Program provides financial empowerment to more than 5,000 local teachers and employees SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI), a pioneer in offering HOPE Inside in its branches announced today plans to expand the HOPE Inside program to Atlanta Public Schools (APS) teachers and employees. HOPE Inside is an award-winning financial empowerment model provided by global for-purpose […]
Author Archives: Thought Leader
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Opening Doors for Arts Leaders
By Doug Shipman, President and CEO of The Woodruff Arts CenterI had the opportunity to join the annual LINK trip organized by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) to San Diego last week. It was a chance to visit another city with a group of regional leaders from Atlanta, including two other arts leaders: Anthony Rodriguez […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Interning at Dad’s Garage: File organization and agendas were never so hilarious!
By Daisy Gould On a Thursday afternoon in mid-March, I was sitting in a windowless office in the back of Dad’s Garage Theatre, making a crown of bacon. Or, I was trying to make a crown of bacon, and struggling superbly at it. Bacon, surprisingly, is an extremely difficult medium to work with because of […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
4th ANNUAL EDUCATION LUNCHEON: Advancing Literacy through the Arts (Part 2)
Part 2 of our interview between Event Co-Chair Ann Cramer and Honoree Comer Yates Be sure to read Part 1 here Ann Cramer: How do you prepare professional development for adults to value it and then do it? Comer Yates: I guess it’s around just having a value system in a school. You start with the […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
4th ANNUAL EDUCATION LUNCHEON: Advancing Literacy through the Arts
Interview between Event Co-Chair Ann Cramer and Honoree Comer Yates Be sure to read part 2 of this interview here Ann Cramer: Comer, you were recently honored at The Woodruff Arts Center’s Education Luncheon. Tell us how you feel the arts advance literacy, either at the Atlanta Speech School or in a larger context. Comer Yates: […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Grow up Great
Featured photo by Alphonso Whitfield By Kristen Buckley, Naserian Foundation Early Childhood Program Manager at the Alliance Theatre Imagine you’re a four year old. You’re learning to negotiate the complicated social rules of school, how to move around in your rapidly growing body, and how to fit all of your young-person excitement for learning about the […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Instagram-Worthy: Sharing Art in the Age of the Museum Selfie
By Ariel Thilenius of The Woodruff Arts Center Fellow museum-goers, there’s no more denying it: the art museum selfie is here to stay. Its ubiquity has even required museums to proactively manage its presence. The next time you visit an art museum, note the ways in which selfies are encouraged—are you invited to participate in […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
A Note to the Entrepreneurial Hustle of Artists and Businesses.
By John Welker of Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre I have been on a wild ride lately. Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre (TMBT) has only been fully operating since this past August when four dancers, Tara Lee, Heath Gill, Christian Clark, and Rachel Van Buskirk convinced me to take an entrepreneurial leap of faith with them. Somewhat […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
An Open Letter to “Struggling Artists”
By Brian Clowdus STOP MAKING EXCUSES! I don’t know about y’all, but I am sick and tired of hearing artists complain, while finding every excuse in the book as to why they are not fulfilled or successful… “My headshots aren’t right.” “They never hire anyone outside of their favorite regulars.” “I have reached my bandwidth.” […]
Posted inFinancial Inclusion, Thought Leader, Uncategorized
#navigatingforward: Civil rights to silver rights
In a historic conversation, entitled “Civil Rights to Silver Rights” two of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest aides, Ambassador Andrew Young and Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. will join John Hope Bryant, founder, chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, to share their reflections and most importantly, a vision towards completing Dr. King’s unfinished work for economic freedom and self-sufficiency—his vision for the […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
What Does World Class Mean?
By Kevin Gillese World Class: If there is one phrase that gets bandied around quite often in Atlanta, particularly in the arts and culture community, it’s this one. Sometimes it feels like Atlantans are so obsessed with becoming “world class” that they don’t see how much of our city is already there. At its most […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Artwashing: Capitalism and Art
By Matthew TerrellWe’ve all heard the term “selling out” – sacrificing artistic purity for the sake of profit. There’s a perennial distrust amongst the arts community of business people, and the effect capitalism has on art. The idea is that caring about profit makes an artist and their work less noble, and destroys their creative […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
How to talk when we don’t know how to talk
By Susan Booth, Jennings Hertz Artistic Director for the Alliance Theatre As I suspect many of you were, I was raised with sharp dictates of what constituted polite conversation. Whether due to faulty memory or puritanical parenting, I largely only remember the thou shalt nots. No religion. No politics. No oversharing of personal information. (That […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Remembrance As Resistance: Art Effecting Change in Changing Communities
By visual artist, Charmaine MinniefieldAn elder once told me, “Your existence is your resistance.” I am an artist activist. My work ranges from acrylic on canvas to large scale murals in communities around the metro area. My public art intentionally pushes back against erasure, misrepresentation and marginalization. I work to preserve the Black narrative (both […]
Posted inFinancial Inclusion, Thought Leader
HOPE Global Forums | 2018 Annual Meeting: Navigating a New World Order
By Operation HOPE, Inc. Registration is now open for the 2018 HOPE Global Forums | Annual Meeting, March 26-28 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis in Downtown Atlanta. With over 3,700 leaders from 45 countries, the Annual Meeting is now the largest gathering in the world focused on the empowerment of the poor and underserved. Our theme: “Navigating a New World Order”. Our […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
One Plus One = Three
Photo above: Dancers Michaela Perdue, Will VanMeter (KSU Dance Company) Photo by Robert Pack By Dr. Ivan Pulinkala, Chairperson, Department of Dance at Kennesaw State University Over the past decade, I have experienced Atlanta’s art community grow in density, complexity, and sophistication, against a landscape ripe with opportunity, discourse, and challenge. An ever increasing populous of promising […]
Posted inUncategorized
Data's Artful Impact
By Lara Smith, Managing Director of Dad’s GarageWhat surprises a lot of people about Dad’s Garage—an Atlanta home for improv and scripted comedy theatre—is that we run much like any other business in town. We have budgets, meetings, strategic planning, and all the other boardroom business just like you. Perhaps the difference is that at […]
Posted inFinancial Inclusion, Thought Leader
The Future of Capitalism
By Operation HOPE, Inc. What does the future of capitalism in America look like? To understand where we’re headed, one has to understand the past. Socioeconomic experts Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School, John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation HOPE, and Seema Hingorani, founder of Seven Step Capital and Girls Who Invest, offer their […]
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Who Are the Artists in Your Neighborhood?
Photo above: Featuring artist, Chris Jones. Photo by Ish Holmes By Jessyca Holland, Executive Director, C4 Atlanta Do you know an artist? Maybe a friend or a cousin? Do you remember when a song expressed in verse and music what you could never express in words alone? Do you ever think about the power behind the iconic images […]
