CAA News Today
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Aug 28, 2013
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Nineteen Lessons about Teaching
1. Teaching is a learning experience. Every time I teach a lesson, I learn the material in new and deeper way. I also always learn so much from my students. I learn from their own life experiences. I learn from their insights and reactions. They see aspects all the time in the sources we use that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise—and these are awesome teaching moments. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
New Infographic: Good News in Fair Use for Libraries
A new infographic from the Association of Research Libraries tells the story of library fair use and the Code of Best Practices in a clear and compelling way. There’s an embeddable PNG for your own blogs, and there’s also a print-ready 8½ x 11 inch version in case you need hardcopies to hand out at events. (Read more in ARL Policy Notes.)
Building Digital Humanities Projects for Everyone
Earlier this summer, the American Historical Association profiled a few recipients of National Endowment for the Humanities start-up grants to see what kinds of projects were emerging from the world of digital humanities with particular applications for historians. This month the organization caught up with a new cohort of implementation grantees, recently announced by the NEH Office of Digital Humanities. (Read more from the American Historical Association.)
Van Gogh in 3D? A Replica Could Be Yours for £22,000
A poster of one of Van Gogh’s sunflowers is one of the traditional adornments to a student bedroom. The rest of us hang our reproductions with the knowledge that even the good ones are far from faithful to the originals—for which the going rate is £24 million. But not anymore. The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has developed high-quality 3D reproductions of some of its finest paintings, with what it describes as the most advanced copying technique ever seen. (Read more in the Guardian.)
The Real Neuroscience of Creativity
You know how the left brain is realistic, analytical, practical, organized, and logical, and the right brain is creative, passionate, sensual, tasteful, colorful, vivid, and poetic? Thoughtful cognitive neuroscientists such as Rex Jung, Darya Zabelina, Andreas Fink, and others are on the forefront of investigating what actually happens in the brain during the creative process. And their findings are overturning conventional notions surrounding the neuroscience of creativity. (Read more in Scientific America.)
The Benefits of Flipping Your Classroom
A small but growing number of faculty at major universities are experimenting with the inverted or flipped classroom. It’s an instructional model popularized by, among other influences, a Ted Talk by the Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, which has received more than 2.5 million views. Institutions as varied as Duke University’s School of Medicine, Boston University’s College of Engineering, and the University of Washington School of Business are experimenting with changing from in-class lectures to video lectures and using class time to explore the challenging and more difficult aspects of course content. (Read more from Faculty Focus.)
Another Digital Divide
More students are being disciplined for sharing incendiary remarks through social media, drawing outraged responses from peers who say online interactions don’t dictate offline behavior. Despite the conflicting ideas of how students should behave on the internet, social-media etiquette is almost never discussed during first-year orientation. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Do Critics Paint Women Artists Out of the Picture?
Is there a glass ceiling for women in the arts? A glance by a visiting alien would see twenty-first-century Britain as one of the best places and times ever for women working as artists. I went to Rome for my holidays and gorged on paintings, frescoes, and statues, from ancient Roman mosaics to Canova nudes. None of these great works of art of ages gone by is credited to a woman—which doesn’t mean there were no women artists at all before modern times. (Read more in the Guardian.)
People in the News
posted by CAA — Aug 17, 2013
People in the News
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
August 2013
Academe
Keliy Anderson-Staley (photograph by Andrej Tur)Keliy Anderson-Staley has joined the School of Art at the University of Houston in Texas as a tenure-track professor of photography.
Rebecca Parker Brienen has been named Vennerberg Professor of Art and head of the Department of Art, Graphic Design, and Art History at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Brienen previously served as the head of art history at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, from 2008 to 2013.
Jean M. K. MillerJean M. K. Miller has joined the University of Missouri in St. Louis as dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication and professor in the Department of Art and Art History. Miller was formerly associate dean of administrative affairs in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas in Denton.
Kent Minturn, a lecturer in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University in New York, has been appointed director of the MA Program in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies.
