#aftacon

[mtaartsdesign]

At its annual conference last week, Americans for the Arts’ 2016 Year in Review honored the Second Avenue Subway art installations by Sarah Sze, Chuck Close, Vik Muniz and Jean Shin! Chosen by a jury from 325 entries from North America, awarded projects are considered among the best public art produced in the preceeding year.

[catspupil]

Well so long Minnesota! It's been fun and hectic and I learned a ton, met amazing people and hastily created bucket list items to tick off. Both #aftacon and #pointsoflight were immensely valuable and I came back full of renewed hope and ideas 🎶 As Saturday is #pride I moved the #121212 @artery.is show to next Friday 28th with @stirlingmyles and @kafeeny - please do come along 💜 giveaway pending! Here's me and Mary Tyler Moore throwing it up downtown (thanks @david.doherty) I swear I'm not giving the finger to the sky 😅 Love that dress though, I feel like a watermelon princess in it 🤩 More posts to follow! Including details of the giveaway 💐 (at Minneapolis, Minnesota) https://www.instagram.com/p/By8Jv_OHsO7/?igshid=u1lrijz6dqne

[onesevennine]

Illustration I completed in SF this past week attending the Americans for the Arts Conference. Check out my adventures on onesevennine.com Shout outs to Marita, Elisheba, Ryan, and the Office of Arts and Culture for the SALT grant to send me. #onesevennine #seasalt #AFTACON #seattleofficeofartsandculture #lotus #armor #mano #hand #sanfrancisco #inspiration (at San Francisco, California)

[marcellouslovelace]

2015 The Hue, Stolen Migration of A South Side Colony by Marcellous Lovelace #respect #AFTACON #Chicago #Art #MEMartsquad #hueart #haroldwashingtonlibrary #TheHueStolenMigrationofaSouthSideColony #BIKO70 #soul #nubianart #africanart #art www.marcellouslovelace.com

[hylk]

The one who really gets stuff done. . . . . . . . . #hylsnaps #hylsketchbook #hylartboss #art #instagood #creative #artsy #beautiful #illustration #inspiration #drawing #draw #picture #artist #sketch #sketchbook #paper #pen #pencil #instaart #masterpiece #creative #instaartist #graphic #graphics #illusion #doodle #artboss #aftacon

[bridgetwoodbury]

I'll be at the Americans for the Arts #AFTAmember reception at the Boston Sheraton today at 6pm. All are welcome! Come meet some of our members, ask questions about our programs, and tell me what you think about our new brochure and member pin! #AFTACON #meetmembers 

(More to come soon about the beautiful interior of this brochure and how we arrived at this design!)

[catiyas]

Living the contradiction

“Look. I’ve got this. I’ve got it under control. I know what I’m doing.”

But:

“I don’t know. I’m open to failure. It’s unknown. We’ll work through it together.”

Those two thoughts have been living in my head, battling it out as effective examples of leadership, for what I look for in a leader, for what it takes to make change happen. They seem contradictory. They seem impossible to maintain.

But F. Scott Fitzgerald threw down the gauntlet when he posited that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” The two impulses - certitude and openness - seem contradictory only if you take them at face value, put them directly against each other. They are incomplete on their own. If you have only one without the other, you’ll either drive off a cliff or it implode in a circle.

Articulating the two impulses has been circling around since Pollen’s #LIKEABOSS event on the theme of trust, and found a crystallization in an Americans for the Arts #AFTACON panel discussion on being fearless without becoming reckless. Both of those sessions touched the importance of transparency as a leadership tool, as a way to build trust. If people can see where you’ve been, they can have an idea of where you are going, and how they might help get you there.

I was a table host for the Pollen event and I introduced the topic of asking for help as a quality of leadership. I was particularly struck by one participant’s response, which I’m paraphrasing here: “I’ve always been good at asking for help. My mother died when I was a teenager, and so I had to be open and ask.” There were 2 things about this that jumped out. First, that in her time of grief, she reached out. I feel like the stories we hear about these situations, our own impulses - certainly impulses I’ve wrestled with - are about developing self reliance and becoming self-sufficient. The speaker certainly seemed to be self-sufficient but it was heartening to hear her choice, her path to it.

The other thing that jumped out was about how she said she “had always been” and “had to be” open and ask for help. The speaker was a social worker, a professional help-seeker, and the plain-spoken nature of the statement came, I believe, not from a certainty that was felt then in the moment but from a lifetime of sticking by and practicing that decision to ask for help. It was inspiring.

