Another Photo Friday Blog! These pics are from the TM Summer Camp at Titche Elementary School.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Guest Blog - Gigi Antoni, Big Thought President/CEO
Here's something exciting that we've discovered - for the past two years Barry's Blog and Update from the Western States Arts Federation has compiled a list of the 25 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts Sector. After reading last year’s list, I was excited to see who would be represented this year. As a nonprofit administrator, my curiosity was naturally piqued as I sought out peers and mentors, colleagues and friends. The list is, as the author readily admits, incomplete. But the actual names on the list weren’t what impressed me most—what struck me is that it exists at all.
As a society, we like to list things very much. We want to know the best cities to live in, the best colleges to attend, the most powerful people in television, business and in the world. It seems out of place to list the most powerful leaders in the nonprofit sector, much less the arts nonprofit. Largely, we are less concerned with being included on a list, but instead are professionals that are constantly trying to make a difference in this world.
I saw many adept and profoundly capable colleagues on the list—many of whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with throughout my twenty-plus year tenure—who are indeed making fundamental leaps in the world of nonprofit arts. Bob Lynch, Michael Kaiser, Daniel Windham, Sandra Rupert, Moy Eng, Jonathan Katz, Laura Zucker, Alan Brown, and Rory MacPherson have all personally touched not only my life but Big Thought and the work that it does. Big Thought, like many other nonprofits committed to the arts and creativity, relies on these people as advisors and partners in advancing the arts across the country. Without them, we might not be experiencing today’s successes.
We are in debt to many more, though, like Eric Booth, Dennie Palmer Wolf, and Tom Wolf. These ingenious talents offer far more than sound advice to arts administrators and arts organizations the country over. Their work validates a field that is sometimes seen as extraneous and non-essential.
Barry’s list identifies a community, a nationwide consortium of nonprofit arts professionals and advocates that are influencers and provokers of activism. We are not alone! And it’s good to see it, written down somewhere, with names attached. But perhaps more importantly, this list sets a precedent for identification with the people in this field. This year, perhaps only those in the arts nonprofit read Barry’s list. Next year, maybe a few more. The year after, perhaps it’s thousands who want to know more about the work that we do.
Kudos to blogs like these that begin to associate the nonprofit arts with talent, power, and importance.
Gigi Antoni
As a society, we like to list things very much. We want to know the best cities to live in, the best colleges to attend, the most powerful people in television, business and in the world. It seems out of place to list the most powerful leaders in the nonprofit sector, much less the arts nonprofit. Largely, we are less concerned with being included on a list, but instead are professionals that are constantly trying to make a difference in this world.
I saw many adept and profoundly capable colleagues on the list—many of whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with throughout my twenty-plus year tenure—who are indeed making fundamental leaps in the world of nonprofit arts. Bob Lynch, Michael Kaiser, Daniel Windham, Sandra Rupert, Moy Eng, Jonathan Katz, Laura Zucker, Alan Brown, and Rory MacPherson have all personally touched not only my life but Big Thought and the work that it does. Big Thought, like many other nonprofits committed to the arts and creativity, relies on these people as advisors and partners in advancing the arts across the country. Without them, we might not be experiencing today’s successes.
We are in debt to many more, though, like Eric Booth, Dennie Palmer Wolf, and Tom Wolf. These ingenious talents offer far more than sound advice to arts administrators and arts organizations the country over. Their work validates a field that is sometimes seen as extraneous and non-essential.
Barry’s list identifies a community, a nationwide consortium of nonprofit arts professionals and advocates that are influencers and provokers of activism. We are not alone! And it’s good to see it, written down somewhere, with names attached. But perhaps more importantly, this list sets a precedent for identification with the people in this field. This year, perhaps only those in the arts nonprofit read Barry’s list. Next year, maybe a few more. The year after, perhaps it’s thousands who want to know more about the work that we do.
Kudos to blogs like these that begin to associate the nonprofit arts with talent, power, and importance.
Gigi Antoni
Friday, August 21, 2009
Photo Blog!