Jennifer Raab, the first IFA/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, has joined the faculty of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Erika SchneiderErika Schneider has been promoted to associate professor in the Art Department at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, where she has taught since 2007.
Mark Tribe (photograph by Collier Schorr)Mark Tribe, an artist, educator, and the founder of Rhizome, has become chair of the MFA Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Sarah Victoria Turner, a lecturer in the Department of the History of Art at the University of York in York, England, has been appointed to the new post of assistant director for research at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. Her appointment begins in November 2013.
Deborah Zlotsky, an artist who taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, from 1996 to 2013, has accepted a teaching position at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
Museums and Galleries
Gloria GroomGloria Groom, David and Mary Winton Green Curator in the Department of Medieval through Modern European Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been appointed the museum’s first senior curator.
Jennifer GrossJennifer Gross has joined the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, as deputy director for curatorial affairs and chief curator. Gross had served as Seymour H. Knox Jr. Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, since 2000.
Sarah SchrothSarah Schroth, Nancy Hanks Senior Curator at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, has been named the museum’s new Mary D. B. T. and James H. Semans Director. Schroth had been serving as interim director since November 2012.
Susan Shifrin, associate director for education at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, has left the museum to serve as director of ARTZ Philadelphia, a newly formed chapter of ARTZ: Artists for Alzheimer’s.
Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, formerly director of the Helsinki Art Museum in Finland, has become the new director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.
Organizations and Publications
Maura ReillyMaura Reilly has been appointed executive director of the Linda Pace Foundation, based in San Antonio, Texas. Most recently Reilly was professor and chair of art theory at Queensland College of Art, part of Griffith University in Nathan, Australia.
Tali WeinbergTali Weinberg, program officer for Global Goods Partners, a nonprofit that provides economic opportunity, small grants, and training to artisans in marginalized communities around the world, has been selected to lead the Textile Society of America, based in Berkeley, California, as executive director.
Major NEA Cut Frozen until Fall
posted by CAA — Aug 01, 2013
Americans for the Arts sent the following email on August 1, 2013.
Major NEA Cut Frozen until Fall
Yesterday the US House Appropriations Committee began consideration of legislation that would devastate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) with a 49 percent cut to its budget. An amendment to restore the funding to the NEA was defeated along a party-line vote of 19–27. With rising tempers over this cut and many others, the committee has now suspended its consideration until mid-September.
This legislation began its journey as a subcommittee proposal last week and the full committee is the middle step before it goes to the House floor for final consideration. Arts advocates are outraged and have sent more than 22,000 messages to Capitol Hill this past week calling for a rejection of these cuts.
If you have two minutes, please contact your member of Congress, or you can use our powerful media alert tool to send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspapers calling for Congress to reject this cut.
As stated in yesterday’s committee meeting by members of Congress from both parties, the cuts to our cultural resources are misguided and disproportionate. Not only will they impact the NEA, but the millions of Americans working in the creative industries that are boosted by the strategic grants made by the NEA.
- Senior Democratic appropriator Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) described the bill as the “worst bill considered during this appropriations cycle”
- Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) said, “We’d be better off passing a blank piece of paper”
- Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) noted how many communities in her state have been revitalized because of NEA support and how critical it is
The Road Ahead
As members of Congress head back to their home districts shortly for a five-week recess period, the appropriations process will be put on hold until their return on September 9. Americans for the Arts will continue to build our advocacy efforts, looking ahead to later in the fall when the committee will try again to complete its work and move consideration of the bill to the House floor, where amendments to restore funding, and unfortunately reduce funding even further, could be offered.
The steps beyond that are unclear as the appropriations process this year appears to be heading toward a dysfunctional ending. As the Senate and the House have vastly different appropriations levels on a variety of bills, it is unlikely that they will find a compromise position. The most likely outcome would be a “continuing resolution” that would maintain the current NEA funding level into the next fiscal year.
If you have two minutes, please contact your member of Congress, or send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspapers calling for Congress to reject this cut. Americans for the Arts has further details and will be providing updates on our ARTSblog here.
