This thread is now over 3 months old. My original advice stands: it’s critical that ad-hoc advisors are fully voting members of artist selection processes.

In any case, I found some additional data when I was reviewing the Sprint collection recently. As a result, I realized that I made a clerical error when I reported this data previously. I apologize for my earlier inaccuracy and I would now like to correct the error.

As I mentioned previously, we were able to track the ethnicity and gender of the artists for 85% of the collection. With the new data that I discovered, I learned that 52% were made by Caucasian males and 48% were made by artists of color or women. In terms of dollars spent, 50% went to Caucasian males and 50% went to artists of color or women.

James Martin
http://artinkc.biz

On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 12:25 PM Beth Tobey <btobey@cityofsantacruz.com> wrote:

Thank you! This is helpful!

Beth

 

From: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com [mailto:public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com] On Behalf Of James Martin
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2018 10:48 AM
To: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com
Subject: Re: Equity and Inclusivity ad hoc advisors?

 

Beth, I have some related experience to offer from my years as a corporate curator. From 2001-2008 I was the curator of the Sprint Art Collection. When I joined Sprint, there was already a small acquisitions committee (about 8 people) that included an individual from Sprint's supply chain management group whose job was to focus on supplier diversity and inclusion. Later during my tenure, a very high-level Office of Diversity and Inclusion was established that reported directly to the CEO. In other words, diversity and inclusion was extremely important to the corporate culture as a whole, so we made it a priority with the art collection. (It's also important to me personally, so that made that part of the job very gratifying).

 

In terms of your situation, I recommend that someone from the ad-hoc committee be made a full voting member of the appointed arts commission.

 

If I were to do it all over again, I would focus on relationships more than numbers. I was able to build great relationships with KC-area artists, but relationships with internal employee groups could have been better.

 

In any case, we had a lot of success in terms of numbers. The full-time art registrar was able to track gender and ethnicity for about 85% of the collection. Of the works tracked, 62% were made by a female or minority artist.

 

I hope that helps!

 

James Martin

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 10:04 AM, Beth Tobey <btobey@cityofsantacruz.com> wrote:

We are considering forming some kind of ad hoc advisory committee to review projects through the lens of Equity & Inclusivity. I’m wondering if any of you have done something like this and if so, how did they interact with the appointed Arts Commission? Any words of advice or cautionary tales? While I do often try and recruit a diverse selection/review panel for specific projects, this ad hoc group would advise the Arts Commission both specifically and generally.

 

Thanks,

 

Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: sced-logo-darkBeth Tobey

Arts Program Manager

City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Office

(831) 420-5154 | btobey@cityofsantacruz.com
www.SantaCruzCityArts.com

 

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913-485-5267

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913-485-5267