Arts center opens
in Gateway Arts District

Councilors convene in Howard County

The Maryland State Arts Council held its last regular meeting at the Howard County Center for the Arts, March 19 in Ellicott City. As part of its effort to expand outreach to the community, the Arts Council arranges their meetings at different venues across the state. Coleen West, executive director of the Howard County Arts Council, led a tour of the 27,000sq.-ft. arts center – a former elementary school that now houses galleries, a black-box theater, dance studio and individual artists’ studios, in addition to classrooms.

Frederick’s A&E District wins state recognition

The Downtown Frederick Arts and Entertainment (A&E) District received a salute from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development for its contributions to the state’s economy through art and culture. The Arts and Entertainment Outstanding Achievement Award was given during the annual A&E District managers’ meeting, March 10 at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis.

Bill Pencek, deputy assistant secretary for Tourism, Film and the Arts, presented the award to Shuan Butcher, director of the Frederick Arts Council, and Kara Norman, director of the Downtown Frederick Partnership. Pencek also read a proclamation from Gov. Martin O’Malley in honor of the occasion.

Designated as an A&E district in 2003, downtown Frederick “is home to a nationally-juried arts festival, two major film festivals, internationally-recognized public art, visual and performing arts centers, and a number of vibrant arts organizations,” Butcher said.

Md. Traditions, WYPR celebrate Persian New Year with music

Cliff Murphy, MSAC program director and co-director of Maryland Traditions, joined Aaron Henkin, host of WYPR-radio's The Signal, for a one-hour presentation of Persian music and stories in mid-March. The program featured Ahmad Borhani, a Persian classical musician who has lived in Baltimore since 1985, when many Iranian musicians and intellectuals were forced underground. Borhani is a master of the Persian santur (hammer dulcimer) and both a teacher and performer of Persian classical music. A podcast and multi-media presentation is available online.

Arts Council’s Pamela Dunne retires April 1

Pamela Dunne, assistant director at the Maryland State Arts Council, retired last week after a 17-year career at the Arts Council. Dunne began her tenure in 1993 as a program assistant for the Arts in Education Program. She later became program director. The program – designed to advance the arts and arts education in elementary and secondary schools – thrived as Dunne demonstrated her skill in connecting with school administrators and artist-teachers.

Dunne also showed a talent for maintaining fairness in the creation of grant policies and guidelines. As assistant director for Grants and Programs, she applied her skill to a variety of programs – including Grants for Organizations and Individual Artist Awards – and to her work with county arts councils. Her meticulous and thoughtful approach to grant programs was supported by her frequent assertion that she “loves this stuff.”

During recent months, Dunne directed the Arts and Entertainment District Program – the statewide network of 18 designated districts in which arts and arts enterprises have bolstered local economies.

NEA chairman tours A&E district in Baltimore

Last month, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman joined Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan in Baltimore for a visit to City Arts, an affordable residential development geared to artists in the city's Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

“At the NEA, we know that artists are placemakers,” Landesman said. “When you bring arts organizations and arts workers into a neighborhood, the ethos of that place changes: the arts are a force of social cohesion, civic engagement and economic revitalization.”

City Arts includes 69 rental units, eight townhouses for sale, visual-arts gallery and performance-arts space. It is scheduled to open in January 2011. Project financing comes through federal stimulus funds and public-private partnerships involving the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and other groups.

Survey shows appetite for the arts in rural areas

Urban and rural residents tend to participate in “informal-arts” activities at similar rates, according to the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, a study released by the National Endowment for the Arts in March. In both urban and rural communities: 25 percent of residents visited historical parks or arts and crafts fairs; 20 percent went to an outdoor performing-arts festival; 20 percent attended a performing-arts event at a place of worship; 13 percent played a musical instrument; and 9 percent created paintings, drawings or sculpture.

The rate of participation in “formal-arts” activities favors urban dwellers, primarily because 88 percent of nonprofit performing-arts organizations and art museums are located in urban areas.

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