I had the great pleasure of visiting the Museum of Chinese in America in Chinatown in New York City. There is much to enjoy in the beautiful facility designed by Maya Lin (the co-chairman of its board) including the interesting, and remarkably diverse exhibitions and public programs. But as impressive an operation as it is, I was far more impressed by the way MOCA is funded.

A new film about Taiwanese folk culture has grossed more than NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) at box offices just two weeks after its release in Taiwan. The film tells the true story of a Daoist priest's charity and efforts to bring ceremonial folk art performances to the world stage.

In a seamless blend of art and science, Jo Berry's cutting-edge project,  Hijacking Natural Systems, explores beauty on a cellular level. Her innovative works are more than just pretty pictures: by highlighting cellular pharmacology, Berry and others hope to facilitate awareness and encourage the advancement of treatments for diabetes and obesity. "The project is celebrating the human body, the use of new technology, the collaboration between science and art," she stated. "[It] also gives the public the opportunity to see art in a non-traditional setting."

Amateur shutterbugs to professional photographers can flash their best shots while benefiting a good cause. Teresa Hopkins, Stillwater Medical Center Foundation executive director, said the "Healing Through Art" project began after SMC Foundation board members learned about the relation with art and the patients' healing.

One man's trash is another man's treasure … or piece of art. So says the Birch Aquarium and The New Children's Museum, which recently joined forces to inform the public about the growing problem of trash in the environment - and they hoped to do it through art!

A chapter in the life of artist Beverly McIver unfolds through a patient and graceful lens in the new documentary, "Raising Renee," which airs tonight on HBO. The film, directed by husband-and-wife team Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan, chronicles the fulfillment of a promise the African-American artist made to her mother, Ethel, to care for Beverly's 43-year-old mentally disabled sister when Ethel died. The film tackles both the sacrifices artists make to pursue their work, and the difficulties faced by families of the disabled.  

Wharton professor puts forth the question about online issues. Piracy is a complicated issue, he notes. Companies that sell music, movies, software, or other content believe that the theft of intellectual property can destroy their business. Eventually, Congress will have to consider SOPA. Below we suggest several questions that Congress will need to address and very short suggestions of what we expect they will conclude. More detailed explanations are provided in subsequent sections.

In the sixth iteration of the Robert Shulman Lecture Series supplementing Yale music professor Gary Tomlinson's "Music and Human Evolution" course, students are exploring the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. Founded in 2007, the Shulman Lecture Series acts as the extension of an undergraduate seminar each year that focuses on the intersection between the arts and sciences, by bringing in experts to present lectures on the seminar’s precise field of study. This year, Tomlinson aims to teach 'how it is humans came to be musicking beings in the first place."

While his artworks are striking and unquestionably beautifully crafted, their messages speak to a world that is not-so-slowly destroying itself. Overpopulation, war, starvation, ecological disasters, extinction, consumerism - Garrigues isn't shy about addressing society's most pressing problems and making people uncomfortable along the way.

The artwork in question is an outdoor sculpture created in conjunction with the state's Percent For Art program, a public initiative to promote arts and culture. As reported in the local newspaper, the Frontiersman, some people believe that the work resembles a large vagina, while others dispute the resemblance.

Bringing together artists and farmers in Yolo County is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the National Endowment for the Arts. Yet the federal agency is doing just that through its ArtPlace initiative, teaming up with a consortium of companies and foundations to fund art projects in communities around the nation. This effort will bring NEA chief Rocco Landesman to Woodland today for a visit to Yolo County's "Art & Ag Project."

ArtServe Michigan, a nonprofit, advocacy group, recently released a report titled Creative State Michigan. The report was a combination of research from Pure Michigan and the Cultural Data Project, which looked at the effect of arts and cultural organizations in Michigan, and their impact on the economy. While the study is ongoing, it currently has data from 211 of the 2,000 arts and cultural organizations in the state. The research found that of just those 211 organizations, nearly half a billion dollars ($462,791,322) was contributed in direct expenditures to Michigan’s economy in 2009. Furthermore, it found that for every $1 the state invests in arts and cultural programs, those programs then contribute $51 back into the Michigan economy.

"Deconstructing Perestroika: Soviet Ideology and its Discontents," at the Craft and Folk Art Museum through May 6, offers 24 original versions of posters neatly lined up on walls. But the hard-hitting images are unruly blasts from the Soviet past. Mostly made from 1987 to 1991, they reflect the period when Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) produced a storm of artistic free expression.

Congratulations to Douglas Pardella of Redwood High School, winner of the 2012 Marin County Poetry Out Loud finals, hosted by Youth in Arts this past Saturday, February 11.

The more money these programs are given, the more they can pass on to organizations via grants and support.  Organizers and artists can apply for assistance/support by writing grant proposals which can be learned at events such as this recent workshop hosted by members of Congress and the Office of Cultural Affairs, or through the many available books and websites on the subject. 

A report from UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment verifies the positive economic impact of California's Film & Television Tax Credit Program. The authors of the study conclude that the program "is creating jobs and is likely providing an immediate economic benefit to the state."

Science is about facts, but the science of sustainability also involves questions underpinned by values. With this in mind, a Michigan State University environmental sociologist will ask scientists to consider how art can provoke people to consider their perceptions of sustainability at this year's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

It wasn’t long before Marcy saw a story about the Art of Healing program started in January for cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers. Yankton Area Arts (YAA) and the Avera Sacred Heart Cancer Center have collaborated to provide free fine arts classes that last three months at a time throughout the year.

The artwork of John Simeon, a 2011 graduate of Mira Loma High School, is featured in this month's edition of Arts and Activities, a national arts education magazine. Simeon, now studying at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, joins at least two other Mira Loma students recognized in the "Young Artist" pages of the magazine in recent years

Even as they’ve celebrated the creation of a massive national museum to tell the once-marginalized story of blacks in America, some executives at African American museums have voiced concerns about competing with a Smithsonian museum for money, artifacts and attention.

Madeleine Centrella, a Sophomore at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, took first place in the Santa Barbara County "Poetry Out Loud" competition on February 15.

Richmond student Denica Garcia has been exercising her poetic skills in different venues for some time and on Feb. 11 was awarded first place in the countywide "Poetry Out Loud." The Salesian High School senior's recitation of Ted Kooser's "Abandoned Farmhouse" before a large audience at the Willows Theatre in Concord was awarded the top spot over runner-up Savannah Ridgley, a senior from Mt. Diablo High in Concord, and third-place finisher Christine Osiuwhu, a junior from Deer Valley High in Antioch.

The California Cultural Data Project (California CDP) was launched in 2008 as an online management tool designed to strengthen California's arts and cultural organizations. Arts and cultural funders and others supported it as a way to gather information on the state's cultural field and measure the impact of the arts and culture in ways that had not been explored previously. Now that the California CDP has been in place, the California CPD Working Group (a team of arts and culture funders and others) seeks California based organizations to utilize CDP information to analyze the arts and culture sector of our state.

This grant opportunity was created to inspire the use of CDP data by California based organizations to answer novel research questions that have not previously been explored with the referenced dataset(s). Applications are due by March 30, 2012.

It only took a year of the Tracy Art League show that traditionally draws more than 300 entries from Northern California artists and a few others from scattered locations for Langley to add the educational element to it. Children educated on the school tours tend to recite, from memory, their newly acquired knowledge of art for parents and siblings they've led back to the exhibit. It's a scene that, as it plays out, makes organizers smile.

The exhibit features work from four West Coast artists, two performance events, a panel discussion and two off-campus exhibits featuring students and alumni. All of the art utilizes technology and is designed to interact with the viewer.

The Japanese say Americans have Sept. 11 -- they have March 11. Less than a year after the devastation, Japan is still struggling to recover from the fear and pain that accompanies losing loved ones. It's been a slow healing process for many, yet a group of young artists have turned to beauty to supplement the tragedy that struck them.

