Katrina Daniels is the Exhibition and Gallery Sales Director at the Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center, which provides public awareness, education, and enjoyment of the visual arts by promoting the works of Michigan artists. Katrina coordinates exhibitions and public art programming working directly with artists to increase engagment between them and the Lansing community. Katrina is a co-founder of ARTpath, a program developed by the Gallery and the City of Lansing to bring artwork out of the traditional gallery setting and into the public realm. ARTpath offers more accessible opportunities for the community to engage with the work of Michigan artists. Our Member Profile series features the many Americans for the Arts members doing transformative work for arts education, public art, advocacy, arts marketing, and more. An Americans for the Arts Membership connects you with this network of more than 6,000 arts leaders and gives you access to latest professional development and research.

Kyaien (Kya) Conner, PhD, LSW, MPH, began studying West African Dance at the age of six and became a professional West African Dancer at 14. Trained in dance forms of Djembe, Sabar, and Kutiro, she is a member of Kuumba Dancers and Drummers in Tampa, Florida; teaches West African Dance at the University of Tampa; and has taught West African dance nationally and internationally. Conner also is a tenured professor of Mental Health Law and Policy at University of South Florida, specializing in health disparities and the benefits and effects of culturally relevant psychiatric treatments and community-based intervention in older African Americans.

Our Member Profile series features the many Americans for the Arts members doing transformative work for arts education, public art, advocacy, arts marketing, and more. An Americans for the Arts Membership connects you with this network of more than 6,000 arts leaders and gives you access to latest professional development and research. 

Whenever you make public art, there are risks—usually financial. But today with monuments being challenged, politics, history, and community emotions are often also at play. Oh, and we are in a pandemic. When everything was halted in March, I fell into a depression. The prospect of making art with community, if we could do it safely, felt like a mental health salvation. Our Neighborhood Rolls became a beautification project to cover the cinder block wall at the side of a building, but primarily it was envisioned as a point of pride that, in the making, would build community-a meaningful, fun, educational, and engaging project for local kids and residents in Kingston, NY. At a time when everyone is evaluating what risks are worth taking for the greater good, maybe making art with people in public sounds like an unnecessary hazard. However, after my experience in Kingston, I would argue it was an essential action. It greatly impacted my mental health, and visibly demonstrated the importance of placemaking and tangible engagement for community in these apocalyptic times.

Until eight months ago, many arts educators would’ve scoffed at the idea of teaching art, music, dance, or theatre online. Now, virtual learning is a lifeline for arts education. With so many youth enrolled in virtual schooling, the need to design authentic and engaging online artistic experiences is ever more pressing. This challenge is coupled with the reality that so many young people are reeling from trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC reminds us that stark changes in routine, breaks in the continuity of learning, the cancelation of milestone life events, and the perceived loss of safety and security can be very damaging to a child’s social, emotional, and mental well-being. Furthermore, moving arts education online has interrupted social interactions and created limits on self-expression. Can virtual arts experiences still foster the social and emotional needs of young people during this difficult time in their lives? If you ask Maria Ellis and Morgan Luttig, the answer is yes.

Within a week of Boston Public Schools closing its schools due to COVID-19, the district’s nearly 300 BPS visual and performing arts educators quickly shifted to offering remote learning in the arts. The creativity, responsiveness, and community approach educators brought to this task have ensured the arts remain a priority for our students during the spring and moving forward into the new school year. Within days of school closures, BPS visual and performing arts educators congregated on our first Zoom meeting to take stock of the moment and build a plan going forward. In a traffic-jammed city where it can take over an hour to get from one neighborhood to another, meeting online quickly turned into a silver lining, creating a new outlet for collaboration and camaraderie. Discussions rapidly led to an action plan focused on pedagogy and approaches that would make arts learning relevant and sharing resources to do so.

