Arts Intranet

One of Rich's San Diego purchases.

Growing up in Los Angeles, San Diego (long known as “America’s Finest City,” but the first I heard of that in my life was Thursday evening from a cappella singers that greeted convention goers on the way to the trolley line) was a place we didn’t go to very often.

There was the time we went to Vacation Village and my dad beached the rental sailboat in Mission Bay, and the time I drove down to Rosarito Beach in the 12th grade with a couple of friends in a vain attempt to convince ourselves we were wild American high school kids (I remember drinking a lot of Mirinda orange soda).

And a couple of other short, unmemorable visits. (On one of them, when I came from DC — which didn’t have Trader Joe’s yet in those days — a highlight was the Trader Joe’s in Hillcrest.)

But for the most part, San Diego was a place you went through on the way to Mexico, or stopped in for a couple of days without ever really experiencing much of the “placeness” of the place.

So this time, while in San Diego for the Americans for the Arts Convention, I wanted to do things differently.

Mike Gagliardo

It’s now been almost a month since I attended my first Americans for the Arts Convention in Baltimore.  Sometimes it’s hard to put things into perspective immediately following an event.  So now that I’ve had some time to really take everything in and process it, I’ve made a few observations that I thought I might share.

I met a lot of interesting, knowledgeable people at the conference.  That’s certainly to be expected.  I think one thing that I missed, though, was the opportunity to talk directly to other artists – not just those in my field, but artists in general.  I’m in the category of individuals who are both practicing artists and managers of arts programs.  I’d love to talk to more people like me who face the daily challenges of balancing administration and artistic expression.  It’s tougher to juggle than you may think – sometimes you have to be the one to tell yourself no in regards to a project you’d really like to pursue.  The artist in you wants to move forward at all costs, as he sees the benefit to the program.  The administrator, however, is the one responsible for the money or the time or the facilities or all of the above, and often has to play the realist to the artist’s dreamer role.  It’s tough to manage, and I’d love to hear how my colleagues make it work in their situations.

Making the Case for the Arts Session - #AFTA11

It is now more important than ever to defend funding and preservation of the arts. This was the subject of “Making the Case for the Arts,” a session at this year’s Americans for the Arts convention.

While many reasons for supporting the arts were addressed, Randy Cohen, Vice President of Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts, presented research mostly on the significance of the arts with regard to education, the economy, personal development, and healthcare.

Education. Studies show that, regardless of income level, students who are highly active in the arts are less likely to drop out of school by 10th grade (1.4 percent vs. 4.8 percent).