Stories
Aug 28, 2015
"A healthy community is a safe community," says Ronald Davis, the Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing (COPS) of the US Department of Justice. "The greatest deterrent to crime and violence is not a community saturated with cops, it is a neighborhood alive with residents." This quote was recounted to us by Devinder Culver, the... Read More
Aug 30, 2015
Today we announced an $18 million investment in six place-based organizations around the country to incorporate arts & culture into their community development work. In this post, our Deputy Director and Community Development Investments Program Manager Lyz Crane reflects on the moment.
Today’s announcement of the Community Development Investments program participants feels like a commencement to me: a culmination of... Read More
Sep 04, 2015
As we've continued unpacking the ArtPlace matrix, a pattern has emerged: each sector intersects with and is impacted by several others. Transportation (the mechanisms by which citizens navigate their community including sidewalks, public transit, traffic intersections, bike lanes, etc) is no exception. Rochelle Carpenter, who leads outreach for Transportation for America in Nashville, TN, began by pointing... Read More
Sep 15, 2015
For those who don't know ArtPlace's origin story, it might be surprising to hear that the idea behind fifteen foundations, eight federal agencies, and six financial institutions coming together to support creative placemaking was incubated at one of Washington's smallest federal agencies (both in terms of budget and staff). The seed was planted very early on in... Read More
Sep 23, 2015
After completing our first full round of the National Grants Program together, Leila and I realized how critical it is to get off the proverbial treadmill and take some time to reflect on our work. We want to get to know our previous grantees better, and wrap our heads around everything we’ve learned since starting at ArtPlace.... Read More
Sep 29, 2015
I am just back from Common Field’s Hand-in-Glove 2015 convening in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, where I joined a panel discussing advocacy with Artists Space’s Richard Birkett, University of Texas’s Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts’ Sheila Smith. As often happens, “advocacy” almost instantly became elided with “public funding for the arts,” and the conversation quickly centered on the National Endowment for the Arts (where... Read More
Oct 02, 2015
Over the first three weeks of October, the participating organizations of the Community Development Investments will hold community forums to introduce this program to local stakeholders. The events will be livestreamed below and we’ll update this page with recordings as they become available.
We recently launched our one-time Community Development Investments (CDI) program to invest a total of... Read More
Oct 14, 2015
Over the last month, ArtPlace’s research efforts have quietly transitioned from being a conceptual framework to being a nuts and bolts reality. With three new research consultants on board, we are undertaking the first of several “field scans” that explore the relationship between the arts and other sectors of community development. Of the ten sectors that ArtPlace has... Read More
Oct 29, 2015
This week we are thrilled to welcome two new team members to the ArtPlace team: Sarah Calderon and Marirosa García! Sarah joins us as our new Managing Director, focusing on the management of ArtPlace and working with all of our colleagues on the connections and synergies among our work. Sarah comes to us from Casita Maria Center for the Arts & Education (Bronx,... Read More
Nov 03, 2015
Last week our team was able to attend PolicyLink’s Equity Summit 2015 in Los Angeles.
PolicyLink is our research and documentation consultant for our Community Development Investments and were kind enough to invite us down for this Summit.
In PolicyLink’s own words, the Equity Summit 2015 strived to “ground inclusion, justice, and prosperity in the urgent issues of today and connect them to the... Read More