Southwest Still a Winner in the Early Spring

Better late than never is the old proverb and so we touch base with AZ in the early spring even as the spring wears on in the mid west.  It was a fine sojourn on most fronts though an eight hour flight delay on the outward leg definitely put a test on flying patience quotient.   

What else did was on the docket.  There was a trip to Mesa to see a Cubs pre-season outing.  The big Z, now newly demoted to the bull pen, looked like a real winner and threw five scoreless innings. We took Flat Stanley to the park with us so we could show his exploits to our grandson.

Other highlights were the Desert Poppies that were peppering the countryside and the Heard Museum of Native American Culture.

  

Arts Advocacy for April

Some Brief Advocacy Items for April, 2010


This quarter’s Community Grant applications for the Illinois Humanities Council local programming are due on April 15th. Next quarter’s due date is July 15th. Get further information on your possible eligibility at http://www.prairie.org/grants

As financial pressures mount on states and their school systems, the move toward reduction in arts programming as a part of overall budget reductions is becoming more prevalent. Several federal lawmakers have been asking Education Secretary Arne Duncan to step up to the “Arts” plate and declare that “narrowing the education” is not a satisfactory solution to our problems. To get a better picture of where the arts might be heading within the national educational scene, you should put Tuesday, April 13th on your calendar. That will be the 23rd National Arts Advocacy Day in Washington DC. You can follow the action on Facebook or Twitter. Go to http://www.artsusa.org/events/2010/aad/default.asp for full details.

Still on the national level you might have some interest in a new NEA research publication. It’s titled 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts and you can find it at: http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchReports_chrono.html There are several other reports at the same location and all are downloadable in PDF format. Age and Arts Participation: 1982-1997, The Geography of Participation in the Arts and Culture, or American Participation in Theater (both from the late nineties) are all interesting.

Finally I have a bit of a personal editorial. We have all been pressured into justifying theatre and the arts because it functions as an economic or social engine. We are pushed to define our existence as income producers, traffic generators for restaurants, civilizing forces in neighborhoods and schools, and employers for performers. Certainly we do all of that, but at the core artists feel a more compelling need to instruct, inspire, move, entertain, and sometimes challenge our fellows to live better or more examined lives. We are proud to be creators of art because we know that art lasts and art matters in the lives of our participants and audiences. We create because we have to and we will continue to do so for our own good and for the good of our society as long as we have the energy to pull the curtain.  Drama Jim says “Break a Leg” this spring! 

Jim De Young

ITA Director of Advocacy

Illinois Arts Need Your Support

To all of my Illinois readers:  Pat Quinn, our state Governor has just put out his budget plans. Luckily, he  does not recommend further cuts in state arts funding, but there is many a slip between the cup and the political lip when it comes to proposals and final results.  If you do care, please follow the bouncing ball to the Arts Alliance Illinois and tell your legislators that you do wish to protect what is left of arts funding in Illinois. It’s going to take all of us working together and you have the power to activate others if you move on this now. 


please hit this button.

AND FORWARD THIS ACTION ALERT (http://tinyurl.com/protect-the-arts) to your Illinois friends, supporters, and colleagues

* SHARE THIS ACTION ALERT ONLINE (http://tinyurl.com/protect-the-arts) with your networks on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, etc.  just as I have done.

You can count on opponents of a responsible and comprehensive budget to try to use the arts as a political punching bag. Don’t let these extreme views be the only thing lawmakers hear. For more ways to get involved, contact Scarlett Swerdlow at Arts Alliance Illinois at swerdlow@artsalliance.org or 312.855.3105 x13.

Illinois Arts Advocacy for March

Arts Advocacy Materials for March


If you or your theatre has a project that might fit Illinois Humanities Foundation guidelines the next deadlines for grant applications are April 15 and July 15. More information at this link. April 15th is also the deadline for 2011-2012 Illinois Road Scholars. This is a remarkable program and if you have a special area interest that fits their guidelines, you could pick a plum of a grant. They do consider “living history actors” and are looking for material in the next round that deals with Civil Rights or reflections on the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center bombing. Check out the application at this link.

Are you in the Western Illinois area? Think about visiting Macomb on Friday, April 9th for a grant application workshop with a representative of the Illinois Humanities Council. For full details on the schedule and registration for this free program click here.

From our great Southwest comes ideas on “Creative Tourism.” Have your considered fully how to integrate your arts program with the interests and needs of visitors to your community? You may not have the artistic ambiance of Santa Fe, but you might still learn something from what the folks out there are doing. See this link.

Are you looking for some new information on the impact of arts on society and the psychology of your audiences. Check out this new book Audiences and the Arts: Communication Perspectives (Lois Foreman-Wernet and Brenda Dervin) from the Hampton Press. It is addressed to cultural policymakers, arts educators, arts administrators, cultural writers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, art-makers of every kind, supporters of the arts, volunteers, and anyone interested in the role of the arts and culture in society.

The Illinois Governor's Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) has launched http://www.budget.illinois.gov/, a website that allows Illinois residents to provide feedback that will be used to shape the state's fiscal year 2011 budget. This is the time to put in a plea against more cuts in arts funding.

