The Board of Directors for the Business Council for the Arts (BCA) has named Stacie Wheelock Adams as its new CEO effective June 1, 2023. Adams is succeeding Katherine Wagner who is retiring after more than 14 years of dedicated service.

“We are thrilled to announce Stacie Adams’ selection as the BCA’s new CEO,” said the Founder’s Chair Nancy A. Nasher. “Stacie is a leader who has an excellent reputation in the arts community, deep relationships in the business sector, and an enthusiasm and commitment to helping the BCA continue its important mission.”

Adams has joined the BCA after a distinguished career in arts leadership in Dallas. During her tenure at the Crow Museum of Asian Art, she served as the deputy director for a respected six-year period. Before joining the museum, Adams held the position of director of public relations and communications at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for over five years. Adams holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in marketing and management from Texas A&M University.

Adams joins the BCA after holding her previous position as the senior vice president of external affairs at Axxess, a technology innovator for in-home care in the United States. Adams was responsible for creating and executing the company’s comprehensive philanthropy and community engagement strategy. Additionally, she acted as a liaison with essential stakeholders, including community and nonprofit organizations across North Texas.

“When I met Stacie more than eight year ago, I knew her deep connections in the Dallas community were exactly what Axxess needed at the time as we worked to build our philanthropic and community engagement footprint in Dallas,” said Axxess Founder and CEO John Olajide. “I couldn’t imagine a better leader for a role representing the convergence of the arts and business communities than Stacie. I know she will bring the same level of commitment and rigor to the BCA that she has done for Axxess over the last five and half years.”

For over 35 years, the Business Council for the Arts has been actively encouraging municipalities, businesses, and individuals to support the arts within the workplace, education, and the broader community of North Texas.

“I am honored to have been chosen to lead the BCA,” said Adams. “I intend to work alongside our board and our staff to continue to build upon the BCA’s business-facing strategy, providing programs that positively impact engagement and retention, health and wellness, equity, inclusion and diversity, while continuing to grow community connections through arts and culture.”

The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) has released its response to the recommendations of the Arts Program Review.

The GNWT agrees with all the report’s recommendations and has started to make operational changes based on the recommendations and feedback gathered from the arts and creative sector during engagement session for the NWT Arts Strategy and during the program review. This will include:

• Updating departmental arts mandates to clearly show what each department will work to accomplish regarding the arts.
• Implementing ongoing monitoring and assessment of arts programs to ensure they are continually improved.
• Improving how artists can find and learn about the arts programs and funding available to them to inform them of funding opportunities.
• Improving arts funding program eligibility requirements and distribution to increase access in small communities.

The Government Response to the Arts Program Review provides a list of the planned changes that the GNWT will be making and expected completion dates to meet the needs of artists, craftspeople, and creatives who rely on its programs and funding.

Quote(s)

“We have heard the concerns voiced by our artists and agree with all the Reviews’ recommendations.  We now have the important insight we needed to make changes to GNWT arts funding. We are committed to making meaningful changes to government arts funding to help establish a strong and valued arts and creative sector which will benefit everyone living in the NWT.”

– R.J. Simpson, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment

“The arts contribute to a strong economy and enhance shared community identity and belonging. In response to the recommendations of the review, we are working closely with our colleagues at ECE to collaborate on improving programs and services to the NWT creative sector. With a focus on fostering the economic aspirations of NWT art stakeholders, ITI will continue to develop and seek out new marketing and business development opportunities for northern artists that will empower them to improve their presence in the NWT creative economy.”

– Caroline Wawzonek, Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment

Quick facts

• The NWT Arts Strategy released in 2021 sets out a vision for how the GNWT will help to support the arts and creative sector for the next 10 years.
• The release the Arts Program Review in November 2022 was the first key action item of the NWT Arts Strategy to be completed.
• View the NWT Arts Strategy Progress Tracker for an overview of the progress of all actions and deliverables of the plan.