Here's a fun Photo Blog for Friday afternoon - these pics were taken at our Thriving Minds Summer Camp @ Ireland Elementary School.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Supply, Demand & Quality
Supply, demand & quality of creative learning opportunities in the city of Dallas are the focus of much of our research and program assessment & development. We network with families, cultural providers, educators, community organizations and many other partners to determine the following:
1) Supply - what creative learning opportunities are available to the residents in each neighborhood of Dallas?
2) Demand - what creative learning opportunities are the residents in that area asking for?
and
3) Quality - what is the level of quality of the opportunities available?
The Wallace Foundation has a great collection of speeches and presentations on these and related subjects that have been gathered from a organizations nationwide, who, like us, are working to increase the quality and availability of creative learning (and arts education) throughout their cities. You'll find two of our presentations from the annual Americans for the Arts conference among the collection.
Got questions? We're happy to answer 'em - just email us to find out more about what we're learning.
1) Supply - what creative learning opportunities are available to the residents in each neighborhood of Dallas?
2) Demand - what creative learning opportunities are the residents in that area asking for?
and
3) Quality - what is the level of quality of the opportunities available?
The Wallace Foundation has a great collection of speeches and presentations on these and related subjects that have been gathered from a organizations nationwide, who, like us, are working to increase the quality and availability of creative learning (and arts education) throughout their cities. You'll find two of our presentations from the annual Americans for the Arts conference among the collection.
Got questions? We're happy to answer 'em - just email us to find out more about what we're learning.
Big Thought's Website: Brand Spankin' New!
We've been working 'round the clock for the last several months, redesigning our website to make it more user-friendly - and it's finally DONE!
Here are some things you may want to check out:
* The Banner contains sections for families, teens & students, educators and partners - those link to pages crafted just for those audiences - you can also get to them by going to www.bigthought.org/athome, www.bigthought.org/school or www.bigthought.org/community.
* Among the many cool additions, the new site features a “5 Things” section which outlines fun and creative activities for children and families.
* If you have a pair of headphones, take a listen to the groovy intro music that Big Thought board member Ross Vick scored just for us.
* We've got special pages for our events (www.bigthought.org/events), jobs (www.bigthought.org/jobs), and Thriving Minds (www.bigthought.org/thrivingminds).
The new site is bright, clean and fun and will make navigation easier for anyone who visits! Take a look: www.bigthought.org.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Advocate for the Arts!
Arts Advocacy Day is upon us (August 20th - register here) and there are plenty of upcoming opportunities for Dallas arts advocates to get involved in! For instance, Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm has proposed combining the City’s Office of Cultural Affairs with the Department of Libraries, and the local arts community is banding together against the proposal. Here's an article on the subject that ran in last Sunday's Dallas Morning News. To find a local town hall meeting or other ways you can get involved, click here!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Intern Stephanie checks out the Creative Solutions dress rehearsal!
August 5, 2009
I got to see the dress rehearsal for the Creative Solutions today. I was so excited to see it all come together after sitting through some rehearsals and talking with the kids throughout the program. While there were still a few kinks to work out in the performance and not all of the art was up in the gallery, you can definitely see all the hard work that went into pulling these off.The performance, which is called “The Switch,” showcases all different kinds of talent: dancing, percussion, spoken word poetry, acting, singing. The kids really can do it all. Six of the kids played “angels” and “demons” and they stole the show with their hilarious performance! I was also blown away by the spoken word poetry that was performed. The way that the kids talk about their own lives and the way that they’re channeling their experience into performance is powerful.
The visual art is equally impressive. After spending a couple days in the gallery helping to hang some of the pieces, I actually took the time to step back and really look at the pieces. There's glass work, ceramics, charcoal, watercolor, and acrylic work – a little bit of everything. One of the coolest pieces was a group project of a tiger. It’s an amazing stippling project that took a week to create and the artists were so excited to tell us about their work and how everything was created. Though they’re a little more reserved than some of the performers, you can see their talent and passion just as clearly.I know they’ll all do an amazing job at their first official performance tomorrow!
