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SCOPE for Wed. March 10, 2004- The Voice of the Missoula Creative Community

Today is Wednesday, March 10, a notable day in history, as in 1681 when William Penn received a land grant charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of a big chunk of land in the British colony that is known today as Pennsylvania; or in 1849 when Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent, the only US President to do so; or in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call — “come here, Watson, I need you.“ For today’s birthday boy, see END NOTE.

General interest items and news of what’s happening elsewhere

#1a – Issue 31, the proposed Cuyahoga County (Ohio) economic development and arts tax recently was defeated by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent. The 0.7-mill property-tax increase would have raised more than $21 million per year for five years to be divided evenly between traditional economic development and funding for the county’s arts and cultural industry. Arts and cultural organizations everywhere were hopeful that this measure would set an example that communities might follow to support their cultural infrastructure.

#1b – When National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Bill Ivey spoke in Missoula — he was brought here in 2000 by the Missoula Cultural Council — he wryly observed that the draconian cuts imposed on NEA by the Congress might have been the best thing that could have happened to that agency because it forced it to reconsider what it should be doing and how to do it. When MCC arranged for him to address the Montana League of Cities and Towns annual meeting here, he spoke eloquently of how funding arts and culture gave Montana communities important economic benefits.

#1c – The year before, at a national conference on Strengthening the Arts through Policy, Performance and Practice Leadership, Ivey predicted “there will be a change in arts leadership. Many of us came early and are staying late. But new leadership will come. So, there’s a looming occasion to re-think the very real challenges facing arts organizations.”

#1d – Shock-waves from the near dethroning of Michael Eisner as long-time CEO of Disney Corporation are reverberating through the nonprofit world. Some 43% of Disney stockholders withheld their votes for the re-election of Eisner, citing his lackluster leadership and a woefully compliant Board of Directors. Bill Keens, whose consulting firm advises national arts and cultural groups wrote SCOPE last week that “I think the (Disney) accountability tsunami will reach the shores of more nonprofits, but the issues are likely to be around fiscal efficiency and programmatic effectiveness.” He suggested that “it’s probably a good moment for self-evaluation and for ensuring the authority and responsibility of board members.”

#1e – Board Source is “the premier source for building strong and effective non-profit boards.“ The Missoula Cultural Council has subscribed to that source in order to share information with other nonprofits. One recent article — "Nonprofit Groups Urged to Follow Governance Act" — encourages nonprofits to adapt new practices that reflect the requirements defined for the corporate world, as illustrated by the Disney revolt. It also offers some striking examples of what is taking place around the country: Kansas University administrators fired the $92,885-per-year director — for nearly 16 years — of the Spencer Museum of Art. “Every organization needs new leadership now and then,” was one reason given by the museum’s president.

#1f – Another good source for both nonprofit fundraising and leadership information is National Arts Strategies where you can join arts leaders to explore the toughest challenges facing arts organizations today.

#1g – Notable events in Missoula coming up:

* William McKibben, a Vermont-based author who has written eight books and numerous essays and other articles, will present the Brennan Memorial Lecture titled, "Crossing Thresholds: The Environment as a Moral Issue." The lecture will get under way at 8 PM at 8 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom.

* UM-Missoula’s annual International Culture and Food Festival will be held from noon to 5 p.m. this Sunday in the University Center. "Discover the World Around You," will represent more than 30 countries with food booths, display tables, culture shows. For more information call 243-6059.

* Art Associates of Missoula meets March 17th at 10:00 AM at Sutton West Gallery where Marion Lavery will demonstrate her most recent watercolor media collage technique.

* Monday, March 15 at 6:30 PM in the UM Urey Lecture Hall, Kenyan storyteller, author and cultural expert Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku will present a free performance titled "African Family and Community Stories." Students from Lewis and Clark Elementary School will perform with Dr. Kituku led by music teacher Tomi Kent.

On the Literary Landscape

#2a – Get ready for Puddleglum, Aslan, and Wraggle as a follow-up to the Lord of the Rings characters that mesmerized movie-goers in Missoula and around the world. Disney Studios has struck a deal with Walden Media on a $100 million production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That’s the first (1950) part of C.S. Lewis’ seven-book Chronicles of Narnia series that tells the adventures of four siblings in World War II England who enter the world of Narnia through a magical wardrobe. In Narnia, the children discover talking beasts, dwarfs and giants who have become frozen under the spell of an evil White Witch. An unapologetic Christian convert, Lewis was an Oxford don who, like his friend and fellow Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien, is being resurrected as a central figure in the culture wars. Move over Mel Gibson.

