news from The Arts Politic

By JASMINE MAHMOUD | November 5, 2009

On the heels of yesterday’s mini-interview with Seattle City Council Candidate turned Councilmember-elect, Sally Bagshaw, here’s another Issue 2 sneak peak. Elizabeth Glidden, a current Minneapolis, MN City Councilmember for Ward 8, ran for re-election in Tuesday’s campaign. I spoke with her a few weeks ago to learn more about arts policy and the arts landscape in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis is pretty neat. Second to New York City in theater per capita, Minneapolis is flush with renown established and emerging arts centers and artists, and has rich arts policy resources, planning and results (for example, the Clean Water Amendment and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, where arts economist Ann Markusen researches). Glidden is also pretty neat. She is a violinist and a policymaker who spearheaded support for the resident-led Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center and worked with Ann Markusen to harness local artist conversations that resulted in the first artists-only business association. She also has a laudable “Arts” tab on her Council website.→

By JASMINE MAHMOUD | November 4, 2009

Issue 2’s election-themed Dialogue section includes interviews with local political candidates from across the nation. One candidate was Sally Bagshaw, 58, a public service professional and former chief of the Civil Division for the King County Prosecuting Attorney. Last night, Bagshaw won Seattle City Council’s Position #4 seat with an impressive, and decisive 69 to 31 percent victory. Last month, I interviewed Bagshaw about her arts policies, her ideas on arts funding cuts and her thoughts on how the arts define Seattle’s city landscape. →

The Arts Politic’s submission guidelines for Issue 2 have just been announced! We seek your essays, visual art, poetry, letters to policymakers, reviews, and other thoughtful arts political work. For submissions guidelines read more below, and please forward widely to other emerging and established leaders in the arts, policymakers, scholars, professors, activists and […]

By DANIELLE KLINE | August 8, 2009

Americans love tuning in to “So You Think You Can Dance,” but how does that popular FOX television show misrepresent dance education and arts engagement in our nation?→

Interview by MAHMOUD & KLINE | August 7, 2009

Here’s part 2 of 2 of our conversation with M. Liz Andrews, creator of the artistic citizenship website LetterToObama. Andrews answers more of our questions about President Obama’s influence on her work, interpretations of the word activism, advice for political artists, and upcoming projects. →

Interview by MAHMOUD & KLINE | August 6, 2009

How can artists communicate more effectively with the White House? M. Liz Andrews, an activist artist educator from Denver, CO, has proposed one idea: LetterToObama. Her project, which can be found on the website LetterToObama.com, began with “SONNET: JANUARY 20, 2009,″ a sonnet Andrews wrote about the inauguration, layered with her photographs from the ceremony and celebrations in Washington, D.C., Times Square and Harlem. After creating her photo book / sonnet, Andrews opened up her website to artists, activists and citizens to “publish multi-media, artistic ‘Letters’ to Obama” each month. →

By RONAMBER DELONEY | August 6, 2009

As an artist, I use the internet to broadcast the projects I’m working on and sometimes as a tool to document my ideas in real time. One hundred and forty characters is a haiku Twitter challenge waiting to happen for a stressed poet, and tweeting comes in handy when I need to quickly release my frustration about George Bush’s greedy politics and how the residual thereof has affected my job search post grad school. Am I to deter my artistic expression because a potential employer might find me “too difficult to keep engaged” with admin work or more likely to demand diversity training before the company barbecue? →

By THE EDITORS | July 31, 2009

Comment of the Week is TAP’s new weekly post featuring your voices. Every Friday, we will plug the week’s best comment. To become of a part of this dialogue: comment and let your thoughts and ideas be heard! The comment of the week goes to Reagan Weaver, an employment lawyer from Raleigh, NC. →

By JASMINE MAHMOUD | July 31, 2009

I want to call your attention to last week’sNew York Times article about the National Endowment for the Arts and Rocco Landesman. “For New Leader of the Arts Endowment, Lessons From a Shaky Past,” by Robin Pogrebin and Jo Cravin McGinty, was less of an article about the current state of affairs for the NEA-Chair elect, and more of a history lesson about the NEA’s past two decades. One history lesson was about the often-unreported arts recession of 1997. →

By JASMINE MAHMOUD | July 26, 2009

My first thought when Skip Gates got arrested: blame the Emmys and The New York Times. →