental benefits a local harvest reaps, let me leave you with a final thought about Todmorden from visiting journalist Vince Graff:

“The day I visit, the town is battered by a bitterly-cold rain storm. Yet the place radiates warmth. People speak to each other in the street, wave as neighbours drive past, smile. If the phrase hadn’t been hijacked, the words ‘we’re all in this together’ would spring to mind.”

Susan Appe, PhD

What would make where I live a better place?

I want Broome Country, upstate New York to value its own commitment to the local arts. Own it! That is, I don’t want to have to have to feel the need to convince my graduate students and other community members—friends and colleagues—that the arts in Broome County, are diverse, vibrant and, yes, cutting edge.

The evidence is out there. In practice, the community—my students included—of Broome County supports and attends arts and cultural experiences and events, but I am finding we don’t always value this commitment we have for the local arts. Let me explain.

I first started noticing this with my students. I teach a nonprofit administration graduate class in a Masters in Public Administration program. In the class we emphasize capacity for community-based practice and discuss various policy areas such as social services, work development and yes, the arts. When I asked my students who had recently (in the last two weeks) attended an arts and cultural event, all—every single one of my students—confirmed they had. Activities and events shouted out were attending a local history museum, participating in the city’s monthly Art Walk, going to a local theatre production, screening an independent film at a local nonprofit organization.

While certainly not a representative, scientific sample, it surprised me. It surprised me because I consistently feel I need to convince my students of the cultural aliveness of our community. As I am trying to convince my students, they brush me off as being just easily excitable. Meanwhile they are actively participating in this cultural aliveness and don’t even realize. They don’t value the arts community that they are creating. Essentially they don’t value what they value.

And the students in my class are not the only ones attending and supporting local arts. As a recent transplant to Broome County, I am finding that the community is deeply invested in local arts.

Case in point—on March 13, 2013 the Broome County Arts Council’s (BCAC) United Cultural Fund (UCF) awarded $228,000 to organizations and individuals working in the arts in Broome County. The UCF, in existence since 1987, is supported by all local donations coming from foundations, county government, business, corporations and individuals. I had the opportunity to be on the allocations panel and through the experience I realized the enormous enthusiasm of the local arts.

We know that at the local level, local arts agencies are a primary channel of arts funding (Toepler & Wyszomirski, 2012), therefore, the BCAC’s model is a familiar one for those of us engaged in local arts. It provides, like many local agencies, critical support in the form of general operating support grants to major nonprofit arts organizations and project grants to community nonprofit organizations and individual artists.

However, still, the UCF is one of only seven such programs in all of New York state, one of only two in upstate, and the only one in south central New York. The existence and sustained support of such a funding campaign indicates that the arts are important to the community, indeed.

We have a clear buy-in from the community to support the arts, but as a new Broome Country resident, I see the struggle for community members (my students included!) to own this. Why don’t we value what we value? Why don’t we value our commitment to the arts?

While we of course always want more people enjoying local arts in Broome County always, I am finding availability, access, investment, and support of the arts is here. The challenge I think we are facing is that we are not fully owning this, rather there seems to be a reluctance to blatantly valuing this about our community.

Still, the students will continue to attend their preferred events, I am sure of, and the UCF will launch another year’s campaign, raise local funds and hopefully more than the previous year. This is because Broome County values its local arts. I just want community members to shout this out, loudly and proudly. This would make where I live a better place.

References

Toepler, S. & Wyszomirski, M. J. (2012). Arts and culture. In L.M. Salamon (Ed.), The state of nonprofit America (229-265). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Christy Bors

It was during my third year as an undergraduate art student (Go Slugs!) that I met Frank, my abstract painting professor.

I’d never been more frustrated with a syllabus or a teacher in my whole life as I’d been with Frank. He gave us rules by having none. “Paint like you mean it,” he would say. “But don’t think about it. And don’t really mean it.”