#2b – David Hess-Homeier, 13, correctly spelled "versatile" to win the 2004 Missoula County Orthography Bee last Friday, outlasting 59 spellers from grades 5-8 to win the annual contest and advance to the 39th annual Treasure State Spelling Bee in Helena on April 3. What’s the difference between “spelling” and “orthography”? Orthography is “a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols” while “spelling” means forming words with letters according to the principles underlying accepted usage. That’s what the spelling-challenged SCOPE scribe learned at Hyper Dictionary, an only reference work that includes medical and dream dictionaries and a thesaurus.

#2c – Librarian Bette Ammon collaborated with the Friends of the Missoula Public Library to assemble a collection of 31 works by Missoula and Montana authors to be presented to the Public Library in Palmerston North, Missoula’s Sister City in New Zealand later this month during the Missoula Cultural Council’s cultural exchange.

#2d – In 2003 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded 38 Creative Writing Poetry Fellowships, each in the amount of $20,000 and ten grants to published translators in varying amounts. In all, the NEA received over 1,600 applications for the grants. Representative works by 14 winning poets can be read at http://www.arts.gov/features/Writers/2003poetry.html

The Arts & Crafts Scene

#3a – Missoula artist Kimberly Anderson won first place in the third annual International Wildlife Film Festival Poster Art Contest. Selected from almost two dozen submissions on a theme of “Wildness in a Changing World," the poster will be part of a IWFF presentation kit the Missoula Cultural Council will take to New Zealand on March 25. See Anderson’s poster and comments about it on the MCC website

#3b – Among the examples of Missoula cultural treasures being presented to Missoula’s Sister City of Palmerston North are 19 exhibit catalogs from the Art Museum of Missoula. MCC will deliver them to Te Manawa, the city-owned art museum and science center along with works by Missoula craft artisans and other artists.

#3c – Don’t just trash that junk mail! Get creative and turn it into an entry for The Great American Junkmail Experience, a juried show being organized by Art Missoula, 219 W. Broadway. Professional artists, creative hobbyists and students of all ages are encouraged to spend time between now and September 2004 saving, paste, paint and otherwise mutilate and transform junkmail into works of art. The deadline for entries is August 15, 2004. Artists may submit slides, photos or jpegs burned onto CD along with a $10.00 entry fee, which covers as many pieces as you wish to submit. Performance pieces are also welcome at the new Gallery Lascaux. Get info at 549-0422.

#3d – John Villani, who ranked Missoula #37 in the last edition of his The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America, covers cultural news for the Arizona Republic. Last week he described the three-day Art Detour in downtown Phoenix that includes more than 80 venues, including public art installations. There’s also a First Friday Gallery Walk there. ArtLink is the non-profit group that organizes both events. The Missoula Cultural Council brought Villani here as a main speaker at its first state-wide cultural tourism workshop in 1999.

#3e – SCOPE spoke last week with Linda Van Trunt, Executive Director of the Crafts Organization Directors Association about the state of crafts marketing today. It’s been almost three years since that organization released its national survey of the economic impact of the craft industry. It estimated that there were 1,129 craft artisans in Montana and sent out a survey form to the 741 artisans connected with a craft organization. Only 42 responded. Information on crafts marketing is freely available at The Crafts Report.

#3f – It was almost three years ago that the Missoula Cultural Council brought crafts marketing whiz Becky Anderson, the Handmade in America founder, to Missoula, gave her a tour of the Bitterroot Valley, and arranged a crafts marketing seminar at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism that year. A dynamic leader brimming with imagination and initiative, Anderson began in 1993 to get craftspeople, community leaders, educators and business people working together to promote and develop the handcraft industry in the southern Appalachian region where thousands of high-end artisans are clustered close together within driving range of about half the US population. MCC video-taped her seminar at the GovCon and its available for loan to those interested in crafts marketing.

#3f – The annual Ridgway Chainsaw Carving Rendezvous was all the buzz in Pennsylvania arts and craft circles recently. Begun a decade ago by two brothers, the gathering has since blossomed into a huge international arts event. In 2003, more than 150 carvers came from as far away as Australia, Germany and Japan. Participant Steve Backus has sold chainsaw-carved sculptures for as much as $15,000.

#3g – Three works by Missoula sculptor George Ybarra will be included in the exhibit of contemporary Montana art opening March 29 in Missoula’s Sister City of Palmerston North. You can see what they look like on the Missoula Cultural Council website.

Musical Notes and Stage Cues

#4a – The Missoula Symphony Orchestra and Chorale will present a concert of British orchestral and choral music on Saturday, March 13, at 7:30 PM and the next day at 3:00 pm in the University Theater. SCOPE got that part right last week but managed to mangle the title of the concert climax, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. Belshazzar was quite a dude, the last king of Babylon, who loved to party. The Book of Daniel tells of a great feast for 1,000 of his courtiers, his wives, and his concubines, who drank from the gold and silver vessels that his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had looted from the temple in Jerusalem. “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” Those Aramaic words are translated as, “It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.” Daniel prophesized this to mean that the pyknic king’s days were numbered, “so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Rembrandt’s painting of the scene is in the British National Gallery.

