June 19, 2020

 

Congratulations to CEO of Settlement Music School and vice chair of the Guild's Board of Trustees, Helen Eaton, who has received the 2020 Arts Education Award from Americans for the Arts. This award is part of AFTA's Annual Leadership Awards, which recognize the achievements of individuals and organizations committed to enriching their communities through the arts.

Here's a quote from Helen's acceptance video:

"If we really are committed to our missions and to our core values, then we must continue our work in the ongoing, transformative process of becoming anti-racist organizations. Black lives matter. So what does it mean to be part of a solution for anti-Black violence and systemic marginalization? Institutions like ours must ask these questions every day and in every context, while being open to feedback that can lead to real and lasting change. Our community is counting on us. We know the arts can be a catalyst for social change, and so we must be ready to teach, learn, and lead in service to our communities."

Watch Helen's full award acceptance video here.

March 12, 2020

 

Congratulations to educational consultant and Guild trustee Dr. Derrick Gay, who has received the AMS 2020 Montessori Ambassador Award from the American Montessori Society. The award honors an individual who, through their work in a variety of arenas, is fostering a landscape in which Montessori education not only thrives, but flourishes. Here's a quote from his remarks upon accepting the award:

"I consider myself fortunate to have served and advocated in the education space over the past 23 years, and consulting with organizations across many sectors (education, nonprofit, finance, law, the arts) for the past 11 years. If I had to impart one lesson to empower individuals to design and support inclusive environments, I would share this: Inclusion is always intentional. Cultivating a sense of belonging and connectedness is not an organic function of our belief that we are good people. Moreover, while Montessori undoubtedly values inclusion, this belief should not be confused as an action. Inclusion always requires the ongoing intentional efforts of each and every one of us in the community in partnership with each other."

Read Derrick's full remarks here.

The planning team for the 2020 National Young Artists Summit (NYAS) has been selected! NYAS is a full-day, virtual Summit, entirely designed and led by young people across the country, which provides opportunities for young artists ages 13-20 from a range of artistic disciplines to connect, create, and celebrate.

View the photos and bios of this year's planning team of 11 young artists from across the U.S.

 

 

The CYD National Partnership has created the “Create, Connect, Catalyze” framework to weave together perspectives from young peoples’ reflections on their experiences in creative learning environments alongside perspectives from academic research on creative learning environments.

The framework is interactive—on the CYD Partnership website, you can click on each of the 3 outcome areas to delve into how the research connects with young peoples’ experiences. 

With a shared framework for creative youth development, we are hopeful that we will be in a stronger position to develop new, participatory approaches to program evaluation and assessment.

Learn more and explore the framework here.

June 26, 2020

The Guild has taken the #ArtsGoBlack pledge, which is part of a campaign launched by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) that calls on the arts and culture field to take real action and be held accountable to dismantling white supremacy in our institutions. The campaign's demands are as follows:

 

1) Amend Your Mission

Every arts and cultural organization, especially those in communities of color, must amend their mission to address racial and social injustice.

2) Center Communities & Artists Of Color

Every arts and cultural organization must implement policies that ensure that communities and artists of color have meaningful engagement and opportunities in exhibitions, presentations and related activities.

3) Diversify Boards & Staff

Every arts and cultural organization must require diversity on the board and staff reflective of the populations they serve.

 

By signing the pledge, we commit to taking the steps above, as well as participating in a one-month introspective period guided by CCCADI's questionnaire and resources. These actions are aligned with our internal racial equity process, driven by the Racial Equity Committee of our Board of Trustees, which we're excited to share more about in the coming months.

 

We encourage organizations committed to ending racism in our field to make the pledge by visiting artsgo.black.

 

The Guild is excited to have completed the CYD Toolkit Series—an 8-part, free virtual learning series featuring dynamic online conversations with youth, experts, funders, and practitioners to explore new paths forward for supporting youth through creative youth development practice. Thank you to the CYD National Partnership, Americans for the Arts, the Clare Rose Foundation, and all of the guest speakers. 

Recordings of all of the webinars in the series are available in our Resource Center. Practitioners will especially benefit from these conversations as they strive to support youth during this time of ongoing, intensified crises.

Topics include:

CYD and Social Justice in the Classroom

Working in Social Justice

Trends in CYD

Working With Youth

Advocacy and Policy

Preparing Artists and Educators

Funding, Sustainability, and Partnerships

Program Evaluation

 

You can access all of the webinar recordings here.

June 4, 2020

Black lives matter.
 

We as community arts education institutions have a responsibility to address white supremacy —because it kills and traumatizes people in our communities, because our institutions themselves are capable of perpetuating racism and inequity, and because our organizations are made up of people who are impacted by this violence in various ways. We applaud the organizations in our field that have aligned themselves with the movement against anti-Black violence.
 

The National Guild for Community Arts Education’s mission is to ensure that everyone can achieve their creative potential. This mission is not possible as long as communities across the United States are terrorized by white supremacy and institutional violence.
 

While an extraordinary amount of funding goes towards policing, arts and cultural organizations—especially those led by people of color—struggle for funding. We stand with the Divest/Invest initiatives of Funders for Justice and Movement for Black Lives. These initiatives call for resources to be divested from policing and incarceration, and invested in things that communities need in order to thrive like housing, food, healthcare, education, and the arts. 
 