The careful, thoughtful, planner inside me cringed every day in that studio. I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do, so I constantly monitored what everyone else was doing and followed instructed suit.

The bi-product: A six-foot tall canvas spread wildly with a cake frosting texture of Alizarin Crimson and Flake White oils. It took me over a month to create and countless two a.m. sessions to perfect.

I hated it. Truly—I gutturally despised it. It didn’t get better when I squinted my eyes. Or when I turned it upside-down. Frank loved it the moment he laid his eyes on it. “This is the best thing I’ve seen this year,” he gushed, hands literally clasped to his cheeks. 

“Don’t touch it anymore—it’s finished.” He picked it up by its wobbly wood frame and asked if I wanted to hang it in the campus gallery for the remainder of the year.

And so, I let it be praised. The six-foot abomination. It mocked me every time I worked on a new assignment; according to Frank, it was prodigal, but to me, it was an embarrassment.

It took me months of scowling at its presence before I realized that I hated that painting (which forever remained titled “Untitled”) so much because it didn’t resonate with me. I existed nowhere within it, and it remained that way through the rest of the semester: The empty painting that made me an artist.

That hollowed sense of accomplishment is an emotion that can strike creative people of all genres. Sometimes, as artists, when creative inspiration is lacking (watch this amazing inspirational TED Talk from Elizabeth Gilbert), we do what we think we should: create what other people enjoy, admire, or dare I say—purchase—so that we may be sustained to make another creation and buy groceries on the side.

Working now out of my hometown as an arts administrator, I recognize this fight in my own creative community.

While I live in a small, mono-agricultural town in Northern California, the 10 million tourists that visit it annually know it by a different name: Napa Valley. And when a large temporary audience enters into our creative workspace, I realize it is only natural to want their love and admiration; but not everyone was born (and made proud by) painting a vineyard landscape. Or grapes. Or wine glasses.

There are plenty of remarkable artists that do this beautifully, and I would never discount them, but I often sense that same hollowness in others that I felt when Frank was telling me I’d reached my creative peak: Work that isn’t authentic to personal experience can quickly feel lost (Read: “Authenticity in Art” by Denis Dutton).

What I personally, and professionally, insist upon is this: What art you create might not be for everyone—it might not be for anyone—but when it’s made with purpose and confidence, it buzzes.

The indescribable hum of regionally unique expression is what makes cities like Austin, Portland, Berlin, and Philadelphia so great; their art is collectively another pathway into understanding those cities subcultures and secrets that you can only topically discover in a four day, five-night trip.

It’s a way to meet and understand a city’s history, people, and voice without ever flipping a single page of a Frommer’s Guide. So let it be what it is: Uniquely yours.

What a successful arts destination always—and not just often does—is present active, engaged arts districts that reverberate the energy of a city. Those districts are usually in the urban, bustling city centers, but they always feel like their own world, because they first and foremost celebrate the authentic creative experience.

They could care less if they represent the city they live in; but because they are made with a prideful sense of individualism, no matter their subject or style, they evoke the attitude of their city without even trying.

I see Napa’s arts district as a burgeoning embryo. Before it’s completely formed, we as artists must collectively decide that we are collectively completely different. And for each new creative artist that emerges, unafraid of his or her unique voice, another “Untitled” mistake will never see the daylight.

Author’s Note
After my last semester of Frank’s course, I scrubbed all of the red paint off of that 6-foot canvas. I painted over it something that had interested me for years—the bubbles that rise up in the ocean’s sea foam—that Frank had told me would be a mistake to explore. After I returned back to town after a stint living abroad I decided to shop my work to local galleries. The sea foam painting became the title image for my first solo-show at a Bloom, a local Napa gallery. The first thing the owner said to me? “You must be from here—your paintings just feel like Napa.”

Kelly Page

Imagine, if we saw social media more like an artist’s studio or cafe and less like a marketing channel?

While walking through the exhibit, Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects at the Arts Institute Chicago last November, I felt like I was seeing into the private design space of the architect.

