This week we celebrated the 10th anniversary of National Arts in Education Week with a blog series, a star-studded virtual conversation, and a campaign to share stories and take a stand on behalf of arts education across the country. 

Several Artists Committee members participated in a pre-show event at the Democratic National Convention to discuss ways that artists are getting involved in the 2020 election. Also this week, meet one of our youngest members and our new Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Fellows, learn about an innovative arts + healthcare festival, and join us in saying goodbye to visual artist Luchita Hurtado, who passed away at age 99.

Americans for the Arts and its partners, The Joyce Foundation and American Express Foundation, welcome the second cohort in the Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Fellowship. The ACLC Fellowship program continues to invest in mid-career arts administrators of color across the Great Lakes region through a year-long professional development program. This year we selected 16 fellows to participate in creating systemic change in national arts leadership.

We are excited this week to have launched #ArtsCreateHope, a new social media campaign designed to remind the public that the arts are essential to the fabric of our lives. We hope you will watch and share our short, uplifting video with your networks and friends, and please take to social media to share your stories of how the arts create hope for you. We could all use a little lift from each other!

The Smithsonian, National Archives, and Library of Congress have launched a social media campaign for the month of August, #19SuffrageStories, to bring stories of suffragists and their fight for voting rights to social media. The campaign marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment and features stories of suffragettes who often have been overlooked.

Dr. Elizabeth Alexander is the President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the country’s largest funder of arts and culture. This year, they’re working with a grantmaking budget of $500 million, every dollar of which will go towards social justice projects. On the NBC news podcast “Into America,” host Trymaine Lee spoke with Alexander about pain, philanthropy, and poetry.

As we close out July and begin to round the corner toward the end of summer, things are heating up on the arts advocacy front. Congress is currently negotiating a new coronavirus relief bill, and two letters asking for relief for the arts went to Capitol Hill this week: one signed by one of our longest-standing strategic partners, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and another led by our Artists Committee and signed by more than 260 artist advocates.

Cultural equity is at the heart of this week's roundup. Read on to learn more about Eddy Kwon, a musician whose work is centered in equitable community development; to meet this year's Diversity in Arts Leadership interns; to explore self advocacy and self care for artists and administrators of color; and to see how civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was true champion of the arts. 

Matthew Cooper is one of the artists commissioned by the Arts Council of Indianapolis to create murals in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. Previously, Cooper worked with and studied under the artist ISH during the creation of his 2019 mural “Three Kings,” which was commissioned by Jiffy Lube of Indiana (a 2019 Arts and Business Partnership Awardee) as part of their mural project. 

New York City's budget plan for the 2021 fiscal year includes devastating cuts to art education in the city’s public schools, despite a celebrity-backed campaign, Arts are Essential, to keep funding in place. These funding cuts further deprive all students of receiving an equitable education through the public school system. 

Interviews with nine black artists and cultural leaders, described by The New York Times Style Magazine as being "a voice of this moment," discuss their work and personal experiences about being black, and creating and showcasing their art in America. Amy Sherald, Michael R. Jackson, and others discuss the challenges and opportunities of cultivating black audiences and dismantling historically white institutions through their art. 

The first of its kind in the nation, the new cultural policy provides direction and guidelines for how Los Angeles County and its departments will ensure that every resident of LA County has meaningful access to arts and culture. In its inaugural year of the newly established Department of Arts and Culture, the adoption of the Cultural Policy is another milestone in the County’s support of the arts. 

This week: As we pause today to celebrate and reflect on the history of Juneteenth, read the next entry in our ARTSblog series on the incredible musicians who were finalists for this year's Johnson Fellowship. We’re also looking forward to the first-ever virtual Annual Convention and Public Art & Civic Design conference, including the Nancy Hanks Lecture.

Helen Eaton has served as Settlement Music School’s CEO since 2010. One of the largest community schools of the arts in the country, Settlement has a 112-year history of arts education without barriers, providing over $2.6 million in financial aid every year to its students. 