When I write to you about the importance of the arts, I know full well that I am preaching to a large and supportive choir. But we are living in unique times. We are fighting inequality, cynicism, otherism, disconnect, disease. The arts have the powerful ability to remind us who we are, to remind us how to celebrate our similarities as well as our differences. So to you, the choir, I write to you because now more than ever we need to sing our loudest. Without the arts, stories like mine, and millions more, will go untold. The connectivity that makes us who we are, that releases the better angels of our nature, will fade into the dark. Americans for the Arts is here to ensure that we never fade. They are fighting that fight from the capitol building to the streets. They are working to ensure that the mission of the arts, the millions of jobs they provide, the heartbeat they give our humanity, the spark they give our youth, is never muted. 

Across the nation, communities have taken to the street to express their feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement in paint. Public art is an effective tool for local government expression because it amplifies messages of political and social importance with a clear and powerful statement. It also brings people together, creates social understanding, and aids the healing process. That’s just what it did in Asheville, N.C. After a month of planning, on Sunday, July 19, 2020, dozens of artists and volunteers came together on behalf of the City of Asheville to create a Black Lives Matter mural in the heart of downtown. Having been through this process, I have 5 tips for arts agencies looking to serve in a similar role. I also recommend reaching out to other organizations in your area, state, or region that have played a role in the installation of a street mural project for additional insights.

The idea to exchange visual art and musical performances for healthcare was hatched in a conversation over a beer between a Kingston, NY, dentist and a painter. From that creative brainstorming session a small group of underinsured artists and providers was formed to found the first O+ (pronounced O Positive) Festival in 2010. The inaugural festival featured a parade, paste-up murals, and concerts in empty storefronts, and volunteer providers built a small pop-up clinic to care for the participating artists and musicians. Their simple idea of exchanging “the art of medicine for the medicine of art” acknowledged the value that everyone brought to their community. The festival was a way to both celebrate that and bring attention to the inequities of the American healthcare system. At the heart of the festival is the Artists’ Clinic and Greenroom. Participating artists, musicians, and volunteers receive care from volunteer nurses, doctors, bodyworkers, and mental health professionals in a clinic we install in a community hall and from dentists in their offices. An insurance navigator from The Actors Fund is on hand to provide information and guidance. The hall also houses our Greenroom, a place for participating artists, musicians, volunteers, and healers to relax over a home-cooked meal.

As public health guidelines limited social gatherings and encouraged social distancing, arts education and social justice programs needed to reconsider their traditional in-person activities—creating a collaborative activist mural, for example, or performing an original play—for the safety of their communities. How did they bring together young people in meaningful, socially engaged arts experiences without being together physically? I had the opportunity to speak with representatives from three organizations who have fearlessly navigated the complicated world of re-envisioning onstage performances, keeping students of various ages engaged over Zoom, and creating a sense of community among young people who may have never met in person. In their interviews, each leader explained how their organization has adapted and reimagined programs to engage youth in arts and social justice virtually and offered insight on how your community can do the same.

At your core, your organization and its mission haven’t changed. You want to make your patrons happy and continue to share your love of the arts with them. Reframing your image is a simple way to refresh your understanding of who your patrons are so you can better respond to their needs and ensure you’ll remain a vibrant part of their arts community.

This last post in our ARTSblog series featuring nominees for the 2020 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities celebrates Eddy Kwon—musician, educator, program designer, and facilitator of equitable community development. Integrating music as a fundamental component of Price Hill Will, a community development organization in Cincinnati, Kwon’s impacts are many and draw upon their own unique artistry and artistic vision, sustained work in creative youth development, and innovative initiatives in creative citizenship. First, Eddy Kwon is a composer, violinist, jazz musician, and improviser, performing as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and with musicians from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Kwon is equally a community leader who works daily at the intersection of creative youth development, creative citizenship, and equitable community development. 

