WESTAF Update Notes #72 | October 2012
From Anthony Radich, Executive Director
This is the 72nd in a continuing series of updates about the work of WESTAF
Professional Development Seminar for Young Leaders of Color
WESTAF’s Multicultural Advisory Committee convened a leadership-development seminar for young leaders of color September 20-21 in Denver. The two-day session brought together young cultural leaders of color throughout the region to engage in professional development coursework and participate in activities designed to help them create a network to support their careers and the cultural interests of the people they represent. The seminar was facilitated by Margie Johnson Reese, vice president of Big Thought. Reese most recently served as a program officer for Media, Arts and Culture for the Ford Foundation in West Africa. New WESTAF trustee Tamara Alvarado co-facilitated the seminar. Alvarado is currently at the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose, California, and previously worked at Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana. Key faculty for the event included Bay Area marketing expert Salvador Acevedo and dancer and communications professor Maisha Fields, who presented a session on using individual diverse identities to be more productive at work and in the community. For more information about the seminar or WESTAF’s Multicultural Advisory Committee, contact Leah Horn.
The Dinner-Vention Project
WESTAF-supported Barry’s Blog will host what blog author Barry Hessenius calls the “Dinner-Vention.” He encourages the field to extend invitations to forward-looking cultural thinkers and leaders to a dinner that will serve as a platform for those who do not yet have power and influence in the field to intervene in the national conversation on big issues of the day. Barry’s Blog readers (8,000 as of last week) are invited to submit the names of people whom they think represent this unheralded group. The dinner will be captured via video and made available online. Find more information at Barry’s Blog.
WESTAF-Sponsored Chicago Arts Festival Conference a Success
The fourth annual Arts Festival Conference, presented by ZAPP®, convened September 6-7 in Chicago and brought together artists, arts festival administrators, and leaders in the visual art festival field. This professional development and future planning conference opened with a presentation by Google’s Cole Nussbaumer titled “Storytelling With Data.” She led conference attendees through an interactive exercise to illustrate how arts festival data can be used to influence and educate audiences and artists participating in arts festivals. Additional presenters included: Sam Bower, co-founder of ArtHERE.org (a website for matching underutilized spaces with art) and founding executive director of greenmuseum.org (an online museum of environmental art); Amelia Northrup, strategic communications specialist at TRG Arts; Adrienne Outlaw, an artist whose work is often informed by emergent bioethical issues and the leader of Seed Space (a lab for artists, writers, and curators); John Spokes, director of development for United States Artists; Barbara Goldstein, public art director for the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs and editor of Public Art by the Book; Jennifer Rapp Peterson, founder of IndieMade.com; and Mark Rowland, director of digital experience at Simple Truth, a Chicago-based brand strategy and communications firm. For a full agenda and/or information about ZAPP®, contact Leah Charney.
IMTour Featured at the Western Arts Alliance Conference
The artists selected for the inaugural 2012 WESTAF Independent Music Tour (IMTour) roster were introduced to presenters at the conference of the Western Arts Alliance (WAA) September 5-8 in Denver. The artists had an opportunity to learn more about the world of nonprofit touring. Integrated into the conference was a performance by IMTour group Paper Bird in collaboration with Ballet Nouveau at Denver’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

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