From Joe Matuzak, Arts Wire Director:
ARTS WIRE YEAR IN REVIEW
It's been a year of transition and changes for Arts Wire, in the
midst of a flurry of activities, and we anticipate far more
changes in the upcoming year.
1998 was a year where Arts Wire staff found itself on the road a
tremendous deal, at conferences and workshops all across the
country. Arts Wire has always had a strong presence at
conferences, being on panels, running tech centers, and giving
one-on-one assistance, but increasingly Arts Wire has
found strong demand for more sustained workshops tailored to
specific constituencies, and has reacted accordingly.
Over the course of the year, Arts Wire staff gave over 40
workshops in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan,
Colorado, California, and elsewhere that focussed on helping
artists and arts organizations gain basic skills in digital
literacy, on developing and building web projects, and on
helping organizations develop plans for dealing with technology.
Kudos go in particular to Beth Kanter, whose tireless work
developing and revising workshop materials and approaches has kept
them fresh and relevant. As an outgrowth of these efforts, Arts
Wire also maintains an online set or ever-evolving and changing
courseware for these workshops. This courseware, and some of the
creations of workshop participants, is freely available to
anyone at
http://www.artswire.org/spiderschool/workshops. Look for
this area to change in the next couple of months as we restructure
and update it.
Arts Wire's activities at conferences included significant
contributions in developing and participating in the New York
State Council for the Arts'
Governor's Conference on Arts &
Technology: Circuits. Arts Wire staff was instrumental in creating
and maintaining the web area for the conference, resource materials for
the conference, and also broadcast portions of the conference live via
Real Audio. (Archives of these activities are available at the
site.) Arts Wire staff also participated in conference held by
Americans for the Arts, the National Association of Artists
Organizations, Arts Midwest, the Ohio Arts Council, and a number
of other organizations.
Arts Wire maintained and strengthened its cooperative venture with the
Master of Arts Management Program at Carnegie Mellon University, working
with staff and students there on a variety of projects, including a
multi-state cultural calendar initiative (much more about that in 1999!)
We also continued to make the shared server a home for a large number of
organizations, adding the domains of, among others,
The Black Writers Institute,
John Maxwell Hobbs' CinemaVolta,
Kirov Mariinsky Opera International,
the North Carolina Arts Council,
the New Jersey State Council on
the Arts, the Westbeth artists
community, P-Form Magazine,
and the National Association of Artists
Organizations.
Arts Wire now hosts dozens of domains for individual artists,
service organizations and arts councils large and small. In
addition, Arts Wire hosts web sites, listservs, and/or
conferencing areas for a wide variety of
groups and projects, including Opera America, Open Studio, the
Empire State Project, and many, many others. With some of these
groups we have been instrumental in the design and production of
the sites themselves, with others we've played strictly a
supporting role. Maintaining a home that has sufficient
flexibility for these and other parties, and balancing access,
reliability and cost, is an ongoing effort. Much of the success
of these efforts has been due to the hard work of Doug Cohen, who
joined us as Systems Coordinator in the waning days of 1997.
On that note, during 1998 we said goodbye to Barry Lasky, one of
the staff members who was key in Arts Wire's development, both
technical and philosophical. Barry, our long-suffering technical
director, was responsible for countless innovations at Arts Wire,
working to design our interface, smoothing our transition several
years back when we moved to Carnegie Mellon University's server,
and developing mechanisms and designs that have made Arts Wire's
small staff be able to cope with its workload. Only now, close
to eight months after his departure, are we getting to the point
where we're starting to feel comfortable handling all those things
he handled. Happy New Year to you, Barry, and all luck in the
future.
The last important piece I want to note is that Current itself has
undergone much change and expansion during 1998, and all of the
credit for that goes to its diligent and hard-working editor, Judy
Malloy, with support form the List Foundation. Current has been
incorporated more directly into Arts Wire's web area, search
capabilities have been added, and job opportunities (which have
been coming to us in an ever-greater flood) have been broken out
into their own area.
