Pennsylvania's Leeway Foundation is a great example of a funder helping artists do a lot with a little in their own communities. Leeway funds "women and trans artists creating social change" in the Delaware Valley. Its Art and Change program has provided more than $300,000 to 59 artists in 2006. Grants of up to $2,500 are supporting these community projects: an art studio at Germantown High School, a fashion design workspace in University City, a women's hip-hop festival in Philadelphia, a Black Panther documentary in Olney, PSAs about the negative effects of a proposed casino development in West Philly, a Sankofa Circle in Fairmont Park for adult women who've experienced childhood sexual abuse, and lots more. Read about them on the Web. [LINK]

Oaxaca, Mex., is dealing with the aftermath of seven months of bloody political violence with the help of the country's most famous graphic artist. Though federal police finally retook control of the city of 260,000, the political dispute is far from settled, according to Reed Johnson in the L.A. Times (12/29/06); 100 demonstrators remain under custody. Human rights groups charge that some detainees have been tortured and "disappeared." Artist Francisco Toledo, founder of the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca, opened the institute as a temporary aid center for the injured and is leading a group that's raising money to provide legal counsel to incarcerated protesters. He also hopes to gain attention for "citizen proposals" to combat the poverty and other social problems that have bedeviled Oaxaca for centuries. [LINK]

Thanks to a Providence Teachers Union complaint, the Rhode Island commissioner of education has ordered the Providence school district to restore art and music programs to the curriculum. According to Linda Borg in the Providence Journal (12/19/06), Commissioner Peter McWalters' order stated that the district is not in compliance with the state's basic education plan requiring that, starting with the 2008 senior class, students must demonstrate their proficiency in a core curriculum that includes a comprehensive program of music and art instruction, as well as separate facilities for the creation, storage and display of works of arts, supplies and materials. McWalters acknowledged that budget cutbacks have resulted in the loss of numerous art and music teachers, but that's "no excuse." (Thanks, Artsjournal.com.) [LINK]

"That was the defining moment that pushed me out of the studio," said artist Rick Lowe, founder of Project Row Houses, in a N.Y. Times story by Michael Kimmelman (12/17/06). Recalling his motivation to turn two blocks of Houston's shotgun shacks into a community art project in 1990, Lowe said, “A group of high school students came over to my studio. I was doing big, billboard-size paintings and cutout sculptures dealing with social issues, and one of the students told me that, sure, the work reflected what was going on in his community, but it wasn’t what the community needed. If I was an artist, he said, why didn’t I come up with some kind of creative solution to issues instead of just telling people like him what they already knew." [LINK]

The Art + Design Department at Rhode Island School of Design offers a Community Arts strand in its Master of Arts in Art + Design Education. The track combines an academic credential with practical experience as a community arts educator. The two-year program includes core courses in the context, content and practices of visual-arts education, plus graduate seminars, studio, liberal arts and professional practice internships in community-arts education. It may include graduate teaching assistantships in undergraduate service-related courses or community outreach programs. The department has partnerships with numerous culturally diverse community arts agencies and organizations. [LINK]

Today CAN brings you a light-hearted look at best-laid plans gone awry: "Mother Africa Laughs: The Rwandan Folk Tale Project." NYU grad Judd Hardy spent over a year planning the project, which he described to friends and potential benefactors as an "attempt to approach delicate issues such as reconciliation and forgiveness with artists in Rwanda by helping them to deconstruct and recreate age-old parables in their own voices. ... On paper, I was more prepared than a lawyer prepping for her first case," says Hardy. "In my head, I knew I was just plain nuts. I had lived in Africa before, Kenya specifically. I understood all too well how Mother Africa enjoys taking those best-laid plans of yours, dangling them over your head for comic effect and tossing them far into the Indian Ocean." [LINK]