Related links

For media requests, please contact:

Briony Grabke

Manager, Public Affairs and Communications

Department of Education, Culture and Employment

Government of the Northwest Territories

briony_grabke@gov.nt.ca

867-767-9352 Ext. 71073

Drew Williams

Asst. Director, Strategic Communications

Industry, Tourism and Investment

Government of the Northwest Territories

drew_williams@gov.nt.ca

867-767-9202 Ext. 63037

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Noh is the earliest theatrical art form in Japan and is still performed today. Developed in the 14th century, it often focuses on tales in which a supernatural being has transformed into a human and is narrated from the hero’s perspective. A core facet of the costumes is highly stylized Noh masks, which represent characters like deities, ghosts, and other figures, subtly emphasizing expression and emotion as their wearers turn in the light. A short documentary by Process X explores how the craft of carving the props by hand is kept alive by artisans like Mitsue Nakamura.

Starting with a block of Japanese cypress, Nakamura chisels the round face, eyes, nose, and teeth. Coated with a lacquer traditionally derived from crushed seashells mixed with glue, the form is then dried before being pierced on each side with a hot awl to tie strings through. The artist mixes pigments by hand to add color to the features, including blackening the teeth in a practice known as ohaguro, a fashion that was popular in Japan during the Heian period.

For some families and institutions, Noh carries a timeless and important legacy, and many historically significant and valuable masks, such as those made by the 15th-century Konparu school, are preserved in collections. “The term ‘face like a Noh mask’ is often used as a metaphor for expressionlessness, but the major characteristic of the world of Noh is that it expresses human feelings and inner thoughts rather than storytelling,” says Nakamura in a statement. “The better the mask is, the more the expression changes with a slight difference in angle.”

Process X frequently goes behind the scenes with makers and artisans, including in this video documenting the making of artistic manhole covers in Japan. (via Kottke)

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A New Video Reveals How a Traditional Japanese Noh Mask Emerges from a Block of Cypress appeared first on Colossal.

Summer art programs bring kids and families together across the county for creative engagement and this month, the Heritage Center will host its free art days every Monday.

The Chisholm Trail Heritage Center staff and volunteers will continue to engage with families each week to provide their annual Free Family Art Monday (FFAM) program to the community.

The FFAM program, which launched on June 5, is a free come and go event each Monday in June at the Heritage Center and is open to everyone.

The next FFAM will take place on June 12.

Each week of the program, all supplies are provided and families can complete a variety of art projects along with brief instructions.

Event and Marketing Coordinator Bailey Teakell said the theme for FFAM will focus on their “Diversity on the Trail” theme.

Teakell said their first FFAM went really well with 109 people participating in the event.

During the first art day, families created Native American projects to go along with the “Diversity on the Trail” theme.

“Participants made Native American headdresses and necklaces, as well as a bison head project,” she said. “All the participants seemed so excited to be here and making art.”

Teakell said they loved to see all of the creative moments with the families.

“A few participants even rushed up to us after finishing their projects to show us what they made,” she said.

During the event, CTHC hosted a photo opportunity where those attending were able to take pictures and pretend they were in a canoe.

Teakell said the upcoming projects are inspired by the life on the Chisholm Trail.

FFAM is located outside at the Heritage Center. In case of weather, CTHC may move festivities inside.

The Free Family Art Monday program is sponsored by Edward Jones Investments.

For more information about FFAM, call 580-252-6692 or email bailey@onthechisholmtrail.com.

“We certainly didn’t predict this,” says the award-winning film-maker Phil Grabsky. “Clearly, we have provided something that people are very excited about. The stars have all aligned.”

Grabsky—who, a decade ago, established Exhibition on Screen, a series of documentaries about art and artists based around exhibitions—is talking about his recent film Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition, which has broken the company’s box-office record since its cinema release in the UK on 18 April. At the time of writing, the film’s takings are reported at just over £818,000, from screenings in around 300 cinemas, an excellent result for a film that is essentially a supercharged guided tour of an art gallery.

