NASAA News and Current Information

Be a Champion for the Arts in 2018

2018 is going to be another big year for the arts. You can help your state arts agency get the support it needs to advance the arts with a monthly gift to NASAA. Whether it’s $10 or $50, your monthly gift provides us with support we can count on all year long. Your support renews automatically so it’s hassle-free and can be changed anytime. Please start your monthly giving today to help all state arts agencies succeed in the year ahead. Thank you!

Visual Arts and Mental Health Report

From Visual Arts and Mental Health: Briefing

The What Works Centre for Wellbeing—an independent research institution organized and funded through the United Kingdom government’s What Works Network—has released a report on the relationship between visual arts practices and positive mental health. The report is based on a broad literature review as well as a meta-analysis of eight studies from the review. It finds evidence from multiple countries that visual arts activities can reduce depression, anxiety and symptoms of PTSD, particularly when participants worked with skilled professionals and in a safe environment. This report is the latest publication from the organization’s ongoing research on the arts and well-being.

Nationwide Arts Vibrancy Map

The National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) at Southern Methodist University has created an interactive arts vibrancy map illustrating the impact of the arts in every county in the United States. The map visualizes NCAR’s Arts Vibrancy Index, which scores counties on a scale of 0-100 relative to all other counties in the nation based on data from the National Endowment for the Arts, NASAA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, DataArts, the U.S. Census Bureau, the IRS, and several national arts service organizations. The scores reflect the presence and viability of arts and culture organizations, government support for the arts, socioeconomic factors, and indicators from the leisure and hospitality industries.

Intertwining Public Art and Arts Education

Intertwining Practices of Public Art and Arts Education is a new paper from the Public Art Resource Center of Americans for the Arts, an on-line clearinghouse of case studies, tools, opportunity announcements and more. The report explores the relationship between public art and arts education by considering the current state of the fields. It also looks at how they overlap and identifies opportunities for collaborations. The paper is a useful resource for artists and arts educators as well as arts administrators, local policymakers, community leaders and other stakeholders planning or realizing a public art project.

Kim Konikow Is New ED in North Dakota

Kim Konikow is the new executive director of the North Dakota Council on the Arts, effective January 12. She has a varied background in the arts as a presenter, artist manager and administrator. As a consultant through artservices & company, Konikow was engaged in projects that focused on organizational development. Prior work experience includes executive director of The Mesa, an arts and humanities residency center in southern Utah; executive director of Minnesota Dance Alliance; associate director for Art Awareness, a residency and performance center in upstate New York; director of special events at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music; and conference coordinator at Dance/USA. Konikow has served as adjunct faculty at the annual summer Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine, for more than 10 years, and as guest faculty in arts administration at Middlebury College, CalArts, the University of Colorado in Boulder, the University of Iowa in Ames and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She was an administrative fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Presenting and Commissioning Program, and was a recipient of a travel and study grant from the Jerome, Dayton Hudson and General Mills Foundations, which she used to travel to Australia and New Zealand to meet with more than 80 artists and arts organizations. Konikow has served extensively as a site visitor and panelist for several regional, state and national organizations. She holds a B.A. in art history and theatre from George Washington University and a dual M.F.A. in arts administration and theatre direction from Brooklyn College/City University of New York. Konikow succeeds Dr. Beth Gigante Klingenstein, who served in this capacity since 2014.

Anne Bown-Crawford Appointed Director in California

Anne Bown-Crawford joined the California Arts Council as director on January 17. She most recently was director of the Arcata Arts Institute and the Innovation Design Institute, both programs within Northern Humboldt Union High School District, and was the Fine Arts Department chair at Arcata High School. Bown-Crawford is chair of the Create CA Leadership Council, a statewide collective impact organization with a mission to rethink and create an educational environment for all California students featuring arts education as a central part of the solution to the crisis in our schools. Her work in that capacity led State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to appoint Bown-Crawford to help write the Blueprint For Creative Schools. Bown-Crawford is a new media studio artist and a freelance graphic designer specializing in branding not-for-profit organizations via print, web and social media. She is currently a FabLearn Fellow in the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and an Adobe Education Leader. She holds a master of arts degree in education from UC Berkeley and a bachelor of fine arts in design from Northern Illinois University, and was an M.F.A. design candidate at the California College of Arts. Bown-Crawford is a member of the National Art Education Association and the California Art Education Association. She succeeds former California Arts Council Director Craig Watson, who stepped down from the position last March. Ayanna L. Kiburi, who was serving as interim director, has resumed her role as the agency’s deputy director.

Karl Blischke Returns to Pennsylvania Council as ED

Karl Blischke became executive director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) on January 29. From 2000-2009, Blischke directed PCA’s Arts in Education and Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts programs, which annually provide services, programming and more than 1,000 grants to organizations in all 67 counties in the commonwealth. Blischke rejoins PCA by way of Florida, where he served in several senior level positions. In the governor’s Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, he was responsible for promoting job creation and community development in the state’s rural communities and directing programs aimed at increasing access to capital for small and minority-owned businesses. Following this work, he was named director of strategic business development for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, where he focused on the state’s efforts to diversify its economy and on business attraction, expansion and retention. Blischke succeeds Philip Horn, who retired from state government after leading PCA for 25 years.