Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

In the interest of getting something up on my blog right away, following is the entire press release issued at the press conference and awards ceremony just held at City Hall. Very exciting announcement of new grants to support creative industry jobs and neighborhood revitalization in Philadelphia. Thanks to the Mayor, City Council, the panelists, and to all the City colleagues who helped make this possible. MAYOR NUTTER ANNOUNCES CREATIVE INDUSTRY WORKFORCE GRANTS Philadelphia, March 31, 2010— Today Mayor Michael A. Nutter awarded $500,000 in Creative Industry Workforce Grants to eight arts-related organizations. The awards ranged from $20,000 to $100,000 each. This funding will be used for specific capital projects that will yield both temporary jobs (including construction, installation, architectural and engineering jobs) and permanent jobs in the creative sector. Funding for the Creative Industry Workforce Grant program comes from the Community Development Block Grant program ...

Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art is a new arts education study just recently released and summarized well by the Arts Education Partnership in their AEPWire publication. Seems to be a problem on their Web site now - maybe too many people trying to access the study! - so I would suggest also going to their Facebook page for more info. The study, by James S. Catterall, is essentially a continuation of the research he (along with some colleagues) contributed to the landmark "Champions of Change" study, released in 1999. This new study looks at 12,000 young people who were studied as high school students in that earlier study. Ten additional years of data have now been gathered to follow these young people through the age of 26. The bottom line is that arts learning is found to be strongly connected to both general academic success and "pro-social outcomes." Most significant about this study for me is that it attempts to look specifically at the impact an ...

A few months ago (in October of 2009) I wrote about the Barnes move and included two videos of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien describing the new building on the Parkway. The new movie, The Art of the Steal , which I have now seen, motivates me to share some thoughts on the issue. One important point of clarification. This was a "done deal" by the time I came to town, and by the time Mayor Nutter took office, so I cannot speak with any knowledge about things that took place before my arrival. What I can share are my reactions to the movie, and my involvement in this debate for the past 18 months. First, as has been widely reported, the movie is distinctly one-sided. Because it was clear that the filmmakers and producer had a point of view that opposed the move, all the leading players on the other side of the issue - with the exception of Governor Rendell - refused to participate. Nobody viewing the movie should be under the illusion that they are getting a balanced represe...

One of the events in Philadelphia that I knew pretty well before arriving here in 2008 was the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia 's annual awards luncheon. I had attended the event several times as the national CEO of the Arts & Business Council Inc., now part of Americans for the Arts. I can personally attest that there is no event like this in the entire country, bringing together so many arts leaders with so many business leaders, celebrating business support for the arts, business voluntarism, and the role the arts play in building a healthy community in which people want to live, work and play. The event attracts as many as 1,700 people. Most other cities - even cities much larger - are lucky if they can get 400 or 500 people at similar events. The theme this year is "Planet Art" - every such event must have its theme, hence the title of this blog posting. I think this year is a time when perhaps more than ever we need opportunities to come to...

The Americans for the Arts ARTSblog is now featuring a Private Sector Salon blogathon featuring contributions from twenty diverse guest bloggers opining on an array of issues related to the private sector and the arts. I am one of those contributors and thought I would share with my followers that this Salon is now going on.  I encourage you to visit the Salon and read the many thoughtful and provocative posts. You are also invited to join in the dialogue by posting comments.

Yesterday was a jam-packed day, with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman's whirlwind visit to the City of Brotherly Live and Sisterly Affection. The visit was documented in an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. It was great to be cited as "a model arts city."  After a morning meeting with the staff of The Reinvestment Fund, Rocco and the rest of the NEA visitors, which also included Deputy Chair Joan Shigekawa, our little band went on a quick tour of the City's cultural sites, but with a special emphasis on the role of the arts in neighborhood transformation. Rocco has been a big fan of the work done by Jeremy Nowak and the Reinvestment Fund in partnership with Mark Stern and his Social Impact of the Arts groip at University of Pennsylvania. In fact that work was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation when Joan was there before moving to NEA. We drove by Painted Bride and had a stop at Asian Arts Initiative before ending up at Crane Arts for a tour and a group conv...

The LA Times had an interesting article by Melissa Healy in their Health section on March 1 about the impact of music on the brain.It basically repeats recent research that debunks the so-called "Mozart effect" that listening to music somehow strengthens or improves brain function.  "The Mozart effect? That's just crap," says Glenn Schellenberg, a psychologist at the University of Toronto who conducts research on the effect of music and musical instruction. She then goes on to discuss other research that does seem to show that the PRACTICE of music does have a demonstrable effect on the brain. Here is link to an article from the Dana Foundation (a leader in this research) that reports on new research from Boston. This also is in keeping with research on aging that shows the practice of an art form - playing an instrument, learning a dance - increases brain plasticity, delaying or diminishing the deterioration of brain function.A monograph supported by MetLi...