The other crystallizing moment came at the Americans for the Arts Convening in Chicago this weekend. Maud Lyon, President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance noted in her opening remarks that, “The question is not whether you are fearless, but whether you are facing your fears and willing to do something about it…Being reckless is not doing anything different”

There. That. As my boss at Springboard for the Arts, Laura Zabel, is fond of saying, “Love something. Do something.” That thing doesn’t have to be huge, it doesn’t have to be grand, and if you are unused to making change you should ask for help to build your process. We go farther together, as the saying goes, and our skills improve with practice. There are frameworks for this (see the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s recent article on lean design for nonprofits, check out the toolkits on Creative Exchange for inspiration) if you are the kind of person or in the kind of organization that is looking for change structures to plug in to.

So back to the supposed contradiction.

“Look. I’ve got this. It’s unknown. I know what I’m doing. I’m open to failure. We’ll work through it together.”

That’s a start.

ADDENDUM: In the closing plenary at AFTACON, choreographer Liz Lerman summed this up so brilliantly, saying, “I love risk because I love process.” If you love the process of making things, the way in which we work and explore together, and care for and tend to those interactions, we can take huge risks.

[arts4la]

10 reasons to support the #arts from our friends at #aftacon! Great new ideas for talking points.

[mtaartsdesign]

We are thrilled and proud that Americans for the Arts Year in Review has honored 3 recent mosaic projects installed in Brooklyn on the R line and a Digital Art piece at Fulton Center as being among the best public art produced in North America! Congratulations to the artists for their beautiful work: Katy Fischer for “Strata” (2017) at Bay Ridge Avenue; Mickalene Thomas for “Untitled” (2017) at 53rd Street; Monika Bravo for “Duration” (2017) at Prospect Avenue; and to Chris Doyle for “The Fluid” (2017) at Fulton Center & Dey Street Concourse.

[catspupil]

Both my parents have a day today. Celebrating my dad, who taught me a love of music, how to sew, to measure, saw and mitre to build a decent fence, to play and read music, and to listen. Celebrating my mum, who taught me to cook, to love gardens and nature, how to dress and how to push the envelope. . This is one of my favourite photos of them I have ever taken, on a disposable camera from when I was 13 in Donegal and they came to visit me at Irish college. For anybody who didn't grow up in Ireland, teenagers were sent off to Irish speaking areas known as Gaeltacht to speak Irish exclusively and learn dance and song. Love to them both on this day. Wish I was there to hold nails and tools, or to chop up all the herbs for dinner. 💜 . Lots of photos to follow from #aftacon and Minneapolis but I wanted to take a moment to remember. . . . (at lisfannon beach, inishowen. co. Donegal) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByywEGvnJrR/?igshid=1f738ebm8jeag

[newballetensemble]

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Roman. He is why we all dance. Ballet Fundamentals ... here we come! Watch out world. @lilbuckdalegend @communityartsed @neaarts #aftacon @artsmemphis @choose901 @artworks4kids (at New Ballet Ensemble and School)

[allisonbeckyy]

Golden Gate Bridge // S.F. 🌁❤️ #aftacon (at Sausalito, California)

[hylk]

On the ferry to Sausalito. . . . . . . . . #hylsnaps #hylsketchbook #hylartboss #art #instagood #creative #artsy #beautiful #illustration #inspiration #drawing #draw #picture #artist #sketch #sketchbook #paper #pen #pencil #instaart #masterpiece #creative #instaartist #graphic #graphics #illusion #doodle #artboss #aftacon #sausalito

[bridgetwoodbury]

Humans of #AFTACON - #AFTAmember Speaks

Read more about why these people are members of Americans for the Arts!

Diane Ruggerio, Director - City of Alexandria Office of the Arts

Ken Busby, Executive Director & CEO, Route 66 Alliance

Robin Nigh,  Art Programs Manager, City of Tampa

Rebecca Burrell,  The Right Brain Initiative Outreach Specialist, Regional Arts & Culture Council

Joe Frandoni, Deputy Director, Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County! 

It was so great to see all of you at Convention! Can’t wait for NAMPC in Austin!

[arts4la]

Someone put us on the map t #aftacon! #artsLA

[newballetensemble]

"This election matters ... to every child who deserves a healthy head start in this life. When you wake up with passion, you share passion. We need new artists to rouse us into action. Create the kind of world we want to see. Develop and harness new leadership everywhere in this country, demand that we fund the arts. It's your turn. Even in an election, artists must have the courage to carry us all forward, to be the change we believe exists in this world. Every individual matters. We need to be more involved and have the intensity to carry forth our ideas. There is no one better. Donna Brazille at #aftacon