The exhibit was an installation of an architect’s studio with concept drawings, full-scale project mockups, material samples, and photographs of completed work that now form part of the Chicago city skyline. This exhibit was a celebration of the work of the artist behind their city stage.

The work of the artist backstage, however, many don’t experience. The space is unorganized and cluttered; the work in progress, being constructed, deconstructed, is unpredictable and incomplete. This is why many artists and arts managers do not openly bring backstage onstage and into the public eye—because it is messy.

Imagine for a moment, however, if we did? 

Social media use in arts management

I spend a lot of my time exploring how arts organizations use social media and what I often read is content dominated by the voice of the marketer, marketing at me—a mix of call-to-action posts such and social media promotions focused on driving traffic and ticket sales.

In a report released in January by the PEW Research Center, nearly 1,300 art organizations (77 percent of those surveyed) agreed that the internet has played a major role in broadening the boundaries of what it considered art. Digital technology now permeates the operations of many arts organizations, especially in marketing and audience engagement activities.

Social media, however, are not marketing channels, they are social spaces wherein networks of people meet, share, and learn from each other. Sometimes they are even spaces for the co-creation of art.

When arts organizations forget this, they join the queue of thousands of organizations and individuals who use social media to push out content, spam followers, and annoy their friends. There are many guides offering advice on how artists and arts organization can use social media to better market themselves.

My advice is simple—Do not use social media for marketing.

Social media marketing follows a traditional media channel mindset, a mindset that ignores the social side of social digital contexts. It also ignores the social and creative way people work and learn in the arts, the place and inspiration of artwork.

Taking social media use to the next level

Some arts organizations understand this and are changing the way they work; using social media to bring backstage onstage with social media; curating the voice of the artist and sharing the creative process behind artwork.

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), for example, Stacey Garcia, Emily Dobkin, and Nina Simon make their creative ideation process public, using Pinterest to document and share ideas for exhibits and events. Not only has it helped to solve internal communications, it enables the sharing and indexing of images and ideas between internal staff, interns, and members of their community.

In the United Kingdom, John McGrath and his team at National Theatre Wales, use their own social networking site and other services to share the rehearsal process for their productions. They share blog posts, tweets, video diaries, and Flickr images from directors, actors, and crew as curated through Storify, creating a collective production experience. The Storify for The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (2012) provides an example.

Then there is the world of the playwright.

In 2012, while in downtown Chicago I walked past a storefront window. Inside the window was playwright Trevor Dawkins typing. Facing out to the street was a large LCD screen. As he typed, his words appeared on the screen in real-time.

Trevor was participating in the Storefront Playwright Project, a project with 31 Chicago playwrights sharing the creation of their work in real-time. Walking on, I followed the projects blog and hashtag #playwrightinawindow on Twitter in order to learn more about the work of these Chicago writers.

Virtual Choir by musical composer and conductor Eric Whiteacre is also pushing the boundaries of social media to socially co-create art practice. The concept involves singers from around the world each uploading videos of themselves singing. The videos are then edited together to create one piece.

The first Virtual Choir (2009) had 185 singers from 12 countries. It then grew to 3,746 singers from 73 countries for the third choir in 2011:

The project has a Facebook page followed by almost 30,000 people and in January 2013, Eric successfully received Kickstarter funding from 2,000 backers pledging more than $120,000 to fund Virtual Choir 4: Bliss.

These are a few examples of how artists and arts organizations are embracing the creative and innovate uses of social media as social spaces and social practice; more akin to the artist’s studio or cafe, than a marketing channel.

Unlearning the marketing mindset to share the artist’s way.

Bringing backstage onstage with social media is one way to help share learning about artists, their ways of working, and their artwork. This approach, however, requires much unlearning.

