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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > June > 08
Monday, June 8, 2009
City offers free professional development workshops to the creative sector
Calling all nonprofit arts and culture organizations, and for-profit creative businesses, arts enthusiasts and individual artists and creative professionals.
The city of Austin’s Cultural Arts Division is once again hosting a series of FREE workshops to all members of the creative sector to help elevate professionals skills such as board development, public relations and fundraising while also learning important information on intellectual property, volunteer management, grant writing and public art.
The workshops are organized under three tracks: Nonprofit, Business Skills and Public Art.
This year’s workshop topics were determined by surveying past participants
and the creative community, and called forth by the CreateAustin initiative.
WHO: The City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Division
WHAT: Take it to the Next Level: Workshops for Creatives to Elevate Professional Skills
WHEN: June through September
WHERE: Austin City Hall, Austin Community College, artist studios, others TBD
COST: Free
REGISTER: www.cityofaustin.org/nextlevel or 512/974.7875
NONPROFIT TRACK
Bring it on “Board”- The Perfect Board of Directors
June 15
Exploring and defining some of the most important dynamics of a
nonprofit organization: the role, responsibilities and expectations
of, and between, the Board of Directors, Officers, volunteers, the
Executive Director, and Staff. Addressing different kinds of boards;
developing key organizational structure (applicable state/federal
laws, by-laws), policies and legal duties; responsibilities and
expectations of Board members; what it takes to achieve an effective,
high performing Board.
Fundraising Fundamentals Beginner to Advanced
June 29: Part 1
June 30: Part 2
Giving participants a new way to look at fundraising, new tools, and a
more strategic approach. Plus, a development plan that breaks down
each revenue area and creates goals, objectives, activities and
deliverables for the coming year giving organizations a necessary road
map for organizing their resources to greatest revenue gain.
Successful Grants Write Now
July 8: Part 1
July 29: Part 2
A two-part intensive workshop covering all the basics needed for
identifying potential funders, preparing a compelling grant proposal,
developing project budgets and much more.
Volunteer Management: Your Stepladder to Success
August 13
How to plan and maintain a flourishing and effective volunteer
program. How to find the “right” volunteers for your needs, keep them
engaged and move them to higher levels of support for your
organization.
BUSINESS SKILLS TRACK
Can You Hear Me Now? A Public Relations Strategy
July 16
Provide participants an understanding of how to create and implement a
comprehensive public relations campaign, addressing such key topics
as: How to build a PR plan; creating a communications platform;
identifying relevant and appropriate media and how to communicate with
them; social media / social networking; and return on investment
(ROI).
Intellectual Property: for Creative Organizations and Individuals
Aug. 5
Introducing participants to intellectual property and intellectual
property rights, which regard creations of the mind, both artistic and
commercial. This workshop will focus on the most common types of
intellectual property, namely, copyrights, trademarks, and, to a
lesser degree, patents. Specific topics to be covered include rights
related to musical, visual, theatrical, and literary works, publicity
and likeness rights, and trademark rights related to creative
organizations, groups, and individuals.
PUBLIC ART TRACK
Public Art Crawl - Inside Artists’ Studios
July 25
Visit the studios and working spaces of public artists for a first
hand look into the making of public art. Workshop participants will be
shuttled to a series of locations to meet with artists working at
various stages of the public art process. From design phase to
finishing touches on a completed piece, artists will reveal the
challenges and benefits of translating artistic concepts into artwork
for public spaces.
Discovery and Dialogue in Public Art: A Full-Day Symposium
Sept. 12
Plan to join the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places Program for a
one-day exploration of topics and tips related to public art in Austin
and around the country. The full day symposium will provide one-hour
interactive panels and workshops on topics such as how to create
successful proposals, community critique in public art, materials and
sustainability, art advocacy, and local involvement in programs and
possibilities.
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Blanton launches film series
Sweet — a great way to beat the heat this summer. Head for a film series in the cool in the Blanton’s new auditorium that feature stadium seating,
The Blanton Museum of Art is teaming up with the Austin Film Festival for the ‘New Directions Film Series.’ The series features five emerging independent filmmakers, highlighting diverse perspectives and destinations around the globe. Stories range from the drama of American youth, to the struggles of art making in North Korea, to the vivacious growth of the Nigerian film industry, and more.
All films will be screened at the Blanton’s new auditorium on select Thursdays and Sundays through July 19.
