Community Arts | Community Arts

Nov.26.2012 The Interior Colony As I write this, my plane has just taken off from Heathrow, seven hours after its scheduled departure. I spent six of them on the tarmac, trying to soothe the part of my brain that was spinning a story about British Airways’ incompetence. That was fairly challenging: during the previous hour,...	Oct.30.2011 Deracination, Artworld-Style Deracination is a great word: it means to pull something up by the roots, to sever or isolate someone (or something) from its native culture. All week, I have been chewing on an example I encountered at last week’s arts conference, and still, I just can’t swallow it. The meeting was convened by...
Sep.23.2011 Building Trust: Harmony Project Blog #4, Part 2 Note to readers: This is the sixth in a series of blogs I am delighted to be writing for Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project. They will appear biweekly on the WomenArts site (when you get there, scroll down for a list of blog installments), and I will also reproduce each one here. This...	Sep.14.2011 Tell The Story Right: The Jobs Plan We Need, Part 2 Public policy should be driven by a few essential questions: Who are we? What do we stand for? How do we want to be remembered; what is our legacy to the future? These foundational questions underpin this second essay on the jobs plan we need. Before you dismiss this out of hand as absurdly...
Sep.11.2011 Tell The Story Right: The Jobs Plan We Need, Part 1 After seeing the economy bleed jobs for so long, it was hard to watch without ambivalence as President Obama finally rose on Thursday to call for a transfusion of public funds for job creation. I felt some measure of relief: at last, our national leaders are paying attention to the suffering...	Jul.20.2010 Poetry In the Hood I have never blogged on vacation before--usually waiting for my return home for the wrap-up. But here I am in Seattle and George is on his laptop doing top secret PwC work (I can't disclose what PwC stands for--and if you know, you are sworn to secrecy) I am using the guest laptop at the B...
Apr.14.2010 WPA, Where Art Thou? Last month, Representative George Miller introduced the "Local Jobs for America Act," H. R. 4812, much-needed legislation "To provide funds to States, units of general local government, and community-based organizations to save and create local jobs through the retention, restoration...	Feb.14.2010 World Community Arts Day 2010 February 17th is World Community Arts Day, the third annual global celebration of "art as a catalyst for caring and sharing," with the goal of creating "a World Festival Society for a day." Its underlying philosophy is that "We can either react in fear or anger to the state...
May.13.2009 At The White House I'm on the road with time for just a quick note to tell you that on May 12th, more than sixty activist artists, community artists, creative organizers and uncategorizable fellow travelers took part in a White House Briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice and National Recovery that I helped to...