Musical traditions hold a unique power in cultural belonging and identity for the communities and cultures from which they grow. Preservation and performance can be a political act of cultural self-determination, expression, and continuity. The stories, meaning, and sounds embodied by traditional music can gain new power for new audiences and broader communities, when linked to contemporary issues and concerns. The four extraordinary musicians featured in this installment of our blog series celebrating nominees for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities draw upon cultural traditions and sometimes stretch and merge them with other forms to embrace a broader holistic view of culture and humanity. These musicians are: Dom Flemons, American roots ambassador; the Reverend John Wilkins, a bearer of blues-influenced gospel of Mississippi hill country; Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, a Black Indian and jazz-rooted genre-blind innovator; and Tiokasin Ghosthorse, master player of the ancient red cedar Lakota flute. 

Today, the convergence of COVID-19 closing down public events, along with the explosive outrage with continued police carnage in communities of color, brings us to a similar inflection point as the late 1960s. Once again, a fundamental shift wherein art is stripped of any pretense is emerging. As well, the enormous chasm between aesthetics and inequity must be addressed as systemic racism is dismantled. Perhaps it is a gift that we are currently forced to live in a continuous present, with no past, and no future, just now. Artists and organizations are re-examining their practices. Art can no longer be treated solely as a transactional product, with audience as consumers. What is important now is how culture can be essential in our communities. We are in this liminal moment imagining a post-pandemic art world. The opportunity in this crisis will be lost, if in hindsight we simply rush to put everything back together the way it was.

If, as arts administrators, we cover our eyes and believe that we just need to hold fast to all that we’ve known about our organizations, our communities, and our audiences until the fog lifts, we risk missing opportunities to engage audiences old and new even as our communities are changed in this period of pandemic and civic unrest.

Venus De Mars and Luke Stewart are among the 11 exemplary music artist nominees for Americans for the Arts’ 2020 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities featured in our ongoing ARTSblog series. At different career stages, these artist-activists may be considered by some on the musical fringes. What they hold in common is a steady and deliberate dedication to bringing their communities out of the margins and advancing and improving conditions for them to thrive. As a punk rock singer-songwriter and transgender woman, Venus’ performances, speaking, and compassionate presence have created spaces of affirmation and communion for transgender people and fostered openness and understanding among audiences across the gender spectrum. Luke moves effortlessly between artist communities in jazz, DIY punk rock, and, most of all, improvised music. He uses his improvisation skills to be alert to and advance conditions that will allow musicians across these genres to create, perform, and learn from one another, while expanding appreciation and audiences for their work.

In this blog, we feature Courtney Bryan and Ashleigh Gordon, two of the 11 music artists who were the exemplary nominees for the 2020 Johnson Fellowship. As consummate musicians in contemporary genres, each thrives on the stimulation of artistic collaboration with fellow musicians, poets, writers, and dancers, but also drives the collective work that builds strength as socially engaged artists. These artists advance self-representation and advocate for cultural equity in the music field, creating music and curating programs that showcase and elevate Black culture and excellence. Importantly, themes of racial justice serve as sources of inspiration and a reservoir of strength in their ongoing support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Committed to spirit and always to beauty, Bryan’s music responds to the present, confronting contemporary social injustices in her home city of New Orleans and across the globe. In her home community of Boston, Gordon is a musical force whose goal is to foster cultural curiosity about, and celebrate the music of, Black composers.

On May 25, 2020, Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin brutally murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black father accused of issuing a counterfeit $20 bill, while other police officers stood by. This tragedy, following many other recent police-involved shootings of unarmed Black men and women that have been broadcasted and protested nationwide, has sparked renewed and global visibility for the Black Lives Matter movement. This most recent wave of protests has prompted a discussion within the public art field: How can public art respond to the Black Lives Matters movement? Should it? What will we do about the public artwork that is being tagged and damaged during these protests? Public art, at its best, is an authentic reflection of our times and values. Public art should reflect the community around it, and represent the hopes, lives, and aspirations of the people in that community. What we can do as public art policy makers and administrators is uplift those voices in our communities that are calling for justice and equal protection for people of color under the law. It is time to talk about the lack of diversity within our public art commissions, artist selection panels, and our public art workforce. We need to address the elitism with which we dictate to communities which artworks are acceptable, and which persons and cultures are worth affirming with monuments and beautiful objects.