• Unlearning the use of social media as a marketing channel in order to learn how to participate in social, creative, and artistic ways in network social spaces.
• Unlearning marketing language and activities focused on targeting audiences, ticket sales, and calls to action; in order to learn how to create meaningful experiences with artists and arts managers throughout an organization or community.
• Unlearning marketing practices that push out information about exhibits, events, people and artwork, in order to learn how to invite and curate discussion and debate around each within arts communities.
• Lastly, and most importantly, unlearning the default responsibility of marketing owning (and controlling) social media activity in arts organizations. This is critical in order to foster learning and social media participation across many areas of the arts.

Johnny Kolasinski

Full disclosure here: when I relocated to Silicon Valley in 2009, I told my friends and family in Ohio that I was “moving to San Francisco.”

At that point in time, the two were basically synonymous in my mind—Palo Alto was, to me, a “San Francisco suburb” that happened to be the home of Facebook, and most of what I knew of San Jose came from the Dionne Warwick song.

San Francisco’s cultural reputation is what brought me to California, and because of that city’s reputation, it took me more than a year to really connect with the artistic community in my own back yard.

Silicon Valley has an interesting dynamic. We’re known worldwide for innovation, creativity, and our DIY atmosphere. The technologies being created here are changing world culture in new and revolutionary ways.

Silicon Valley has a population of 3 million to San Francisco’s 800,000. Why is it, then, that so many of our residents feel that they need to travel north to “The City” for an artistic or cultural experience?

What can we, as an artistic community, do to build a reputation that holds up to the high bar our tech industry has set? Are we destined to be known San Francisco’s cultural suburb?

By no means am I trying to say that the art being created here in Silicon Valley is in any way inferior to San Francisco. On the contrary, recognizing the innovative and collaborative nature of our artistic community is what led me to set down roots here in Silicon Valley rather than up north.

There are organizations like Zero1, which blends art and technology to “provoke new ideas, spark experimentation, and seed creative strategies.” In addition to its biennial festival, Zero1 has recently opened a permanent exhibition space, the Zero1 Garage, and has artistic fellows working on location at Google and Adobe.

The Children’s Discovery Museum is also fusing the arts and sciences, giving future audiences the cultural experiences that are so necessary to their development.

Multiple theatres in the region are working to foster emerging playwrights:

• TheatreWorks has held an annual New Play Festival for more than a decade
• San Jose Repertory Theatre has recently created an Emerging Artists Lab, with late-night presentations immediately after its mainstage productions
• My own organization, City Lights Theater Company, holds multiple readings of plays by new Bay Area playwrights each season.

Organizations like San Jose Taiko, Abhinaya Dance Company, and MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana) aren’t just representative of the diversity of our community, each reaches out to a truly multicultural audience.

Government and city funders are doing their part as well. The city of San Jose works hard to support the region’s artistic innovators. In 2011 and 2012, the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) invited seventeen arts organizations of various sizes and missions to participate in EMC Arts’ New Pathways for the Arts program, which brought together the members of the organizations’ staffs, boards, and audiences to challenge their organizational structures and identify new methods of problem solving. The OCA is currently sponsoring the Creative Industries Incentive Fund, which provides project-based funding to for-profit arts-based small businesses in San Jose.

Arts Council Silicon Valley, on top of being a resource and connecting point for arts organizations, supports genARTS, the Silicon Valley Emerging Leaders Network. With their backing, genARTS was able to send nearly a dozen participants to last year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention and Emerging Leaders Preconference, and we hope to send just as strong a contingent this year.

The School of Arts and Culture hosts MALI, the Multicultural Arts Leadership Initiative, in order to identify, connect, and support the many leaders of color in our arts and cultural institutions.

Despite all of these amazing institutions, though, Silicon Valley faces some unique challenges. I’ve mentioned the fact that many of our local arts patrons are choosing to travel to San Francisco. The reverse doesn’t happen quite so often.

Traveling south from San Francisco isn’t easy; BART, the underground rail system that connects San Francisco to Oakland and the rest of the East Bay, doesn’t reach far into the South Bay. An extension has been in the works since the 1990s, but only broke ground in 2010, and service isn’t expected to hit San Jose until 2025.

