Eastern Michigan University Students AMP Up the Arts

AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS

MICHIGAN---Students enrolled in Eastern Michigan University’s (EMU) Arts Management Programs (Undergraduate & Graduate) produce two-day music festivals, art competitions, face and body paint tailgating activities, art crawl events, and reality TV shows as part of an academic service learning project and student organizational activity designed to give members their first experiences as arts administrators. The Arts Management Project (AMP) is a yearly project undertaken by students of the Arts Management program at EMU. The project, which doubles as a student organization, produces arts-based events and creates opportunities for EMU’s student artists to present their talents to the campus community. [link]

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When Two Become One! Saint Louis Arts Groups Hopeful of Merger Impact

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

Detail of "A Prince Meeting a Muslim Holy Man" (1610) at the Saint Louis Art Museum

Many believe, including me that nonprofit news partnerships are the future for arts journalism. On Monday another sign of that hopeful change was the merger of the St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon to become one news organization. "Commercial media have no interest in the arts," said one Saint Louis arts administrator (and friend). "Today, when I send a press release or an email pitch, I get a call-back from the advertising department." The consolidation of the two nonprofit news organizations will significantly improve their business capacity; and the arts community is hopeful it will also result in more depth explorations of arts issues; and stories about artists in the community.

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Arts Journalism--A New Opportunity for Nonprofit & Commercial Partners

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

Independent News Networks Fill Void

A new model for arts journalism in Middle America is needed, and I propose the development of innovative regional partnerships between commercial newspapers, arts groups, universities, and nonprofit media organizations. At a time when Americans appear to be abandoning the fine arts, part of the blame is a corresponding decline in arts journalism. Traditional media is failing the Arts, and during the past decade as jobs were slashed, content thinned, and arts criticism lost its emphasis, more Americans began getting their news online (21%), according to Pew’s biennial study.

The journalism landscape is changing, and one emerging trend has been the rise of nonprofit news organizations. These new entities however, with minimal staffs and modest budgets of less than $50,000 will not be able to compete outside of the coasts. The new arts journalism model for Middle America will empower bloggers, students and/or professionals, and non-arts journalists by offering perspectives that go beyond mere branding by increasing the levels of interactivity among audiences including postings and online conversations. Critically, it will also provide the business fundamentals of marketing, sales, and fundraising that are needed.

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The Christian Art Debate: Sugar-Sweet, Ironic, Naïve, and Talented

CHRISTIANITY TODAY
By N.D. Wilson

Art exhibition explores creation and new ideas of expression

For most people, Christianity and art no longer resonate as a glorious pairing. It's a sad and sorry truth that even as Christians, we've largely lost our respect and reverence for "Christian art." Everyone is insecure about the branding of Christian art. Everyone worries about being labeled cheesy—even the cheesiest people I know. Some artists delude themselves into thinking that they aren't, and others attempt to divorce their faith from their creations with a secular firewall. I come to you with strange news. Brace yourselves. Did a culture of atheism bring us Handel's Messiah? What faith fed the Dutch masters? Now before you start pointing to some of the unbelieving masters, watch me cheat: all beauty is God's. Even those who hate him are made in his image, and if they, by grace, craft glory, we should thank them very much for their contribution and swipe it. [link]

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Survey shows 'bullying' of Christian employees in Arts

THE WAY
By Amanda Hopkins

UNITED KINGDOM---The Federation of Entertainment Unions recently surveyed over 4,000 workers in the creative arts and media industry, the results of the report revealed that most Christian employees experienced faith-based discrimination. Christian Concern noted 56 per cent of participants had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in the work place. The survey was conducted amongst and included some household names and high profile figures in the UK. Workers who were a victim to this discrimination believed it was fuelled by their religious beliefs. [link]

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Do Some Art Institutions Deserve to Die?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Terry Teachout

Extra, Extra! The locked-out Minnesota Orchestra is all but dead. New York City Opera has filed for bankruptcy. Everyone who keeps up with the National Endowment for the Arts' Survey of Public Participation in the Arts data knows that high-culture attendance numbers have been shrinking across the board for more than a decade. Opera, theater, dance, symphony orchestras, even big-city art museums: All are drawing smaller crowds. So what's the larger meaning of these figures? Might it be possible that some of them should disappear? According to management guru Peter Drucker, hiring an effective successor to a departing CEO is "the ultimate test of any top management and the ultimate test of any institution." When it comes to arts organizations, I'd say that the ultimate test is knowing when an institution is suffering from a case of creative and administrative sclerosis that is about to become terminal, then doing something about it, as the Metropolitan Opera is endeavoring to do. In order to survive, such institutions will have to constantly re-examine their missions and adapt to the brutal challenges of American culture in the 21st century. [link]