It helps, of course, that the art gallery in question is the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and that the subject of the film—the universally acclaimed assembly of 28 of the 37 known works by the 17th-century Dutch Old Master painter—sold out almost immediately. Like the touring “event films” released by London’s National Theatre or New York’s Metropolitan Opera, this allows those unable to attend a major cultural event—the vast majority of the potential audience—the ability to experience it. Grabsky is aware that there will always be suggestions that films somehow devalue the art. “We do not say, ‘you do not need to go to the shows anymore.’ The idea is to do both.”

The Exhibition on Screen films offer added value, with curators, researchers and critics talking on camera and interpolating contextual detail including artists’ biographical information, readings from letters and the like. Grabsky—who has shared the majority of directing duties with artist and film-maker David Bickerstaff—has overseen a simple, elegant style, strong on clarity and watchability involving lingering close-ups of the work and intelligent, but not opaque, critique of the work.

The series now runs to 34 films, with titles ranging from the blockbuster (Leonardo: The Works and I, Claude Monet) to the less obvious (The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin, about pioneering Impressionist collector Wilhelm Hansen). With a “season” of four to five offerings per year, not all the films do as well as Vermeer, and Grabsky is upfront about the business side of it. “I have worked at the cutting edge of film-making for 40 years, and getting any film about art made is really tough. There are some films that we take risks on, there are some that felt like they were going to do slightly better than they did. The great thing about Vermeer is that it allows us to take more risks with future productions.”

Grabsky says the series is “largely self-funded”, with each film costing around £250,000 to make. In the UK, broadcast TV has largely given up on shows about art, he says. But he is hopeful that, now the film catalogue is pretty sizeable, he can make a deal with a streaming company. “My hope is someone like Netflix will come along and say, ‘we want to talk to an older, more cultured audience’.”

A handsome record

In terms of the actual subjects, Grabsky is keen to point out that he does not operate as a marketing arm for galleries—they do not pay to be included, nor do they get final cut—but, he says, they are enthusiastic to participate as, on top of everything else, they get a handsome record of their exhibition. He also points out that many of their films are not walk-throughs of a specific exhibition. The recent release Tokyo Stories is a case in point: “It is sparked by the Ashmolean’s Tokyo show [Tokyo: Art & Photography, 2021] but it is also an opportunity to make a film about 400 years of Tokyo-based artists looking at their city.”

Grabsky says he is currently working on a film about Klimt’s painting The Kiss (1907-08). “It won’t do as well, but we want it in the catalogue as we have never done anything about the whole Secession period,” he says. “I always come back to this: it is all about storytelling. We are driven by our own interests, by what we think the audience is interested in—and what we can make them interested in.”

By Dom Stevens – 8 June 2023

Children from Spire Junior School, Sharley Park Community Primary School, and New Bolsover Primary School have been working with artists to create an immersive art piece called The Garden of Imagination.

Junction Arts have commissioned the  ‘Garden of Imagination’ for the Chesterfield Children’s Festival. Theatre practitioner Monika Johnson, musician Phil Pearson and visual artist Rachel Scanlon are creating the immersive art piece.

Taking the form of a children’s bedroom at the festival for children to enjoy and engage with. There will be elements to play with, including sound sensors and fantasy characters.

The artists spoke to local primary schools to share ideas with the children about childhood and play. Collecting stories from the children to create a performance that will run alongside the “Garden of Imagination”.

Artist Monika Johnson said: “We are excited to work with Junction Arts to create a new immersive children’s theatre piece.

“We are creating a bedroom outside! It’s a bit of a tipsy topsy dream-like setting with some strange items in unusual places. We hope that families will enjoy interacting and playing with our set.   They will be able to change the music and sound effects themselves and become part of the performance.

Chesterfield Children’s Festival

The Chesterfield Children’s Festival will take place at Queen’s Park on the 29^th and 30^th of July, from 10 am – 4 pm daily.

The festival is free to attend and will have family-friendly acts and activities taking place over the weekend. These will include a silent disco tour, an interactive game zone, a comedy club, circus skills, storytime yoga, tie-dye workshops, face painting, and live music.

Music and live theatre will also take place in and around the town centre during the festival weekend.

For more information visit: www.junctionarts.org or follow Junction Arts on social media @JunctionArtsUK

Junction Arts supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 200 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.