Last night I had the privilege of observing the year-end championship competition for the Cleveland Schools’ elementary grade’s Military Drill Corps and Hi-Stepper Cheerleading teams in the large gym at John Hay High School. Who even knew there was such...

I attended the Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) board meeting this week (why does no one from the arts community except a representative from our commercial classical radio station ever show up to these open, public meetings?) and suddenly was caught by...

I’ve been reading and writing a lot about sustainability in the arts recently. This includes the sustainability of Cleveland’s arts sector as a whole and of individual organizations.  But what does sustainability mean? At face value it seems to imply...

Cleveland’s great jazz saxophonist, Ernie Krivda was eloquent in his acceptance remarks for his receipt of a Creative Workforce Fellowship this week.  He was one of 20 artists who accepted their fellowship awards at the December board meeting of the...

Two weeks ago I logged in to a live webcast of a Cultural Workforce Forum held by the National Endowment for the Arts. (View the webcast here.) Its purpose was, broadly stated, to explore the condition and role of the artist in America’s real...

Members of the brand-new White House Office of Urban Affairs (there hasn’t been such an Office before!) came to Cleveland to learn from us and others in Ohio about what has worked and what is not working with the implementation of the American Recovery and...

Last week a number of arts community members gathered to welcome Karen Gahl-Mills, the newly named executive director of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC) – our county funding agency for the arts.  And for once we didn’t have to warn an incoming executive...