-Stephanie
ps - check out our mini CS videos at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie! More to come...
I got to see the dress rehearsal for the Creative Solutions today. I was so excited to see it all come together after sitting through some rehearsals and talking with the kids throughout the program. While there were still a few kinks to work out in the performance and not all of the art was up in the gallery, you can definitely see all the hard work that went into pulling these off.The performance, which is called “The Switch,” showcases all different kinds of talent: dancing, percussion, spoken word poetry, acting, singing. The kids really can do it all. Six of the kids played “angels” and “demons” and they stole the show with their hilarious performance! I was also blown away by the spoken word poetry that was performed. The way that the kids talk about their own lives and the way that they’re channeling their experience into performance is powerful.
The visual art is equally impressive. After spending a couple days in the gallery helping to hang some of the pieces, I actually took the time to step back and really look at the pieces. There's glass work, ceramics, charcoal, watercolor, and acrylic work – a little bit of everything. One of the coolest pieces was a group project of a tiger. It’s an amazing stippling project that took a week to create and the artists were so excited to tell us about their work and how everything was created. Though they’re a little more reserved than some of the performers, you can see their talent and passion just as clearly.I know they’ll all do an amazing job at their first official performance tomorrow!
-Stephanie
ps - check out our mini CS videos at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie! More to come...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Thriving Minds Summer Camp Wrap-up!
The Thriving Minds Summer Camps were a HUGE hit! Thank you to all who made them possible, especially our dedicated staff of artists, site managers, apprentices and guides who worked with the kids each day and helped them perform their best at the special culminating events - and thanks to Miss Julia E. for guest-blogging about her experience!
Speaking of those special events...we sent a couple cameras out into the city on July 2nd and 31st to record some of those performances - and now we're in the process of creating little wrap-up videos to show you what those kids accomplished.
Check out our YouTube channel for videos from Tatum Elementary and Stockard Middle School and our flickr page for pics from the camp at Mills Elementary - more to come!
Speaking of those special events...we sent a couple cameras out into the city on July 2nd and 31st to record some of those performances - and now we're in the process of creating little wrap-up videos to show you what those kids accomplished.
Check out our YouTube channel for videos from Tatum Elementary and Stockard Middle School and our flickr page for pics from the camp at Mills Elementary - more to come!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Intern Stephanie checks out Creative Solutions
Hi! I’m Stephanie, a student at SMU that's interning here at Big Thought. Last week I had the opportunity to go visit Creative Solutions, a Big Thought program for at-risk teens. Here's what I saw!
For three days I helped a photographer (who currently serves as a Big Thought Board member) as she took portraits of all the kids in the program. I was absolutely blown away by these kids! Having the chance to interact with them and watch them have their pictures taken was amazing. Some of them had never had their portrait taken before! The kids came in two at a time and while one was having their picture taken, the other would crack jokes or make faces to make them laugh. You can just see their personalities shine through the photos and how they interacted with each other and with us. Some were very particular about how they looked in the pictures; others weren’t all that comfortable having a camera lens in their face. But the really amazing part about observing them was seeing that all their energy was going towards whatever project they were working on. Peeking in the visual art studio, hearing a student’s poem, or feeling the drumming from the percussion rehearsal just proved how creativity is really changing and challenging these kids. I can’t wait to attend their final show and see just how far they’ve come!
To give you a taste of what's going on behind the scenes over at SMU with the Creative Solutions students, I made some video clips of the dancers, the visual art kids and the percussion ensemble! Check them out at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie/.
Stay tuned for more...
-Stephanie
For three days I helped a photographer (who currently serves as a Big Thought Board member) as she took portraits of all the kids in the program. I was absolutely blown away by these kids! Having the chance to interact with them and watch them have their pictures taken was amazing. Some of them had never had their portrait taken before! The kids came in two at a time and while one was having their picture taken, the other would crack jokes or make faces to make them laugh. You can just see their personalities shine through the photos and how they interacted with each other and with us. Some were very particular about how they looked in the pictures; others weren’t all that comfortable having a camera lens in their face. But the really amazing part about observing them was seeing that all their energy was going towards whatever project they were working on. Peeking in the visual art studio, hearing a student’s poem, or feeling the drumming from the percussion rehearsal just proved how creativity is really changing and challenging these kids. I can’t wait to attend their final show and see just how far they’ve come!
