grace

… filling in the negative space with positively everything

ArtCamp Houston - The Dialogue Begins

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.

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Via Colori - Street Art Benefiting CHS

This past fall several members of Houston’s creative community were selected to serve as Culture Scouts for the Houston Arts Alliance’s “Art the Heart of Houston” viral video campaign. Our three-month misson: to explore new venues, to seek out new art and new installations…and to capture them with Flip videocams for upload to the website.

The Flips were fun; the uploading was not. But the goal was, and is, important: in a city as sprawling as Houston, we have to take it upon ourselves to seek out, recognize, and share great work when we encounter it, so that others can discover and enjoy it, too.

I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing so many great openings, exhibits, and performances within the past few months: one of my favorites by far was Via Colori - a street art event to raise funds for the Center for Hearing and Speech (CHS). I couldn’t upload all of the great pieces to the campaign site; but here they are via YouTube to enjoy:

And if you want to help support the arts, please join us this Saturday (February 28) at ArtCamp Houston 9:30am-5pm at Caroline Collective - it’s free!

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Support the Arts at ArtCamp Houston February 28!

Ok folks, there are six days left to ArtCamp Houston - have you registered yet? Click here to register - it’s free!

ArtCamp Houston is a community-based event this Saturday, February 28, at Caroline Collective (4820 Caroline, Houston 77004) to bring arts supporters together to discuss the state of the arts in Houston, share best practices, and develop strategies on how we can *collectively* support and contribute to our arts community.

Through an open forum and peer-to-peer education sessions, we hope to:

  • Inform participants about resources available to them online and offline
  • Share best practices among organizations, including audience development, fundraising, board/volunteer recruitment, and online outreach
  • Share best practices among artists, such as developing their careers, promoting themselves and their work, obtaining gallery representation, and building an online presence

All community members are invited and welcome to participate as a volunteer or speaker, including artists, arts organizations, administrators, curators, collectors, creatives, patrons, related organizations, granting bodies, gallery representatives, and art enthusiasts. We’re all in this together - let’s work towards progress together!

For more information, please contact Matthew Wettergreen at mwettergreen@gmail.com or Grace Rodriguez at grace@aynbrand.com.

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