Additionally, while innovative tech companies are the region’s lifeblood, a significant portion of their young employees choose to live in San Francisco. The companies even provide private busses from San Francisco to their campuses to make commuting hassle free. It’s hard to build a relationship with these 20- and 30-somethings when there’s a mass exodus at 5 p.m.

I know Silicon Valley isn’t alone—there are regions all over the country that sometimes feel like they’re living in the shadow of “The City,” whether that city is San Francisco, New York, or Columbus, OH.

What are you doing to bring your neighbors in and strengthen your region’s reputation?

Jenifer Thomas

I am a fairly recent transplant to a city with a vibrant arts scene chock-full of healthy arts organizations, beautiful parks and architecture, wonderful public art, a squadron of young professionals getting involved, and our very own culinary smorgasbord: a signature chili (you either love it or you hate it), mouthwatering ice cream, and questionable breakfast meat.

Where is this cultural mecca, you might ask? It’s Cincinnati, OH.

Cincinnati’s varied offerings come with an equally diverse community of people. But like many cities, Cincinnati could get to the next level by seeing art and artistic involvement that connects all of us, not just the arts-prone.

The Cincinnati ethos is evolving, and many organizations are doing great things to get engagement that is more reflective of our community and encourages we locals to put our personal stamp on the Queen City.

Recently, after two years of living in Cincinnati, I fell in love. With Cincinnati.

It happened in the most unlikely of places: the concert hall.

I’d seen the incredible Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) a number of times, but this season, they started a new initiative that went a step further in bring Cincinnatians together: a project called One City, One Symphony.

Uniting under a familiar and beloved work, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the CSO hosted “listening parties” all across town, held community concerts, offered free downloads of the symphony, and had all Cincinnatians humming the familiar “Ode to Joy.”

Think it sounds cool? Check it out:

Not only did the community come out in droves to the events surrounding One City, One Symphony, but live performances sold out. Friends with whom I had never discussed the arts were asking me how to access the free downloads. Facebook exploded with positive feedback. For a few weeks, all of Cincinnati was abuzz with the sounds of the symphony.

And for me, I felt like a part of the community for the first time. This citywide earworm, trite as it may sound, connected me with Cincinnati, and with the diverse populations of the community, as we all gathered ‘round to see our orchestra perform our symphony.

By uniting under one banner, one symphony, one community, Cincinnati got a little bit better.

I may never like Cincinnati-style chili, but after that, I feel like a Cincinnatian.

Chase Maggiano

There are a few things I have come to believe are true: Justin Bieber’s monkey is more famous than I will ever be; there are more self-proclaimed artists in the world than at any time in history; and the arts are the next big export—both here in Washington, D.C., and abroad.

All three of these truths lead to a problem we have in our cultural communities. We need more space.

With YouTube, an iPad, and Kickstarter, anyone can create and distribute art while sitting in front of the computer in their underwear (no…not THAT kind of art). Some artists can even launch careers from the keyboard. But it is not enough to think of art as an activity performed in isolation, behind the curtain of technology.

I have learned that many people in my community feel the same way. Sure, it’s easy to rehearse and perform a play in your living room, read chamber music in a basement, and labor over paintings in the garage for hours—but if no one sees your art, does it have any real impact?

While finding performance space is often the key stumbling block, locating adequate rehearsal (or studio) space is an equally important challenge. Without an appropriate place to cultivate art, there is no true quality control of the product. Don’t believe me? Ask a dancer.

One way to overcome this problem is to throw money at it. Michael Kaiser of The Kennedy Center, along with Chairman David Rubenstein and host of other donors are doing just that. They have an ambitious expansion program in mind to create more space for Kennedy Center education programs, alternative performance space, and even public windows into rehearsal rooms!

For those of us who don’t have $100 million lying around, there are other great ideas.

