Art and The Public Purpose: A New Framework

More than sixty activist artists, community artists, and creative organizers took part in a conversation with the White House.

The public dialogue on the arts and our national economic and cultural recovery is one in which all of us should and can have a voice.  Some of our most thoughtful cultural leaders have been bringing this public dialogue directly to the White House.  The exchanges there and elsewhere have fermented the drafting of new frameworks document for the arts in the context of what is being called “The Public Purpose”.   The document is authored first to last by a brave contingent of artists and cultural leaders committed to the arts and the potency of their survival their value to all of us in a democracy. 

Chief among these arts voices is Arlene Goldbard, author of The New Creative Community, and whose own blog site is richly steeped in this public dialogue.  For my money, she is one of our most gifted and incisive voices for the arts, creativity and community to be found anywhere.  I am, therefore, handing over the remainder of this blog entry to Arlene’s own eloquence. 

The three links will set the stage for your own exploration of these issues: (a) a perspective on cultural recovery Cultural Recovery, (b) a report on the White House Briefing, White House Briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, National Recovery and (c) the New Framework document itself , Art & The Public Purpose: A New Framework.  

 

Do consider adding your name to those endorsing the New Framework and, by all means, forward it through your personal networks to get the word out.   Working together, we can make a difference!

John Cimino

Creative Leaps International

 

Learn From John Cimino, Creative Leaps Intl

This five part series is an edited version of a presentation titled Bridging The Ingenuity Gap that John gave in Chicago at Catalyst Ranch in October of 2008. This video was shot by Kevin Kent, Stack City Pictures and edited by Gwydhar Bratton from Blue Damen Pictures. The juggler is Dharmesh Bhagat, a member of The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble.

Trailer

Part I

Part I continued

Part II

Part II continued

Part III

Part IV

Part V

About John Cimino
John Cimino is president of Creative Leaps International (1992), The Learning Arts (1982) and founding president and CEO of their parent company, Associated Solo Artists, Inc. (1972). Educated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (biology & physics), the State University of New York at Albany (learning theory), and the Manhattan and Juilliard Schools of Music (music & voice), Cimino holds a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective and works across a host of disciplines dedicated to learning and human development. He is the winner of more than 20 national and international awards and prizes as an operatic and concert performer and has performed to acclaim throughout Europe and the continental United States in productions including LA BOHEME (Academy of Music, Philadelphia, opposite tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and LUISA MILLER (International Verdi Festival of Busetto, Italy, opposite tenor Carlo Bergonzi).

As a champion of the arts in education and professional life, Cimino has brought his “Concerts of Ideas” and other innovative arts programming into projects of the White House, the Center for Creative Leadership, WDC’s Center for Excellence in Municipal Management, and the leadership training programs of dozens of Fortune 500 companies including GE, IBM, Pfizer, McDonnell Douglas, the SC Johnson Company and Starbucks as well as to numerous universities and professional organizations. Recent projects include presentations before the Global Leadership Forum (Istanbul), the International Organization Development Association (Guanajuato), the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (Irvine, Ca), the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (Alexandria, VA) the Association for Managers of Innovation (Greensboro, NC), the “Crossing Paths” Conference on interdisciplinary approaches to artist development (Indianapolis, IN), the “Common Ground” Conference speaking on Innovations Beyond the Classroom in Arts-Based Learning (Rochester), the NYSAAE Conference on “Using the Arts to Energize the Core Curriculum” (Bard College, Poughkeepsie) and the education conference of the Johnson City Arts Council in Tennessee, “The Arts Advantage in Teaching, Learning and Leadership”. Cimino is also a consultant and advisor to universities engaged in interdisciplinary reorganization and the introduction of arts-based teaching and learning, leadership, creativity and entrepreneurship initiatives, across the university curriculum.

Contact John at jcimino@creativeleaps.org or through his website at www.CreativeLeaps.org

Bite-Size Arts Ensemble- what’s next

The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble, for those of you following the evolution of this ensemble, had a wonderful first performance and fundraiser, but a few short weeks ago. We raised $2200.00, which given we are a new ensemble without a following just yet, and given the state of the economy, was really a wonderful beginning. Friends, family, business associates, and new audience members from our press efforts and invitations from members of our board, yielded a nice turn out at a first class venue, The Florsheim Mansion resulting in a very interesting evening.

Film maker Kevin Kent was responsible for the creation of a film, with our audience, that focused around what sparks our imaginations, what influences our creative process and how did performances that evening, from members of the Bite-Size Arts Ensemble, act as a catalyst to open the hearts and minds of our audiences. As soon as it is edited, the film will appear on our website.

Entrepreneurial Training Ground Found in Teaching Artist Disciplines

As artists we are exemplary problem-solvers in our artistry and life-long learners constantly striving to improve, deepen and refine our artistic expression. We work specifically with the skills of creativity: discovery, wonder, and combining it with our knowledge of the world to create new experiencial revelations through our work.

Part of the way we do this comes naturally to us through associations we make and the metaphors we use to describe the unspeakable. An example of how metaphors do this can come from looking more closely at a statement like this: “My love is like a red rose”. Of course we all know that the person we love is not a foot and a half tall red flower, but the use of the metaphor allows us to imagine how that image relates to someone we love, deepening the substance, context or shape of it by confronting the boundries of our understanding, deepening our view and allowing new levels of understanding to be discovered as a result of the comparison the use of metaphors create to illuminate our subject matter.

An artistic education is an irreplaceable medium for developing this kind of intelligence and by working through a structured program that develops the use of metaphors more fully, through a teaching artistry development program, artists have a wonderful breeding ground for developing the kind of innate skills also required of an entrepreneur.

What is a Teaching Artist?

Creativity, Connectivity and the Mind’s Best Work

How can we bridge the ingenuity gap in the 21st Century?

Scholar Thomas Homer Dixon describes the “ingenuity gap” – the space between problems that arise and our ability to solve them – as growing today at an alarming rate ( in business, scientific research, education, the environment and world affairs).  

Author Ken Robinson proclaims we are “Out of Our Minds” to have sidelined creativity and the arts when every layer of American society from elementary education to supply-side economics is starved for more imagination, more original thinking, and more creative intelligence. 

Come hear John Cimino, president of Creative Leaps International, on Tuesday September 9th explore the “habits of mind” linked to creativity, ingenuity and imaginative insights. He will also review recent findings in neuroscience revealing the brain’s unique experience of the arts and arts-based thinking.