The 33rd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy will be presented live as the opening keynote presentation of the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention and Public Art & Civic Design Conference on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 11:30 a.m. ET. Americans for the Arts is pleased to welcome as its speaker Vijay Gupta, acclaimed violinist, social justice advocate, 2018 MacArthur Fellow, and Americans for the Arts board member. The lecture is free and attendees can register online. Gupta will be introduced by the Honorable Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

Americans for the Arts’ offices will be closed this Friday in recognition of Juneteenth, and staff will be using this day to better inform ourselves of the historical significance of Juneteenth and to reflect on the systems of racial injustice that have been set in this country for centuries. We urge you and your organizations to also use this day to learn, reflect, and take action.

As the country continues to reckon with the murder of George Floyd, artists are responding and considering how to create lasting change across the sector and in their cities and towns. And as the COVID crisis continues, our newly launched Arts Agency Action Kit provides research and strategies for arts organizations to make the case for preserving their agency.

It's been an exceptionally difficult week. Americans for the Arts believes Black Lives Matter, and shares in the outrage people across the country are feeling. In programming news, this week we launched two professional development opportunities with a particular focus toward individuals who are traditionally underrepresented in the arts field.

In the statement, “Arts Education Is Essential,” the signing organizations convey that the arts already have played a pivotal and uplifting role during the health crisis, and that arts education can help all students, including those who are in traditionally underrepresented groups, as students return to school next year. 

It's been a busy week! Catch up on the week's research news, including two survey results and a new one you can participate in. Plus: blogs reflecting on the COVID pandemic, a powerful story on cultural organizing, a webinar exploring how to navigate conversations on cultural equity, and much more.

This week, we invited you to join a virtual roundtable conversation with three local arts agency leaders, made plans for virtual celebrations of the arts, and opened registration for the online version of our National Arts Action Summit—because even a pandemic can’t cancel the need for the arts! 

This week, COVID-related losses and challenges continue to dominate many stories about the arts and culture sector, but we're also focusing on hopeful opportunities for leadership and community engagement. Our three-part DIAL Labs series began on ArtsU; the free professional development webinars are for early- and mid-career arts leaders who want to hone skills for navigating the field. We also republished a conversation with a California arts champion who's using her dance studio and its deep community roots to keep youth and families safe and informed during the COVID-19 crisis.

This week, we explored the CARES Act stimulus relief package and which parts of the law relate to the arts and culture sector, creative pricing strategies for artists (becoming ever more important in the current economy), and a new resource to help artists and municipal governments partner on community-minded projects. 

The application deadline for the 2020 Fellowship cohort has been extended until July 5, 2020, and the full-time job eligibility requirement for the program has been waived in order to expand access to those whose employment has been affected by the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This week, the world's focus turns squarely to the evolving Coronavirus pandemic—and so does ours. Regrettably, this has meant cancelling our upcoming National Arts Action Summit and postponing the Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy. We've also created a new Resource and Response Center for the arts & culture field, including a short survey asking you to tell us the economic impact the crisis is having on your organization.

“Cultural Equity in the Public Art Field” is the first in a series of resources to be launched this year that aims to help public art administrators and other local arts practitioners to move the needle forward in understanding what cultural inequities exist in programs and processes and how to address them. 

This week: Like much of the country, we're keeping an eye on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), monitoring responses and preparations, and have gathered information to assist the field. We also announced applications for this year's Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Fellowship, and released a new resource examining cultural equity in the public art field.

Americans for the Arts announces applications for the second year of the Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Fellowship for emerging and mid-career arts, culture, and heritage leaders of color across arts disciplines in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and the Twin Cities. Apply by April 3, 2020.

The Forum programs are a professional development opportunity that includes peer exchange, leadership skill development, and artmaking for leaders in four unique demographics. The deadline to apply for this year's programs is April 24, 2020. 

This week saw the release of the Trump administration's FY21 budget with its repeated proposal to eliminate our nation's cultural agencies, a look at at 2020 trends we think will impact the arts, and big wins in arts funding at the state level. Read on for the news of the week!