Arlene Goldbard
Arlene Goldbard is a writer, social activist and consultant whose focus is the intersection of culture, politics, and spirituality.[1] She is best known as an advocate for cultural democracy and a creator of cultural critique and new cultural policy proposals.
Arlene was born in New York, but grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. After extended sojourns in Sacramento, Washington DC, Baltimore, Mendocino County, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area, she now resides in Lamy, NM, with her husband, the sculptor Rick Yoshimoto.[2]
Work
Arlene has addressed numerous academic and community audiences in the U.S. and Europe, on topics ranging from the ethics of community arts practice to the development of integral organizations.
She has also provided advice and counsel to hundreds of community-based organizations, independent media groups, and public and private funders and policymakers. They include various nonprofits such as Appalshop, Global Kids, the Independent Television Service, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art; and foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media; a score of state arts agencies; and many others.
In 2015, she was named one of 2015’s “Fifty most powerful and influential leaders in the nonprofit arts.”[3] She was also named one of 50 Purpose Prize Fellows, recognizing social innovators over 60, for her role as Chief Policy Wonk of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture. [4]
In May, 2009, she was one of the organizers of a White House Briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, National Recovery, which brought more than 60 artists and creative organizers into dialogue with administration officials about their roles in bringing about cultural recovery and sustainable community. In October, 2009, the Cultural Policy Working Group formed there released a new proposal, "Art & The Public Purpose: A New Framework,"[5] putting forward five key concepts to support a significant new investment in "art’s public purpose to mend our social fabric, promote freedom of expression and a vibrant, inclusive national dialogue, and revitalize both education and commerce with the creativity that has always been the wellspring of our energy and success." By gathering individual and organizational endorsements and promoting dialogue on art's public purpose, the Framework's founding endorsers hope to create sufficient demand to persuade public officials to adopt the new policy proposal.
Notable Positions
Arlene serves as Chief Policy Wonk of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture [6], the nation's first and only people-powered department (the USDAC is not a government agency). She has served as Vice Chair of the Board of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and Tsofah/President of Congregation Eitz Or in Seattle. She is currently President of the Board of Directors of The Shalom Center.
Additionally, she co-founded such activist groups as the San Francisco Artworkers’ Coalition, the California Visual Artists Alliance, Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts and Draft Help.
Publications
Arlene has written numerous books and essays, which have appeared in such journals as In Motion Magazine, Art in America, The Independent, Theatre, High Performance and Tikkun.
Her books include:
- Crossroads: Reflections on the Politics of Culture, Talmage, CA: DNA Press, 1990.
- Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation, May 2000.
- Community, Culture and Globalization, New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation, April 2002.
- Clarity, iUniverse, May 2004.
- New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, Oakland, CA: New Village Press, November 2006.
- The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future, Waterlight Press, May 2013 [5]
- The Wave, Waterlight Press, May 2013 [6]
Some of her essays include:
- Cultural Equity: An Opera in Three Acts,” in STIR Journal. September 2014.
- Call & Response: IA’s Conference Experiment,” Imagining America’s Public journal. May 2014. Download here.
- The Cultural Commons Lies Hidden in Plain Sight,” at On The Commons. December 2013.
- Music & Civil Society: A Never-Finished Symphony," Interactive publication based on a symposium sponsored by Community MusicWorks and The Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University. March 2012. Download from Community Musicworks’ website.
- Symposium: Seven Characters in Search of An Audience (with apologies to Plato),” in Counting New Beans: Intrinsic Impact and the Value of Art, a publication of Theatre Bay Area. March 2011. See TBA’s website.
- The Art of Engagement: Creativity in the Service of Citizenship,” in The Connected Community: Local Governments as Partners in Citizen Engagement and Community Building, Download at the Alliance for Innovation Website.
- Nine Ways of Looking at Ourselves (Looking at Cities)” in What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs, May, 2010. A re:PLACE Top 10 Book of 2010 and Planetizen: Top 10 Book of 2010. Download reprint from a special issue of Culture and Local Governance.
- Twelve Bites of the Apple: Beth Grossman’s ‘All the Rest is Commentary,'” May, 2010. Read the full text at Zeek.
- Cultural Recovery, Public Art Review, Issue 40, Spring/Summer 2009.
- Arguments for Cultural Democracy and Community Cultural Development, GIA Reader, Spring 2009.
- Human Rights and Culture: From Datastan to Storyland, SpandaNews (III, 1, January/April 2009).
- The New New Deal2009: Public Service Jobs for Artists? December, 2008.
- The New New Deal, Part 2—A New WPA for Artists: How and Why, January, 2009.
- The Curriculum Project Report: Culture and Community Development in Higher Education, 2008.
- The Gaze That Creates Community, in Nueva Luz, Volume 13:1, New York: En Foco, 2008.
- To Sanctify, 2008.
- The Metrics Syndrome, 2008.
- Bromides and Sugar-Pills: Cleaning Out the Artworld Medicine Chest, Teaching Artist Journal, 6:3, 220-223, July 2008.
- Looking Before You Leap: Community Arts in Context, in Art/Vision/Voice: Cultural Conversations in Community, Baltimore: Maryland Institute College of Art, 2005.
- Culture Wars, Round Two, In Motion Magazine, May 2005.
- Examining the Challenge of Cultural Diversity, CAN Reading Room, April 2005,
- Trouble in Oz: Australia’s Community Cultural Development Programs Threatened, CAN Reading Room, March 2005.
- When Will We Ever Learn? In Motion Magazine, February 2005.
- The Story Revolution: How Telling Our Stories Transforms the World, CAN Reading Room, January 2005.
- Don’t Do It! Organizational Suicide Prevention for Progressives, CAN Reading Room, September 2004.
- When Art Worlds Collide in Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985, University of Minnesota Press, January 2003.
- Memory, Money, and Persistence: Theater of Social Change in Context, Theater (New Haven), Volume 31, Number 3 (Spring 2002).
- Transforming Dialogue: Web Lab’s Explorations at the Frontiers of Online Community, New York, NY: Web Lab, July 2000.
- Creative Risk, Living Text: The Journal of Contemporary Midrash, Number 8, Winter 2000.
- Pitfalls of Planning, Lessons Learned Planning Toolsite. 1998.
- Let Them Eat Pie: Philanthropy à la Mode, Tikkun (Oakland, CA), (July/August 1996), Volume 11, Number 4.
