“I think I’ve been emboldened to collect folk art because I have an unwavering confidence in my taste, something I wouldn’t claim when discussing, say, fine art or music. Long before Malcolm Gladwell celebrated the genius of impulse in “Blink,” I decided that gut instinct was the only way to go in collecting, whether the object costs a dollar or a thousand dollars.”
Tag: 06.17.08
NEA Funds Plan To Get Us Reading
The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that more than 200 organizations nationwide will receive grants totaling $2.8 million to host “The Big Read,” an initiative meant to restore book reading in American culture.
Actors’ Union Proposes Debate About Contract With Fellow Union
SAG and AFTRA have been fighting over issues in their negotiations with Hollywood studios. “The point of the debate would be to clear up conflicting information SAG and AFTRA members are receiving about the tentative agreement and its impact on SAG’s current negotiations with.”
Hollywood Studios Slow Production Schedules In Fear Of Actors’ Strike
“The majors are putting the brakes on production starts for features and TV pilots for fear that the Screen Actors Guild will call a strike following the June 30 expiration date of its feature-primetime deal.”
Suggestion: Children’s Theatre Should Be Free
So thinks playwright David Wood. “Children’s theatre should be getting, if not as much as, more funding than adult theatre. Our seat prices have rightly to be kept low, yet the production values we keep as high as possible, and there is a natural gap there between revenue and expenditure. How do you fill that? We try to get sponsorship, we try to get funding, but small people attract only small funding.”
Opera America’s New Chairman
“Opera America elected Houston Grand Opera General Director and CEO Anthony Freud as its chairman. He succeeds Opera Theater of St. Louis General Director Charles MacKay, who served for two terms, or four years.”
Report: Canadian Arts Revenues Flatten
“Total operating revenues for the performing-arts industry reached $1.2 billion in 2006, almost unchanged from 2005. Statistics Canada says revenues were split almost equally between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.”
Where Are Music’s Women Geniuses? (They’re Out There)
Popular culture’s rich pantheon is heaving with lady geniuses, but reading the music and mainstream press you wouldn’t know it.