VSA Ohio News
Visit the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education's, Arts On Line Blog, to read more about pertinent budget recommendations in arts, education, and socials service areas.
Arts Advocacy: What Can You Do
Featuring insight from our very own VSA Ohio Board Member Donna Collins
GCAC Front Row Center September 2011
NEA Head Stops for Pep Rally by Jeffrey Sheban
[The Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 20, 2011]
Columbus provides a model for other communities seeking to marshal the arts for economic development, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts said yesterday.'There’s hardly a speech I give nowadays that doesn’t mention the Short North,' said Rocco Landesman, who, during a swing through Ohio, took part in a panel discussion in Mershon Auditorium at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
About 800 people — many of them arts administrators, educators and practitioners — attended the event, “A Way Forward: Arts and Economic Development.”The panel included Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman; Leslie H. Wexner, chairman and CEO of Limited Brands; and Douglas Kridler, chairman of the Columbus Foundation. It was moderated by Julie Henahan, executive director of the Ohio Arts Council.
Landesman called the Short North, which in the past two decades has been transformed from a low-rent district to an arts-and-entertainment magnet for central Ohioans and out-of-town visitors, “a poster child for the arts, helping to give rise to a rebirth of place.” A successful Broadway producer who joined the Obama administration in 2009, Landesman has become an outspoken advocate for culture and the arts, and their ability to create jobs and stimulate the economy. “A dollar spent on the arts is one of the most effective dollars you can spend in any community,” he said. “It’s not a frill; it’s not an add-on; it’s not extra.”
Coleman echoed the sentiment, saying 11,000 jobs in Columbus are “directly tied to the arts,” generating $330 million annually in economic activity and producing $36 million in tax revenue for Columbus and the state.
The community benefits from the Ohio State University sponsorship and cultivation of the arts, said Wexner, an OSU trustee.“It attracts young people to the community,” he said, “and stimulates that creative class.”
The event — sponsored by the Columbus Partnership, Greater Columbus Arts Council and Columbus Foundation — served as a pep rally for arts organizations buffeted by decreased private and public funding.
Kridler, addressing the audience, lauded central Ohio arts groups for “recalibrating” their efforts in the face of economic austerity, which he said is likely to continue. “All of us (on the panel) feel like we came here for you,” he said. “I hope you feel the love, if you will. You are an impressive group engaged in an important pursuit.”
“The pat on the back felt nice,” said Chiquita Mullins Lee, an East Side poet and arts administrator. “They’re admonishing us to be bold and take chances,” she said.
“Arts groups need to earn their way forward, said audience member Holly Adkins-Ardrey, director of the Goodwill Art Studio & Gallery near Grandview Heights. “The public will support us,” she said, “should we prove ourselves worthy.”
Northeast Ohio native's career in arts is both creative and lucrative
[Ohio Department of Education, Featured Story, 9/9/11]
"Sometimes, Eric Coolidge is creating furniture, backdrops and other designs for high-profile clients like Nike and Heinken, using precise, smooth clean lines and wood. Other times, he is practicing and building his own fine art, mostly metal that, in Eric's words, is "insanely sharp, unviewer friendly, awesome." In a culturally rich Hispanic section of Brooklyn, New York, he has an apartment the size of a closet, and within walking distance, a studio three times that size where he works - and plays."
To read the rest of Eric's story, including how art helped him break down the barrier of dyslexia, click on the link above.
Action Alert from Americans for the Arts [Arts on Line, Sept. 19, 2011]
The U.S. House of Representatives will soon be considering legislation entitled "Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act" (H.R. 1891), one of a series of House bills recently approved by the House Education and Workforce Committee, chaired by Representative John Kline, and one that addresses the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. This legislation will eliminate 42 long-standing federal education programs, including the model projects grant program for arts education. The Arts in Education program funds professional development for arts teachers in high-poverty schools; replication of arts programs across school districts; and provides noncompetitive awards to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The program received $38.1 million in FY 2009, $40 million in FY 2010, and $27.4 million in FY 2011.
Please help arts education advocates to stop this bill by sending a customized message to oppose H.R. 1891 to your Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives through American's for the Arts E-Advocacy Center.
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Urges School Leaders NOT to Cut Arts Education
[US Department of Education, March 3, 2011]
President Obama's Comments on Improving on No Child Left Behind
[White House Blog, March 14, 2011]
Can We Discriminate in Favor of People with Disabilities? [Blue Avocado Newsletter, 3/15/11]
"Our agency serves clients with mental health needs, and we like to provide employment opportunities to individuals with mental illness. Can we say in the job advertisement for peer counselor that the applicant should have a mental illness? We are doing this not only to provide employment opportunities to individuals with mental illness, but also so our counselors will better understand the challenges facing their clients."
Opinion: Don't Put Sports, Art, and Music on Chopping Block [NPR.org, 3/16/11]
"Now that so many American school districts...are facing reductions in school funding, more and more, it is athletics that are being cut back...Of course, it's not just sports that are prime prospects for elimination, but also art and music. After all, sports, art and music--what I call the SAM activities--are known as extracurriculars, emphasis on the 'extra'...it's also true that when children who are artistic or musical are denied that opportunity in school, their young personal loss eventually not only robs them of developing their talent but diminishes us as a culture."
Zach Anner, filmmaker and TV host
Filmmaker, Zach Anner, recently won a contest on the Oprah Winfrey network (OWN) and now has a show called Rolling Around the World with Zach. Anner's documentary film, Forgotten Lives, tells the story of abuse/neglect and exploitations of those in Texas state-operated institutions.