I could go on and on, but I want to take a moment to thank all of
Arts Wire's staff for their efforts, as they have worked generally
far beyond their allotted hours to get things done, and have
maintained unfailingly their enthusiasm and professionalism.
Thanks also must go out to the staff of Arts Wire's parent
organization, the New York Foundation for the Arts, (NYFA)
without whose support everything would have been impossible. One
of the under-the-surface efforts this year was to try to improve
cooperation and communication between Arts Wire and the greater
whole of NYFA, and I can truly say that those efforts have borne
fruit and look to bear still more. Arts Wire was part of a
substantial assessment and planning process at NYFA,
and that effort has helped define future directions. Particular
recognition should go to Ted Berger, whose unfailing championing
of Arts Wire is a source of constant strength, to Kevin Duggan for
his patience, attention to detail, and ongoing enthusiasm and good
humor, and to Sarah Pierce and Jeff Fischer of NYFA's Development
Department, whose efforts have allowed us to spend less time this
year worrying about survival and more time working toward our
goals.
I want to end by noting quickly and briefly some of what we expect to
have happen in the months ahead.
We are in the closing stages of adding another server to the mix,
and expect to have our upgrade and reconfiguration process well in
hand by the end of January. This is an effort that's been ongoing
since September, and we're finally at the point where we'll begin
to see the payoff. We have already added significant storage
space, and are in the process of updating practically every piece
of software we use, and adding some exciting new tools. Once this
is done, we expect to undertake a major overhaul of our site and
services, the planning of which is underway at this time. One
aspect we've been less than pleased with is the amount of
resources we've had to dedicate to core resources and community,
and we are going to work to strengthen those aspects. We will also
continue our workshop efforts, and they will be matched by a
strong effort to work individually with a number of organizations
on more long-terms planning efforts, as part of a grant
effort funded by the Mott Foundation. We also expect to develop
and unveil a new set of online resources for helping artists and
arts organizations make sense of this new technology.
But more about all of this later. We come to the end of another
year, and I hope the rest of the arts community is as excited as
we are about moving forward into a fresh year filled with new
opportunities. For me personally, the opportunity to continue to
interact with the talented and enthusiastic people I work with at
NYFA and Arts Wire, and with those I come in contact
with in the field at large, is cause enough for thanks and
celebration, and to all of you I lift my glass and wish you good
health and good art.
Joe Matuzak
Arts Wire Director
1998 - THE ARTS YEAR IN REVIEW
With a new round of National Endowment for the Arts grants, a
series of unsettling mergers of dominant Internet and publishing
players, and a victory for a student's art work, the year of 1998
draws to a close.
In this final week of 1998, before we begin the new year of 1999
-- which, because it leads relentlessly into the new millennium,
seems particularly significant -- Arts Wire CURRENT offers an
informal review of the concluding year's arts news.
The events listed below are by no means all the arts news and
events which we covered in 1998. In August, Arts Wire added an
Excite search engine for Arts Wire CURRENT. To find other stories
in the CURRENT archives as far back as 1995, please visit
http://www.a-
rtswi
re.org/current/AT-Currentquery.html
And, as always, your news is welcome! Send it to
jmalloy@artswire.org
Judy Malloy
Editor Arts Wire Current
NEA FUNDING REMAINS LEVEL DESPITE RIGHT-FUELED ELIMINATION
DANCE
The $136 Million that President Clinton asked for the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for FY99 in February was, in June,
briefly reduced by the House Subcommittee to zero, but a few
weeks later, the full House restored NEA funding.
"The House vote is both a real and symbolic victory for the Arts
Endowment and its bipartisan supporters. The old debate over the
existence of the NEA finally has given way to a more thoughtful
dialogue about the appropriate level of federal arts funding in
America," NEA Chairman William Ivey said, according to Americans for
the Arts. "It is now time to move ahead with the important work of
this agency."
The Senate rejected an amendment to eliminate NEA funding and in
October, the Arts Endowment held level with $98.6 million, the
amount appropriated in FY98.