To give you a taste of what's going on behind the scenes over at SMU with the Creative Solutions students, I made some video clips of the dancers, the visual art kids and the percussion ensemble! Check them out at http://tinyurl.com/BTMovie/.
Stay tuned for more...
-Stephanie
Julia E's Summer Camp Recap - part 3
Tuesday June 30
More rehearsals, more projects, more fun activities! Today in the morning we set off a Diet-Coke-and-Mentos experiment, which consists of reacting small mints with soda and watching the soda erupt. Although some walked away drenched in sugar-free pop, the kids have never been more thrilled by a science experiment! I’m planning on bringing more bottles of Coke tomorrow so that we can do it again. All the children decorated shirts for the play, with their character’s name and whatever other creative designs they could think of. Some of the shirts have too many glittery flowers on them to read the print, we ran out of fabric-paint, and we had several huge paint spills, but the kids definitely had fun and the project was very expressive! Our all-day rehearsals continue. With two days left, I hope we can pull it together!
-Julia E.
More rehearsals, more projects, more fun activities! Today in the morning we set off a Diet-Coke-and-Mentos experiment, which consists of reacting small mints with soda and watching the soda erupt. Although some walked away drenched in sugar-free pop, the kids have never been more thrilled by a science experiment! I’m planning on bringing more bottles of Coke tomorrow so that we can do it again. All the children decorated shirts for the play, with their character’s name and whatever other creative designs they could think of. Some of the shirts have too many glittery flowers on them to read the print, we ran out of fabric-paint, and we had several huge paint spills, but the kids definitely had fun and the project was very expressive! Our all-day rehearsals continue. With two days left, I hope we can pull it together!
-Julia E.
A Chance to Pat Ourselves on the Back...
We are SO stoked right now! Big Thought won the Arts Education Award from Americans for the Arts at their conference in Seattle. That is such an honor - plus the award is super-neat! The Arts Education Award is given annually to an organization that is a leader among arts education organizations, especially in the areas of program design and implementation. Congrats to the other award winners - find 'em here - and thank you to Americans for the Arts for giving us this honor!
In other news, our 2008-2009 Board of Directors met for the last time last night. We bid adieu to our fearless Board Chair, Karen Hirschman - and welcome to our incoming Board Chair, Tucker Enthoven. Will you help us make imagination a part of everyday learning in our new fiscal year?
In other news, our 2008-2009 Board of Directors met for the last time last night. We bid adieu to our fearless Board Chair, Karen Hirschman - and welcome to our incoming Board Chair, Tucker Enthoven. Will you help us make imagination a part of everyday learning in our new fiscal year?
Julia E's Summer Camp Recap - part 2
Tuesday June 23
As we enter the second half of Summer Camp, things are starting to really level out. Every day I have a steady number of kids which always hovers somewhere around 23, with the same kids returning each time. The script is in print, and I figured out the cast list for my class without any meltdowns over role assignments (major and surprising success). Chris’ music class has turned to dancing, which is great, especially for the older children. Thrilled to dance to songs that they recognize, the kids seem really focused and engaged, a welcoming change. Our project for the day: what is your favorite animal in the sky, under the sea, or on the ground. We had several dinosaurs (and a “dinser”), sharks, puppies, and dolphins - which they were enthralled to hear were the smartest animals in the world, after humans. After classes were over, Elliot, another ATA at Conner, organized a camp-wide game of red-light, green-light which was a huge success!We will start rehearsals later this week for the end-of-camp show. Hope everything runs smoothly!