The folks at AS220 in Providence, RI, have created an amazing space (and they started with just $800). The history is simple and wonderfully energizing.

A few artists lived, more or less, as squatters. They scraped together money to officially rent a small studio. More artists were added for nominal fees. The city caught wind of this and, luckily, worked with the artists to create permanent space in a bad neighborhood.

The block started to clean itself up thanks to influx of young, hip inhabitants. And now, AS220 encompasses several city blocks, runs a restaurant to pay for the adjoining performance space, presents unjuried/uncensored art year-round, and rents out retail space to pay for community artist housing and studios. Could someone please light my candle?

If turning an entire tent city into Avenue A seems a little ambitious, there are ways to start small.

I have seen success with restaurant space doubling as performance space—especially for late night crowds. Many restaurants (outside of New York) won’t make money after 10 p.m. If you can bring a show, concert, or event after normal operating hours, and your audience will eat or drink, the restaurant would be foolish not to stay open.

At my organization, Washington Performing Arts Society, our education team does a great job of finding what sometimes seems impossible. We partner with other existing summer programs to share space and students at camp. We turn a museum full of kids into a concert hall on the weekends in August. We even use churches as rehearsal space for our choirs.

It’s not that we’re just looking for free space—the partnerships we form with other organizations create more enriching programming by sharing resources such as instruments, faculty, students, and knowledge.

One key ingredient in finding adequate space for your organization or project seems to be sharing. Collaboration is a hot topic in the arts lately, both on the programming and funding side of things. Find partners, friends, or anybody with complimentary needs, and work together. This will help you better utilize space, encourage new ideas, and get funding.

What are your experiences, successes, and failures in finding space for art? Share below so we can all learn from one another!

Sarah Lawson

You’ve probably never visited an art gallery or a classical music concert in Charlottesville, VA.

Though the area is known for its views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, historical landmarks, and local food culture, many people don’t consider it an arts destination. At Piedmont Council for the Arts (PCA), we see this every day.

Residents might know everything that’s happening in one area of arts interest, but nothing broader. Visitors tour Monticello or the University of Virginia, but rarely stay the extra day to explore our museums or see a play performed by one of our many community theater groups.

Very few people ever see the full breadth of the Charlottesville area arts community.

However, data from Americans for the Arts’ Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study in the Greater Charlottesville area showed that our arts and culture industry generates $114.4 million in annual economic activity, supporting 1,921 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $9.2 million in government revenue.

As the Charlottesville community continues to grow this arts and culture sector, we see a greater need to address this issue of coordinated cultural tourism. 

And that’s just one of the large-scale issues that face our arts community and many others around the country—maybe even where you live. Similar issues include arts funding, livability for artists, development of creative placemaking resources, and arts education opportunities.

But what can we do to address these issues?

Well, what PCA decided to do was work with residents and local government to create a community-wide cultural plan. Cultural planning gathers your entire community to give feedback on available and needed resources related to arts and culture.

This feedback might sound something like, “We need more affordable studio space for artists.” Or maybe, “Why don’t we have a community calendar where all arts and culture events are listed?” Perhaps even, “It would be great if graffiti were allowed as a form of public art.”

Once planning coordinators sift through all of the input, central themes begin to emerge. Community stakeholders then work together to recommend strategies to address and resolve issues within each theme, whether it’s audience development, funding, or something else entirely.

As PCA nears the midway point of the planning process for our plan, titled Create Charlottesville, I see this as a vital step in making Charlottesville a better place to live.

A cultural plan might also be a great step for your arts council or community to consider. If you decide to embark on this process, here are some tips to help you create and survive your own cultural plan:

1. Find a consultant to lead the planning process. An outside consultant is necessary to ensure an unbiased cultural plan. Try to find an individual or firm who has previously worked with cities similar to yours and with whom you feel a connection. Charlottesville is a small city with a strong university presence so we sought a consultant who had experience with small college towns.

2. Find a really amazing consultant to lead the planning process. No really, this part is that important. If you think you’ve found a great consultant, search to see if you can’t find an even more amazing one.