"In the end, Congress took the easy route on federal arts spending
for 1999 and held money for the National Endowment for the Arts
level with last year," the National Assembly of State Arts
Agencies (NASAA) stated.
The National Endowment for the Humanities also received level
funding in the final bill, at $110.7 million. The Office of Museum
Services' appropriation went up for administrative expenses by
about $100,000 -- for a total of $23.4 million in FY99.
NASAA noted that even though there was no increase in the NEA
FY99 budget, this year there were strong votes in the House and
Senate to defeat efforts at completely eliminating funds for the
Arts Endowment.
"Advocates made clear the message that the American public favors
spending federal tax dollars in support of the arts," NASAA
stated. "In fact, at a national legislative meeting in September,
leaders of the Christian Coalition conceded that the fight to
abolish the National Endowment for the Arts had been lost."
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
BILL IVEY IS INAUGURATED AS NEA CHAIRMAN
William J. Ivey, nominated by President William Clinton as the
seventh Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was
unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on Thursday, May
21, 1998. Ivey succeeded Jane Alexander, whose term as Endowment
Chairman ended in October 1997.
>From 1971 to 1998, Ivey, a folklorist, musician, teacher, writer,
and arts administrator, was Director of the Country Music
Foundation in Nashville, Tennessee which operates the Country
Music Hall of Fame and Museum. As the Foundation's leader, he
worked to encourage the investment of public dollars to promote
cultural tourism, advance arts education, and increase community
resources.
In September, in a speech at the National Press Club, Ivey
asserted the value of arts funding. "We all understand it is
important that we have the ability to defend ourselves against
external threats, but I would argue that advancing our living
cultural heritage, and nurturing our national creativity,
constitute a kind of 'internal defense' in which we
preserve our values and strengthen our citizenry," the WASHINGTON
POST quoted him as saying.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
NEW NEA PROGRAMS FOCUS ON UNDERSERVED AREAS;
IVEY PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR ARTISTS
In addition to the existing funding categories: Creation &
Presentation; Planning & Stabilization; Creative Writing
Fellowships; Education & Access; Heritage & Preservation;
Leadership Initiatives; and Partnership Agreements, this year new
NEA sponsored or funded programs included ArtsREACH and the
Heartland Arts Fund.
The pilot ArtsREACH project provides modest grants to partnerships
of cultural, business, social, government, civic, and religious
organizations in states which received five or fewer direct Arts
Endowment grants during one of the previous two years. A total of
$730,000 was distributed to 20 underserved states with Tennessee,
South Dakota, Iowa, South Carolina and Indiana and Alabama
receiving substantial amounts.
The Heartland Arts Fund, a collaboration between Arts Midwest and
the Mid-America Arts Alliance -- the first time two regional
organizations have collaborated on a primary program, sharing
artistic and financial resources -- awarded 345 grants totaling
more than $640,000 to arts presenters throughout 15 midwestern and
central states who will work with a wide variety of performing
artists. The Arts Endowment, which provided more than $550,000, is
the Fund's primary financial contributor.
Recently awarded FY99 Leadership Initiatives, projects which are
considered arts community models included $500,000 to the Benton
Foundation to support the third phase of Open Studio; and $100,000 to
The Kennedy Center to support ArtsEdge, the national arts
education information network.
In September, Ivey not only advocated a return to funding
individual artists but also said the Arts Endowment was
interested in funding art and technology. He noted that "there is
no more important investment in our nation than fostering
individual creativity," according to the WASHINGTON POST.
"Increasing that money substantially is one of my priorities," he
said.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
SUPREME COURT RULES THAT NEA CAN DENY GRANTS ON INDECENCY
On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can
deny grants to artists when their work is considered indecent. In
an 8-1 decision, The Court determined that the policy does not
violate artists' free-speech rights and that Arts Endowment can
consider decency, as well as artistic merit, in deciding who gets
public money for the arts.