Three recent articles that view the problem from different perspectives come to similar conclusions:

1. "North America has too many of them" ~ Jaime Weinman, Maclean's magazine
2. "My later years will see a contraction in overall production at the professional level" ~ Howard Sherman, Theatre Blogger
3. "witnessing a major transition in the arts from regional organizations to fewer mega-organizations" ~ Michael Kaiser, Kennedy Center

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Religious Sanctuary Creating Peace Through Art in Portland

PORTLAND TRIBUNE
By Josh Kulla

Artwork by founder Father John Domin in SSA collection

OREGON---Though all art is sacred to Paula Hamilton, religious artwork is even more so. As executive director of Sanctuary for Sacred Arts, collecting and cataloging sacred art is now her job. Sanctuary for Sacred Arts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving theology and the arts. Its mission is “to foster and encourage the promotion, use, development, study and preservation of sacred arts and architecture.” Sanctuary for Sacred Arts not only displays religious art in churches, including St. Francis of Assisi, but also in colleges, universities, abbeys and other religious and public spaces in the Pacific Northwest. Also, Hamilton is working to gather images of sacred art and architecture from all religions on its website, s4sa.org, thanks to an American Theology Library Association grant. [link]

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art Wins in Court: Pay-What-You Wish

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Yesterday, Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich of the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art by granting its motion to dismiss claims that the Museum’s longstanding pay-what-you-wish admissions policy violates both its 1878 lease with the City and a State appropriations act from 1893. The following is a statement from the Museum on this decision: "The Met is delighted with the ruling and trusts this decision once and for all validates its longtime pay-what-you wish admissions policy—which, as the judge has declared, guarantees fairness and access for visitors of all economic means.”

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NYC's Museum of Biblical Art Announces New Director

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

NEW YORK---Roberta Green Ahmanson and the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) are pleased to announce the appointment of a new Director, Richard P. Townsend, an accomplished art historian and museum professional. Mr. Townsend brings a rich array of experience to MOBIA, having held both curatorial and leadership positions at art museums across the United States including the Museum of Latin American Art, Miami Art Museum, and Price Tower Arts Center, among others. The appointment is effective immediately. Richard takes over from museum management consultant, Rena Zurofsky, who has served as interim director since May 1. [Press Release]

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Jeffrey Deitch's Next Chapter: Big Art Shows, But Not at Museums

LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Mike Boehm

Jeffrey Deitch at MOCA in 2010. The former museum director says he wants to launch a major exhibitions venue in New York that will reach a large public without the institutional constraints of a nonprofit museum. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / October 16, 2013)

CALIFORNIA---Jeffrey Deitch says his next move in the art world following his premature exit as director of Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art will happen in New York City: a bid to create a “hybrid” between a museum mounting exhibitions geared to a broad general audience, and a gallery that doesn’t have to deal with the complex institutional issues that come with running a nonprofit museum. [link]

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$300,000 Gift to Fund Forum for Worship and the Arts in Alabama

THE SAMFORD CRIMSON
By Zach Brown

ALABAMA---At an Oct. 8 luncheon, Samford will unveil the first stages of anima, the Forum for Worship and the Arts. The forum’s website, animatheforum.com, will launch in mid-October. anima resulted from a $300,000 grant from the Christ Is Our Salvation Foundation in Waco, Texas. Eric Mathis, anima director and assistant professor of music and worship, said that the grant had two conditions: establishing a center for worship and the arts and creating programs for teenagers. [link]
The first phase of anima has three steps. 

•  First, the forum’s website will feature advanced social media integration, 
•  Secondly, anima will feature regular speakers and workshops on worship and the arts, 
•  The third initial aspect of anima, the Elisha Project, will allow Samford students to mentor teens and benefit from worship training.

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$1.2M in Free Consulting to Help 12 Metro Detroit Arts Groups Flourish

THE DETROIT FREE PRESS
By Mark Stryker

MICHIGAN---The respected DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., has awarded 12 mostly medium-sized and small Detroit organizations a total of about $1.2 million in free consultancy services over the next 18 months. Announced today, the new program promises to build stronger institutions by helpinggroups create strategic plans and then lay the groundwork for initiatives like capital campaigns, building projects, joint ventures, annual fund-raising, board engagement and other management challenges.  [link]

DeVos Institute director Brett Egan said that each group would be receiving services that would typically cost about $100,000. Here are the 12 metro Detroit groups, all selected through a competitive application process:

1. Arab American National Museum
2. Arts League of Michigan
3. Charles H. Wright Museum
4. CultureSource
5. Detroit Artists Market
6. Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings
7. The Heidelberg Project
8. InsideOut Literary Arts Project
9. Living Arts
10. Matrix Theatre Company
11. Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit
12. Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

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