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« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 » 
September 30, 2007 An Arts MeanderLinda Frye Burnham / 03:08 PM The Arts Meander, a free self-guided tour of artist studios featuring 45 local artists from the Upper Minnesota River Valley, is all set for October 5-7, 2007. The Web site offers a pretty good model for doing this in your community. Such a tour provides a little income to the artists and a ton of good will. Citizens having positive exchanges with artists in their own (or any) environment-- that's a good thing. This Arts Meander Web site has a full page list of "sponsors," including everybody from government agencies and cultural alliances to restaurants and casinos. That's how far the good will has already spread in upper Minnesota. This kind of organizing is a heavy load, but gives back a joyous reward. The job isn't finished, however -- and this is true of all community arts programs -- if nobody gets to know about it. Here's a plea to (everybody to go that extra mile and get your project up on the Web. Those of you who are organizing artist studio tours for the general public, let us know about them and we will be glad to put them in the CAN calendar. But we can only do so if your project appears on the Web somewhere, so we can send our readers there for more information. (Thanks to the Green Routes Newsletter for this link.) Arts Meander
September 28, 2007 Steve Durland podcast!Linda Frye Burnham / 02:48 PM CAN co-director Steve Durland is featured in a podcast on artist Arivia Rahmani's Internet radio show, "Virtual Concerts" (on TalkShoe.com). They talk about Steve's history and how it relates to the work Steve and I do on CAN. I asked Steve for a description and here's what he said: "It rambles for a while, but eventually I get to mention the usual suspects: art as a tool, baseball, healthy art ecology (i.e., there's room for both community art and high art, etc.)." Virtual Concerts is Rahmani's ongoing Net broadcast responding to the challenge of global warming, "an international platform for ecological art and related ideas." Steve's show is Show #1210. Click the link below to hear the 25-minute recorded interview.
A good "ecocity" list Linda Frye Burnham / 02:18 PM The Ecocity World Summit (April 22-26, 2008, San Francisco) will bring together key innovators, decision makers, technologists, businesses and organizations shaping the conversation around ecological and sustainable city, town and village design, planning and development. The Summit Web site has a wonderful list of speakers to be heard at the 2008 conference. Individuals are linked to their organizations' Web site. It's a good cross-sector resource for those of you who are working on these topics.
September 27, 2007 Assessing Alternate ROOTSLinda Frye Burnham / 03:23 PM Alternate ROOTS, a southeastern coalition of artists, most of whom are community-based and working for social change, has been going through an enormous transition. The artists who founded it in the late '70s worked for a long time to call forth a younger generation of leaders, and leaders of color. Artist Sheila Kerrigan, a long-time member of ROOTS who lives in Chapel Hill, N.C., tells us she feels like that project has been accomplished very successfully. She gave us permission to publish an e-mail she sent to the ROOTS executive committee assessing the membership's recent week-long annual meeting, held in the mountains of North Carolina:
Six lessons from Jena Linda Frye Burnham / 02:56 PM Six Lessons from Jena September 27, 2007 -- What every school and educator can learn from the events in Jena The racially charged prosecutions of six black teenagers in Jena, La., have captured the nation's attention, with thousands of protesters (and nearly as many reporters) descending on the small town last week. As school professionals, we must never lose sight of the fact that it all started with nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree. Six lessons we must take to heart: ***To read the six lessons, visit Tolerance.org
Two great jobs: Mass. & Alaska! Linda Frye Burnham / 02:52 PM Forwarded from Barbara Schaffer Bacon: Two arts groups I love are looking for directors. Both are good opportunities. please review and circulate them widely!
September 26, 2007 Heard about the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers?Linda Frye Burnham / 05:15 PM The International Council of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers is an environmental activist group with artists among its members. "On October 11, 2004, 13 Indigenous Grandmothers from all over the world--the Arctic Circle, North, South and Central America, Africa and Asia, arrived at Tibet House's Menla Mountain Retreat amidst 340 acres of forests, fields and streams in upstate New York. Within a few days of convening, the grandmothers agreed to form a global alliance; to work together to serve both their common goals and their specific local concerns." (Their Web site.) The Grandmothers hold an annual council gathering every year and participate in other environmental events, such as:
Christopher Ottasaway Adagbonyin ("Big Bun") passes Linda Frye Burnham / 03:46 PM Forwarded from The Young Peoples' Project & Algebra Project networks Christopher Ottasaway Adagbonyin, "Big Bun", October 7, 1982 - September 14, 2007 On Friday, September 14th, Chris Adagbonyin, or "Big Bun" as we knew and loved him, was murdered. Chris, among many things, was a proud father and beautiful person who will be missed dearly by his family, his friends, and the many people around the country who he has touched through his work.
September 23, 2007 Hello from L.A.Linda Frye Burnham / 05:34 PM I'm in Los Angeles this week visiting the Education and Community Programs at the L.A. Opera. I was able to participate in a middle-school workshop that is part of an Opera initative: "Voices for Tolerance - A Project for Justice and Harmony." It's a three-year program that includes a number of main-stage, school and community-based performances and events that feature themes of building acceptance, social justice and cooperative action. The specific goals of this program are "to expand awareness of diversity, to foster acceptance and understanding of differences, to encourage collaboration and community, and to increase the love of vocal music and the arts." Classroom teachers work in direct partnership with L.A. Opera teaching artists integrating music and art into the curriculum. I was excited to observe the techniques being used by this mainstream organization to engage the community in social issues through the arts. More on this later....
September 10, 2007 A rural gem in OUR communityLinda Frye Burnham / 10:27 AM Art in the Public Interest, the publisher of the Community Arts Network, is located in a community, too. We are in rural, central North Carolina, home to one of the best community artists we know about: Louise Omoto Kessel. Louise is a legendary storyteller and enivronmental activist (she founded the Haw River Assembly, which you can read about on CAN). Several years ago, Louise married an organic farmer and they adopted two kids. They live and work on Clapping Hands Farm with very little technology. The farm has become a community arts asset. In the summers it offers an "Arts and Nature oriented summer day camp program" for children. Here's how Louise describes it:
A great job in San Francisco! Linda Frye Burnham / 09:42 AM Forwarded from Amie Dowling at USF: University of San Francisco
Responsibilities: The Department offers a major in Performing Arts and Social Justice (PASJ.) Responsibilities include teaching introductory and advanced levels of acting that integrate the mission of the Department (see below). Additional responsibilities include directing one mainstage production per year, advising the student-run theater group, and teaching the senior capstone class every other year. The teaching load at USF is two courses per semester with an additional course every fourth semester (2-2-2-3 over 2 years).
September 04, 2007 From Access to ParticipationLinda Frye Burnham / 11:43 AM CAN writer Tom Borrup recommends "From Access to Participation: Cultural policy and civil renewal" by Emily Keaney, a 2006 report from a British think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research. The IPPR finds that "countries with higher levels of cultural engagement also have higher levels of social and institutional trust, and people who participate in cultural activities are more likely than the average UK citizen to believe that other people are fair, helpful and can be trusted, and to have trust in the police, legal system, politicians and Parliament." Keaney suggests that the U.K.'s steep decline in voting and other forms of public participation could be positively affected by policy attention to cultural activity, particularly group activity. The book is available through the CAN Bookstore. http://www.communityarts.net/bookstore/index.php
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