Children's groups all over the world are creating and performing their own choral works about peace for the Art Child International Choral Music Contest. Participating countries select a composition written by children 8-14 that reflects the national culture and submit it to Art Child. An international panel will select 15-20 winning works, and winners will participate in international events. Art Child is an association whose international mission is "to unite children around the world by organizing contests and collaborative events related to Art and Culture." Visit the Web site for pictures from its international fresco contest involving 150 countries. Art Child, based in France, is a partner in "2001-2010 international decade for a culture of peace and nonviolence for the children of the world" proclaimed by the U.N. and coordinated by UNESCO. [LINK]

Holler to the Hood and WMMT-FM is offering "Calls from Home," a one-hour radio program sharing holiday messages from families to their loved ones in prison. It's downloadable free to noncommercial radio stations and for the general public to listen to. Says a reviewer in Public Radio Exchange, "I wish more radio stations would devote this kind of time for those who find themselves in prison. It reminds one of old radio days, combined with a real community radio mission: to reach out and touch those in need." In 2007, H2H releases Thousand Kites, a project allowing participants to share their stories relating to the criminal-justice system on the Web, listen to a radio program made from those stories, and download a play made from submissions to perform in their communities. [LINK]

L.A. Poverty Department's holiday newsletter reveals the group's project for the coming year -- "UTOPIA / dystopia." The new work by the performance company of homeless and formerly homeless people is about the downtown-L.A. real-estate boom that "has generated the twin towers of utopia and dystopia: Bunker Hill, the redeveloped high-rise financial center, and below it Skid Row. The other LAPD ," says founding director John Malpede," in defiance of the 9th Circuit court of appeals ruling barring the criminalization of homelessness, has engaged in a policy of constant harassment and daily arrests of people living on the streets. All to make the area safe for development." The project includes public art, community conversations, convenings and a new LAPD performance piece. For details and other news, see the LAPD Web site. [LINK]

Today CAN brings you a report on four culture/agriculture projects in Wisconsin. Maryo Gard Ewell writes about an initiative she managed at the University of Wisconsin with a cross-divisional grant from UW-Extension to the UW Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts. She and her team originally planned to produce a statewide conference on "putting culture back into agriculture," hoping to attract artists and farmers. Instead, they decided the basic ideas of the project would be more authentic coming from the participants themselves. They created a request for proposals from the field and wound up with four collaborative projects with distinct local, rural flavors. This "essay" is actually Ewell's report to the funder, UW-Extension, which has a long history of blending agricultural/educational outreach with the arts. [LINK]

Just added to CAN's Places To Study database: The University of Texas at Austin's MFA dregree program in Drama and Theatre for Youth. The program, which has the first endowed chair in Theatre for Youth/Playwriting in the U.S., is for students preparing for careers in regional or professional children's/youth theaters and in secondary/elementary education, or as teaching artists in schools, communities and colleges. The three-year (60-hour) program offers students opportunities to direct, act, teach and premiere plays with a local professional children's theater and the Department has relationships with the Austin Independent School District, state schools for special populations, and other school districts across Texas and beyond, providing a living laboratory for students and faculty projects. [LINK]

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities is energetically seeking nominations for the 2007 Coming Up Taller Awards. In partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the committee is embarking on the tenth year of the Coming Up Taller Awards, which recognize the accomplishments of exceptional arts and humanities after-school and out-of-school programs. Coming Up Taller finalists receive $10,000, an individualized plaque and an invitation to attend the Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference. Nomination deadline is January 31, 2007. The applicaiton form, history of the awards and program profiles of previous winners are available on the Web site. [LINK]

OSI-Baltimore's 2006 Community Fellows include a community artist, a principal, a daycare provider, a nurse, an historian, an executive chef and a bicycle mechanic. The Open Society Institute program, founded by philanthropist George Soros, has been funding community fellowships in Baltimore, Md., since 1998. Each of this year’s fellows will receive $48,750 to work full-time for 18 months implementing creative strategies to assist marginalized communities in Baltimore City. Teacher and artist Luisa C. Bieri de Rios will establish Por la Avenida (On the Avenue) as an intergenerational arts program in which newly arrived and older immigrant community members from the ethnically diverse Highlandtown community of east Baltimore will use their cultural traditions and experiences to perform and make art. Read about other Fellows' projects on the OSI Web site. [LINK]

