BWB addresses "gaping needs where existing cultural and societal systems are failing." Following Burning Man, an annual freewheeling arts festival in the Nevada desert, several participantinf artists headed into the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to help rebuild devastated communities. Over eight months, BWB volunteers gifted over $1 million dollars worth of reconstruction and debris removal to Mississippi residents. The BWB Web site is a gathering place for BWB groups across the U.S. and worldwide who are working at homebuilding, environmental cleanup, recycling, solar energy and relief for victims of floods, fires and earthquakes from Iowa to Peru. BWB is supported by donations through Burning Man's nonprofit, the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

"Streets as Places," September 15-16, 2008, will introduce participants to new ways of thinking about streets as public spaces and how placemaking can be used to build great streets and great communities. "How to Turn a Place Around," September 25-26, explores the principles of making places through the close examination of two contrasting neighborhoods, walking tours, presentations, case studies and a Place Game. "How to Create Successful Markets," October 17-18, is a course on public and farmers markets where participants learn about the four crucial elements to success: the right mix of vendors and products; a strong sense of place; solid economic and operational underpinnings; and a firm commitment to the surrounding community. All take place in New York City.

The Seattle conference will explore "what it means as an artist-centered organization to be a full participant in civic life, engaging in the global community, supporting artists working in social justice and public or community art, and integrating support for artists, creativity and innovation into public policy." Cleveland is the author of "Art and Upheaval" and director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community. Richard Andrews, director of Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington and director of the visual arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts, is also a keynoter. The Alliance is a membership organization for the field of artist communities and residencies, with 250 members worldwide.

John Abodeely, on the Arts Education Listserv (7/21/08) says database provides state-by-state summaries on the following eight policy topics: arts-education mandates, arts-education state standards, arts-education assessment requirements, arts requirements for high-school graduation, arts requirements for college admissions, licensure requirements for nonarts teachers, licensure requirements for arts teachers, and continuing-education requirements for arts teachers. Users can generate and print individual state profiles, customized state comparisons of specific arts-education policies, or compile 50-state reports. Also, the database provides users with links they can follow to get additional information about each state.

The intensive, August 12-13, 2008, offers professional training for artists, principals and in-service and pre-service teachers and professional development for those interested in and/or working in the field. The programs includes "Comparatives, Superlatives, Pronouns, Adjectives and Gerunds Oh My! Using Creative Writing, Song Writing and Poetry," "What’s My Shape? Geometry Using Dance and Drama," "Re-imagining The Book Report—Comic Book Production," "Understanding History and Economics Through Music" and workshops on brain-based education and the multiple intelligences as well as programs by the Wolftrap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts and Michigan Opera Theatre. Participants are eligible to earn .6 SBCEUs per day. Registration deadline for the training, in Detroit, is August 1.

The convention, set for Seattle, Wash., June 17-20, will explore how creative communities grow and prosper in concert with technology, the economy and the environment. The convention is organized into nine concurrent program tracks: Arts Education, Civic Engagement, Economic Development, Leadership, Career 360, Preserving Diverse Cultures, Private Sector, Public Advocacy and Public Art. More than 75 sessions will be presented over the course of of three days during the convention. Sessions that fit in more than one track are welcome and may be presented jointly to a larger audience. Each session should respond both to the program track in which it is presented, as well as the 2009 theme of renewable resources.

The 30th Annual Humboldt Folklife Festival happens in Blue Lake July 19-26, encompassing the Annie & Mary Fiddle Festival and Blue Lake Pageant, July 20, and the All Day Festival, July 26. The Pageant is described as "an-only-at-Dell'Arte spectacle as hundreds of dancers, musicians, giant puppets and masked participants take to the streets of Blue Lake in a spirit of energy and creativity that must be experienced to be believed." It's all surrounded by Dell'Arte's annual Mad River Festival, which kicked off June 20 when Tim Robbins and the Actors' Gang received the Prize of Hope, presented each year by the Danish Institute for Popular Theatre to theaters and individuals who have fought for human hope "in a daring, loving, vulgar, sincere, serious, and poetic manner."