Artists and art organizations all over the country expressed
concerns about the effect of the ruling. "What is most
disheartening is that the justices did not understand the chilling
effect that this language has had upon the arts community," said
Roberto Bedoya, Executive Director of The National Association of
Artists' Organizations. (NAAO)
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
STATE ARTS FUNDING REACHES NEW HIGH
The nation's 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies received a
total appropriation of $305.36 million for fiscal year 1998,
according to a survey published by the Assembly of State Arts
Agencies. (NASAA)
NASAA noted that this is the highest dollar total of arts agency
funding ever awarded by state government. In 1998, total state
arts agency appropriations increased 12.3 percent, which
translated collectively into an appropriation of 113.29 cents per
person for the arts.
"This year's growth in state arts agency appropriations outpaced
the overall growth in state government spending," said Jonathan
Katz, NASAA executive director. "This growth represents the
confidence that governors and state legislators have in their
state arts agencies to provide funds and services in ways that
effectively broaden citizen access to and participation in the
arts."
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
COMMUNITY ARTS GROWTH A RECURRENT THEME
From a $625,000 amphitheater on the Manassas campus of Northern
Virginia Community College, funded entirely by private donations,
to the Greater Flint Arts Council's new Home in the Peerless
building which came about as part of a community effort to save a
mural on the building, every month in 1998 brought stories of
community arts growth -- fueled partially (in addition to national
and state arts funding) by foundation giving, by community effort,
by the efforts of arts advocates, and by a rise in business
giving.
Museum construction and attendance were also on the rise,
according to the WASHINGTON POST which stated that in the last
decade, $4 billion to $5 billion has been spent on museum capital
programs nationwide. "In Los Angeles alone, cultural organizers
have built nine museums in the past 10 years," Jacqueline
Trescott wrote in the Post. "New museums are going up
everywhere; old ones are getting face lifts or additions. People
are crowding the new and revived buildings, and attendance records
are being set."
A triennial survey commissioned by the Business Committee for the
Arts, Inc. found that U.S. business support for the arts in 1997
had reached a record $1.16 billion, up from the $875 million given
in 1994.
"Private donations [to the arts] are up because the stock market's
doing great, companies are feeling flush, consumer confidence is
up," said Randy Cohen, research and information director for
Americans for the Art. "All are certainly contributing factors to
individual willingness and the capacity to make a philanthropic
donation." Americans for the arts figures indicated that private
sector support of the arts grew to approximately $10.9 billion in
1997, a 7 percent increase from the year before.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the Overture Foundation gave $50 million
for a downtown cultural arts district. Foundation chairman
W. Jerome "Jerry" Frautschi intends that the project provide
performance, exhibition, rehearsal, administration and storage
space for local arts. Frautschi credited recent studies -- such as
a report done in fall 1996 which showed that Madison is rich in
performing and visual arts but poor on facilities to present them
-- as inspiration for the donation.
The Mayor of Atlanta restored funding to the City Gallery at
Chastain after receiving an outpouring of support for that
institution from the arts community of this city, as well as the
residents of the area, according to a report from Ruth Resnicow,
former editor in chief of ART PAPERS. "It is a rare occasion of
a city government responding to an unorganized protest on the part
of art lovers and professionals," Resnicow wrote. "Who Says You
Can't Fight City Hall--And Win?!"
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
STUDIES, PLANS DOCUMENT ARTS GROWTH
Several key studies, documentation, plans were produced or introduced
this year, including in Denver and Albuquerque. In Charlotte, North
Carolina, a poll showed that residents would pay more for arts, and from
Maine to Texas, community plans integrated area resources to showcase
local arts for tourists.
In Denver, a survey found that the total attendance at
performances and programs offered by scientific and cultural
organizations in exceeded the combined 1996-97 season home game
attendance of the Colorado Rockies, Colorado Avalanche, Denver
Nuggets, and Denver Broncos by more than 2.3 million visitors.
