Good food for thought.

Our initiative was a bit clumsy, to be sure—kind of like my reporting of the data!

In retrospect, I took a short cut on reporting the data because I haven’t spoken for that collection for 10 years and I wanted to help them look as good as possible (and me too, probably). Despite the shortcomings, it’s remarkable to me that a corporate collection was tracking this information nearly 20 years ago—and to be clear, they were tracking it before I arrived there and spearheaded the diversity initiative.

Looking back, the motivation for the initiative came not only from trying to reflect the demographics of the employee base (which was done in an admittedly un-scientific way). We were also trying to align the art program with primary business directions. For example, near the end of my tenure I learned that Sprint was the #1 American provider of international calling to Latin American countries. If I had known that earlier in my tenure, I probably would have advocated for purchasing more work by artists of Latin American heritage, without necessarily looking at employee demographics.

Reporting the numbers accurately is important to me, so I intend to look at the data again more critically when I have a moment to sit down and crunch numbers. In the meantime, thanks for the opportunity to share!

On May 29, 2018, at 5:39 PM, Pontious, Susan (ART) <susan.pontious@sfgov.org> wrote:

Agreed.  It is important to count gender and race separately as they are different target groups.  As women are at least half of the population, the target % for commissions to women should be 50% (we usually hit it).  We look to the census data for our area for target # for non-white artists (Not quite there yet!)

 

 

Susan Pontious

Program Director

Civic Art Collection and Public Art Program

San Francisco Arts Commission

401 Van Ness, Suite 325

San Francisco, CA 94102

Phone:  415-252-2241

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From: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com [mailto:public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com] On Behalf Of Coffey-Webb, Louise
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2018 2:20 PM
To: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com
Subject: RE: Equity and Inclusivity ad hoc advisors?

 

Hello James,

 

It’s very curious to me that the men were counted by sex and race, yet the Caucasian women were counted WITH those of color (unless I am misunderstanding your statement.) It makes it sound quite equitable, yet if the figures were divided by sex AND race/color we might see a different story.

 

Louise Coffey-Webb

Collections Manager, Art in Public Places Program

Cultural Affairs, City Of Culver City

City Hall, 2nd Floor

9770 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232

Direct Line (310) 253-6001

<image001.jpg>

 

 

From: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com [mailto:public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com] On Behalf Of James Martin
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2018 9:54 AM
To: public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com
Subject: Re: Equity and Inclusivity ad hoc advisors?

 

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,

 

<image002.png>Beth Tobey

Arts Program Manager

City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Office

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

 

<image004.jpg>

 

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--

James Martin

Art consultant, curator, educator, writer
artinkc@gmail.com
913-485-5267

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James Martin

Art consultant, curator, educator, writer
artinkc@gmail.com
913-485-5267

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