Please help us continue this important work by becoming an official member of the Arts Action Fund. If you are not already a member, you can play your part by joining the Arts Action Fund today—it’s free and easy to join.
Statement on the House Appropriations Subcommittee Draft FY2014 Spending Bill for the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
posted by CAA — Jul 23, 2013
The League of American Orchestras has circulated a statement that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will be using in response to press inquiries.
Statement on the House Appropriations Subcommittee Draft FY2014 Spending Bill for the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
If enacted, the FY2014 budget proposed for the National Endowment for the Arts in the draft appropriations bill would severely hamper the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of investing in arts organizations throughout all 50 states.
As the President, Congress, and the American people continue to be focused on the country’s economy, it is important to note that a dollar invested by the NEA is matched by $9 of additional investment and generates $26 in economic activity.
Last year, the NEA invested nearly $116 million through more than 2,200 grants in communities of all sizes. In turn, these nonprofit arts organizations had direct expenditures of $31.2 billion that helped support the 5.7 million arts-related jobs and 2 million working artists in this country.
The President’s FY2014 budget request recognizes the importance of this investment and lays out a strong case for funding the NEA at $154.5 million, which the full House and the Senate will review as the budget process continues.
Action Alert: Act Now to Preserve Critical Humanities Funding
posted by CAA — Jul 22, 2013
The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sent the following email on July 19, 2013.
Action Alert: Act Now to Preserve Critical Humanities Funding
Over the last three years the budget of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), an agency critical to preserving America’s documentary heritage, has been cut from $13 million to just $4.75 million. Last week, the House of Representatives proposed another 36 percent reduction that threatens to further erode this small agency’s capacity to preserve endangered collections and provide access to our shared cultural heritage. Your voice can help to ensure that the Senate acts to prevent this draconian cut.
The Senate will begin voting on NHPRC funding on Tuesday, July 23, so your senators must hear from as many of their constituents as possible before that date in order to prevent this reduction.
To preserve NHPRC funding:
1) Click the link below to send a message urging your senators to provide full funding to the National Historical Publications and Records Administration. We have provided a template letter that you may customize if you choose, so it is quick and easy.
2) Share this message with your friends.
More information on NHPRC:
The National Historical Publications and Records Administration (NHPRC) provides critical support for preservation of at-risk collections in communities around the country. Its grants leverage state, local, institutional, foundation, and other private funding by requiring 50 percent cost sharing—i.e. for every federal dollar invested, another dollar is spent from a non-federal source. NHPRC also supports publications projects of national significance such as the Papers of Abraham Lincoln and the Papers of George Washington. Just this year, it launched Founders Online, an unprecedented resource that provides online access to more than 100,000 documents of the founding generation.
It is critical that you act now to ensure that efforts to preserve and provide public access to national treasures can continue. Once these materials are lost, they are lost forever.
Click this link to send a message:
http://cqrcengage.com/nhalliance/app/write-a-letter?3&engagementId=13034
CAA Publishes Annual Report 2012–2013
posted by CAA — Jul 16, 2013
CAA has just published the Annual Report 2012–2013, which describes the organization’s accomplishments over the past year as well as other notable efforts as they relate to the Strategic Plan 2010–2015. You may download a PDF of the nineteen-page document.
Abundantly illustrated by photographs from the 2013 Annual Conference in New York, the report describes recent developments in several important areas, such as the Task Force on Fair Use, several publications initiatives (including an analysis of the financial structure and distribution of CAA’s three journals), a grant from the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture for two scholarly projects using the Scalar platform, and the CAA International Travel Grant Program, generously funded by the Getty Foundation. Also covered is an overview of the Task Force on the Strategic Plan for 2015–2020 as well as highlights from the current plan that CAA has accomplished so far, such as free wireless internet at the Annual Conference and the publication of CAA’s directories of graduate programs in the arts.