Cost: $3 for AFF members, Blanton members, UT faculty and students; $5 for general public.
www.blantonmuseum.org
Gretchen (2006) 98 min.
Dir. Steve Collins, U.S.
7 p.m. June 18 and 3 p.m. June 21
Gretchen has bigger problems than abysmal fashion sense: She’s 17, painfully awkward and stuck in the most unforgiving place on earth - high school. When her obsession with school bad boy Ricky gets out of hand, her mother sends her to an emotional treatment center to recover. She has to travel elsewhere, however, to truly begin to understand why she fixates on the wrong kind of guy. Starring Courtney Davis as the perpetually uncomfortable Gretchen, Steve Collins’ first feature is a humorously deadpan yet poignant reminder of how the smallest moments can lead to extreme adolescent drama.
Silent Light (2007) 135 min.
Dir. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico
3 p.m. June 28
Set in a Mennonite community in Mexico, ‘Silent Light’ quickly establishes the importance of nature in setting the rhythms and routines of the religious, rural lives at the film’s center. Its lauded opening shot chronicles a starry sky slowly giving way to breaking dawn as the cacophonous chatter of crickets chanting, dogs barking, and roosters crowing fills the soundtrack. From here on, birdsong is nearly constant, and images of land and sky frequently hold the camera’s attention for extended durations.
But amidst this pastoral setting, a disturbance is apparent from the outset. A cut from the heavenly curtain-raiser takes us into the home of Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews), where a circulating camera catches static portraits around the kitchen table and introduces us to the couple and their numerous children, the silence broken only by the unnerving tick-tock of a clock until an “Amen” frees the family to eat breakfast. In the somewhat stilted manner between husband and wife, not simply the result of the director’s characteristic use of nonprofessional actors, festering emotions are legible.
The Juche Idea (2008) 62 min.
Dir. Jim Finn, U.S.
3 p.m. July 12
Roughly translated, Juche, the official North Korean religion and political ideology, means self-reliance. But the official text on the state-sponsored philosophy, written by Kim Jong-il, leaves final authority over interpretation of Juche to the Dear Leader, himself. ‘The Juche Idea’ tells the story of a South Korean video artist (Kim Jong-il loves movies!) who takes a residency in North Korea. She becomes inspired by the Juche concept of revolutionary art, and intent to further adapt the ideology to modern cinematic practices. The film is partly told through some of the projects she makes while at the residency-The Small Little Teeth of America: The Tiny Dentures of Imperialism; Flesh Ring in the Sea of Blood; and The Winter of Abundance: Our Hope is the Juche State. As in his earlier films ‘Interkosmos’ (Opening Night, 2006) and ‘La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzal’o (NYUFF 2007), Finn’s signature tone is in full effect. ‘The Juche Idea’ is a deadpan yet poetic look at the relation of image to idea, and an investigation into the role of propaganda and politics in the creation of art.
Shotgun Stories (2007) 92 min.
Dir. Jeff Nichols, U.S.
7 p.m. July 16
‘Shotgun Stories’ tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father, a man that never bothered to give his children proper names. He left the three brothers, Son, Boy and Kid, when they were young. Their last impressions were of a violent drunk who never hesitated to put his own needs ahead of his family. The brothers were left to be raised by their mother, a hateful woman, who to this day blames her children for the life she’s been left with and the man she could not keep.
Their father, having left the memory of his children as completely as he left their home, managed to move on and put his life back together. He sobered up, became a devout Christian, married a wonderful woman, and fathered four new sons. All of who received proper names. His life became a model that most would aspire to, a man successful in business, community and family. His only true failing being the sons he turned his back on. At the beginning of the film, we find Son, Boy and Kid as grown men. The three brothers’ lives progress and their futures play out, but their past inevitably comes to claim them. Following a dispute at their father’s funeral, a feud begins to simmer between these sons and the new young men their father has raised. It is an anger that has always rested uncomfortably in the background of their lives. However now, it is a thing that will rise up to overtake them all. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
Welcome to Nollywood (2008) 80 min.
Dir. Jamie Meltzer, U.S.
3 p.m., July 19,
Nigeria’s Nollywood is now the world’s third largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood. Peace Mission is a guided tour from one of the industry’s major players: producer, filmmaker and founder of the African Movie Academy Awards, Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima. Fitting interviews in between conference calls, parties, and meetings, we get to know something about this thriving and surprising industry through the eyes of a woman determined to see the development of her continent through film.
