“Good ideas can come from anywhere…if you ask us, convicts are pretty interesting people” comments Ben Pfutzenreuter, one of the founders of Concepting with Convicts, a project that partners with convicted felons to create powerful ads through the prison pen pal system. The partnership consists of the felon serving as art director or writer for an ad that is completed with help from the four directors of the project.

With less than 30 days left to reach its $1.70 million Campaign for the Arts goal, United Arts of Central Florida announced that it has attained 77 percent or $1.31 million. This places them ahead of last year’s campaign by 9.7 percent.  Additionally, United Arts is expanding its United ArtsCard donor benefit, a buy-one-ticket-get-one-free and discount card, to include Broadway Across America.

Since the onset of the euro crisis, Portugal’s government has shrunk in size and sold various assets amounting to about $11 billion. However, the plan to sell off a collection of works by Catalan artist Joan Miró faced much opposition and intense conversation. The debate about how much the state should be allowed to sell led to the question of whether a nation’s cultural heritage is out of bounds.

The new cultural affairs commissioner for New York City is Tom Finkelpearl, the president and executive director of the Queens Museum. Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Mr. Finkelpearl, who will act as the representative for the arts in a city known to many as the cultural capital of the world.  Mr. Finkelpearl will be responsible for a $156 million budget.

A group of community leaders in Grand Forks, North Dakota are creating a public art program using the development of 42nd Street as a catalyst. The proposed commission of arts and culture, which includes representatives from the city’s Urban Development department, the Grand Forks Park District, North Valley Arts Council, North Dakota Museum of Art, the Chamber of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, an architect, and three local artists, is looking into the long-term future to make polices for public art and to review current artworks located in public spaces.

The Arts & Science Council (ASC) in Charlotte, NC has selected Robert E. Bush Jr. as their next president. Bush, a nationally known and highly regarded leader in the arts, joined ASC in 2000. Bush served on the founding governing and national policy boards of Americans for the Arts, which merged the former American Council for the Arts and the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies in the 1990s. “I am very pleased to see Robert Bush be selected to head the Arts & Science Council,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts.

The MA Cultural Council, in partnership with the National Guild for Community Arts Education and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities is leading this national study and National Summit on Creative Youth Development.

It drives forward the work Americans for the Arts began with the Youth Arts Development Tool Kit.

On Friday, March 14, approximately 1,800 high school age students from across Tennessee were invited to hear a performance by this year’s Annual Convention keynote speaker, Ben Folds, who had premiered his new concerto with the Nashville Symphony orchestra at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center the night before. After the performance, the students participated in a special Q & A session with Folds and the Symphony conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero.

On Feb. 23, 2014 at the age of 110, Alice Herz-Sommer, a concert pianist and thought to be oldest survivor of the Holocaust, died in a London hospital. Mrs. Herz-Sommer was known around the world for her optimism and belief in the healing power of music. She shared her experiences and wisdom through books, YouTube Appearances and a short documentary film nominated this year for an Oscar. Born and raised in Prague, Mrs. Herz-Sommer’s upbringing included being surrounded by writers and musicians, which led to her life as an accomplished concert pianist. 

In response to the Colorado shootings last December, Huffington Post blogger Kimann Schultz wrote about using art as a form of non-violent expression - a healthy way to express negative emotions like anger and frusteration. She urged that in the wake of such distasters, when mental healthcare is at the forefront of our minds, we keep the Arts as a relam to be tapped and a possible solution to an individual's issues.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam recently appointed Leo McGee to the Tennessee Arts Commission Board, which consists of 15 members of the state who have demonstrated a commitment to the arts. As a noted author of more than 40 professional articles, 20 creative and opinion essays, and five books; as well as a long-time collector of art depicting African-Americans in the Southern cotton industry, McGee has definitely demonstrated his arts commitment and “looks forward to being a productive board member.”

Long round-trips aboard Amtrak trains dedicated solely for the purpose of writing? This is an idea that New York City-based writer Jessica Gross tweeted at Amtrak without ever thinking it could come true. But it did come true—when Amtrak offered Gross a free “test-run” residency aboard a train that traveled from NYC to Chicago and back. Now, the idea continues to grow as hoards of writers are contacting Amtrak to find out how to participate in the innovative writer residency.

The Ford Foundation welcomes Lourdes Lopez as a newly elected member and the first artist to join its Board of Trustees. Ms. Lopez will serve a term of six years, set board policy for numerous topics, and oversee internal and independent audits while a trustee. As the Artistic Director of Miami City Ballet, Chairwoman of Miami City Ballet School, and Director of Morphoses—a New York-based dance company she co-founded in 2007 - Ms.