In addition, the annual report includes a membership report, a selected list of grants received during the fiscal year, and statistics related to CAA News, www.collegeart.org, Twitter, and Facebook. An update on professional-development activities and a financial statement on the 2012 fiscal year close the report.
We hope you will enjoy reading about CAA’s accomplishments.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Jul 10, 2013
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Remember Talent? Does It Still Matter in Art Education?
The cost of an education at an art school or in a college art department has gotten too expensive for merely learning how to express oneself in the likes of painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Who wants to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt just to become another starving artist? Today’s art students now look to the commercial specialties—graphic design, fashion, comic strips and graphic novels, industrial design, textiles, video, filmmaking—to provide them with postgraduate employment and, in the bargain, status as hip young determiners of society’s style. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Same-Sex Ruling Brings Bumper Tax Benefits to Art-World Professionals
A decision by the US Supreme Court will bring significant tax benefits to art collectors, artists, and dealers who are in same-sex marriages. In a ruling on June 26, 2013, the court said that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined “marriage” as a legal union between a man and woman only, was unconstitutional. The historic decision means better fiscal deals for gay spouses such as estate tax deduction and copyright revision, among new arrangements. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
Confidentiality and Faculty Representation in Academic Governance
This report argues that requiring faculty members to sign confidentiality agreements as a requirement to serve on university committees is in most cases inconsistent with widely accepted standards of shared governance and with the concept of serving as a representative. This argument does not apply to faculty serving on promotion and tenure committees and similar bodies, where faculty do not serve as representatives, but instead are elected to exercise their own professional judgment in interpreting and applying faculty-established criteria relevant to these areas. (Read more from the American Association of University Professors .)
Division of Preservation and Access Evaluates the Impact of Its Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Program
Excellence in research, education, and public programming in the humanities depends heavily upon the ongoing availability of source materials. To address this need, a National Endowment for the Humanities program called Humanities Collections and Reference Resources provides critical support to the nation’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural-heritage institutions to help enable long-term public access to significant collections of books, manuscripts, photographs, art and artifacts, sound recordings, moving images, and more. (Read more from the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
Yes, Kickstarter Raises More Money for Artists Than the NEA. Here’s Why That’s Not Really Surprising
During a session at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson asked Perry Chen, founder of Kickstarter, whether it was true that Kickstarter now funds more arts-related projects than the National Endowment for the Arts. The crowdfunding site has, Chen told Isaacson, funded over $600 million in arts projects. (Read more in the Washington Post.)
Help Desk: Release the Press!
If you poke around the internet, you’ll find a lot of information about how to write a press release. In fact, there is so much information on the subject that I recommend you start with a broad search to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals, which are too numerous to cover here. (Read more in Daily Serving.)
Speedier Visas Planned for US-Bound Artists
A comprehensive immigration reform bill recently passed by the US Senate stands to make it easier for foreign artists to visit the country. The 1,200-page bill, which offers a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, also requires the government to process artists’ visa requests within one month of their initial filing. Under the current system, artists can wait up to six months for a visa and must pay a fee of $1,225 to receive expedited service. (Read more in the Art Newspaper.)
Learning to Love Rejection
Rejections are a dirty secret among academics. Publication successes are cause for celebration, or at least a proud listing on CVs and departmental lists. Failures—rejected papers and unsuccessful grant and promotion applications—are usually hidden and sometimes a source of shame. The result is that many scholars, especially junior ones, have unrealistic expectations. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Affiliated Society News for July 2013
posted by CAA — Jul 09, 2013
American Council for Southern Asian Art
The American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) invites members to contribute information regarding recent publications, exhibitions, conferences, or other newsworthy items for publication in the 2013 Bulletin. Submissions should be sent to the Bulletin’s editor, Melody Rodari.
