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    • ArtCamp Houston – The Dialogue Begins

    Posted on | February 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

    Last fall, a certain guy – “Il Douche” – said some things that painted a distorted landscape of Houston’s arts community. He cherry-picked items, took them out of context, and presented them as indicative of massive mismanagement of “your money”…even though it wasn’t. “Your” money. It’s tourists’ money. It’s the money visitors like me spend when we go to Houston to enjoy its art and cultural offerings, and stay overnight. It’s Hotel Occupancy Tax money.

    A few of us were wary of the effects this misinformation would have on the general public: Would it curb – or stop – public support of the arts in Houston? Would arts organizations and venues be squeezed or shut down? Would people lose their jobs? Would artists still be able to perform, exhibit, create, …eat?

    It was a great opportunity for the arts community to spin the situation positively and speak out in one voice to advocate for GREATER support for the arts: if arts organizations had more money, they could afford to hire in-house accountants and/or dedicated administrators to do greater diligence in holding grantees accountable to their grant stipulations. As it is, arts organizations are already strapped to provide services for their members, constituents, audiences and stakeholders; to do development and fundraising; to do marketing and promotions; to coordinate events; and to just manage day-to-day operations.

    Wonderful people like Jenni Rebecca Stephenson (Spacetaker) and Mandy Graessle (FreshArts) rose to the occasion and spoke out, educated their audiences with the facts and context, and advocated for continued support for the arts. After talking to them, and other arts supporters like them (including Matthew Wettergreen of Caroline Collective), we decided to hold an ArtCamp to bring more arts supporters together, find common ground, discuss the challenges everyone faces, share best practices, and develop strategies on how we can *collectively* support and contribute to our arts community.

    Here’s the video of what happened at ArtCamp – the first of what we hope are many dialogues to come – as we work towards improving Houston’s cultural community together: Please feel free to share your thoughts and comment!

    Category: arts, events, video
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    Comments

    One Response to “ArtCamp Houston – The Dialogue Begins”

    1. lauren
      March 4th, 2009 @ 4:50 pm

      I remember seeing that bunk news report. I didn’t know the full story but it was obvious that there was some sleeziness involved and that they were stretching the truth for some sensational reporting. Thanks for sharing all the facts and working hard to keep the art community going!

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