A far reaching CULTURAL PLAN FOR ALBUQUERQUE, saw its first public
review this year. "To capitalize on the unrealized economic
potential of the arts, Albuquerque should be promoted as an arts
city, and a city that respects, supports and provides a nurturing
environment for artists and their families," the plan states.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
ALTERNATIVE SPACE SURVIVAL STRUGGLES DOCUMENTED IN ART IN AMERICA
In a comprehensive article in the November issue of ART IN
AMERICA, Robert Atkins chronicled the survival struggles of
alternative arts spaces in the late nineties.
Citing the "Culture Wars", public disinvestment and ill-considered
foundation mandates, Atkins reviewed the demise, retrenchment
and/or consolidation with other organizations of Chicago's
N.A.M.E; Franklin Furnace; Art Matters; Washington Project for
the Arts; (absorbed by the Corcoran Gallery) Capp Street Project;
(incorporated into the exhibition program of California College of
Arts and Crafts) and Chicago's Randolph Street Gallery.
Atkins emphasized that there is a lot at stake if you think of the
art world as an ecosystem. "...the withering away of alternative
spaces not only limits diversity--that is the range of artistic
visions presented to audiences--but impairs the prospects of the
vast number of future artists who might develop their skills at
these art-making laboratories," he writes.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, CONTENT-DRIVEN FUNDING BATTLES CONTINUE; THE
ARTS FIGHT BACK
Freedom of Expression and content-driven funding battles continued
across the nation, but in many cases artists and organizations
successfully fought back.
In New York City, Terrence McNally's CORPUS CHRISTI, a play which
follows a young gay man named Joshua on his spiritual journey,
opened despite a planned series of demonstrations against the play
by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
In San Antonio, Texas, The Esperanza Center and other groups,
which had been defunded because of the content of their
exhibitions, filed a lawsuit against the City of San Antonio in
Federal District Court. The lawsuit sought "to ensure fairness and
respect for all people and to protect the fundamental principles
of diversity, democracy, and justice." It called for the City
Council to: restore funding for the arts groups; remove prejudice
and favoritism from public funding in the future; comply with the
Texas Open Meetings Act; and respect the principles of free
speech.
"Respeto es basico -- basic to family, community, and democracy,"
says Graciela Sanchez, executive director of the Esperanza Center.
"This means we must have respect for other people, for different
points of view, and even respect for those who we don't agree
with."
In Grants Pass Oregon, when the town's mayor insisted that the
city maintain the right to censor the museum's exhibitions,
instead of participating in a planned joint venture on city
property, the Board of Directors of the Grants Pass Museum of Art
in Oregon, acquired a downtown building for their new space.
A Board member told The National Campaign for Freedom of
Expression (NCFE) that the board received a favorable response
from the community for standing up for and speaking out in defense
of its artistic freedom and the artistic freedom its artists and
audience members.
And in Philadelphia in October, a federal judge halted enforcement
of a federal Internet censorship law until its constitutionality
is ultimately resolved in court. "Our clients, David Talbot, CEO
of Salon Magazine and Norman Laurila, President of A Different
Light Bookstores, provided compelling testimony today that if this
law were not enjoined, they might be forced to shut down their
websites altogether," said Ann Beeson, ACLU National Staff
Attorney.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
MONOPOLIES THREATEN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS
In the publishing world, Bertelsmann acquired Random House. Simon
& Schuster was sold to a British Publisher. Barnes & Noble (B&N)
and Bertelsmann joined forces to partner an online book store.
B&N announced its intention to buy Nation's Largest Book
Wholesaler.
"I find this to be blatantly anti-competitive," THE WASHINGTON
POST quoted American Booksellers Association (ABA) chief executive
Avin Mark Domnitz as saying about B&N's intention to acquire
Ingram. "It threatens the diversity and availability of books to
all consumers, and will be challenged in every legal way possible
by the ABA on behalf of independent booksellers."