The book is a collection of narratives about artists working with communities during conflict and war -- in Northern Ireland, Cambodia, South Africa, the United States, Australia and the former Yugoslavia. Craig Zelizer, who teaches in the M.A. in Conflict Resolution program in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and wrote for CAN about art and peacebuilding, describes the new book as "an inspiring collection of powerful narratives about the work of community-based artists resisting oppressive regimes, building community in divided societies, challenging economic and racial discrimination, and rescuing culture on the verge of extinction." Calling it "an ideal text for use by students, professors, community arts practitioners, donors and policymakers," he says one of the book’s greatest strengths is "the clarity with which Cleveland presents the experiences and voices of the artists," but he laments the absence of a concluding chapter. Zelizer then takes the initiative to draw from Cleveland's narratives some lessons about community arts in conflicted societies.

The American Library Association's Web site says “Bibliotheca Publicus: An Endangered Species” calls attention to public library budget cuts and the importance of the public library to a democratic society. The installation includes library memorabilia, and above the books (which are placed on fake grass) hang two wall pieces, 13'x15', composed of recycled cards from old Medford (Mass.) Public Library card catalogs displaying quotations about the importance of public libraries in our society and quotations from newspapers about library funding cuts. Each piece is individually hand stamped, letter by letter. Nierenberg teaches “Art, Activism, and Community: Visual Art for Social Change” at Tufts.

Developed by the Winston-Salem, N.C., university's Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts, the new program wants to bring "creativity to the liberal arts campus as a program ... for student citizens envisioning the future and faculty transforming research through new creative pathways." So far, the program features ten courses that combine disciplines to "focus on creativity as object of inquiry, as process and as product or outcome," investigating "new creative ideas and hybrid practices that impact on the world." A national symposium, “Creativity: Worlds in the Making,” March 18-20, 2009, aims to "revalue creativity in the radically changing global environment." There's a call for papers, due October 1. Program director is Lynn Book, who teaches in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

July courses: Making Motion Graphics, starts Jul 19. High Definition Stop Frame Animation, starts Ju...

"In a project extending Venezuela’s renowned system of youth orchestras to some of the country’s most hardened prisons, [hundreds of] prisoners are learning a repertory that includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and folk songs from the Venezuelan plains," says Romero. Writing about inmates in the National Institute of Feminine Orientation, a prison on the outskirts of Caracas, he says, "The budding musicians include murderers, kidnappers, thieves and, here at the women’s prison, dozens of narcomulas, or drug mules, as small-scale drug smugglers are called. The project, which began a year ago, is expanding this year to five prisons from three." (Thanks, Cultural Policy Listserv.)

"Culture and Conflict" investigates how art is helping in times of war, conflict and violence. The project features studies on music and stereotypes among the Roma community, billboards and social inequality in South Africa, cartoons and political upheaval in Lebanon, mixed media and intracultural collaboration in Sri Lanka, and ceramics and cultural identity among vulnerable populations in Columbia. “When people are forced to repeal their own culture, the result is a hopeless person forced to be opportunist and violent, with no moral limits and bounds," says Art for Refugees Director Sara Green. The project was edited by Amanda Fortier for the Power of Culture, a Netherlands site about culture and development. (Thanks, Craig Zelizer.)

The Metro Screen Network's August event. Tuesday August 5th at 6.30pm. $10 non-members Your entire c...

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The issue includes essays by Celina Aquilar and Kate McLeod on power dynamics in community collaborations at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Ron Bechet, Willie Birch and Helen Regis on the history of the Porch Cultural Center in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans; Sheila Fox on reflection and personal development as inherent components of the art-making process; Nicole Garneau and Phyllis Johnson on the difficult partner relationship that built Columbia College Chicago's community arts graduate program; Sonia BasSheva Mañjon on whether campus-community partnerships are "supporting or destroying" the field of community arts; Linda Melamed and Isabel Nazario on the challenges to conventional academic culture presented by Rutgers' Transcultural New Jersey Public Service Arts Program; Mindy Nierenberg on how collaboration between liberal arts and visual arts can make opportunities for student learning and community benefit; Melanie Ohm on refining the term "best practices"; and John Peacock on the trials and tribulations of building a 2,000-mile bridge between MICA and the Dakota Nation.

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Diane Grams and Betty Farrell conducted a study through the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, drawing on interviews with leaders, staff, volunteers and audience members from 85 nonprofit cultural organizations to explore how they have revised their goals as they seek to broaden their audiences to involve a more racially and ethnically diverse group of people, those from a broader range of economic backgrounds, new immigrants, families and youth. The authors differentiate between "relational" and "transactional" practices, the former term describing efforts to build connections with local communities and the latter describing efforts to create new consumer markets for cultural products. Interviewees range from San Francisco Symphony to Appalshop.