Art, Literature, and Music in Symbolism and Decadence
Art, Literature, and Music in Symbolism and Decadence (ALMSD) will present two workshops under the title “Symbolist Movement and Mental Illnesses” at the Congress of Comparative Literature, taking place in July 17–24, 2013, in Paris, France. The moderator for both events is Rosina Neginsky, ALMSD president. The workshops are scheduled for Friday, July 19, between 2:30 and 6:45 PM. Neginsky is also presenting a paper, “Flaubert’s Herodias: Pictorial or Ekphratic?” on Monday, July 22, 2013, between 11:00 AM and 12:30 PM.
Community College Professors of Art and Art History
Community College Professors of Art and Art History (CCPAAH) is reaching out to new members: please visit the blog and keep up with the organization on Facebook. CCPAAH sponsored two sessions over the past year. Both “Teaching All of Our Students: Few Majors, Fewer Transfers, Many Others” at the CAA Annual Conference in New York and “The Value of Writing in the Foundation Year: Exploring New Approaches” at the Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) biennial conference in Savannah, Georgia, were well attended and very successful.
CCPAAH invites its members to submit proposals for papers to be presented at the next CAA Annual Conference, taking place February 12–15, 2014, in Chicago. The session, “Starting the Conversation: Engaging Students in the Studio and Art History,” will examine innovative ways to engage students in all kinds of courses: studio, digital, art history, art appreciation, and online. Paper topics should highlight best practices and might include: inventive ways to get students engaged in coursework; writing assignments beyond the standard art-history research paper; collaborative work; and using technology to help students become active learners. Please send all questions regarding CAA proposals to CCPAAH@gmail.com. The deadline for submittal of proposals is July 20, 2013. For more information about upcoming events and for general inquiries about the organization, write to CCPAAH@gmail.com.
Historians of Islamic Art Association
The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) plans to hold its fourth biennial symposium in October 2014 at the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Ontario. The symposium theme and the call for participation will be announced this summer.
International Sculpture Center
On April 25, 2013, International Sculpture Center (ISC) honored Wayne E. Potratz of the University of Minnesota with its prestigious Outstanding Educator Award for 2013. Over one hundred of Potratz’s friends, colleagues, and former students came to witness him receiving the award and to congratulate him on his many exceptional achievements as both an educator and an artist. ISC established the Outstanding Educator Award program in 1996 to recognize individual artist-educators who have excelled at teaching sculpture in institutions of higher learning. Potratz, who earned his master’s degree in 1966 at the University of California, Berkeley, has been a faculty member in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art since 1969. He chaired the department from 1985 to 1998 and is currently Professor and Scholar of the College. His work has been exhibited in 30 solo or two-person exhibitions and in 340 group exhibitions regionally, nationally, and internationally since 1964; it is also represented in 28 public and corporate collections and in 165 private collections. Potratz was a cofounder of the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and has an extensive record of lectures, workshops, and professional service since 1966. For award details or to nominate an outstanding educator, please visit the ISC website.
Italian Art Society
The Italian Art Society (IAS) has announced the location of the fifth annual IAS/Kress Foundation Lecture in Italy for spring 2014: the Università di Pisa. Established North American scholars who wish to speak on ancient to modern art in the region of Pisa and Tuscany are welcome to apply (deadline: January 4, 2014). IAS thanks Sarah Blake McHam of Rutgers University, who spoke to a full house as the fourth annual IAS/Kress Lecture speaker. Her presentation, called “Laocoön, or Pliny Vindicated,” took place at the Fondazione Marco Besso in Rome on May 28, 2013.
IAS is pleased to announce its second Research and Publication Grant up to $1,000 (deadline: November 1, 2013). The society is also accepting applications for two $500 Travel Grants to support graduate students and/or emerging or independent scholars giving conference papers on Italian art in 2014 (deadline: November 1, 2013) and for grants for IAS members abroad to travel and present papers in IAS sessions at American conferences (deadline: October 7, 2013).
IAS had well-attended sessions at the 2013 meetings for CAA, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Society of Architectural Historians, and at the International Congress of Medieval Studies. IAS will sponsor sessions at the same conferences in 2014. See http://italianartsociety.org/conferences-lectures for details.
