The theme of this week is the Annual Convention + Public Art & Civic Design Conference! More than 850 of you attended our first-ever virtual convening June 23-25, which featured 100 panelists speaking in 50 breakout sessions and four keynotes, including the 33rd Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy. As part of the convening, we also presented our Annual Leadership Awards, the Robert E. Gard Award, and announced a brand-new annual prize in public art and civic design made possible thanks to a generous gift from the The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation.

Also this week, we published the first two of a four-part ARTSblog series on effective leadership management in times of crisis, focusing on roles and goals and a perspective on decision making. (Stay tuned next week for the final two posts!) And in the wake of newly released rules related to the Paycheck Protection Program, we presented another informational webinar to provide guidance and answer questions about the new rules.

ARTSblog

Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: Leadership Roles and Goals by Dr. Jonathan Katz
What should artistic and cultural leaders aspire to exemplify and accomplish in a time of crisis? This series is intended to stimulate dialog about characteristics desirable in leaders during crises, the ways effective crisis managers think, the special needs and opportunities for leadership during crises, and the management principles that prove most valuable during crises.

Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: A Perspective on Decision Making by Dr. Jonathan Katz
In mid-crisis, it’s difficult to make decisions about the future because so many variables are unclear, but it’s very useful to recognize and prepare for the kinds of decisions that will need to made in the very near future.

News Room

Americans for the Arts Announces $250,000 Gift Establishing the Jorge and Darlene Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design
The program, which includes an award benefitting an artist, public art administrator, or representative from the civic design field on a rotating basis annually, seeks to celebrate and highlight the work of individuals who support, develop, and manage the incorporation of art into the design of places and spaces across the United States.

Americans for the Arts Presents 2020 Robert E. Gard Award to Red Door Project’s ‘Evolve’
Evolve is the result of three years of listening and relationship and partnership development between the co-founders of Red Door, playwright Shepsu Aakhu, and now retired Portland Police Bureau Deputy Chief Robert Day. The performance experience explores the relationship between police and communities of color.

Gina Rodríguez-Drix Honored with American Express Emerging Leaders Award
Rodríguez-Drix (she/hers) is the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism. Gina’s professional and creative practices are rooted in her fervent passion for social, environmental and reproductive justice and a commitment to her hometown.

Janet T. Langsam Honored with Selina Roberts Ottum Award
Langsam is the CEO of ArtsWestchester, an organization that financially and promotionally supports all of the arts in Westchester County through  government, corporate and institutional partnerships. She has helped grow the organization to a $4.9 million agency and has made the arts more visible, diverse, and accessible for residents.

Ann S. Graham Honored with Alene Valkanas State Arts Advocacy Award
Graham brings a strong set of leadership skills to her work as the Executive Director of Texans for the Arts and she has demonstrated a deep passion for the arts and the role that they play in building and strengthening our communities.

Helen Eaton Honored with Arts Education Award
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.

Christen Boone Honored with Michael Newton Award
Boone is the President & CEO of the Fund for the Arts in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the country’s largest privately funded regional arts agencies. She has developed thousands of unique partnerships between the creative and private sectors, driving workplace culture, client cultivation, project innovation, DEI initiatives, and social impact.

Rick Lowe Honored with Public Art Network Award
Lowe is a Houston-based artist and professor of art at the University of Houston, best known for his Project Row Houses community-based art project that he started in Houston in 1993. President Barack Obama appointed Rick to the National Council on the Arts in 2013; in 2014 he was named a MacArthur Fellow.

ArtsU

Guidance and Q&A on the NEWLY Released Paycheck Protection Loan Forgiveness Application Forms and Flexibility Rules
This webinar includes guidance and a robust Q & A on NEWLY Released (as of June 17, 2020) Paycheck Protection Loan Forgiveness Application Forms and Flexibility Rules with Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel of Government and Public Affairs & Executive Director, Americans for the Arts Action Fund, and Sarah Mercer, Shareholder Attorney, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP.

Annual Convention + Public Art & Civic Design Conference
If you registered for the virtual convening, you have access to recordings of all conference content through the end of July! Bookmark this page so you can return frequently and browse for sessions you may have missed the first time around. For those who didn’t register, select content will be available on ArtsU later this summer—stay tuned for details.

Illustration by Danielle Iwata.