Walk While you Can
by Risa Bear Risa Bear is a poet, author, blogger, photographer, microfarmer as well as retired forester, librarian, and printer.
Month: April 2017
525 Words
by Lynn Susholtz Nov. 8th was a buoyant and exhilarating day in Art Produce Gallery that served as a polling site where people of all flavors stood in line to vote on a very long list of propositions and people. Everyone talking in reverent whispers with a collective sense of civic duty and pride, […]
Did the STEAM Movement Result in Education and Workforce Change in 2014? Is a Policy Window Opened Now?
by Ann M. Galligan My original article for CultureWork (2014) sought to offer a public policy perspective on STEAM1 why and how it occurred and its significance for the U.S. workforce. Using John Kingdon’s framework (1995) referring to a “policy window” (where policy issues move onto the government agenda and towards decision and action), the […]
Reflections on “Reviving Arts Education Through Collaboration”
by Mary Ann Stankiewicz Since my CultureWork broadside appeared, Sarasota’s Community/Schools Partnership (C/SPA) has gained strength, reinforcing my belief in the value of community/school collaboration. According to Nancy Roucher of the Arts Education Task Force for the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota, long-range planning is balanced with two or three specific yearly goals (personal […]
Following the Threads
By Elizabeth Hoffman In 2005, CultureWork published “From Termination to Triumph: Reflecting on the First Ten Years of the University of Oregon Arts and Administration Program.” I’m happy to report that the UO Arts and Administration Program has experienced continued success evidenced by the graduation of over 325 cultural sector leaders; the expansion of […]
(re)Examining Museum Queering
by James H. Sanders III Thinking about queering the museum a decade after publishing in CultureWork (2007), I consider Jane Bennet’s (2010) Vibrant Matter, Delanda’s (2016) Assemblage Theory, and Karen Barad’s (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning as I wrestle with how my prior queer concerns […]
“Processes, Resources, Collaboration: Considerations for Greening Public Art Programs” Revisited
by Betsy (Bostwick) Tanenbaum It has been seven years since I contributed to CultureWork and nine since I completed my research, Going Green with Public Art. Revisiting my article, my initial reaction was that it was very “green” (not just environmentally), as some tips seem very common sense. Reflecting further, even ‘common sense’ is […]
Coming of Age: A Decade of Change in the American Arts Workforce
by Victoria Plettner-Saunders I started writing and researching generational issues in the workforce around 2005 with my first article for CultureWork, “Boomers, XY’s and the Making of Generational Shift in Arts Management,” published 2006. Since then, there were three additional articles on this topic as well as a survey and researched recommendations for mid-career […]
The Intrinsic Side of the Arts Management Employment Interview
by Deborah K. Snider In 1997, I investigated the extrinsic components of the arts management interview. These were largely outside the control of the applicant, but important to future success of the organization and its staff. Now, with 17 years of university teaching of classes like Gallery & Museum Practices, Exhibitions & Visual Arts […]
More Work to Do: Recognizing Artists as Public Intellectuals
by Jodi Kushins Revisiting my writing on “Recognizing Artists as Public Intellectuals” (Kushins, 2006), two things come immediately to mind: a casual conversation I had on a recent visit to the doctor and the work of political satirists leading up to and immediately following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. In this brief commentary, I’ll […]
Outcome-based Evaluation: Revisiting and Rethinking OBE Applications Across Disciplines
By Robert Voelker-Morris In 2004, as part of my work on the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) granted project for the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, I took part in the IMLS’s required Outcome-based Evaluation training. This training was the focus of my June 2004 piece in CultureWork. Since […]
Cultural Synthesizism Updated: Policy Initiatives and Shifts Related to the Arts and Cultural Nonprofit Sector in Colombia
by Susan Appe Colombia’s nonprofit arts and cultural sector remains “diverse, immense, and brilliant” (Appe, 2007) and in the last almost 10 years, continues to be an economic driver and critical component to cultural dialogue and the building of a culture of peace in Colombia. In my 2007 article for CultureWork, I presented the […]
Response to “Personalization of Place: Remixing the Eugene Coloring Book”