 Plato once said, "Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life and to everything." Not only do I agree with Plato, I also believe music is essential to becoming a fully educated individual. Music education can benefit people, especially young children, in a variety of ways. Music possesses the ability to stimulate creativity, provide relaxation, create an outlet for emotion, and provide development for cognitive skills

The Offspring have partnered with the award-winning creators of Rock Prodigy whose innovative apps have advanced music education into the 21st century. Available today on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, The Offspring: Rock Prodigy is an interactive application that plays like a game but uses ANY real guitar and teaches real music skills.

An art exhibit for people who love history, or a history exhibit for people who love art? Healdsburg Museum's latest exhibit, "Healdsburg's Artistic Heritage," is both, and it gives museum curator Holly Hoods the chance to show off some of the museum's oldest treasures.

On February 23, SmashBox Studios, Christie's and The Art of Elysium will bring together art, celebrities and charity for the fifth year in a row. The entire event, which will be hosted by Davis Factor and Andrea Fiuczynski, will benefit The Art of Elysium's flagship arts initiative that bridges the gap between artists and hospitalized children.

Canyon Cinema, a half-century-old cooperative in San Francisco that champions the work of experimental filmmakers, is in critical condition, according to its executive director. Many filmmakers, academics and critics attest to the historical and aesthetic importance of Canyon Cinema’s collection.

Three Mountain Area high school students swept first through third place in a county-wide Poetry Out Loud competition Saturday at Yosemite High School, hosted by The Madera County Arts Council.

Brynna Thigpen, a junior from Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa, took first place in the Sonoma County "California Poetry Out Loud" competition, advancing to the state finals. On Mar. 25 and 26 in Sacramento, she will compete for hundreds of dollars and the chance to win thousands at the national finals.

The reasoning behind propagating these laws is understandable. The intent is to protect property that has been copyrighted and prevent piracy of said property. If you truly loved the arts - let's not limit it to music but include movies and other artistic mediums as well - you would not steal it. When one truly likes an artist, then they should be more than willing to save their money and spend it on the material they desire.

Dozens of artists and scientists met at the Noguchi Museum on Sunday, eager to meet their potential partners. These partners, however, aren’t the romantic sort. (Well, they could be but that’s not what this event is about.) They are getting together in the name of climate change, not love.

Traditional recycling centers cannot process the beads. However, a few nonprofits in recent years have refined programs that collect, bundle and resell them. And this year, an unprecedented crop of initiatives has sprung up to help feed the recycled bead market, with most of the ideas as idiosyncratic as the city itself.

A group of members opposed to the planned merger of SAG and AFTRA protested Feb. 10 outside the Los Angeles building that houses the headquarters for both actor guilds.

According to the National Foundation for the Arts (NEA), over one-third of artists are self-employed, compared to only 10 percent of the rest of the U.S. labor force. In this economic environment, the number of self-employed artists has been increasing, even though BFA and MFA programs gloss over practical business training - if they offer any at all. Yet it's not enough to create great art; most successful artists also find a way to promote their work. They have to learn how to hustle.

Medical research indicates that art is helpful in promoting healing. It helps reduce stress, enhance patient care and reduce a patient's stay in the hospital, said Tracie L. Witter, director of corporate communications for Susquehanna Health.

The El Cerrito Arts and Culture Commission pushed forward two public art projects in one night Wednesday: sculptures on San Pablo Avenue streetlight poles and "functional artworks" for the new Recycling Center.

Marvel has not established that it will come after artists who sell artwork and products based on their own work for the company, and Marvel's counterclaim was presumably intended to provide leverage to get Friedrich to back off his Ghost Rider ownership lawsuit, but it appears that Marvel may also have launched a broadside against the very foundation of Artists' Alley. I'm not a lawyer; I studied law for two years and it didn't take, but from my reading of the coverage I can discern three possible interpretations of this counter-suit, each of which carries different implications for creators.

The arts generate $166.2 billion in economic activity, provides 5.7 million American jobs and return nearly $30 billion in revenue to the government each year. More local music enables retail establishments to thrive, governments to benefit from increased tax revenue, and more musicians to get paid to do what they love. One of the largest contributors to the NYC economy is the creative sector.

Denica Garcia, a senior from Salesian High in Richmond, took first place in the Contra Costa County "Poetry Out Loud" competition on February 11. In a close race, the Runner-up position went to senior Savannah Ridgley from Mt. Diablo High in Concord, and Third Place to junior Christine Osiuwhu from Deer Valley High in Antioch.

Sophomore Madeleine Centrella captured first place and senior Cheryl Wilson placed second out of 24 finalists at the Santa Barbara County Poetry Out Loud championships held at the Santa Barbara County Hall of Supervisors Wednesday night.

When Judy Chicago started her career more than 50 years ago, the chances of a woman finding mainstream gallery space were slim. Tonight, Chicago will be the inaugural honoree of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair.

While state legislative sessions are just getting underway in the new year, perpetual campaigning for the election is no doubt leaving everyone already feeling cranky and cynical (or is that just me?). But take heart, advocates! Despite the cornucopia of GOP candidate positions on public arts funding—ranging anywhere from mild tolerance to total abhorrence—President Obama just proposed an increase in NEA funding!

The new Stanislaus County Alliance for Arts Education encouraged parents Wednesday to get more involved in promoting arts at their schools.

Consider the radical notion, for example, that a person with limited sight could enjoy an art show — not to mention make art.

Zina Bethune was no stranger to the NoHo Arts District. She was a leader in the Arts and Disability Movement. In 1982, Ms. Bethune's pioneering spirit led her to create Infinite Dreams, a trailblazing participatory educational dance and drama program for disabled youth. Theatre Bethune was the nation's first professional dance company to create such a program, impacting the lives of over 7,000 children since its inception.

In this spirit, ART from the ashes (AFTA), a California-based nonprofit, is building an exhibition of works from Texas artists to support Central Texas Wildlife Recovery. The event, which is scheduled for Spring 2012, is to include a variety of special event programs: artist demonstrations, panel discussions, music and visual arts performances, and a special art-science exhibit that will explore the creative ways in which artists have depicted fire ecology through the ages.

For once, Glee gets it right with regard to race and culture. Although the show often plays to racial stereotypes for cheap laughs (as it did at the beginning of this very same episode when a woman mentions she is taking Spanish so that she can give better orders to her maid), this episode exposes the often offensive and uninformed way in which schools (and society) teach us about other cultures and ways of seeing the world.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is in Caracas, Venezuela, this week for a cycle of Mahler symphonies with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the crown jewel of the nation's musical education program, called El Sistema. Gustavo Dudamel, a native of Venezuela, will lead the ensembles.

The regional competition for Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest will be held at the Auburn Placer Performing Arts Center at the State Theatre in Auburn on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012. The top student qualifiers from Placer County high schools including Roseville High School, Colfax High School, Victory High School, Del Oro High School, Horizon Independent Study and Truckee High School will vie for the opportunity to represent Placer County in the state-wide competition. Three students from Truckee High will compete: Helen Banson, Karlie Mohun and Calvin Brady.

Dillingham, a Pasadena resident, a former 20-year managing director of Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, is now vice president of Arts Consulting Group, a national consulting firm. At Center Theater Group he supervised all development, marketing, administrative and financial operations for the company's three theatres - the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre. 

The Motorola Mobility Foundation is accepting applications for the 2012 Empowerment Grants - a one-of-a-kind grant program designed to help U.S.-based nonprofit organizations develop mobile applications and use mobile technology that will help transform and benefit the communities they serve. The program addresses four areas of focus: education, health and wellness, community, and arts and culture.

You heard right. The L.A. school district was about to cut the arts completely from its K-6 campuses. Luckily, though, along with throngs of protesters (the crowd grew so large that the LAPD had to shut down the street outside district headquarters), a couple celebrities showed up to give board members a piece of their mind.