Friday June 26
The weekend again! We ended the week yesterday with a somewhat unproductive rehearsal, but now that we are more organized, we will have a better rehearsal on Monday. All of our instructors communicated and found a way to include every art form in the program; now we just have to straighten out the logistics. Yesterday, while the kids were not needed on stage, I took my group for project free-time, and set everyone up with quiet individual projects. While most of the boys were entertained folding new models of paper airplanes, everyone else found creative busy projects and stayed happy and focused.Chris also put the finishing touches on the two dance routines, and the kids seem to really enjoy them and are getting really good. Now that we're allowing the kids to dance on stage, even those who didn’t feel like participating are jumping in, which is great. The challenge comes in fitting forty antsy children on stage to dance!
-Julia E.
ps - more pics here!
As we enter the second half of Summer Camp, things are starting to really level out. Every day I have a steady number of kids which always hovers somewhere around 23, with the same kids returning each time. The script is in print, and I figured out the cast list for my class without any meltdowns over role assignments (major and surprising success). Chris’ music class has turned to dancing, which is great, especially for the older children. Thrilled to dance to songs that they recognize, the kids seem really focused and engaged, a welcoming change. Our project for the day: what is your favorite animal in the sky, under the sea, or on the ground. We had several dinosaurs (and a “dinser”), sharks, puppies, and dolphins - which they were enthralled to hear were the smartest animals in the world, after humans. After classes were over, Elliot, another ATA at Conner, organized a camp-wide game of red-light, green-light which was a huge success!We will start rehearsals later this week for the end-of-camp show. Hope everything runs smoothly!
Friday June 26
The weekend again! We ended the week yesterday with a somewhat unproductive rehearsal, but now that we are more organized, we will have a better rehearsal on Monday. All of our instructors communicated and found a way to include every art form in the program; now we just have to straighten out the logistics. Yesterday, while the kids were not needed on stage, I took my group for project free-time, and set everyone up with quiet individual projects. While most of the boys were entertained folding new models of paper airplanes, everyone else found creative busy projects and stayed happy and focused.Chris also put the finishing touches on the two dance routines, and the kids seem to really enjoy them and are getting really good. Now that we're allowing the kids to dance on stage, even those who didn’t feel like participating are jumping in, which is great. The challenge comes in fitting forty antsy children on stage to dance!
-Julia E.
ps - more pics here!
Julia E's Summer Camp Recap - part 1
Hi! I'm Julia E., an Apprentice Teaching Artist from the Thriving Minds Summer Camp at Conner Elementary. I had a great time working with the kids this summer, so when Big Thought asked me to put together a short recap of my time at Conner, I jumped at the chance! What I'll be posting here are my reflections on the process of creating the play the students performed at their culminating event on July 2nd - and some of the fun daily activities we did. I hope you enjoy it: today I'll post a special two-fer for you from week 2 of Camp!
Tuesday June 16
Going into our second week of Thriving Minds Summer Camp at Conner Elementary, the craziness is beginning to settle. I have a sweet group of four and fifth graders, who get better daily as we get to know each other a little bit more. As of now, I am happy to report that the Thriving Minds Summer Camp is a successful program. Our kids participate in four classes throughout the day: theater, drumming, percussion and rhythm, and visual arts, all of which we hope to compose into an end-of-camp show. Because my kids are the oldest bunch at our campus, they can participate in the more difficult activities; today, they excelled at an improv game called Taxi, individually took turns on the big drum set, successfully put together a cohesive rhythm in percussion class, and created still life paintings in art. Also, as a project, I brought in a long sheet of butcher paper for the kids to write and illustrate what they wanted to be when they grow up – my favorites: Batman, FBI agent, a farm man, a skateboard, and a vegetarian (not to be mistaken with a veterinarian). I will be working on the script for the play tonight!
-Julia E.
ps - Click here to see one of my pictures from Conner!
Friday June 19
The script for our end-of-camp show is officially finished! All last week, my class (the older kids) helped Krystal and me think of characters, setting, and plot for their show, and it has all accumulated into a short and sweet medley of fairytale characters (Dorothy, the Cat in the Hat and Tinkerbelle, just to name a few!), set on Fairytale Island. We read the finished play to the kids yesterday, and they seemed pleased. Now we just have to put it into action! More of the same in terms of activites. The children did blind portraits of each other in art class, or drawings where they couldn’t look down at the paper while drawing. The craziness of drawings, with eyes next to chins and teeth inside the ears, was bizarre enough to get the kids laughing at themselves.
