Overview of Convention

• Call for Proposal Overview (Deadline: August 1, 2008)
• Go Directly to the Submit a Proposal for a Session Form
• Go Directly to the Recommend a Speaker Submit Form

Seattle is metronatural, a world-class metropolis in stunning natural surroundings. Clean air, expansive water, and soaring mountains frame a thriving creative core. Seattle is a leader in healthcare innovation, aerospace, information technology, and environmental sustainability—for which the art and cultures of the city provide creative spark. The region is a rich reservoir to explore how creative communities grow and prosper in concert with technology, the economy, and the environment.

At the Americans for the Arts convention, more than 1,600 arts leaders and their allies in business, education, and government will discover the arts at work in the Pacific Northwest. We will visit public art projects like Beckoning Cistern created by Buster Simpson as part of a community effort to design a "green street" in Belltown. We will explore art and history in a culturally specific context at the Wing Luke Asian Museum. We will learn about programs that integrate the arts into healthcare like the Arts Program at Harborview Medical Center. 

Through activities like these—plus keynotes, innovators, and more than 75 field-crafted sessions from around the country—you will come away recharged and ready to build a sustainable future for yourself, your organization, and your community. Join us in Seattle with colleagues from across the country to grow our greatest renewable resources—the arts, culture, and creativity.

Program Tracks

The convention is organized into the following nine concurrent program tracks: Arts Education, Civic Engagement, Economic Development, Leadership, Career 360, Preserving Diverse Cultures, Private Sector, Public Advocacy, and Public Art. More than 75 sessions will be presented over the course of of three days during the convention. Sessions that fit in more than one track are welcome and may be presented jointly to a larger audience. Each session should respond both to the program track in which it is presented, as well as the 2009 theme of renewable resources. 

• Arts Education Program Track
  What enables (or disables) Arts Education in the classroom is not a phenomenon—it is the product of hundreds of decisions made by legislators, lobbyists, school boards, higher education, parents, district and school employees, and labor unions. From the White House to the school house, hundreds of policymakers and decisionmakers determine the daily academic experiences of students. What really happens at the local, state, and federal levels to influence decisionmakers in regards to arts education? How are administrators and other school personnel supported so that they can ensure arts education is part of a complete education for all students? From the PTA mom to the Speaker of House—who are the authorizing agents in your community, who are making a difference for arts education? The 2009 Arts Education Track will illuminate the change agents who make policy decisions possible and shine a bright light on how you too can make a positive difference for arts education.
  
  
• Civic Engagement Program Track
  The Civic Engagement Track will showcase the many ways the arts are shining a light on important environmental issues, advancing education, and catalyzing action. Look for sessions highlighting innovative arts-based projects and practice that put creativity at the heart of environmental policy and action and that incorporate the arts into environmental and community sustainability.
  
  
• Economic Development Program Track
  Washington State is the home of scores of innovative thinkers: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Mark Morris, William Boeing, Mary McCarthy, and Tom Robbins. Creative thinkers. Creative Systems thinkers. Sector-benders. Economic Development Sessions will both highlight Seattle and Northwestern programs and initiatives of distinction and explore path-breaking work from around the country in creative economy, cultural development, regional cooperation, planning, creative expression, cultural tourism, and real estate. Sessions will highlight the melding of different sectors, systematic approaches, and risk-taking with a sustainable, bigger picture in mind. 
  
  
• Leadership Program Track
  Leadership is less about wielding influence and more about channeling the common good. In today’s world, we need leaders who operate as service leaders and stewards of both our community’s resources and our personal assets. The Leadership Track will demonstrate strategies to attain this elusive balance, which will be a defining characteristic of a truly successful leader in the future. Ideal session proposals will offer strategies or showcase exemplary models for employing this stewardship model of leadership to professionals, organizations, and communities.
  
  
• Career 360 Program Track
  To what extent do we live our lives both on purpose and with purpose? We know our jobs in the arts and cultural sector are vital to a vibrant creative economy. However, why do we find it so hard to place an equally high value on making sure our creative spirits are nurtured? How can we become better at using our human resources to encourage thriving lifelong careers in the arts? Career 360 will be a time for reflection and realignment of priorities. It will give you the space to listen to your intuition and focus on what deeply inspires you. Participants will leave with the courage and tools to prioritize what matters most in your life. Ideal session proposals will present ways to mindfully manage our human resources and creative assets.
  
  
• Preserving Diverse Cultures Program Track
  The Preserving Diverse Cultures (PDC) Track focuses on issues relevant to culturally specific organizations and highlights the leadership of people of color. All PDC sessions are cross-listed with other tracks to ensure that insight and expertise about diversity in communities is broadly integrated within all convention activities. Throughout the program, speakers, ARTventures, and sessions address a wide range of topics—from public art that challenges stereotypes to economic development strategies that authentically reflect the communities they support to new strategies for leadership succession in tradition-bearing arts organizations. The PDC track originated at the 2008 convention in Philadelphia through an extraordinary partnership with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. PDC is presented again in 2009 thanks to their continued leadership and our colleagues at the Washington State Arts Commission.
  
  
• Private Sector Program Track
  More than ever, the arts play a leading role in developing stronger relationships with the private sector. The Private-Sector Track will help attendees learn to make a case for support of the arts to businesses, foundations, and individuals. Cases highlighting the best of the Northwest, and the rest of the nation, will show how to stimulate financial support, transfer of creativity skills from arts to business, and supercharge volunteerism programs with great impact.
  
  
• Public Advocacy Program Track
  The Public Advocacy Track will explore current funding and legislative issues facing the field today and feature the work of arts agencies, administrators, and advocates from across the country who have increased their budgets, created new organizations, and successfully grown arts and culture in their communities. This track will give details on how to use research, digital tools, and new strategies to take action and advocate for the arts in your community!
  
  
• Public Art Program Track
  Seattle serves as a nationwide model for innovative public art programming and commissioning of exemplary contemporary projects. Its diverse public art programs and project opportunities have mentored and developed the careers of some of today’s most creative public artists, many of whom call Seattle home, and who have in turn, helped shape the agencies that commission public art. The region has led the public art field through combined multidisciplinary efforts that address the environment through artworks in many forms that mitigate, educate, and make visible the challenges of sustainability. The Public Art Track seeks session proposals that present potent ideas and new models that address and reveal the environment, ecology, and eco-awareness, and the many dimensions of the meaning of “sustainability” through public art. We encourage panels to include multidisciplinary professionals that present diverse approaches and outcomes to the concept of sustainable, environmentally based public art.

Call for Proposal Overview (Deadline: August 1, 2008)

Go Directly to the Submit a Proposal for a Session Form