Al Young served as California's poet laureate from 2005 to 2008. The winner of awards and honors too numerous to mention, Al Young has contributed to The California Report many times over the years. Now the California Report is making it a regular thing. Al Young spoke with host Rachael Myrow about what inspired him to write us a poem about California every month.

The Riverside Art Museum is reaching out to a special population of children -- those with autism. In the only class of its kind in Riverside, Art Education Director Beth Yeager has put together a curriculum where children 6 to 17, who have mild to moderate autism, are expressing themselves through art.

Gustavo Dudamel explodes out of his seat at the podium during a rehearsal at Los Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall and stands on the tips of his toes, jabbing the air violently with his conductor's baton.

Facing a $600 million budget deficit, the Los Angeles Unified School District is considering the total elimination of elementary school arts education funding, according to Arts for L.A., and county-wide arts advocacy group.

Paris Clayton and his fellow musicians usually perform to packed auditoriums when they bring the "Blues in the Schools" program to local schools. But the bluesmen had to work really hard to fill the auditorium at Pioneer High School in Woodland last week. The classes of students that usually crowd in to watch the Sacramento Blues Society program were busy filling in bubbles on test sheets.

At a lot of universities, the sciences are housed on one part of campus, the arts on another. But the two sides will have a chance to intersect this week, when the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan opens its first art gallery. 

Art is powerful. It is healing and it helps disadvantaged children in so many ways. It empowers them through their artistic expression and enables them to release their pain, to escape the turbulence that surrounds them, and to discover the joy of being creative and free. It helps them to re-build their confidence and their pride.

Youth in Arts is pleased to host the Marin County finals for Poetry Out Loud, a national competition supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation and the California Arts Council. Congratulations to Marin finalists Russell Wirth (Tamalpais HS), Clare Brosnan (San Rafael HS), Doug Pardella (Redwood HS), Sophia Ranft (The Marin School), Anna Erice (San Marin HS) and Beatrix Berry (Drake HS).

At a time when U.S. political and business leaders are raising concerns about the need to better nurture creativity and innovative thinking among young people, several states are exploring the development of an index that would gauge the extent to which schools provide opportunities to foster those qualities.

Last month, the California State Senate approved a bill to develop a Creativity and Innovation Education Index, designed to measure how schools are fostering creativity among their students. California is just one of several states to implement a law like this, Massachusetts being the first, according to Education Week.

Preparation is well under way for Santa Barbara County's Sixth Annual Poetry Out Loud Competition. The competition represents the first step of a national recitation contest, a program run by the California Arts Council in the state and started by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Poetry Foundation to engage high-school students in the presentation of poetry through memorization and performance.

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget, released Monday, calls for a 5% increase in spending for three cultural grantmaking agencies and three Washington, D.C., arts institutions. Obama aims to boost outlays from $1.501 billion to $1.576 billion, encompassing the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities (NEA and NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Gallery of Art.

Fashion designs do not fit neatly into a traditional intellectual property realm. Copyrights generally are not granted to apparel because articles of clothing are considered functional "useful articles," as opposed to non-utilitarian works of art.

The more than 650 students at C.E. Williams Middle School for the Creative and Scientific Arts take pride in everything they do. The school received a good and excellent rating on the State Report Card. Fourteen 8th graders were named Junior Scholars for outstanding performance on the PSAT.

The Nevada Museum of Art has been named a finalist for support from ArtPlace, an unprecedented private-public collaboration of nine of the nation's top foundations, eight federal agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts, and six of the nation's largest banks. RENOvation, an initiative of the Nevada Museum of Art and its Center for Art + Environment, seeks to explore and define a new, more sustainable community fabric for Reno, and to catalyze a vibrant new self-identity grounded in art and design for the city and its inhabitants.

It does not take a psychoanalyst to see that there are clusters of emotions that go from the very dark to the realm of great light, symbolically. In other words, there are emotional states that are very detrimental with negative effects while there are others that are quite resourceful and healthy. These emotions go the whole gamut... from those emotions that make a person experience negative feelings all the way to those that are full of health and sublime.

Dr. Claudio Naranjo, a psychotherapist who was born in Chile in 1932, decided that our whole civilization is sick and that the root cause of this sickness is the cultivation by our society of the patriarchal (technological, aggressive and warrior) brain at the expense of the feminine brain (nurturance) and the childhood brain (spontaneity). To heal our civilization, he concluded, we as individuals need to transform ourselves by reunifying our three brains. At the same time we need to struggle against the domination of our educational institutions by patriarchal values, replacing these with the more feminine values which prevailed prior to the rise of patriarchal civilization in the late Neolithic. This was a matristic age during which women played key roles and the dominant values were the feminine ones of compassion, community and nurturance.

The mission of the gallery in the Marin Cancer Institute on South Eliseo Drive in Greenbrae is to offer "cancer patients, staff and the community healing art to help inspire feelings of tranquility and hope. Art that can buoy the human spirit serves to complement traditional Western approaches to medical treatment."

The most compelling piece of Portnow's presentation may have been his discussion of the annual GRAMMY Camp, a 10 day residential program offered to high school students across the country. The camp culminates in a concert presented by the students and affords participants the opportunity to meet some of their music heroes.

No one ever said motherhood was easy. But, as presented in "Breaking in Two: A Provocative Vision of Motherhood" at the Arena 1 Gallery, it can be a time of explosive creativity borne of conflict, love and elemental instinct. The gallery, one of the participating entities in the ongoing Pacific Standard Time exhibit, has given over its space to visions of women artists who mostly came of age in the 70s and 80s, when motherhood was frowned upon in artistic circles.

Partnership Between the Two California Institutions Provides High School Students With the Training and Financial Support to Pursue a Career in Creative Industries

Bethune, 66, a former New York City Ballet soloist and the founder of a Los Angeles multimedia dance and theatrical company, was struck by two vehicles and killed shortly after midnight Sunday after she apparently stopped to help an injured animal along Forest Lawn Drive in L.A.

Art and science come together in an exhibit at the McMaster Museum of Art exploring both the promise and the implications of stem cell use. The show was triggered by discussions between Sean Caulfield, an artist, and his brother Timothy, a bioethicist. Both are professors at the University of Alberta. Sean is a professor of art and Timothy is the director of the Alberta university's health law institute.

On Monday, February 13, 2012 at 1:45 PM ET, President Obama will award the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal in the East Room. The First Lady will also attend. This event will be open press and will also be live streamed at www.WhiteHouse.gov/Live.

The most compelling argument for music education, however, is not found in statistics and reports. It is found instead in human experiences, from the joyful to the tragic, the minor to the significant. We work to music, shop to it and listen to it when we're put on hold. We graduate to "Pomp and Circumstance," calm our infants with "Hush Little Baby," and send our loved ones to their graves with "Amazing Grace." Even a Gregorian monk, dedicated to a life of deprivation, has his chants.

The Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), in partnership with The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is pleased to offer NextGen Professional Development Grants to emerging arts administrators in California through Creative Capacity Fund. Under the NextGen Arts Leadership Initiative, emerging arts leaders currently working for a nonprofit arts organization may be eligible to apply for up to $1,000 in grant subsidies to take workshops, attend conferences or work with career coaches or management consultants.
 
To be eligible, arts administrators, artists and board members between the ages of 18 and 35 who have not already answered the questionnaire must register online by completing the NextGen Survey, which is providing valuable data to arts funders and program providers about the needs of California's emerging arts leaders.

Jeremy Brooks, 17, of El Camino High School in Ventura won Ventura County's sixth annual Poetry Out Loud competition Thursday at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, where he competed with 10 other students from different high schools. The students were allowed to choose two poems from the Poetry Out Loud website or the print anthology for the competition, which is run locally by the Ventura County Arts Council. Poetry Out Loud is a National Endowment of the Arts program, and is run in-state by the California Arts Council.