Arts Advocacy Notes for February 2010

The February Newsletter of Arts Alliance Illinois has just come out and there are several things that you  can do to convince Illinois legislators to support adequate and responsible revenue policies for our state. It is no secret that each and every creditor and agency is suffering, but the Arts have taken more than their share of hits in the past three years. You can join the members of the Responsible Budget Coalition at their rally in Springfield on Feb. 17th 2010. If you are in a position to attend, you can get more information here.

Since this is my first advocacy update in 2010, I thought I would remind you of the prime resources you can use to keep abreast of what is going on in the area. You can track advocacy issues yourself by enrolling in just a few key websites.

For targeted Illinois state arts information sign up for the Arts Alliance Illinois e-mail notification list

You can get on the Illinois Arts Council direct e-mail list by clicking on the link.

Unfortunately, If you go to the site, you will also have to read the news about how many IAC programs have been canceled and or cut back as a result of the state budget crisis.

The Americans for the Arts Newsletter will get you current news on the National Advocacy front. For instance National Arts Advocacy Day for 2010 is scheduled for April 12-13 in Washington DC. Get more information on that once a year lobbying day right here.

In another important development the Americans for the Arts have released their first National Arts Index. This is intended to be a yearly national temperature of the arts and you can see a picture of the health and vitality of arts in the USA between 1998 and 2008. From the linked location you can access summaries or the entire report. Unfortunately there is little to shout about as even though numbers of arts organizations and demand for arts education are up, over a third of all non-profits cannot balance their budgets. Arts budgets in the schools, as many of you well know, are under heavy attack all around the country. Arts and culture continues to lose their market share of philanthropy to other charitable areas—a decline that began well before the current economic downturn. And overall, the arts are not “stacking up” well against other uses of audience members’ time, donor and funder commitment, or spending when compared to non-arts sectors.

The Association for Theatre in Higher Education has an advocacy information section at this link.  http://www.athe.org/resources/advocacyinfobank


The Educational Theatre Association has an advocacy outreach page at this link.

The American Alliance for Theatre Education site also has material on advocacy issues at this link.

You can even become an Arts Advocacy Fan on Facebook.
Although it dates from 2006, this site has good bibliography and outlines of general benefits of arts programs.

This last item is not really in the Advocacy bailiwick, but I did find it interesting. The Theatre Development Fund has published a book, “Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Playwright.” It tells of a six year study of relationships between playwrights and artistic directors. Did you know that the average professional playwright earns less than $40,000 a year and that a third of them earn less than $25,000 a year? See more at the TDF site.

Snow Crystals Add Some Beauty to the Long long long Winter

Just when a body is ready to scream for the end of winter, comes a Saturday morning of fluffy delight.  Every tree, every blade of saw greass, even the chains on our porch swing took on a magical coating of crystaline beauty.  Nuff said.  See more.

Illinois Railroad History Topic at "Journey Stories" Lecture

Professor Cortery is introduced by Larisa Good, director of the Warren County Public Library.

We learned a good deal about trains last week in a fine lecture by Monmouth College history professor and Illinois Road Scholar, Simon Cortery. The talk was one of several special events scheduled around the Smithsonian "Journey Stories" exhibition now on view at the Buchanan Center for the Arts in Monmouth, Illinois.

A standing room only crowd of over 120 wedged itself into the children's room at the Warren County Library to get acquainted with the development of railroads in the state of Illinois. There were plenty of names and dates for the notetakers in the audience, but suffice it to say that the main point of how the railroads juiced the population growth of the state was clear to all. By the end of the first third of the 20th century, said Cortery, every farmer was no more than five miles away from a rail line.

The seminal line was the Illinois Central and its name came because it went north-south right down the center of the state (with a key spur that connected it to a sleepy little port town called Chicago). It was seminal because it literally helped to populate the state and William Douglas of Lincoln-Douglas fame was politically instrumental in making it happen. His debating partner, Lincoln, was also involved in the railroad enterprise. According to Cortery Lincoln's biggest paycheck came from winning a railroad case. The irony was that Lincoln had to turn around and sue the railroad to get his pay.

Corery also talked about the rise of passenger service, particularly the electrified interurban lines that connected smaller towns like Monmouth and Galesburg. My wife's mother talked about traveling to Monmouth from Peoria on one of them in the 1920's. On the Monmouth-Roseville run, which was too low traffic for a regular train, there were apparently single car gasoline or diesel powered carriages called Doodlebugs. One member of our audience talked about riding on one with his grandmother when he was a boy.

And did you know that the phone company, SPRINT, was actually a spin off from the Southern Pacific RR. Sprint is an acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Intelligent Network of Telecommunications. Read the details at this link.

The "Journey Stories" exhibition will run until March 14th. Full program details can be found at the Buchanan Center web site or the Warren County Public Library web site. Coming next week is a showing of the film "El Norte" at Monmouth College (Dahl Chapel) at 7 PM on Feb. 9th and a session for seniors on "Writing Your Own Journey Story" at the Warren County Library at 10 AM on Feb. 10th.