National Council of Arts Administrators
The 2013 annual conference of the National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) is moving to September; registration is now open. The conference, called “Huh? The Value of Uncertainty and Doubt in the Arts,” will convene in beautiful and temperate Richmond, Virginia. Richard Roth and Joe Seipel of Virginia Commonwealth University have ambitious plans for an amazing event, which will offer timely and forward-looking sessions, an administrator’s workshop, a program for partners and spouses, and much more. As always, NCAA enthusiastically welcomes any and all interested professionals to its conference. Register by September 3, 2013, for the advance rate of $275 ($325 after September 3 and $350 onsite). Please also reserve your hotel room by August 26 for the NCAA group rate of $175/night at the beautiful Jefferson Hotel. Please visit the conference website for speakers, schedule, events, travel, and FAQ.
The NCAA website has been redesigned and has migrated to a new hosting service. Please visit the redesigned site to renew your membership and to update your contact information. Membership provides access to the Members Area, where you can post positions, email the membership, create member communities, link to resources for arts administrators, and avail yourself of other valuable services.
Society for Photographic Education
The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) seeks curators, professors, gallerists, art historians, and scholars to review student and/or professional member portfolios at SPE’s fifty-first annual conference in Baltimore, taking place March 6–9, 2014. Portfolio reviewers receive a discounted admission to the four-day event in exchange for their participation. Please visit the SPE website for more information on the conference offerings. To express interest in serving as a portfolio viewer, write to info@spenational.org.
Society of Architectural Historians
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) is please to announce the H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship. This new fellowship will provide a $50,000 award to allow a recent graduate or emerging scholar to study by travel for one year. The fellowship is not for conducting research. Instead, Prof. Brooks intended the recipient to study by travel and contemplation while observing, reading, writing, or sketching. The goals of the fellowship are as follows: to see and experience architecture and landscapes firsthand; to think about his or her profession deeply; and to acquire knowledge useful for the recipient’s future work, contribution to the profession, and contribution to society. The fellowship recipient may travel to any country or countries during the one-year period. The application deadline is October 1, 2013.
Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture
The Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) is soliciting proposals of papers for its sponsored session, “Decentering Art of the Former East,” at CAA’s 2014 Annual Conference in Chicago. The session seeks to move beyond traditional binaries of East and West and rethink how the art of the region it studies can be understood in an increasingly global art history. The chairs seek historically grounded case studies of Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian art from the Byzantine era to modern times that productively explore these issues. Interested contributors should contact the session’s cochairs, Masha Chlenova and Kristin Romberg, for more details. The deadline for proposals is August 1, 2013.
SHERA is delighted to welcome three new institutional members: the Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens in Washington, DC, with its comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art and outstanding research library; the Institute of Modern Russian Culture at the University of Southern California, a major research center dedicated to the intellectual and material culture of Russia; and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, which holds both Russian imperial art and the world’s largest collection of Soviet nonconformist art.
SHERA maintains an active listserv and Facebook page and is currently creating a new website. New individual and institutional members are welcome. Please direct your inquiries for more information to SHERA.artarchitecture@gmail.com.
Visual Resources Association
The thirty-second annual conference of the Visual Resources Association (VRA) will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from March 12 to 15, 2014. Proposals are now being solicited for the program sessions, workshops, papers, posters, special interest/user groups, and case studies. You access the Google Docs version of the conference proposal form, which can also be found on VRA’s conferences page. Questions about the proposal process and the various presentation formats included in the VRA conference program can be directed to Steven Kowalik, vice president for conference programming. The proposal deadline is July 15, 2013.
Women’s Caucus for Art
The Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) announces the 2014 recipients of its Lifetime Achievement Awards: Phyllis Bramson, Harmony Hammond, Adrian Piper, and Faith Wilding. The recipients for the 2014 President’s Art and Activism Awards are Janice Nesser-Chu and Hye-Seong Tak Lee. Please join WCA for the awards celebration on Saturday, February 15, 2014, in Chicago. The celebration will be held during the annual WCA and CAA conferences. The awards ceremony, open free of charge to the public, will take place from 6:00 to 7:30 PM, followed by a ticketed gala from 8:00 to 10:00 PM at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The ticketed gala will include a walk-around gourmet dinner, open bar, and the opportunity to congratulate the awardees. Mark your calendars! Gala tickets will be available for sale in the fall.