More and more Cambodian-Americans are finding their own voice in art and music. Add to that list singer-songwriter Bochan Huy, who grew up in Oakland, California, and has just released her first album, Full Monday Moon.

First amendment rights versus intellectual property rights is how the lawsuit against Daniel Moore by the University of Alabama is being portrayed.  Daniel Moore is an artist who has made his mark painting famous scenes from Alabama football history down to the last detail.  The University of Alabama's problem stems from the fact that those details include the trademarked uniforms and logo of the Crimson Tide. They want Moore to pay royalties for the depictions while Moore contends that the paintings are an expression of his free speech.

In 2008 Raphael Diluzio was a UMaine art professor. As well as practicing and teaching what we commonly term "fine art" - drawing, painting and the like - Diluzio also used technology, and was heavily into video installation art. He was, and is, a tech savvy guy, but he used his technical ability primarily for aesthetic, creative purposes. Then something happened.

Today's announcement says a hundred films and videos will be shown (http://caamedia.org/blog/category/sfiaaff-2012/) in five venues, March 8-18, including 10 world premieres, seven U.S. premieres, from two dozen countries. This ambitious, wide-ranging festival runs on a $500,000 budget, plus in-kind contributions that perhaps double funding - still way short of the cost of producing a single film, even an indie such as "White Frog."  

The Asian/Pacific American Heritage Association (APAHA), with support from Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), recently announced the "Go Green" Art Contest,  aimed at engaging Asian/Pacific American high school students to express environmental issues - such as sustainability, clean air, water quality, renewable energy and recycling - through art.

In sports and in art, Rex Kochel has excelled because of challenges he's faced.

Some local military veterans participated in a unique art festival that showcased powerful, poignant, and patriotic works. The Veterans Administration's "Put Your Heart Into Art" Creative Arts Festival featured over 80 works in all types of media in art, music, drama, crafts and poetry. The event is designed to focus on the therapeutic benefits of creative expression and recreation.

Rather than just opening their doors wider, the opera company and other higher-culture organizations are trying to extend their reach. Amid the prolonged economic downturn and shifts in the way people consume culture, Chicago-area institutions have been seeking new ways to stretch past their traditional subscriber/membership bases to become more relevant to a broader demographic.

A group of 28 line and folk dancers from the Hebei province in China will kick off this year's Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco in a unique way to celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

Dwindling opportunities to expose youth to music are increasing demand for programs offered through Burlingame-based Music at Kohl Mansion. Nearly 30 years after it started, Music at Kohl Mansion has continued to offer quality chamber music and music education at Kohl Mansion and in local schools. Offerings and partnerships with other organizations have grown over the years. Today, the program offers music to both adults and local youngsters.

Professors from the department of art and design are working on a new degree called "Art, Media, and Technology." "In the real art world, sculpture and digital art have never really been completely separated," associate professor Shannon Wright said. Head of the spatial art area, Wright said she has been working for years with students in digital media art.

As a dedicated wordsmith, Princeton University professor David Bellos mines examples of the interplay of languages from all kinds of sources, even Oscar-winning films. 

Jeff Ross founded the San Francisco Independent Film Festival 14 years ago as a way to give his friend Rand Alexander a place in town to show his movie Caged. What started as a four-day event now lasts two weeks. It has more than 80 films, including horror movies, documentaries, love stories, comedies, and shorts.

The Pan African Film Festival's  Film Institute will run February 10-13, 2012 in the community room at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (next to Sears), located at 3650 W Martin Luther King Jr. in Los Angeles.

The subject is "Love Stories and the Art of the Valentine" at the Second Saturday Family Arts Day event from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Morris Graves Museum of Art, 636 F St. Kids and families can listen to love stories and drumming with Anita Punla and Big Lagoon Union Elementary School, and then create artful valentines in the Youth Classroom inspired by an exhibition of artists' valentines.

This is the first in a series of weekly columns featuring Santa Monica-based arts and culture, performances, exhibits and other special events, and some local out-of-town recommendations as well. I hope it will be a useful guide.

This is the 39th annual California Open, sponsored by the nonprofit Pacific Southwest Wildlife Arts, Inc., which began as an organization to support and promote wildlife art, particularly the traditional hunting decoy, an original American art form. Visit the show this weekend to see more than 150 artists and carvers from the U.S., Canada and Japan. There will also be an auction, vendors with tools and supplies for art and carving, and antique decoys and appraisals.

Conservatives like Romney may consider the arts expendable in a time when many are struggling just to make ends meet. However, despite the threats and the criticisms, the arts remain a vibrant industry in which many find more than a job - they find a lifelong pursuit. The contributions from these publicly funded programs have had an undeniable impact on our society. In these tough years, sacrifices need to be made, but they have to be the right sacrifices.

Fifth grade students are getting in motion at Newhall Elementary School, learning to dance from a world-renowned choreographer. This unique enrichment program is funded through a California Arts Council grant, one that has been awarded to the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center's K-12 Arts Education Outreach Program for three years in a row.

Thousands of North County schoolchildren showed an "astonishing" jump in test scores after their teachers used the arts in reading lessons, officials announced Thursday. In a pilot program involving 3,000 third- and fourth-graders, test scores improved at triple the rate of similar students using the standard curricula.

Artists whose disabilities have overshadowed their work get a chance to shine in the light of a prodigy this coming month. Marlene Lu, a spokeswoman for the Bayh College of Education at Indiana State University, said the idea combines Disability Awareness Month in March with public interest in talent shows such as "American Idol" and "The Voice."

The 1978 assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk marked a grim day in San Francisco history. Gunned down by former Supervisor Dan White, the killings sparked riots. The City eventually moved on, but Jonathan Moscone - the mayo's then-teenage son - was left with a staggering legacy of grief and injustice. In "Ghost Light," which made its Bay Area premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre last week, Moscone - now a noted director, and the artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater - becomes the central character in a memory play that examines the lingering effects of the assassinations on an adult child's psyche.

The city of Napa is accepting applications for the Public Art Steering Committee, which was created in conjunction with the city's public art ordinance adopted in 2010. There are five openings on the committee, which will serve as an advisor to the City Council in reviewing public art proposals. The commission will assist with the development and implementation of the future Public Art Master Plan.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council is bringing the arts to the forefront on Beacon Hill. Hundreds of advocates are promoting local art and culture at the State House as the cornerstone to developing a creative economy.

This question became very necessary when viewed in the light of recent reports and development around global art activities concerning the over all contributions of the creative industries to the  gross domestic product of world economy.

Brittany Wiltz, a student at Natomas Charter School, was named the winner of Sacramento Poetry Out Loud for 2012. Wiltz placed first in a field of 14 during today's Sacramento County finals at Rosemont High School. Sheridan Smith from Pleasant Grove High School was the runner-up. The Sacramento Poetry Out Loud competition encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance and competition.

California Arts Council Chair Malissa Shriver will join bestselling author Patricia V. Davis as a keynote in the S.F. Bay Area during Women's History Month for a conference aimed at women ages 13 to 113. Malissa joins dozens of industry leaders for the first Women's PowerStrategy Conference to benefit Girls Inc. and San Domenico High School Pupils.

The University of Chicago's Teaching Artist Research Project released the last year the results of a three-year study, concluding that artists heading up classrooms are an "underutilized resource" and "can be an important element of any strategy to reverse the long-term decline in arts education for American children."

Culture Shots is a week-long series of events at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS trust, aimed at promoting health and wellbeing through exposure to art and culture. It is the first time in the UK that a trust has hosted a museums and galleries week within a hospital setting. A series of lectures, workshops and performances are taking place in conjunction with institutions including Whitworth art gallery, Manchester art gallery, Manchester Museum and Salford museum and art gallery.