And in December, as the Federal Trade Commission confirmed that it
will investigate both the proposed purchase of the Ingram Book
Group by B&N and B&N's agreement to sell half of
barnesandnoble.com to the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann,
B&N and Microsoft Joined Forces Online
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
NEW ARTS ASSESSMENT SHOWS FEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR MOST
STUDENTS
At the same time that studies continued to show the importance of
the arts in education, The National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) 1997 Arts Report Card, released in November.
showed that while 81 percent of schools report that their
students are taught music at least once a week, only one in four
eighth-graders in these programs report actually singing or
playing a musical instrument at least once a week. In addition,
less than one in four students attend schools where dance or
theater is offered.
U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said that "This NAEP
assessment verifies that most American children are infrequently
or never given serious instruction or performance opportunities in
music, the arts, or theater -- that's wrong.
At a time when creativity and communication skills are at a
premium, arts should be used for their rich potential to captivate
and engage students in the process of learning."
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
ARTS PRESENCE ON THE INTERNET CONTINUES TO INCREASE
Arts presence on the Internet -- part of Arts Wire's mission since
1992 -- continued to increase, and Arts Wire was chosen from 800
entries to be a semifinalist in the GII INFRASTRUCTURE AWARDS.
The Guggenheim launched a digital art program with Shu Lea
Cheang's Brandon. The Walker Art Center announced the formation
of a new Digital Art Study Collection and the acquisition of the
complete archives of the ada'web, a site for the creation and
distribution of Web-specific artworks. New Venue launched an
online film festival, and the National Arts and Disability Center
launched ArtsACCESS, an online conference on arts and disabilities
for the arts community.
Offering both an extensive public web site and in depth services
for members that range from web hosting to art talk, Arts Wire
continued to fulfill its original mission -- "to provide the arts
community a communications network that has, at its core, the
strong voices of artists and community-based cultural groups."
The ARTS WIRE MAP --
http://www.artswire.org/NEWmap.html -- a
diverse collection of web art and web arts resources maintained by
Arts Wire members and Arts Wire staff continued to grow - with
new additions this year including 3-legged dog; 18th St Arts
Complex; Black Writers Institute; Shirley Sneve's A Story of
Mothers and Daughters in South Dakota; A Decade of Dance
Preservation Symposium Papers; Colorado Artist Register
Newsletter; P-Form; Rockville Arts Place; and many more.
The Arts Wire Map is complimented by WEBBASE --
http://www.artswire.org/webbase/main.cgi -- a database of cultural
--- resources to which everyone in the Cultural sector is invited
to contribute. Among the hundreds of new arts web sites added
this year were: Alabama Arts; Artscope.net; Evergreen Review; the
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts; New Museum of
Contemporary Art; Pyro Cafe Down Under; and Women in History on
Stage.
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
IT WAS AN ART FILLED YEAR!
It was an art filled year -- from January when Current reported
that Cuban Musicians would be allowed to attend a Miami event; to
March when the New York Governor's Conference on Arts & Technology
emphasized sharing significant applications of new technologies
for art-making and when Artrain rolled thru Gilroy on its Way to
Walla Walla; to April's GOT LOST/A'JANA'ZHAYA: TRADITIONS/NEW
VISIONS in Banff Canada; to the BLACK THEATRE IN AMERICA
CONFERENCE III at the 2nd ANNUAL HARLEM BLACK SUMMER ARTS FESTIVAL
and Great Leap's summer Celebration of 20 Years in the community
in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles; to
LUNCHTIME@THE WALL in November
at ThunderGulch in New York City, to a nationwide DAY WITHOUT ART
in December.
In 1998 an anonymous California Bay area woman was so moved after
she saw Eve Queler leading the Opera Orchestra of New York that
she donated $1 million to give advanced training and career
guidance to 30 selected women conductors. The women will be
eligible for coaching and study with a master conductor, and will
receive money to help fill gaps in their careers.
In the Spring, Current reported that The NEA Army, a Seattle
artists collective had applied for a grant from the NEA. "Give us
all of the money!" they said. With an NEA grant of $99.5 million,
the NEA Army proposed to procure approximately one-twentieth of a
single portion of a B-2 Stealth Bomber. "This ought to be enough
for part of one of the wings," they stated. "If the annual budget
further shrinks as a result of Congressional action, so be it.