NEA Releases New Research Tool on Working Artists
posted by Christopher Howard — Jun 13, 2013
What do we know about the 2.1 million artists in the United States’ labor force? To help answer that question, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has released Equal Opportunity Data Mining: National Statistics about Working Artists. This new online research tool offers seventy searchable tables with figures on working artists by state and metropolitan area, by demographic information (including race and ethnicity, age, gender, and disability status), and by residence and workplace. The public is welcome to investigate the tables, a map of state-level rankings, and links to original sources.
“Artists represent just 1.4 percent of the labor force, but they have an outsized role as entrepreneurs and innovators who contribute to the vitality of the communities where they live and work,” said the NEA’s acting chairman, Joan Shigekawa. “These data add further detail and nuance to our understanding of the profile of American artists.”
This new research resource gives statistical profiles of Americans who reported an artist occupation as their primary job, whether full-time, part-time, or self-employed. The data set looks at artists in eleven distinct occupations: actors; announcers; architects; art directors, fine artists, and animators; dancers and choreographers; designers; entertainers and performers; musicians; photographers; producers and directors; and writers and authors. Some tables offer data on employed artists in particular, while other tables measure all artists in the workforce, both employed and looking for work.
The NEA created these data sets based on the US Census Bureau’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Tables. Every ten years, the Census Bureau produces EEO tables using data from its annual American Community Survey (ACS). This set of EEO tables is drawn from the ACS survey results for 2006–10, which were combined to obtain a large enough sample. The EEO tables are the federal standard for comparing the race, ethnicity, and gender composition of the labor market in specific geographic areas and job categories.
Equal Opportunity Data Mining is the first installment of a series of Arts Data Profile webpages that the NEA will release over the next several months. Future NEA Arts Data Profiles will introduce public data about arts participation and arts organizations, and additional data on artists in the workforce.
Some findings that emerge from the EEO tables include:
- One-fourth of all American architects are women. Yet in Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, and Washington, the share is roughly one-third. By contrast, in Arkansas, West Virginia, and Wyoming, nearly all architects are men
- Nationally, 4 percent of all artists are disabled, compared with 6 percent of the labor force. At 7 percent, the share of dancers and musicians with a disability is somewhat higher. The percentage of working musicians with a disability is comparatively high in Alaska (25 percent), Alabama (14 percent), Kentucky (16 percent), and Wisconsin (13 percent)
- In Oregon, 40 percent of working actors are African American, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, or other, while these ethnic and racial groups make up only 20 percent of the total Oregon labor force
- Roughly one-quarter of musicians working in Nashville commute to the city from outside areas. For example, an estimated one hundred musicians commute thirteen miles from Hendersonville (Sumner County); twenty musicians commute from Franklin, and an additional sixty-five musicians commute to Nashville from other parts of Williamson County
The research tool also includes a video tutorial, links to additional resources (such as the US Census Bureau’s American Fact Finder page), and surveys and databases from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For more than thirty years, the NEA has been the only federal agency to use US Census data to analyze artists in the workforce. The NEA seeks to extend the conversation on arts research through commissioned research, direct research grants, and research convenings to encourage more rigorous research on the impact of the arts in other domains of American life, such as education, health and well-being, community livability, and economic prosperity. Recent endeavors include a landmark partnership between the NEA and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis to develop an Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account that will identify and calculate the arts and culture sector’s contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The NEA has convened seventeen federal agencies in the NEA Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development, to foster more research on the arts’ role in improving health and educational outcomes throughout the lifespan. Just published, Creative Communities from Brookings Institution Press is based on a first-ever convening between the NEA and the Brookings Institution on the arts and economic development.