#4b – The New Crystal Theatre at 515 S. Higgins will screen Peter Lynch’s Candian documentary Project Grizzly at 7 and 9 pm on March 12-14th. Tickets are $5 seniors and students, $6 general public. Info at 549-1733.

Cultural Tourism Directions

#5a – A SALMON FOR CORLEONE, IL BAMBINO is a TV series now being shown throughout Europe through syndication by TV De Wereld in Belgium. Nominated for Best TV Program by the Radio and Television Press 2003, one of the eight 40-minute episodes was filmed in Montana, mostly in Missoula where the Missoula Cultural Council assisted the production crew, including setting up one sequence in the Frenchtown post-office. Other scenes include the Smoke Jumpers Center, Fort Missoula grounds, and the Lolo National Forest. MCC last week received a copy of the Montana episode from the TV company, which estimates that about 90 million viewers will get a good look at Missoula.

#5b – Hamilton-based videographer Steve Slocomb gave a showing of The Story of the Bitterroot, a film/DVD that he’s been working on for nine years, at the MCC office last Saturday. He calls it “a cross-cultural odyssey of discovery” that tells how the bitterroot plant is interwoven into the past and present lives of Salish people, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and others. You can learn more about it at Looking Glass Films. Funded in part by the Montana Committee for the Humanities, this DVD will be part of the cultural exchange with Missoula’s Sister City in New Zealand and is a good example of Missoula’s Media Arts Creative Enterprise Cluster at work.

#5c – John Wall and John Hornblow head up the Sister City Committee in Palmerston and, with their wives, have visited Missoula. Last Friday John Wall emailed some panoramic photos of that community, where the river that runs through it recently flooded. You can see the pics and John’s comments at the MCC website

The Creative Community = Creative Leadership + Creative Enterprise

#6a – Following up on the news item in last week’s SCOPE that Missoula ranked second to Montpelier VT as the best small community for business, the SCOPE scribe asked Alexander Aldrich, Executive Director of the Vermont Arts Council, what made his hometown such a good example of economic well-being. There’s no simple answer except, perhaps, that collaboration yields success in both the cultural and commercial sectors and especially when they are linked effectively. There’s no MacDonalds “Golden Arches” allowed in Montpelier, where the average annual family wage is $25,107. He cited the success of Vermont’s Creative Economy Council, a partnership among leaders from New England’s business, government, and cultural sectors that exists to promote the sustainable economic development of New England’s creative economy. It got started in 1998 and has had demonstrable success. Aldrich plays a leading role in it and Joan Goshgarian, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts is also active. Aldrich cited a project in South Burlington as a case-book success story and you can visit it online at South End + Business Association. You can also visit the Vermont Crafts Council located in Montpelier. SCOPE will provide more details in upcoming issues.

#6b – Aldrich also told SCOPE that the recent four-way mayoral race was won handily by the Executive Director of the Montpelier Downtown Community Association. In her campaign she noted that Montpelier has been called one of the best small arts and cultural cities in the country — ranked by John Villani at #65 behind Missoula at #37. “We have used and need to continue using this status to our advantage. She also saw the need to develop our high technology infrastructure and to “invest in our creative economy and protect the assets, like our historic downtown, our neighborhoods and open space which are so attractive to our residents and to those interested in investing in our community.”

#6b – Bob Baker is an author, musician, actor and artist who is dedicated to helping creative people of all kinds get exposure, connect with fans and increase their incomes through their artistic passions. He offers a lot of practical and free information online.

Miscellaneous

#8a – Thanks to the Montana Arts Council for including, in its recent fundraising workshop, the Geometrics method of classifying personalities. The Triangle Person, according to Dr. Susan Dellinger who devised the test, “likes to be the boss and to be in control and is very adept at taking charge, wielding authority over those who are less confident than them. Typically Triangles want things to be done their way, which may explain why they rarely involve others in decision-making. Another of the Triangle’s traits is their ‘ambitious self-centeredness.‘ Not only can they be self-centered but they are also highly competitive and hate it when they are wrong. Being in the wrong is something that the Triangle finds it very hard to admit.” Next week: “The Squiggle Person.”

Media and Web Watch

#10a – Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties public interest organization working to protect freedom of expression, privacy, and access to online resources and information." It’s based at Indiana University and Internet. Censorship and Intellectual Freedom Page

END NOTE. Born this day in 1903: Leon Bismarck “Bix” Beiderbecke, of whom Louis Armstrong said "You take a man with a pure tone like Bix’s and no matter how loud the other fellows may be blowing, that pure cornet or trumpet tone will cut through it all."

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