-Julia E.
ps - here are some more Conner Camper pics!
Tuesday June 16
Going into our second week of Thriving Minds Summer Camp at Conner Elementary, the craziness is beginning to settle. I have a sweet group of four and fifth graders, who get better daily as we get to know each other a little bit more. As of now, I am happy to report that the Thriving Minds Summer Camp is a successful program. Our kids participate in four classes throughout the day: theater, drumming, percussion and rhythm, and visual arts, all of which we hope to compose into an end-of-camp show. Because my kids are the oldest bunch at our campus, they can participate in the more difficult activities; today, they excelled at an improv game called Taxi, individually took turns on the big drum set, successfully put together a cohesive rhythm in percussion class, and created still life paintings in art. Also, as a project, I brought in a long sheet of butcher paper for the kids to write and illustrate what they wanted to be when they grow up – my favorites: Batman, FBI agent, a farm man, a skateboard, and a vegetarian (not to be mistaken with a veterinarian). I will be working on the script for the play tonight!
-Julia E.
ps - Click here to see one of my pictures from Conner!
Friday June 19
The script for our end-of-camp show is officially finished! All last week, my class (the older kids) helped Krystal and me think of characters, setting, and plot for their show, and it has all accumulated into a short and sweet medley of fairytale characters (Dorothy, the Cat in the Hat and Tinkerbelle, just to name a few!), set on Fairytale Island. We read the finished play to the kids yesterday, and they seemed pleased. Now we just have to put it into action! More of the same in terms of activites. The children did blind portraits of each other in art class, or drawings where they couldn’t look down at the paper while drawing. The craziness of drawings, with eyes next to chins and teeth inside the ears, was bizarre enough to get the kids laughing at themselves.
-Julia E.
ps - here are some more Conner Camper pics!
Thriving Minds Summer Camp
Imaginations soared as high as the temperatures outdoors in June as we hosted 12 creative arts summer camps for students in grades K-8 across the city. Nearly 1,400 youth participated in the enrichment camps, which ran from June 8-July 2 at Dallas ISD elementary and middle school campuses, as well as the City of Dallas’ Bath House Cultural Center in East Dallas.
Julia E., an Apprentice Teaching Artist at the Conner Elementary camp site, gave us a play-by-play of the finals days of camp, which we're happy to share with you. We'll post a new entry every Monday and Thursday along with photos!
Julia E., an Apprentice Teaching Artist at the Conner Elementary camp site, gave us a play-by-play of the finals days of camp, which we're happy to share with you. We'll post a new entry every Monday and Thursday along with photos!
Well HELLO there...
Nice to see you - so glad you're here!
We're Big Thought, an education partnership nonprofit that coordinates creative learning programming in-school, out-of-school and in the community here in Dallas, TX. You may know that we have been hard at work for 20 years reintroducing the arts to schools in Dallas that dropped those subjects from the curriculum well over 40 years ago.
What you may NOT know is that we are now branching out more and more into out-of-school time and programming in the community....and that's where this blog comes in! Here you'll find some more detail about who we are, what we do and why we do it. We'll also give you the lowdown on our research and what we're doing with the things we're learning from you. Got questions? Check out our website for answers - or email us!
We're Big Thought, an education partnership nonprofit that coordinates creative learning programming in-school, out-of-school and in the community here in Dallas, TX. You may know that we have been hard at work for 20 years reintroducing the arts to schools in Dallas that dropped those subjects from the curriculum well over 40 years ago.
What you may NOT know is that we are now branching out more and more into out-of-school time and programming in the community....and that's where this blog comes in! Here you'll find some more detail about who we are, what we do and why we do it. We'll also give you the lowdown on our research and what we're doing with the things we're learning from you. Got questions? Check out our website for answers - or email us!
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