2003 Governor’s Arts Awards Nomination Forms The 2003 Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts nomination form is now available on the New Mexico Arts Division’s website www.nmarts.org under “Breaking News.” Receipt deadline for all nominations is January 31, 2003. For further information telephone 505/827-6490 in Santa Fe or 800/879-4278 (in-state). this ISSUE’s highlights Arts Outside the Mainstream Art as a Business Panel Dates AIPP Projects AIPP Announcements The arts and art making are often found outside of the mainstream, with a need for creative expression and experiences driving a shift away from more traditional venues. New Mexico Arts’ Arts in Social Service funding category provides an avenue from which art making can occur in unlikely places. Established in 2000, Arts in Social Service funding supports arts organizations or social service organizations for arts-based projects that focus on addressing social issues and reaching specific populations such as the homeless, abused, or the ill. The following are several projects funded through New Mexico Arts that have impacted various segments of communities statewide. Art for the Heart is an ongoing healing project located in Peñasco. Its Hersday project offers a safe environment for abused women to build self-esteem through the act of art making. Collaborating with Taos Community Against Violence, advocates from Art for the Heart attend every other week to support women participating in the Hersday project. Women in the program grow and heal together through the making of quilts, dolls, ceramics, murals and other artistic endeavors, often sharing stories and solidarity while working on their projects. The Hospice Memorial Foundation assists persons and their loved ones dealing with terminal illnesses. Through their Healing and the Humanities program, Hospice provides creative encounters to the medical setting. Some of their artistic outreach efforts include audio-recorded “life review” interviews allowing individuals to find meaning and existence and to facilitate conscious living as well as conscious dying where appropriate. Their Night Lite program provides live music and reflective dialog from 10pm to 6am for hospice and hospital patients. And to ensure that medical professionals also have an outlet for rejuvenation, Creative Encounters for Medical Professionals provides open art studios and writing workshops for medical professionals working with critically and terminally ill patients. Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless d.b.a. ArtStreet provides a safe place to make art while increasing awareness of homelessness. Offering open studio space and art materials, ArtStreet is a unique program that draws together diverse individuals with a shared intention of making art in a safe, sensory-rich environment. Through informal art making, individuals find a welcoming environment that offers opportunities for learning new options for solving art related problems which can be transferred into an enhanced ability to solve life problems. Offered free to the public, ArtStreet’s “waiting room art” program reaches approximately 100 children living in poverty per month. Its Mentoring Artists Program provides materials and technical assistance to homeless artists and teaching positions. Since the inception of the Arts in Social Service funding program, twenty-one projects have been funded for a total of $148,135. As the need for extended outreach continues to grow throughout New Mexico’s communities, the Arts in Social Service program will play a vital role in linking the arts to unlikely places. Arts Advocacy Update In November, staff met with members of the New Mexico legislature to begin a discussion about establishing an arts caucus within the state legislature. The purpose of the caucus will be issue-based in order to ensure that the arts have a place in future decision making and funding around the state. The primary role of a caucus is to educate legislators and build consensus around a specific issue or bill affecting the caucus’ interests. Caucuses operate differently from legislative committees and cannot officially vote on an issue or take actions that officially place legislation before the governing body. They can, however, play a powerful role by helping to bring about legislative change through education, agenda setting and advocacy. Legislators form caucuses for many different reasons. A caucus can provide a forum for lawmakers to promote an issue that is important to them, and serves as a means for networking in order to meet fellow members as well as constituents. As a legislative activity, caucus members must endorse legislation that promotes the goals of the caucus as well as defeat legislation that may be detrimental to its agenda. Other states that have arts caucuses include Oklahoma, Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota and Ohio. New Mexico Arts staff will continue to meet with legislators to help to establish a strong voice within the legislature for the arts. Art as a Business: A Resource List Compiled by Carol Cooper, Rural Arts Partnerships Program Coordinator Thinking and acting like a business is vital, in varying degrees, for any artist whose income is dependent upon their artwork. Whether you need help with small business startup and management, planning, marketing, record keeping or personnel, the following is a list of resources to help artists navigate the business of art. General Information, Technical Assistance, Consultation and Training Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) at colleges and university branches statewide provide individualized professional consulting services and training for small business owners, in association with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Call the state’s lead center in Santa Fe at 505/428-1632 for your local SBDC’s number. The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) is a volunteer organization of previous business owners and managers who provide free business counseling and workshops. There are chapters in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Santa Fe and Roswell. For information on SCORE’s services and locations, visit www.score.org. The Women’s Economic Self-Sufficiency Team (WESST Corp) MARKETLINK program is a micro-enterprise development program serving women- and minority- owned artisan entrepreneurs with sales and marketing skills training. Visit www.wesst.org for information and numbers for seven offices statewide, or call 800/go- wesst. The New York Foundation for the Arts’ Visual Artists Information Hotline is a free service to facilitate the work of professional visual artists. Visit www.nyfa.org/vaih or call 800/232-2789. Circum-Arts Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit arts service organization that assists, advocates for and encourages performing artists and visual arts projects. They provide a range of administrative, technical and educational resources. Visit www.circum.org or call 212/904-1422. Media Rights Foundation (MRF) is a nonprofit corporation that provides education and services to New Mexico artists on arts-related legal and business issues. MRF is a resource for writers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers and other media creators. Visit www.pbrainmedia.com/mrf/. New Mexico CultureNet, at www.nmcn.org, offers a listing of cultural events, an artists’ database, and a listserve on which events are advertised and training opportunities are posted. Contact the community services or continuing education division of your local community college or university branch for short- or full-term classes in small business management topics, and contact your local arts council or community-based art gallery for suggestions of additional local resources. Financing and Funding Assistance ACCION New Mexico in Albuquerque provides small business loans and training to emerging entrepreneurs in communities throughout the state. They are expanding their outreach to underserved markets. Visit www.accionnm.org or call 505/243-8844 or 800/508-7624. In general, foundations and corporate and government funders seldom provide individual funding. However, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online allows a search through detailed descriptions of 4,800 programs such as scholarships, fellowships, grants and loans for individuals, including artists. Visit www.gtionline.fdncenter.org. Free publicity for your events The New Mexico Department of Tourism invites submissions of events to its website calendar at www.newmexico.org, visited by 200,000 people per month. If you have questions, call Jon Bowman at 800/545-2070. Rural Economic Development Through Tourism (REDTT) invites submissions to its statewide events calendar by email to [email protected], fax 505/646-8100, or phone 505/646-4078. Mail to Diana Bristol, PO Box 30003 MSC 3HRTM, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8003. Technology Assistance CharityAdvantage provides non-profit members with website development, computer donations, and computer purchase assistance programs. For information, visit www.charityadvantage.com. New Mexico Arts Partners with the New Mexico Department of Labor The New Mexico Department of Labor’s (NMDOL) Job Training Division is supporting NMA’s commitment to rural arts enterprises and job creation through a $62,000 grant of Workforce Incentive Act (WIA) funds. Funding supports rural pilot projects providing entrepreneurship and studio arts training and employment opportunities. Projects include Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico, working in Doña Ana County colonias (border communities); Tapetes de Lana