At last week's meeting, Jesus smiled proudly after finishing construction of a marionette puppet out of foam with a hat made from a snow cone cup and a wine cork nose. The six-week workshop, taught by puppeteer Ellen Schulze, was put on by the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. While any kind of art can be therapeutic, the puppets may serve a special role in helping express complex emotions.

The public is invited to watch 15 high school students perform poetry in the Sacramento County finals of the Poetry Out Loud competition Wednesday.

The Sacramento County "Poetry Out Loud" competition encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance, and competition. The winner will advance to the California Poetry Out Loud competition, held March 25-26 in Sacramento.

Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City are getting closer to being able to jointly distribute funding dedicated to building downtown's "cultural core." During the past year, while a consultant surveyed more than 70 arts and cultural organizations about ways to make downtown more active, the two government entities created a six-member committee to handle sales tax revenues set aside for use in enlivening that district.

AOP's revolutionary approach to patent research is the new standard for the most respected companies and law firms in the world. AOP clients include 18 of the top 25 companies most frequently targeted by non-practicing entities (NPEs), according to data from Patent Freedom, and 30 of the Fortune Global 500. Clients come from industries ranging from telecommunications, automotive, biomedical and pharmaceutical to consumer electronics companies and premier international law firms.

A student art gallery has formally opened in downtown San Pedro, further spotlighting the presence in town of Marymount College's new Waterfront Campus. The Marymount-run gallery in the Arcade Building at 479 W. Sixth St. will highlight the art work of graduating arts and media students - the college's first graduating senior class - throughout the spring semester.

The astonishing video won Nikon's first-ever Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition, which called for visually outstanding movies that fused science and art.

The exhibition has more than 40 artistic positions in which the boundaries between art, activism and inventions dissolve and the experiences and methods of environmental initiatives interconnect with artistic approaches.

The ART for Cancer Foundation will be holding a special visual art exhibit from February 17 to 24, 2012 at Toronto City Hall Rotunda, entitled "ART as a Healing Force." The multi-media exhibit will help raise awareness of the power of the creative process as a healing force, as well as promote the ART for Cancer Foundation's free creative programs for cancer patients.

The Coronado School of the Arts (CoSA) will host a "Create the State" conference on March 30-31, in hopes of fostering improved arts education. "Create the State" is an initiative of the California Arts Council to revive arts education. It is linked to Gov. Jerry Brown's economic development plans "as a way to reduce the dropout rate, increase the graduation rate, and educate kids for creative industry jobs for the 21st Century."

David Wasserman isn't a fan of staid, corporate art. He means the kind of artwork that typically lines corporate hallways and conference rooms, often featuring bland painted landscapes, graphic abstract shapes or sepia-tone photos of Central Park in winter. Or, worse.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) has long been a popular choice for technology conferences, civic events, and nonprofit fundraisers, but YBCA's downtown San Francisco event venues are increasingly being booked by creative industries including design, marketing and cultural gatherings. Four recently announced events scheduled for 2012-TYPO SF, KA Connect, PromaxBDA Game Marketing Summit, and AIGA's Gain: Design for Social Value Conference-typify this trend.

The SFAC Gallery, in partnership with Science@Cal, will host a panel discussion in conjunction of the SFAC Gallery exhibition, Vast and Undetectable. Moderated by exhibition curator, Aimee Le Duc, the panel is comprised of artists from Vast and Undetectable as well as esteemed scientists from UC Berkeley, Dr. Peggy Hellweg and Bernard Sadoulet. The panel will consider the similarities and differences between the visual languages artists and scientists use to articulate the concepts, theories and experiments that make up their work.

Yours truly will once again be judging the county's annual "Poetry Out Loud" competition, taking place Monday at VC High School's Maxine Theater from 10 a.m. to noon. The kids will be reciting famous poems, quite often with surprising passion and understanding of the material. And you can't beat the price: free.

In Jewish tradition, the copying of the Torah was the exclusive province of men. The Women's Torah Project, finished in Seattle in 2010, is the first known Torah to be scribed and embellished by an international community of women.

Spotlighting art that challenged, educated, and inspired the ideas of democracy in California during a turbulent era, Decade of Dissent: Democracy in Action 1965-1975 documents the importance of art as a vehicle for social and political progress throughout a watershed decade. Presented by the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the exhibition is part of the City of West Hollywood's arts initiative PST...It All Started Here—West Hollywood Celebrates Pacific Standard Time.

There is much research to show that music can improve academic performance. But what about behavior? Kindergarten teacher Shelvia Ivey sees the effects every day in her classroom.

Her friends feared she was moving to a "cultural desert" when she relocated to San Diego a few years ago. But like many locals who defend our arts world, Vanessa Dinning found plenty of culture in bloom in San Diego.

Odisha's Puri beach hosted a unique exhibition of art forms with internationally acclaimed sand sculptor Sudarshan Patnaik and his troupe making the beach a complex of sculptures of marine turtles and dolphins made of sand and the American chalk painter Tracy Lee drawing arts that give the visitor a 3D impression.

Susan Rodgerson, Co-Founder of Boston based Artists for Humanity (AFH), is one of those optimists. And she should be. Roughly two decades ago, she started AFH with a few highly motivated students providing these kids a voice, teaching them responsibility and setting them up as future leaders. From its humble beginnings, AFH now boasts 130 students with a waitlist of 100.

There's also a mounting body of research that suggests that students learn core curriculum more effectively when engaging the material through arts based learning methods - see, for example, The DREAM Project (Developing Reading Education through Arts Methods) currently being administered as a partnership between Center ARTES at CSU San Marcos (about an hour's drive south of Riverside) and the San Diego County Office of Education.

We discuss funding for the Arts. What are the benefits of supporting the arts and how can we do a better job? State Representative Sarah Peake, Chair of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, and Anita Walker Executive Director of the Mass Cultural Council, talk about what funding sources are out there and what the arts and culture community means to our economy.

The most generous members of the 1% devoted more than 2% of their charitable giving last year to arts and culture, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which issued Monday its annual ranking of America's 50 most generous donors. Reporters for the Chronicle found specific donations of at least $1 million to arts and cultural institutions by 12 of the 50, totaling $213.4 million.

As country after country announces substantial cuts in government arts funding -- and the economic challenges the European Union nations are now facing should only hasten this trend there -- the need to develop more sophisticated knowledge of fundraising techniques is only going to grow.

UC Riverside's 35th annual Writers Week Conference will celebrate prize-winning poets and novelists beginning Tuesday. Participating writers - among them distinguished UCR creative writing faculty and alumni  - will read selections from their works, answer audience questions and sign books after their presentations. Award-winning poet Diane Wakoski will close the four-day event as the keynote reader on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

On Saturday, February 4, 2012, UC Berkeley will gather world leading thinkers, visionaries, creative pundits, philosophers, academics and doers to host the third TEDxBerkeley Event (a 501c3) at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall. 15 ground-breaking thinkers, leaders and performers will cover a diverse number of global issues and topics, ranging from health and toxicity, politics in a new media world, robotics, machine learning, and mobile computing to the arts through life-changing film & storytelling, micro-finance, the gift-economy and "magic."

For many children, a chance to do some artwork, make some music, or get up on a stage is the highlight of their school day, and a opportunity to learn lessons in a creative way. But the Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to take that away from their elementary school students, with a proposal of "total elimination of its elementary school arts education program," according to Arts for LA, an L.A. County arts advocacy group.

What was intended at the time as a one-off, tongue-in-cheek art event turned out to be an unexpected annual happening, perhaps the most popular art exhibition held each and every year since 1996.

David Choe must have had a Kafkaesque morning, waking up to find himself changed in his bed into a monstrous millionaire. Seven years ago, the graffiti artist painted murals on the walls of Facebook's first offices in Palo Alto, California, and, according to The New York Times, he was paid in stock options in the realm of, reportedly, 3.77 million shares.

"One of the things we do during Black History Month is to make sure people of all backgrounds understand the way we're connected to each other and the way in which we have contributed to the places we live in," said Charmaine Jefferson, CAAM's executive director.