We'll just start with the tailpipe and inch our way forward until
the remaining money is gone."
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in June and July, LOVE MAKES THE FAMILY was
an exhibition of photo and text depicting 20 families that include
gay or lesbian parents, grandparents, or children.
In July, Stephen Wilson's installation CRIMEZYLAND transformed a
San Francisco City lot into a living "map" that created light,
motion, and sound in correspondence to the level of crimes being
committed in various San Francisco districts at various times of
day.
The 1998 New York Governor's Arts Awards Honorees included DANCE
THEATER WORKSHOP's David White. Mayor Willie Brown appointed
Lawrence Ferlinghetti the First San Francisco Poet Laureate. In
New Hampshire, Robert MacNeil affirmed artist's viewpoints at a
ceremony for I. M. Pei.
In Vermont, in the fall, artists, educators, musicians, farmers
and business people in Vermont joined together join to present art
exhibitions and events throughout the state in THE HAY PROJECT, a
collaboration of Shelburne Farms, the Vermont Department of
Agriculture, the University of Vermont and many other
organizations statewide.
Because each artist contributed an edition of over fifty prints,
all exhibitons of the Texas-based COLORPRINT 98, which opened in the
fifty-one museums and art galleries coast to coast in November,
simultaneously exhibited the same show.
".....perhaps most importantly," Boston-based Do While Studio
wrote of a global Internet event they hosted, "World Wide
Simultaneous Dance offers the opportunity to build a community of
people who think it would be beautiful and important to know that
at some point in our lives, there were people dancing all over the
world."
Selected 1998 Arts Wire CURRENT Coverage:
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
CURRENT JOB LISTINGS
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Media and Music Technology,
University of Michigan, (Ann Arbor, MI)
LITERARY ARTS PROGRAMMER, South Carolina Humanities Council,
(Columbia, SC)
ACTIVITIES INSTRUCTOR, Worcester Art Museum, (Worcester, MA)
YOUTH WORKSHOP INSTRUCTOR, Worcester Art Museum, (Worcester, MA
PROFESSIONAL FELLOWSHIPS, OPERA America, (New York City, NY)
OUTREACH AND EDUCATION COORDINATOR, Northern Virginia Youth
Symphony Association (NVYSA), (Annandale, VA - just outside
Washington, DC)
YOUTH JAZZ COORDINATOR, Sedona Jazz on the Rocks, (Sedona, AZ)
GRAPHIC DESIGNER, Malone Displays, (Decatur, Ga)
ASSISTANT TO THE EXE WEB REPORTS
Arts Wire's website at
http://www.artswire.org is a
central place to visit the cyberhomes of the diverse artists and art
organizations who are Arts Wire members. As New Year's Eve
approaches, CURRENT invites readers to visit the home page of
the Gang of Pour.
GANG OF POUR --
http://www.gangofpour.com/gop.html -- is a
loose-knit group of friends and acquaintances based in the
Metropolitan Detroit area.
"Initially we were just four friends with a love of wine and a
thing for computers, but increasingly, we've welcomed new
compadres from various Internet wine bulletin boards and
discussion groups. Free spirits all, the membership includes
artists, musicians, members of the food and wine industry, and
computer geeks of various disciplines. New characters continue to
pop up, as more bottles are uncorked," they write on this wine
information and story filled web site which follows the Gang of
Pour from Michigan to California -- in search of good company and
good wine.
Join them drinking Venge Sangiovese in Napa "a delight, with nice
spicy red currant/black cherry flavors and aromas. The Cab wowed
us with its rich spicy sweet oak/cherry/red currant flavors and
aromas" or for breakfast at a picnic area with an incredible view
of the entire Silicon Valley. Breakfast consisted of
"Mesquite-grilled skirt steak (anointed with garlic, vermouth,
olive oil, thyme, 30-yr old zinfandel vinegar), Potato salad,
Siena (enlivened with olive oil, roasted shallots, arugula,
pancetta, cracked pepper, fresh herbs), accompanied by a glass of
1982 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mtns."
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