3. Diversify your funding. Part of the success of any cultural plan comes from community engagement in the implementation process. This buy-in can begin during your search for funding. Approach local businesses and philanthropists to explain your goals. Even if you don’t receive a check from each one, you’re educating them about the plan and will be more likely to get them engaged in the process in the future. Be sure to apply for plenty of grants as well—a good plan doesn’t come with a small price tag.

4. Budget your time. A cultural plan can fill every waking hour of your life if you allow it to. Before the planning process begins, work with your consultant to create firm deadlines for every step of the project. Create guidelines and expectations for staff and plan coordinators during every phase of the process.

5. Assemble the best team imaginable. In addition to the consultant, your planning process will involve a large number of community members. Pick the best ones to serve on a steering committee, working group, or task force. You’ll need diverse representatives in order to have a plan that serves the entire community.

6. Talk to as many community members as possible. Your plan is only as good as the people you involve. Reach out to your entire community through surveys, focus groups, and interviews to get as much feedback as you can. Create online surveys along with large-print paper versions to hand out. Mention the plan to everyone. Even if they don’t get involved, you’ll still generate buzz about the project—which, in turn, will help you reach even more people.

7. Never lose sight of the goals. Remember the dream to improve your local arts community that led you to start a planning process in the first place? Don’t let burdensome logistics distract you from that.

8. Implement, implement, implement. Part of the plan should include ways to ensure that individuals and organizations follow through on their responsibilities for implementation of strategies. And remember, even if the cultural plan that you create doesn’t fix everything, you can revisit it in a few years to give more attention to issues that still exist.

Sunny Widmann

I moved to Washington D.C. four years ago, after living in a village of 600, and I absolutely love where I live. I enjoy trying new restaurants, seeing world premiere plays, watching drummers and acro-yogis perform in my favorite public park and the proximity of it all.

Although I cannot deny the benefits of living near national cultural centers such as the Smithsonian museums, I find that most of my moments of bliss have come from time spent away from the national mall, in the city’s smaller pockets of cultural activity. Therefore, I argue that moving resources and attention from the center to other parts of the city would bring D.C. to the next level.

During a panel discussion I moderated at the Corcoran last year, I heard from D.C. arts champions on the challenges of working in a city where a small but thriving local arts scene is often overshadowed by the national centers. For those of us on the consumer side, there is also a downside when the emphasis is placed on “tourist D.C.” rather than “local D.C.”.

The prevailing value proposition in our field today centers around creative placemaking. If you buy into this concept (as the National Endowment for the Arts does), you believe that arts-related activity helps neighborhoods flourish, spurs economic activity, and broadly benefits the entire community.

Though I am skeptical of the metrics used in some of these studies, I have observed that when a cultural center such as a small music venue opens in my neighborhood, cafes, restaurants, and even other arts organizations pop up around it, drawing more visitors to the area. This influx of money and people is consistent with the vibrancy indicators used by ArtPlace. 

However, in sharp contrast to this “clustering” happening in D.C. neighborhoods is the continued growth of individual national organizations, like the Kennedy Center’s recent announcement of a $50 million dollar project to expand its existing campus. While it has many cool cultural offerings within its grounds, the Kennedy Center exists as a sort of island in its neighborhood (in fact, you might even argue that it is a neighborhood unto itself).

Leaving the Kennedy Center campus, one encounters a bit of a food desert. You don’t see busy sidewalks and animated public spaces. In fact, the Kennedy Center actually busses folks to and from the nearest Metro stop, eliminating the possibility of patrons walking by the occasional watering hole and patronizing that business.

What if a Kennedy Center expansion effort meant bringing its rich cultural offerings off campus and into D.C. neighborhoods via small satellite centers and pop-up shops? Could this be a win-win situation for the Kennedy Center (gaining new audiences) and local business districts (attracting more people to the neighborhood)?