The Ninth Annual San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) will kick off on May 2 with more than 40 performances being presented at multiple venues throughout the city. 

Artist Mike Kelley, known for his found-object assemblages and musical performance art, passed away in Los Angeles of an apparent suicide at the age of 57 on Wednesday, an associate of the artist confirmed to ArtInfo.

Public art, love it or hate it, has been a part of Long Beach's evolution for the last few decades. No more. At least no more unless the City Council finds another way to finance it. 

Elise Strand was stuck in her hospital bed, undergoing high-tech wound therapy, when two musicians came into her hospital room to play at her bedside.

"Changing Lives" weaves together several interrelated stories. It chronicles the origins and growth of Venezuela's acclaimed El Sistema national music education program (which has trained about 400,000 children, many among Venezuela's poorest), profiles its charismatic founder-leader, Jose Antonio Abreu, and analyzes the program's growing international influence, as communities from Scotland to Baltimore and L.A. have implemented programs inspired by El Sistema (Spanish for "the System").

The Mexican Museum in San Francisco might have to update its relationship status. The museum of Latino art and culture has joined the Smithsonian Institution's Affiliations program, the nation's largest museum network.

The City Council voted 6-1 on a final budget that maintains funding for Children's Fairyland, the Oakland Zoo, arts groups and neighborhood crime prevention services - all of which faced drastic reductions. 

With the closure of redevelopment agencies across California, numerous nonprofits and community groups are scrambling to figure out how, or if, they will be able to survive. The San Jose Stage Company, a nonprofit community theater and arts group that rents highly subsidized downtown property from the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, is one such entity.

Discover the Arts, the longest running and largest arts campaign in the City, launches the fourth-year of its campaign later this month. Discover the Arts is held in conjunction with the City's annual Los Angeles Arts Month celebration. Created in partnership with Wells Fargo and approximately 50 cultural institutions as well as media and community partners, the campaign, which runs from January 16 to April 30, 2012, offers cultural attractions to locals and tourists alike with up to 50 percent off admissions, gift items, and more.

It is never too late to learn how to play an instrument. Research has been done to see whether music can only be learned by younger people and the results undoubtedly say 'no.'

According to the CNN article "The Importance of Music Education in Schools" by Vince DiFiore, A U.S. Department of Education study found that those who reported consistent involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12.

Sonoma State welcomed The California Association for Music Education for the Jazz Band Festival at Sonoma State University's Green Music Center on Friday, Jan. 27. 

Children at Vinh Son orphanage in Kontum (about 400 miles from Ho Chi Minh City) have been creating postcards to send to their "art pals," students at San Ramon Valley schools.

For nearly 12 years, the center has played host to Latino artists and writers from around the U.S. and the Americas as it billed itself as a unique place where Latinos can visit an art exhibit, enjoy a flamenco performance and research family background. But as the economy turned sour and New Mexico state lawmakers cut funding for museums, the Albuquerque center has had to transition and institute painful cost-saving measures.

During World War II, Britain's finance minister recommended to Winston Churchill that they cut arts funding in order to better support the war effort. Churchill's reply was, "Then what are we fighting for?" This remark resonates with an enormous difference in values between the U.S. and Europe.

By removing the arts from schools, academic achievement may not be harmed. However, the child's overall educational experience would be. A report published last year from the Committee on the Arts and Humanities appointed by President Obama made several claims on how arts education can affect students in the specific areas.

According to Felicia Filer, public art director for Los Angeles' Department of Cultural Affairs, the city has commissioned 252 works of art since 1993, about half of which are outdoors. Some of these works, found at local libraries, parks, animal shelters and police stations, are in need of repair and many soon will be as they age. It's a problem confronting every city with an aging public art collection.

Egypt will have to tap into the creative potential stored in the country's vast youth population to capitalise on the value added that internet based activity has to offer to economic growth, Mohamed Gawdat, Google's head of emerging markets and businesses in Southern, Central and East Europe, Middle East and Africa explains.

LA County Poetry Out Loud Competition
Actors' Gang Theatre, January 25
Culver City

County Champion: Calvin Lam
Runner-up: Alyssa Scott

Responding to state budget cuts and other factors, Seattle parent-teacher associations are funneling several million dollars into the city's schools each year, some of it supporting a couple dozen employee salaries, according to budget documents provided by the district.

At a time when unemployment is the key political issue and when virtually everyone in politics is struggling to find ways to reduce the ranks of the unemployed, why doesn't some smart politician realize that the arts are one way to help solve this problem?

A new Pacific Standard Time exhibition at Scripps College takes a look at the pioneering work of Voulkos and his peers, John Mason and Ken Price. "Clay's Tectonic Shift" traces a period in the late 1950s and 1960s, when ceramics broke free of its traditional ties to function and craft and entered the mainstream art world.

Latino recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowships will converge from throughout the U.S. in Fresno this week for a reunion including many free public presentations and discussions with the local community.

Picture a boxy old delivery truck with a huge pink breast on top. The nipple is a flashing red light.It's the Milk Truck, spreading the message that nursing mothers have the need and the right to feed their infants in public.

A bare strip of city-owned land in the Playhouse District is about to be transformed into a pocket park for the first "site enhancement" project of the new Rotating Public Art program.

Iraq native Luma Alobeidy always dreamed of playing a musical instrument, but she never got the chance. Now she is all the more grateful for a music program that's giving her two daughters the opportunity to learn the violin and piano.

The Organization of American States (OAS) received a report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on the economic importance of the creative industries in 30 countries - and the significant contributions it makes to the development of countries.

The report, with studies developed in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, Peru, and ongoing in Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, was elaborated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and presented at an event co-organized by the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI) and the OAS Executive Secretariat for Integral Development.

For the third year running El Dorado County high school students are among thousands across the state interpreting, memorizing and performing classical poetry for Poetry Out Loud, a competition run by the California Arts Council and launched by the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Poetry Out Loud builds on the recent resurgence of poetry as an oral art form, as demonstrated by the slam poetry movement and the immense popularity of rap music among the nation's youth.

The lesson is that the arts have a broad constituency. And so arts organizations should not think of themselves as being a "special interest." No doubt there will be major hurdles to implementing a sound advocacy program for the arts, but many state agencies have been working on these issues for years. It's past time that we recognized our strengths and ensured the viability of our artistic heritage for the future.

The Music Center announced six from Riverside County are among 94 talented high school students who are performing arts semifinalists for the 24th annual Music Center Spotlight Awards in Los Angeles.

The Calabasas City Council hired the North Hollywood artist in November to paint an exploration-themed mural inside the library. Once completed, the mural will show the ocean, the mountains and a blue sky populated by clouds. A red-tailed hawk, pumpkin wagon and oak trees will be depicted, and a dome at the center of the room will showcase an astronaut and planets next to a sprinkling of stars pinned to the deep of space.

100% of the net proceeds from the concert will be given to eight music education non-profits: The American Symphony Orchestra Music Notes, Church Street School of Music, Young Audiences, Music Unites, FIKS (Fixing Instruments for Kids in Schools); and newly added beneficiaries The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, Midori and Friends, and The Center for Arts Education.

The 20 or so middle-grade students crammed into a Delano classroom Wednesday -- some holding violins and trumpets, others much bulkier guitarron bass guitars. At the start of the school year, some had never even held an instrument. The Paramount Bard Academy students are learning to play music through El Sistema, or The System, a world-renowned music education program making its appearance for the first time in a Kern County school.

A lively Greek tune began to play, and clusters of fifth-graders began to move in synch to the music. On Friday morning, the gymnasium looked more like the setting of a barn dance than a basketball game.

The DeSoto County arts community, like its sister regions across the state, is poised to reap financial reward from its creative exploits with an enhanced sense of awareness and better marketing and promotion. That's according to a nationally recognized economic consultant who visited the state's fastest-growing county during a recent two-day trip.