About the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — Jun 12, 2013
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
When Artworks Crash: Restorers Face Digital Test
Paintings fade; sculptures chip. Art restorers have long known how to repair those material flaws, so the experience of looking at a Vermeer or a Rodin remains basically unchanged over time. But when creativity is computerized, the art isn’t so easy to fix. For instance, when a web-based work becomes technologically obsolete, does updated software simply restore it? Or is the piece fundamentally changed? (Read more in the New York Times.)
Crowdfunding Academic Research
When a professor from a small liberal-arts college in central Pennsylvania decided to take on a massive research project two summers ago, he went through the usual, often futile, process of applying for federal and private grants. But when funds were short a year later, he went down a nontraditional route—turning to the public and the internet for help. In fifty days, Juniata College’s Chris Grant and his research partner, Gina Lamendella, raised $10,800 through a crowdfunding website called iAMscientist. (Read more in Insider Higher Ed.)
Self-Sabotage in the Academic Career
Pogo recognized long ago that we often are our own worst enemies. Sure, he was a cartoon character, but he had a point—especially in higher education, where self-sabotage seems to be a standard characteristic of academic careers. In my thirty years as a professor, five years as a dean, and three years as a provost, I have observed many academics harm their own careers, often without realizing it. Here are fifteen ways in which you can be most self-destructive. (Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
Help Desk: Curating Like a Fool
I’m an artist and art writer and would like to complete the trifecta by seriously trying to curate. However, since I’ve only been on the curated side of the table, I know embarrassingly little about the nitty-gritty of it. For example, when I have a proposal ready, do I inform the proposed artists of my intentions before or after I submit the proposal? Who arranges and pays for shipping work? I only know how I’ve personally been treated and not what is typical. I’m too afraid of looking like a fool to give it a shot. (Read more in Daily Serving.)
“Stuff Matters”: The Crucial Work of the AIC’s Collections Emergency Response Team
The Collections Emergency Response Team, says Eric Pourchot, institutional advancement director at the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, “came out of the experience we had after Hurricane Katrina, as many of our members from AIC had served on teams that went down to the New Orleans and Gulf Coast area to help cultural institutions recover as best they could from that disaster.” (Read more in Can You Dig It?.)
Are Video Games the Next Great Art Form?
In 2005, the late film critic Roger Ebert created a storm of controversy when he wrote that video games could never be art. While Ebert wasn’t the first person to address the subject, he was one of the first mainstream critics to do so, and his statement set off a rash of essays, blog posts, and talks arguing for (few) and against (many) his position. The subject has drifted in and out of popular culture ever since, with different scholars weighing in here and there. Recently, a number of museums, including the Smithsonian and MoMA, staged exhibitions featuring video games as art, throwing the topic into focus again. (Read more in Pacific Standard.)
Experimenting with Facebook in the College Classroom
While discussing the nuances of regression analysis, I saw some of my students smiling. It wasn’t a smile of understanding; it was a response to seeing a Facebook comment on their smart phone. I later learned that 99 percent of the students in the research method class were Facebook users, routinely checking for updates ten to twenty times a day. The next semester, I decided to embrace social media and created a Facebook page for the class, which was comprised of twenty-five students. It was actually fun and easy. In less than two hours, I had created a page with relevant material for the course. (Read more in Faculty Focus.)
The Deduction for Charitable Contributions: The Sacred Cow of the Tax Code?
In his most recent budget proposal, President Barack Obama seeks to impose a cap on itemized deductions in the personal income tax return—which includes the deduction for charitable contributions. This provision, part of the administration’s strategy to raise revenue to pay for government spending, has been a part of every White House budget proposal since 2009, and every year arts advocacy organizations join the rest of the nonprofit sector in opposing the changes. So far, the cap has been successfully warded off, but there’s growing concern that if Republicans and Democrats ever agree on sweeping tax reforms, the charitable deduction will be on the chopping block. (Read more in Createquity.)