by Emily Hope Dobkin In truth: I remain proud in the fact that my graduate research was grounded in a 1979 coloring book from which launched a participatory project that’s lessons continue to be foundational in the community driven work I do today. I still deeply believe in community members finding common threads […]
Creating Connection in Play: How the Portland Playhouse is Learning, Growing, and Adapting to Connect with Public Values
by Brian Weaver When I first heard the Creating Connection research and recommendations, I was skeptical. As Artistic Director of Portland Playhouse, a theater dedicated to featuring professional artists, I questioned, “What would it mean for professional artists if, as a field, we began saying, ‘Everyone is an artist?’ Would that make us less […]
Folkvine.org: GLOCAL Action & Changing How We Do Scholarship
by Craig Saper The editors of CultureWork invited my Folkvine collaborators and me to contribute something to an early issue of this journal; we were still working on the website, and had not had time to think through many of the implications of our project. Happily the editors have asked me to return to folkvine […]
All Creativity is a Collective Dialogue
by Helen De Michiel After a trip to Washington, D.C. in 2009 when I participated in a delegation of media arts advocates lobbying Congress on behalf of net neutrality, I wrote about the experience for Culture Work. I said that “when we develop and maintain cross-disciplinary alliances, especially with partners outside of the arts […]
Revisiting “Designing Web-based Instruction: A Research Review on Color, Typography, Layout, and Screen Density”
by Michael Geraci My 2002 capstone research in the University of Oregon’s Applied Information Management Master’s degree program sought to provide educators who were interested in publishing course materials — or entire courses — to the Web for student access beyond the traditional classroom with a research-based set of visual design guidelines to improve […]
CultureWork and Creative Democracy
by Doug Blandy John Dewey’s (1939) discussion of “creative democracy,” recognized political participation as an inventive and creative activity. Written at the time of the rise of fascism in Europe, Dewey conceptualized democracy as a way of life. A way of life requiring engagement with the political process, policy analysis, strategies for exercising influence, […]
Advocacy in Even More “Interesting” Times
by Anne Katz True, effective advocacy is ongoing, locally-based, and comes from the heart. I came across this sentence this morning while I was working on details for our state advocacy day, coming up on March 9. It’s one that I’ve used for almost twenty years for teaching, describing, and promoting the idea that […]
Culture in Agriculture: The Cooperative Extension Service as an Alternative Rural Arts Model Update
by Savannah Barrett Published in October 2013, “Culture in Agriculture: The Cooperative Extension Service as an Alternative Rural Arts Model” aimed to “inform rural arts practitioners, community arts academics, and policy makers of the limitations of existing resource investment in rural areas and need for additional rural arts organizational models.” The piece also […]
Collaboration Considerations
by Laurie Dean Torrell The purpose of this essay is to revisit Collaboration—a topic I explored in two previous CultureWork articles (Torrell, 2009 and 2011). Evident in those pieces was that my own experience in administrative collaboration brought many benefits and an increasing number of challenges. In years since, what has not changed is […]
Culture, Art and History: Its Collection, Presentation, Teaching, and Archiving
By Miguel Juárez Twenty-years ago I published the article “The Invisible Careers for Latinos: Public History and Museum Studies,” in CultureWork. Although some would argue that there has been some progress for Latinos and persons of color, I think very little has transpired. Given the 2016 election, it has become imperative for us to […]
Understanding the Nonprofit and Commercial Arts: An Upate
By David B. Pankratz In 1997, I wrote “The Nonprofit and Commercial Arts: Understanding Future Options” for CultureWork. At the time I was an independent scholar in the Los Angeles area and could easily cite local examples of cross-over interactions between these sectors involving artists and producers, arts and entertainment organizations, professional service organizations, […]
Museums: Recent Trends
by Alice Parman Collections: The Holy of Holies As the 21st century began, museum professionals wondered if museums had been eclipsed by the Internet; why pay to view real objects that are pictured online? In Do Museums Still Need Objects? (2010), Stephen Conn argued that museums would continue to find a raison d’être. And […]