The South San Francisco Cultural Arts Commission has dedicated a new public sculpture, "Evohelix" by Roger White Stoller, installed on Centennial Way near Spruce Avenue. The work commemorates the city's 2008 centennial celebration. 

Pacific Standard Time will explore the origins of the Los Angeles art world through museum exhibitions throughout Southern California over the next six months. Times art reviewer Sharon Mizota has set the goal of seeing all of them. This is her latest report.

Thursday is a big day at San Marin High School - not just for the eighth-graders who are shadowing to learn more about high school life, but also for faculty at San Marin involved in a new program called smARTt - San Marin Arts and  Technical Arts.

"Here Comes the Neighborhood" is a short documentary series about the ability of public art to transform and improve a community (trailer & episode one). The first season focuses on The Wynwood Walls, an outdoor street art museum in an industrial district in Miami that includes work by Shepard Fairey and other famous street artists.

Ever since Hans Arp let free-falling scraps of paper shape his collages and Marcel Duchamp let free-floating threads shape his canvases, artists of a certain breed have invited accident into their artwork. But two rather explosive performances this weekend, part of the Pacific Standard Time festival that runs through Sunday, showed that not all accidents pack the same creative punch.

Bjork will run a three-week musical education program for middle-schoolers during her residency at the New York Hall Of Science in February. Bjork's educational series will feature interactive science and music workshops for students and lead them on an intensive study of the scientific concepts at the core of her acclaimed album "Biohphilia."

NAMM: Founded in 1901, 110 years ago; The NAMM Show is one of the largest music product trade shows in the world. It is held every January in Anaheim, California, USA, at the Anaheim Convention Center. This year there was a record 95,709 registered attendees, and 1,441 exhibitors.

John Cruz, one of Hawaii's most prominent singer-songwriters, was running a little late as he navigated the streets of Oxnard in search of Soria Elementary School, where he'd fulfill one of his assignments as a new volunteer for the Guitars in the Classroom program.

Sarcasm was my initial reaction to headlines about a new report that artists have a huge economic impact on Michigan. It is more of a reaction to how certain artists chose to interpret the initial data.

The Crucible, a nonprofit Bay Area industrial arts education facility, is kicking off its 13th year with The Crucible Experience, a celebration of the very community that makes The Crucible so successful and unique. 2012 will see a revived focus on inspiring a new wave of potential and current industrial artists, helping them ignite their inner fire.

Intellectual property is a dynamic concept, legally and culturally, one that is always being reshaped on one hand by changing methods of creation and distribution, and on the other by markets scurrying to catch up. The abstract line between public and private ideas - the line that intellectual property tries to police - is the very same line the Internet blurs so well.

This January, copyright witnesses a simultaneous push and pull, a drive for greater stricture on one end, and a graceful unknotting on the other.

Stan Stokes is man with a mission: to do justice to the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen through his paintings. For over forty years, the California-based artist has painted an array of canvases dedicated to African-Americans who served during WWII.

An arts-based charter school has been proposed at the recently shuttered Clements Elementary School site, an idea that proponents say would bring a much-needed alternative to San Joaquin County education and preserve the historic school site as a community center.

 The California Resale Royalty Act entitles artists to be paid five percent of the resale price of their artwork when it is sold in California or by any seller that resides in the state. This includes when property changes hands that encompasses artwork such as a hotel, restaurant, corporate center, or retail store. As such, three class action lawsuits are underway as artists allege that Sotheby's, Christie's, and eBay have failed to pay these royalties.

After a year in the making, the wait is over for students at Gardner Street Elementary School. School officials unveiled the new Michael Jackson Music Education Laboratory Monday morning at the pop star's former elementary school.

Awarded  $5,000 for their Music Education Program, $1,000 in New Gear and a Professional Music Video Recording Session, Southern California Teens Head to Frankfurt, Germany to Headline Original School Jam Competition.

On Saturday, January 28 at 6:00 p.m. the Mammoth Lakes Repertory Theatre in cooperation with Mammoth Lakes Foundation presents the 2nd Annual Mono County Finals in the national Poetry Out Loud competition.

An interactive audio tour featuring the latest development in Radio Frequency Identification technology or (RFID).

Tuesday night, the City Council will be asked to authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute a professional services agreement with Inigo Manglano-Ovalle for the fabrication of the artwork to be installed in Palisades Garden Walk in an amount not to exceed $440,200.

An international jazz festival in Haiti hopes to attract fans and artists with support of local embassies in the earthquake-ravaged country. The festival is more than a marketing tool, say organizers

From its humble roots in Venezuela to its latest incarnation in Toronto, El Sistema has helped hundreds of thousands of children enrich their lives through music. The film looks at El Sistema and the impact it has had on children not only in Venezuela but in Canada, the United States and Scotland. It follows the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra on a recent visit to Canada.

On a tiny, windswept island off the San Mateo County coast, a team of scientists and art designers has engineered a creative solution to give mating seabirds a boost: ceramic "love shacks." These handcrafted underground nests are one piece of the Ano Nuevo Island Restoration Project, a unique collaboration between scientists and artists that hopes to reverse some of the human damage done to the island since the 1800s.

Limiting art to what is commercially viable results in cultural narrowness.

Most democratic societies provide more support for the arts than the United States does. But the tiny amount of U.S. government support (the NEA and NEH combined cost the average taxpayer $1.07 per year) accomplishes a great deal. Government support of the arts increases the diversity of the art and entertainment world, increases access to the arts, and helps live performance survive in an era in which digitally reproducible material has a tremendous economic advantage

There is conjecture that men created art to become women. If this seems absurd, consider the following scenario.

Sanchez looks at the music and movies industry and finds that, relative to many other struggling industries, these entertainment industries have done far better on average during the recession.

Seeking a creative way to deal with their motel neighbors, the Shasta County Arts Council has been awarded $10,000 to beautify the Old City Hall courtyard in downtown Redding.

THE 1941 film Citizen Kane will be shown at Hearst Castle, the elaborate California estate built by the newspaper magnate who inspired Orson Welles's cinema classic, ending a seven-decade-long feud.

A new report suggests that for every $1 Michigan invests in arts and culture, $51 is pumped back into the state's economy. The Creative State Michigan report is based on data gathered from 10% of Michigan's nonprofit arts and culture sector. It shows that 211 organizations generated $462,791,322 dollars in economic activity.

Los Angeles continues to be both the site and subject for innumerable artworks across the city, from a large-scale performance and public art festival to screenings featuring films about L.A., by L.A. filmmakers.

The Music Empowers Foundation announced today that its recently completed national initiative to support music education programs in public schools surpassed all expectations.

Students from Glendale high schools will compete in the opening stages of  "Poetry Out Loud," a national program that encourages youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation.

For the third year running El Dorado County high school students are among thousands across the state interpreting, memorizing, and performing classical poetry for Poetry Out Loud, a competition run by the California Arts Council and launched by the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In Mumbai, the university's president makes her case for liberal arts and notes the role of Indians on her campus.

The plan for what would be the biggest public art project in El Cerrito history -- installing 12 abstract copper sculptures on a streetlight poles along San Pablo Avenue -- entered a significant new stage last night, Wednesday, when members of the Arts and Culture Commission tentatively mapped where they would go.

Legendary Beach Boy member Brian Wilson accepted NAMM's most prestigious award on Wednesday, the "Music for Life" award. NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond presented the award to Wilson, noting the Grammy-winning artist's immense support for NAMM's causes that include promoting music education.

Last year's Champions of the Arts emcee Garland Thompson has been a constant presence in the local theater and poetry scenes, and this year, he'll be deservedly honored with the luminary award. His work with Monterey County high school students led to two winners in the California State Poetry Out Loud: A National Recitation Contest (started by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Poetry Foundation) in the past two years.