According to a new plan, the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University (GWU) would take over The Corcoran Gallery of Art.  As Washington’s oldest private art museum and a revered college of art and design, ceasing to exist as an independent institution would come with both a financial and emotional cost. The Corcoran’s 17,000 pieces of artwork that are worth an estimated $2 billion would be the National Gallery’s responsibility. They would most likely acquire a large fraction of the art and donate the rest to museums throughout the U.S.

The Palmetto Bank of South Carolina has completed a $250,000 pledge to the Spartanburg Art Museum to endow its permanent art collection. The gift reflects the Bank’s consistent support of the arts within its local communities and throughout the state. The Palmetto Bank Endowed Permanent Collection is a central aspect of the Museum and features works of Warhol and Rockwell, among other notable American and South Carolinian artists.

Things are looking up for the nation’s state arts agencies. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies reports that legislative appropriations increased 10.5 percent in 2014, to $306.6 million. This is the second year of growth following four Great Recession years of budget cuts.

KEY FINDINGS

1) State and jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) reported $306.6 million in legislative appropriations for fiscal year 2014.

The following is directly from the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House, February 12, 2014.

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Dr. Jane Chu as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

In September 2013, Governor Martin O’Malley’s P-20 Leadership Council unanimously voted to establish a statewide task force on arts education in Maryland schools. The task force is in place to ensure that all students in Maryland have access to a quality education, which includes the arts. In order for this to happen, the task force will make recommendations on policy, regulations, curriculum, instruction, professional development, and resources regarding student’s PreK-12 education in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts.

In September 2014 Deborah F. Rutter will be taking over as the third president of the Kennedy Center, the nation’s premier arts institution. Rutter will succeed Michael M. Kaiser, the Kennedy Center’s president of 13 years, in order to guide the organization through a time of immense growth and expansion. Rutter, currently president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, is the first female president of the Kennedy Center and will serve as both artistic and administrative director.

On February 11, Robert Lynch, Americans for the Arts' CEO and President, co-authored a Letter to the Editor with arts advocate and award-winning actor Robert Redford on arts' potential to open doors for the less fortunate in response to an article pubished on February 4 by Patricia Cohen: N.E.A Benefits Both the Rich and the Poor, Study Finds.

This past month, 13 arts organizations in small and rural communities throughout the state of Arizona were awarded $111,000 in Community Catalyst Grants from the Governor-appointed Arizona Commission on the Arts. The competitive grant program was established by a one-time state budget allocation for Fiscal Year 2014 and awarded funding of up to $10,000 to support community-focused partnerships between arts and non-arts organizations in communities with populations fewer than 100,000.

Betting on the Super Bowl nothing is new. You may even be involved in a pool in your workplace or among friends. But stakes have reached a new all-time high in the world of fine arts with a friendly wager between the Seattle Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum. Both institutions have put up priceless works of art—not to keep, but rather to be exhibited in the home of the losing team as a constant reminder that a Super Bowl win is not only a victory in the name of football, but a victory for the whole community.

Marty Walsh, the newly elected Mayor of Boston, stepped into office and immediately went to work restructuring his cabinet and the Boston government. Walsh decided on cutting 14 city cabinets down to 12 and including 17 people in his cabinet instead of 20 with hope that the reorganization will better support city services.  A large change in the new cabinet is the promotion of Arts and Culture as a cabinet-level position.

Between the moving 33 marriages officiated by Queen Latifia during the big-winners Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performance (oh, and Madonna!), the memorable performances by Daft Punk and Beyonce/Jay-Z, and the funny dancing of Taylor Swift - it was easy to miss a special, first-time-for-the-Grammy's award that recognizes artist's teachers - the Music Educator Award.

The Boston mayoral race between state Rep. Martin Walsh and Boston City Councilor John Conolly may show the two candidate’s differences, but there is certainly one common theme shining through—art and culture as the centerpiece for both campaigns. As the first open mayoral race in 20 years, there seems to be more room for different ideas and influence from Boston’s cultural communities.

At the end of last year, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University retired. She has been the face of arts and culture in New York for over 23 years. Prior to her role as Dean at Tisch School, she was the chairwoman of the New York State Council on the Arts, commissioner of New York City’s Cultural Affairs Department, and Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

So what is on this arts and culture leader's agenda for the New Year?

Enghien-les-Bains (France) and Sapporo (Japan) have been designated UNESCO Cities of Media Arts, and Paducah, Kentucky (United States of America) is the most recent City of Crafts and Folk Arts.

A new report was released today, profiling the state of the arts in one of the country’s largest school system – Chicago Public Schools. Ingenuity, an arts advocacy organization in Chicago, works closely with the school system to reinstate arts education in every school for every student. The report, is the first of its kind in Chicago, and will be the first in a set of longitudinal reports by Ingenuity which will track student access to the arts in schools.