I feel similarly about adding even more museums to the national mall. As I eagerly await the 2015 opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), I wonder if other sites around the city—such as the culturally-rich U Street area, which was once home to Duke Ellington—were even considered.

It is indeed important that the NMAAHC be present on the mall for symbolic reasons, and this newcomer certainly deserves to sit amongst the other Smithsonian giants. Perhaps, though, the size of the project could have been managed in order to include small satellite centers around the city to increase accessibility.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some inspired collaborations between the national cultural organizations and locals happening at present. ARTLAB+ is a great example: it’s a digital media program for local teens, supported by the Smithsonian and located at the Hirshhorn Museum.

And the Smithsonian officials have already demonstrated their commitment to connecting with audiences (local and national) who cannot get to the mall to visit the NMAAHC, noting that this new museum will emphasize outreach, including traveling exhibits and collaborations with affiliated museums. I look forward to seeing the museum’s presence—and all the corresponding benefits—in other D.C. neighborhoods.

Our city represents an entire nation, which can either be a lever or a hindrance to the local cultural scene. Collaboration is key in making sure that D.C. culturally rich neighborhoods remain vibrant.

Michelle Clesse

An installation art museum, a nationally renowned glass studio, and a cartoon museum walk into a bar. Just kidding. Museums and studios do not have legs, and therefore, cannot walk anywhere.

Plenty of cities have great art resources for artists and art enthusiasts alike. When I stumbled into Pittsburgh in 2009, I was amazed by the combination of major arts institutions, niche arts organizations, and scrappy little start-up arts groups; but even more so by how approachable and accessible the Pittsburgh arts community was.

I had a hotbed of arts at my fingertips. By the time I’d been in Pittsburgh for a year, I’d taken two glass blowing classes at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, dragged every out-of-town visitor to the Society for Contemporary Craft, and learned about Gertie the Dinosaur at the ToonSeum.

Now, I certainly didn’t limit myself to the visual arts scene. During my first year I also saw the Pittsburgh Ballet perform twice, checked out the Pittsburgh Symphony, and saw The Mikado performed by CMU’s School of Drama.

As I’ve settled into the city and put down more roots, I still frequent some of my favorite art spots fairly regularly. I have also continued to explore both large and small performance art groups, while keeping my hands busy (and dirty) at many of the public access and cooperative art studios.

I spent last Tuesday evening covered in clay and listening to the Penguins game with a slew of other ceramic artists. This weekly ritual is part of the wood fire seminar at Union Project’s ceramics studio. Ceramic artists eager to learn about the firing technique spend eight weeks working in the studio together, and then pack up their bisqueware and head out to spend the weekend stoking the wood kiln and making s’mores.

I jumped at the chance to join the wood fire seminar, largely because during the 15 years I’ve worked in clay I’ve never had access to a wood kiln before. It also gives me the chance to meet new folks and create art in a group setting.

Every new person I meet has their own piece of the Pittsburgh art scene that they’re truly passionate about. I’ve learned about new experimental theater groups, galleries housed in abandoned spaces, and solo artists producing their next body of work. Just about everyone involved in the arts community has their hands in a few different projects, and wants to share that art with you.

Pittsburgh has plenty of possibilities for the art lover. Excursions range from busting out your best duds and enjoying an evening with the Pittsburgh Opera to throwing on your ripped jeans and heading over to Artist Image Resource to screen-print concert posters for your band.

So, when you come to Pittsburgh for this year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, be prepared to prioritize your “To Do List.” Visit your favorite Pittsburgh art spot, but be sure to try something new. Maybe something you’ve never had the chance to experience before—I’ve heard the Pittsburgh Banjo Club’s Wednesday night jams are not to be missed!

The Americans for the Arts Annual Convention is heading to Pittsburgh in June. Follow along as we spotlight the city every week between now and then here on ARTSblog. Also, don’t forget the Early Bird Registration deadline is April 26 so be sure to register before then to receive a big discount!