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

Arts in Education Week draws to a close tomorrow, so arts education is on my mind and in the air. A recent blog post by Alan Yaffe - here - that contended arts education advocacy should be focused more on art-making than art-viewing got me thinking. It is true, much energy goes into trying to get K-12 students to attend arts events, and that's wonderful and much-needed. We try to organize class trips, and bemoan the increasing challenges of getting access to buses, to getting the OK to leave school for an arts experience when the pressures of sticking to curriculum and "teaching to the test" are ever-present. And arts groups do all they can to provide "enrichment", to facilitate those out-of-school experiences and to also bring teaching artists or arts education programs into schools. But ultimately, and I think virtually all arts groups and teaching artists engaged in this work would concur, the most important component is having qualified arts teachers in ...

Tribute in Light - produced by Municipal Art Society -  http://www.mas.org/programs/tributeinlight/ I have never actually written about 9/11 in any of my blog posts, and can't say why exactly I feel compelled to do so this year. The obligatory Facebook post or tweet just seemed inadequate. Perhaps it is the timing of President Obama's speech about ISIS that emphasizes how much the terrorist threat remains real, how much this date 13 years ago marked a dramatic change in our world view. In 2001 I was the President and CEO of the Arts & Business Council, based in New York City. In the early morning of 9/11/01, I was meeting with my board chair, Warren Bodow, and my board member Karen Brosius, then a senior executive in corporate philanthropy and marketing with Altria. We were meeting in Karen's office, on a high floor in the Altria headquarters on 41st and Park. As is often the case in corporate offices, Karen had a news channel - probably CNN - running on a TV in h...

Recently I spent some time with Carolyne Heldman of Aspen Public Radio for her program CrossCurrents, and the segment has just recently aired and been posted to their website. It was a wide-ranging interview covering how I got into the arts/philanthropy/policy world in the first place, my thoughts on the challenges arts groups face, and finally, the work of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation and the state of the arts in Denver and Colorado. I thought my blog followers might find this worth listening to:  http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/crosscurrents-gary-steuer-bonfils-stanton-foundation Carolyne was a great interviewer and got me talking about some things I am not sure I have talked about before - at least not to the media. And my apologies in advance to the many groups and programs I could have mentioned in the interview but didn't, or that got edited out. I was particularly aware in listening to it that in talking about Denver and Colorado's great cultural assets I cited ...

A few months ago I  did an interview for the " One Day in Denver " film project that the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation supported. This is part of a larger One Day on Earth project, that on April 26 organized filmmakers in 11 cities to capture the issues and essence of their city over a 24 hour period ( "Your Day. Your City. Your Future "). Have no idea how much if any of this footage will make it into the final film - there will be individual films for each city, as well as an edited feature-length film that will weave together all 11 cities. But I thought I would share this footage because it may help explain my passion for Denver and its cultural community!

Andrea Reynosa’s “John Street Pasture,” a public project at 1 John Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn, in collaboration with Brooklyn Grange, Alloy, & Smack Mellon (photograph by Etienne Frossard, courtesy of Smack Mellon) Since I have written recently ( here ) about the many artists working at the intersection of art, science and nature, could not resist sharing this recent post from Hyperallergic about a new show and installation organized by Smack Mellon in Brooklyn's DUMBO of artists exploring urban agriculture and sustainability issues - FOODshed: Agriculture and Art in Action . The project illustrated above - which is part of that group show - is also intended to address soil remediation on this site, which is something Mel Chin has addressed in his work for years, from Revival Field in 1990 through the Walker Art Center, to more recently Operation Paydirt in New Orleans. Brooklyn (natch) even has an organization called the Center for Strategic Art and Agriculture...

Gary Steuer leading a roundtable at the Americans for the Arts Convention in Nashville, 2014 (c) Americans for the Arts At this year's Americans for the Arts convention in Nashville, which ended on Sunday, I had the pleasure of hosting two roundtable conversations on trends in philanthropy. As often happens with such occasions it provided the impetus for me to give some thought to what was I seeing in the philanthropic field that arts groups need to be aware of. This is of particular interest to me because I think all too often arts leaders are not watching closely enough overall philanthropic trends and thinking, and therefore are taken by surprise when a funder shifts course in a way that affects prospects for support. Yet these course shifts are often predictable if you are watching the winds, and if you understand where they are coming from, you may have an opportunity to make a persuasive case that your arts program can help get them where they want to go (rather than bei...

The focus on STEAM learning has rightfully raised awareness of the significant role the arts can play as part of an integrated curriculum including science, technology, engineering and math. in fostering creativity and innovation in our young people and cultivating a 21st century workforce. BUT, I want to focus here on the phenomenon - which I would contend just from my anecdotal observation is growing - of artists whose work is grounded in exploration of science, nature and technology. And I am not talking about traditional plein air nature painting, but about work that is based on or uses scientific principles and natural phenomenon, or perhaps educates us about science through the art. I find this thread of art-making to be especially fascinating and thought-provoking. This is something I observed in my time in New York, as well as Philadelphia, that I have also seen bubbling up in Denver. There is even an organization, Art and Science Collaborations Inc. (ASCI) that was founded ...

Image courtesy of Wired At last fall's National Innovation Summit for Arts and Culture, organized by EmcArts, the Artistic Director of Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Jack Reuler gave a great talk about what they have called "radical hospitality." One aspect of that philosophy has been providing free admission to all their performances, recognizing that cost was a significant barrier to building diverse audiences. Here is a  link  to a video of Jack's talk. And  here  is a new interview on HowlRound with Aditi Kapil of Mixed Blood, talking about "the business case for radical hospitality." The case for "free" was also made a few years ago by Chris Anderson in Wired Magazine:  Free! Why $0.00 Is The Future of Business ,  later followed by a book called  Free: The Future of a Radical Price . While for many theatres - or other art forms - such a move may be unthinkable, this strategy may not be as crazy or...

Andrew Taylor's newest blog entry , essentially expounds on another recent blog post written by Sarah Lutman. I have enormous respect for both these thought leaders, and think the issue they explore is critically important, especially in light of the growth in attention to "Creative Placemaking." Sarah, who used to run the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, muses about the current state of the Minnesota Orchestra, and uses the analogy of wine to argue for arts groups that are more deeply rooted to and OF their place. In wine, there is vins d'effort  - wine of effort  - meaning that that is the product of the work of the winemaker, versus vin de terroir - wine of place, or land that is a purer expression of where the wine is from - soil, climate, topography, etc. It does raise the legitimate question of the homogeneity of so many arts organizations, especially in the "classical" arts world. Every orchestra is striving to achieve a generic, global, objective ...

Now that I am fully settled here in Denver, I have decided it is time to change the name of my blog, "Arts, Culture and Creative Economy", which has been at the URL http://artscultureandcreativeeconomy.blogspot.com to http://milehighculture.blogspot.com . The full name will now be "Mile High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy" - a bit long for a URL! I am not sure if websites that have my existing blog or specific entries linked will direct traffic to the new name, so to be safe please update any links to the new URL and help spread the world. Apologies for any inconvenience, but did not want to promote any confusion with my former position at the City of Philadelphia's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. All posts will remain on this blog, and my content focus will not be changing, other than the inevitable shift in geographic emphasis from Philadelphia to Denver, and from culture in a City government context to a foundation...