Lately, whenever I speak, I’ve been handing out small cards bearing two optical illusions. Last night, I handed them out at dinner. My friends hosted a lovely evening of teachings devoted to Passover’s theme of liberation. When I thought about what I wanted to share, these images came immediately to mind. Gaze at the image …
Note: I’m also blogging this week as part of Cultural Policy 101: A Blog Salon sponsored by Emerging Arts Professionals/SFBA. Join the conversation, and if you’re planning to be in the Bay Area on Saturday, April 16th, register for my free workshop “Advocating for the Public Interest in Culture” at the Oakland Museum, also sponsored …
I’ve been on the road for speaking engagements, the proximate cause of my recent blog pause. I tend to write here when something worth sharing crystallizes in my mind. But travels notwithstanding, the truth is that just lately, it’s been hard to find the crystals in the fog of reactivity. My subjects today are how …
Note to readers: based on response to my recent 3-part series on cultural funding, Life Implicates Art, I’m letting people know about my workshop on Reframing The Arts, a powerful generator of new ideas, fresh inspiration, and transformative action. Please contact me if you want to explore sponsoring one. Triage is the process of culling …
Note: This is the third in a rapid series addressing the current crisis in arts funding and how to head off future crises. Here’s a combined link to all three. After this, I return to my normal rhythm of posting an essay once or twice a week. My two previous essays focused first on the …
My last essay, exploring deeper meanings of the current threats to defund public arts agencies, elicited a great deal of comment. The bulk of it came from people who, like me, perceive the stuckness of mainstream arts advocacy and are seeking alternatives. So, what now? What do we do about it? I have a few …
My mailbox is being flooded with panicked messages from artists across the country. By executive order, the governor of Kansas has abolished the Kansas Arts Commission (KAC). The governor of Texas wants to defund that state’s arts agency, as does the governor of South Carolina. Republicans want to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts …
“Surveys show that in the online dating world, women are afraid of meeting a serial killer. Men are afraid of meeting someone fat.” That’s a quote from When Strangers Click: Five Stories from The Internet, a new non-fiction film premiering on HBO on Valentine’s Day. Despite the gender-based disproportion (after all, one dread entails mortal …
I’ve been mesmerized by a five-minute video shot in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, part of the Zero Silence documentary project, focusing on young people using new forms of organizing to change authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. In the clip, an unseen interviewer questions an unnamed young woman in the midst of a vast sea of …
It’s too soon to say about Tunisia, of course: will its revolution succeed? Will a democratic coalition endure, establishing a new order of government by consent? Will that spirit spread through the region? Who knows? But it is not too soon to suggest some possibilities and implications emerging from the chain-reaction of liberation that has …