It's a familiar symbol of the city, a beacon at a spot where residents in the 1850s used to signal ships in the bay. But there is historic treasure inside as well. More than 75 years ago, Ruth Gottstein watched as her father, Bernard Zakheim, along with other artists, painted frescoes on the walls of the tower, murals that depicted the life of America in the early 1930s.

A successful after-school art program for underprivileged children will return in March to the Jamul-Dulzura School District. District officials announced Jan. 17 that local artist Dean Esposito would return in the spring to resume "Drawing With Dean," a popular program designed to give less-fortunate kids who might not otherwise be able to afford art lessons a chance to cultivate their creativity.

She started out as a singer-songwriter, but Linn Brown didn't find her metier until she started teaching music to young people with autism, Down syndrome and other disabilities.

NBC is using Smash as a springboard for a new musical initiative targeting 20 underserved schools around the country. The initiative, "Smash: Make a Musical," is a partnership with New-York-based iTheatrics, to enable those schools to stage their own musical productions and implement self-sustaining theater programs. Los Angeles is one of the cities where the program will be held.

"Arts education aids students in skills needed in the workplace: flexibility, the ability to solve problems and communicate, the ability to learn new skills, to be creative and innovative, and to strive for excellence." - Joseph M. Calahan, Director of Corporate Communications, Xerox Corp.

The link between traditional artistic practices and mental and physical health is explored in "Weaving Traditional Arts Into the Fabric of Community Health," a study [PDF] by the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities. The report was commissioned by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, a nonprofit in Fresno that provides support for folk and traditional artists, the majority of whom are immigrants and Native Americans. In these often-overlooked minority communities, the arts tend to be passed down from one generation to another as collective wisdom, rather than as a personal statement. 

Indonesia is digging into thousands of years of rich, creative culture and history to push itself forward faster into the 21st century. And it's not looking at basket weaving, batik or busloads of mass-market tourists. "It's about ideas and new ones," says Mari Pangestu, in charge of Indonesia's new Ministry for Tourism and Creative Economy, set up just three months ago.

Unless you are part of the Washington screen industry or an indie film buff, chances are you may not have heard of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. But that looks set to change, after the state government announced a funding boost of around 30 per cent over the next three years.

The relationship of nonprofit institutions to for-profit corporations is necessarily complex. It is no easier for a nonprofit to consistently endorse the business practices of their corporate donors than it is for the corporate donors to consistently admire the choices a nonprofit makes vis a vis programming, outreach or aesthetic. But surely the relationship is worth preserving.

The Santa Barbara Bowl will donate $.25 of every ticket sold to Bowl concerts to the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission to expand access to arts and cultural programs to underserved communities countywide through Cultural Enrichment Grants.

The Santa Cruz Fringe Festival, set for this July, is seeking performance artists and groups to feature during the 10-day event.

The brand-new performing arts festival will bring about 175 performances by about 35 different groups to Santa Cruz from July 13 to 22.

The creation ultimately will serve to restore the creek, and to be a model for other cities interested in creek restoration, and in involving the public in a new way.

They were bold enough to call it a revolution. Back in the 1970s, when Chicano art was synonymous with East Los Angeles, its storied murals and its art center, Self-Help Graphics, a group of Mexican American artists decided to break away.They headed north, seven miles, to start their own Chicano arts collective in Highland Park, an area that was still mostly white with little presence of Latino art.

The Herb Alpert Foundation has increased its benefaction for The Herb Alpert Scholarships for Emerging Young Artists -- a program administered by the California State Summer School for the Arts -- by $1.3 million, bringing the Foundation’s total contribution for this initiative to $2.4 million.

Przyblyski comes to Valencia from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she was vice president and dean of academic affairs

Yvonne Porcella learned to sew as a child and followed her mother's instructions to rip out her stitches and start over if she made any mistakes. As an adult, the longtime Stanislaus County resident's perfectionism gained her international attention for her cutting-edge studio art quilts, her intricately designed kimonos, and 10 books on textile arts

More than ever before, public artworks are stimulating and inviting active dialogue rather than just passive observation, thereby fostering social interaction that can even lead to a sense of social cohesion among the viewers themselves.

Here, at Afghanistan's sole music academy, students are taught music with the hope it will bring comfort in the face of war and poverty, bringing back cellos and violins to revive a rich musical legacy disrupted by decades of violence and suppression.

5th Annual All Kids Can CREATE Launches on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday and Encourages Students of All Abilities to Submit Original Artwork

Calling all artists! The City of Santa Clarita is seeking artists to create sellable artwork made available through the City's new Art2Go program, which benefits youth activities, assemblies, and contests to promote arts education in local schools. Art2Go's concept is to make individual, unique pieces of art available to the community at affordable prices in a convenient, no pressure setting.

The fourth annual Public Art Documentary Film Series, a joint venture between the city and the University of California, Riverside in Palm Desert, kicks off on Jan. 19.

Legislators rejected last year's plan; Brownback responded by vetoing the arts commission's entire $689,000 budget, making Kansas the first state to eliminate funding for arts. That decision prompted the National Endowment for the Arts and a regional arts alliance to cut funds, costing the state an additional $1.3 million.

Van Halen teamed up with Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation -- which provides resources for under-funded music eduction programs -- to distribute the guitars in schools that don't have enough instruments for students to play. The charity provides resources for under-funded music education programs.

Like a championship yacht returning home, the San Francisco Fine Art Fair ( www.sffineartfair.com ) sails back for its third year to berth at Fort Mason Center, May 17 - 20, with a crew of more than 70 international galleries and an extended run.

Bach to Rock (B2R), America's music school for students of all ages, announced today it plans to expand nationwide by offering franchise opportunities to qualified candidates. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to build a business that is dedicated to helping children, seniors and adults learn to play the music they love. B2R is currently seeking candidates to open franchise locations in the Mid-Atlantic region, from New Jersey to North Carolina, and plans to broaden its efforts into markets across the country.

The NAMM Foundation announced today that it will launch its annual effort later this month to recognize and support schools across the United States that support music education as part of a complete and quality education for all children.

In 1984 I entered the world of a women's prison- as an art teacher.

With the digital age come new conceptions of authorship.

A confessed "news junkie," I often cruise the information superhighway for the most au courant arts news.

Emmy Award-winning TV, film and stage actor and arts advocate Alec Baldwin will deliver an annual key lecture on the arts this year. The Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy will take place on April 16 as part of arts advocacy events in Washington, DC. Previous speakers have included columnist William Safire, actor Kevin Spacey, filmmaker Ken Burns, and many others (see press release and list).

In a city that boasts a thriving community of locally owned businesses, artists, musicians and writers, it's no wonder that Sacramento has a stunning array of public art displays that have taken the form of murals on the sides of buildings throughout town.

Corporate philanthropy meets mid-season ratings grab in a new musical-theater initiative from NBC that will target 20 underserved schools around the country. The program, which was announced Friday, coincides with the Feb. 6 debut of NBC's series "Smash," about the making of a Broadway musical. Schools can apply to be part of the initiative's second round, which is scheduled for the fall. Applications are due by March 2.

When the California Arts Council budget was slashed by more than 90% after the dot-com bust, the revenue generated by the Arts License Plate saved the agency from extinction.

It's been 35 years since Judy Baca was a young art teacher with this idea: that troubled kids could paint a mural one summer along a concrete river channel in the San Fernando Valley about the history of underrepresented people.

We're pleased as punch to introduce the Curbed Map to San Francisco's Public Art. The city's rich with it, and below is a guide to Curbed SF's favorite temporary and permanent pieces of public art sprinkled around the city.

The acronym STEM--shorthand for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics--has quickly taken hold in education policy circles, but some experts in the arts community and beyond suggest it may be missing another initial to make the combination more powerful. The idea? Move from STEM to STEAM, with an A for the arts.

From March 10 through July 8, 2012, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present the exhibition Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.