By Kelundra SmithRecently, on a theatre trip to New York City, I was listening in on a panel hosted by the American Theatre Critics Association that featured diverse playwrights—some of whose work has been mounted on Atlanta stages. After an hour of stirring conversation, I went up to one of the playwrights (who happens to […]
Category: Arts & Culture Seen
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Equality in the Arts: Where is Our Blue Wave?
By Robin Bernat With the midterm elections, we’ve witnessed a sea change in American politics and culture as more women were elected to national and state legislatures. How is this tilt back toward equality reflected in opportunities for artists in Atlanta? The national organization Artadia announced its 2018 awardees from Atlanta: Krista Clark and William […]
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Free Arts Education Helps Metro Atlanta Kids Succeed in School and in Life
By Ariel Fristoe, Co-Artistic Director, Out of Hand Theater Every child should have the opportunity to succeed, but if you’re born in Metro Atlanta, your chances of escaping from poverty are not good; in fact, they’re close to the worst in the nation. This fall, at Atlanta Regional Commission’s Regional Leadership Institute, I learned that […]
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More than Representation: Black Women Artists as Change Agents
By Tiffany LaTrice, Executive Director- TILA Studios Recently, TILA Studios hosted a reading room with Spelman College Museum of Fine Art at the AUC Woodruff Library to facilitate a discussion on Deborah Willis’ book, Posing Beauty. The dialogue was focused on unpacking the power of images as the book explores the ways in which African […]
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Attracting and Maintaining Loyal Arts & Culture Audiences
Terri Theisen is the principal consultant of a management and strategy consulting firm supporting nonprofits, foundations, and academic institutions. She has facilitated the Audience Building Roundtable since 2015. Arts and culture experiences enrich our lives. Arts and culture experiences provoke critical dialogue, challenge our assumptions, and provide a pathway to understand our diverse and complex […]
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Why an Art Gallery is Never Just About What’s On Its Walls
By Yu-Kai Lin, Director of KAI LIN ART 10 years. 500 artists. 97 exhibitions. 27 states. 7,900 cups of coffee, and countless art-filled friendships, I’m so enthused to celebrate a major milestone this year with our Kai Lin Art family. For 10 years, Kai Lin Art has been a gallery that embodies our mission to cultivating […]
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BALLET ON THE MOVE
Is Ballet Hardwired for Touring? By Arturo Jacobus, President & CEO, Atlanta BalletBallet is quite possibly the most mobile large-scale art form in the world.Through the decades, ballet companies such as Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, American Ballet Theater, Joffrey Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Dance Theater of Harlem have had a business model at some point in […]
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The New Normal – Niche Organizations Creating Macro Impact
Tiffany LaTrice, Executive Director, TILA StudiosAccording to Forbes, “one of the biggest media trends of 2018 is going to be the growth of niche content…rather than pursuing a traditional strategy.” Just like major brands target small, niche communities, the art community is pivoting to do the same. The truth is that creatives, art historians, critics, […]
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Soul Food Cypher, a Force for Creative Placemaking in Atlanta’s Little Five Points
Photo above by Anthony “Truth” Gary – SFC’s “One Hundred” cypher gathered over 70 people in the Little Five Points Community Center this past June By Vincent Mitchell By now there is little question of the value of the notion of “creative placemaking:” that cultivation of a community’s arts and its culture can spark socially […]
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The Arts as Community Builders
By Lara Smith, Managing Director, Dad’s Garage If you have a parent who dies, would your co-workers show up to their funeral (even if they’ve never met your parent) simply to support you emotionally? If you have to leave town for a last-minute business trip, do you know who will feed your cat and water […]
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Does arts journalism matter in Atlanta?
By Andrew Alexander Does arts journalism matter in Atlanta? That question is much tougher to answer than it should be. Clearly, I think arts journalism matters (it’s my work, after all). But nothing makes you sound less important than trying to convince someone how important your job is. A better question to get at the […]
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Moving Past ‘Six White Men and One White Woman’ to Arts that Represent our Community
by Travis Sharp, PlaywrightFor me, writing a play isn’t that hard. The hard part is figuring out what to write about, which is probably why I’ve written, and co-written, plays about some pretty stupid things. Zombies. Hormonal teenage werewolves. Singing Ewoks. A woman who hates musicals whose life becomes a musical.The first play I ever […]
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What is Creative Placemaking?
By Brandon Jones, WonderRoot There’s never a shortage of new buzz words circulating the community development sector that energize Grantmakers, provide marketing wins for capital developers, and force administrators to re-strategize programmatic efforts. The recent decade has given way to terms such as placemaking, creative placemaking, place-keeper, etc. All of which, providing significant contributions to […]
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Atlanta’s Extraordinary Talent
By Donya K. Washington, Alliance Theatre Off-site Season Producer Just when I think the folks who work in production can’t impress me anymore, they do. This past year, the Alliance Theatre moved from venue to venue while our space was being renovated – no two venues alike, all with different requirements for our production and […]
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Art enhancing Atlanta’s MARTA Stations
By Matt Terrell, Dad’s Garage Major praise deserves to go to Midtown Alliance for their latest public art collaboration with MARTA’s Midtown Station. The work is focused on a new mural, “Confluence: Burst Forth with A Terrific Noise,” created by Atlanta based artist Andrew Catanese. The mural features Catanese’s signature style of brightly colored organic […]
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Leadership Trainings Builds Stronger Arts Communities
By Lara Smith, Managing Director of Dads GaragePeek into the business world and you’ll see executive of all types enrolling in leadership training courses. Listen to the radio and you’ll inevitably hear calls to enroll in some weekend course on leadership: Leadership for Women, Leading your Sales Team, Leading other Leaders, etc. You can take […]
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What Happens When One of Your Favorite Rappers Joins the Board of an Art Museum?
By Ariel Thilenius, The Woodruff Arts Center Earlier this month, I opened up my Google Alerts to see that one of my favorite rappers, Killer Mike, had joined the board of directors for Atlanta’s own High Museum of Art. I was surprised (although extremely excited) by this news, and eagerly clicked the link to an […]
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The State of the Arts in Atlanta
By Doug Shipman, President and CEO of The Woodruff “How’s your new job at The Woodruff?”I get asked this question a lot.It’s been a full year since I had the pleasure of joining The Woodruff Arts Center as President and CEO, and given that the it’s the first anniversary of the “new” job—it felt like […]
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Let’s Keep Little Five Points Weird
By Matt Terrell (of Dad’s Garage)I firmly believe that a city of our size needs a neighborhood for artists, punks, goths, emos, street poets, and other weirdos to congregate. What makes a community vibrant is the range of people and experiences that that define life there. Not everyone in our society is meant to be […]
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Breaking out of the “emerging nonprofit” mindset
By Erica JamisonOne of the most difficult challenges emerging nonprofits face is breaking out of the “small organization” mentality—where they feel conflicted or uncertain in how to increase capacity and budget while remaining accessible and community-oriented. Though it may come from a place of humility, this mindset can hamper an organization’s growth and longevity. As […]