We welcome the beginning of Pride month, which itself began as an anti-police uprising led by trans women of color (Trans Queer Pueblo created a beautiful video about this: watch it here). We honor the long legacy of those who have fought to get us to this point, and we stand in solidarity with those who are continuing the fight today.
 

Staff and board at the Guild are committed to the ongoing, transformative process of becoming an anti-racist organization. We recognize that this process is never-ending and worthwhile. If you’re interested to learn more about the racial equity work that we’re doing internally, you can contact us.
 

Here are just a few of the many organizations doing great work on the ground that we encourage you to support (and ask your constituents to support):
 

Black Lives Matter

The official #BlackLivesMatter Global Network builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe.

Black Mental Wellness

Black Mental Wellness provides resources about mental health and behavioral health topics from a Black perspective, to highlight and increase the diversity of mental health professionals, and to decrease the mental health stigma in the Black community.

BYP 100

Founded in 2013, BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100) is a member-based organization of Black youth activists creating justice and freedom for all Black people, through a black, queer, feminist lens.

Million Artist Movement

Million Artist Movement is a global movement and vision that focuses on the role of art in the campaign to dismantle oppressive racist systems against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and disenfranchised peoples.

Movement for Black Lives

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) seeks to reach millions, mobilize hundreds of thousands, and organize tens of thousands, so that Black political power is a force able to influence national and local agendas in the direction of our shared Vision for Black Lives.

National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network

The National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN) is a healing justice organization committed to transforming mental health for queer and trans people of color.

Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative

The Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative is working to build a black trans futurist framework for practical abolition as the way to liberation.

Soul Fire Farm

Soul Fire Farm is a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) centered community farm committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.
 

Bail funds to support protesters:

Split a donation between 40 community bail funds (ActBlue)

Directory of community bail funds (National Bail Fund Network)

LGBTQ Fund

The Bail Project

 

We thank the artists who are using their art to make space for grief, healing, anger, and action.

We believe that a just future is possible, and that artists have a powerful role in bringing this future to life.

 

In the spirit of healing and justice,

The National Guild Team

May 19, 2020

 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we will not be hosting an in-person conference in New York City this fall.

We are deeply saddened that we won't be able to gather in-person with our arts education community—we cherish this time together each year. We know that for many people as well as for us, the Conference for Community Arts Education is a mind- and soul-nourishing gathering which offers a rare chance to see friends and colleagues from across the country, and which pushes forward our work for the entire year. For now, we are taking time to pause, reflect, and reimagine the shape of our programming for the coming months.

We've come to this decision for several reasons, including uncertainty around the safety of gathering in person, consideration for the NYC organizations who were engaged in planning and hosting the conference, and recognition of the serious financial realities that many organizations are facing.

Although we cannot convene in New York, we are committed to bringing the field together in the summer and fall. We are inspired to design learning opportunities that respond to the current moment and support the community arts education field as we collectively build our future. We've already been developing ideas based on our conversations with the field through our three COVID-19 response virtual series (you can find recordings here, and our Community Conversations series is still ongoing). 

Over the coming months, we will be reaching out to our community to tell you more, and to ask for your help. We very much look forward to being with you all, virtually.

Wishing you health, safety, and peace of mind, 

The National Guild Staff

April 27, 2020

The Coronavirus pandemic has illuminated our nation’s historical and systemic inequities in sharp relief. Not only are communities of color experiencing higher rates of sickness, but also experiencing racial profiling, slander, and hate crimes specific to COVID-19.

The National Guild for Community Arts Education, in collaboration with a program planning committee comprised of arts and cultural administrators located in our home base of New York City, is using this time to listen and reflect. We want to learn about your personal and professional experiences of racism during this pandemic through this BRIEF (10-minute) survey. We will use what we learn, through this survey and regular community conversations, to inform upcoming anti-racism training opportunities and advocacy work, both locally and nationally. The survey is designed for teaching artists and arts administrators, both youth and adults. It can be completed on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Please complete this survey by Friday, May 8.

Planning committee members include: Erika Atkins, Deputy Director, Opening Act; BC Colston, Founder and Director, Brown Girl Recovery; Rajeeyah Finnie-Myers, Director of Professional Development, DreamYard; Linda Norris, Global Networks Program Director, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience; Naima Oyo-Simon, Executive Director, Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy; and Rachel Watts, Director of Teen Programs, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, ArtsConnection.

This survey is now closed.

Applications are now open for the 2020 National Young Artists Summit Planning Committee. The National Young Artist Summit 2020 Planning Committee plans, coordinates, and co-facilitates the 2020 National Young Artists Summit (NYAS). Working with a group of young artists from across the country, committee members design a full-day Summit, providing opportunities for youth leaders, ages 13-20, from a range of artistic disciplines, to connect, create, and celebrate. Watch videos from past summits here.

NYAS was to be originally held in New York City on Saturday, November 21, 2020, hosted in concert with the 2020 Conference for Community Arts Education. Due to COVID-19, it is uncertain if an in-person summit will occur this Fall. However, the planning team will be committed to working together to create a "Plan B": a virtual online summit.

Learn more and apply here.