"Culture, Arts and Refugees" is a new Web project launched by Creative Exchange, an international organization promoting creative activity in sustainable development. The site was created to host materials about the role of arts and culture in the inclusion and integration of refugees and asylum seekers. It offers materials from "A Sense of Belonging," a project that started in 2000 with research on cultural activities with Kosovan exiles in the U.K. and evolved into a full research project involving around 70 organizations (published in 2005). This Web site has a summary of the findings and remaining questions, plus online videos and downloadable case studies on 14 projects like "Colours of Hope: A Little Book by Roma Refugee Children for Everybody" by the Roma Support Group in London. [LINK]

Poet Lawson Fusao Inada ended his residency at the National Steinbeck Center with the announcement that he had collected 15,962 poems about life in California's Salinas Valley. Inada, regarded by many as the poet laureate of Japanese America, held the 2005-06 Steinbeck Chair at the Center, dedicated to Salinas-born writer John Steinbeck. During his residency, Inada oversaw the 10,000 Poems Project, launched to encourage writing and the poetic voice within each member of the community. Selected entries will be posted on the project's Web site. The Steinbeck Chair is a community arts residency co-founded by the Center; Hartnell College; Salinas Public Library; the Western Stage; and Partners for Peace, a program focusing on prevention of violence by youth. (Thanks, NEA ARTS.) [LINK]

"Never think you've seen the last of anything," said Mississippi writer Eudora Welty, quoted in the latest issue of NEA ARTS, rounding up news on the cultural recovery of the Gulf Coast. The current issue of the NEA's bimonthly newsletter is now online, offering a dozen stories of how arts agencies in the Gulf Coast used special NEA grants to help artists and organizations recover from the 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Every story quotes local arts leaders testifying that the arts are the soul of local culture and the region can't recover without them. It is heart-rending to read these tales of meager funds administered in the face of such need: $700,000 doled out in $10,000 portions across the Gulf, literally a drop in the bucket. [LINK]

Those interested in catching with the creative cities movement should download a review of current literature commissioned by IFACCA. "Arts and Culture in Regeneration," by Phyllida Shaw and Graeme Evans, was commissioned for the third World Summit on Arts and Culture, held in NewcatleGateshead, England, in June 2006. The international review explores the latest research and opinion about the impact of art and culture on the regeneration of neighborhoods and cities, focusing on three areas of policy interest: iconic buildings and cities of culture; cultural quarters and clusters; and cultural dynamism. The authors do a remarkable job of summarizing current thinking, ending with "outstanding questions" about the process, sustainability and assessment of such interventions, and a more than exhaustive list of resources on the topic. [LINK]

Today CAN reports from a fascinating symposium in Toronto: "Community Arts: What's in a Name?" Supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts, the November 14, 2006, symposium drew a diverse full house to the Harbourfront Centre for presentations and panels on what's happening in Ontario and internationally. It included a keynote by Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, author of "Dwellers of Memory: Youth and Violence in Medellin"; a panel on "CommUnity and Youth" featuring practitioners from various youth-led organizations in Ontario; and a presentation by Steve Durland and Linda Burnham from the Community Arts Network, followed by a conversation with us and Ron Berti from De-ba-jeh-ma-jig Theatre Group, Laurie McGauley of Myths and Mirrors and Ankaret Dean of MERA – McDonalds Corners-Elphin Recreation & Arts. [LINK]

Does your small town have what it takes to be an "arts-active" community? According to "Thriving Arts: Thriving Small Communities," a new study by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council in St. Paul, Minn., the best candidates are strong on respect for diversity, openness and pride of place. They're also already invested in the "informal arts," have strong leaders with vision and ability to attract support, a tendency toward social networks, and support for infrastructure development such as cultural planning. The year-long study, written by MRAC Program Director Sharon Rodning Bash, looked at ten small Minnesota communities using interviews, focus groups and other techniques. [LINK]