ABC accepting only two more applications for community coaching in Fall 2012

By Leonardo Vazquez

Due to increased demand for Arts Build Communities' services, we will be accepting only two more communities as clients for community coaching from September 2012 to March 2013.  New clients will be accepted on a first-come basis.  Any community not selected for community coaching in the Fall will be considered for the next session, beginning March 2013.

In Atlantic Highlands, community coaching helped build an alliance among the arts and business communities

Community coaching builds the capacity of community leaders to engage in sustainable, cost-effective creative placemaking.  Through a six-month period, an ABC coach challenges and supports a diverse community team as it develops a set of creative placemaking strategies.  Coaches help clients go beyond just doing projects.  Clients learn how they can better integrate arts-based activities with cultural, community and economic development.  This helps projects have broader and deeper impacts on the quality of life and opportunities for prosperity in their communities.

ABC has worked with community teams from Atlantic Highlands, coastal Monmouth County, New Brunswick and Perth Amboy.  Community coaching has helped build new alliances and generated new ideas in these communities.

In New Brunswick, community coaching is helping to build a community of arts and creative professionals

There is a flat fee of $2,500 per community for coaching that begins in September.  (The fee will go up in 2013.) Eligible communities can be neighborhoods, municipalities, counties or regional communities (two or more municipalities or counties.) Eligible communities must be within 2 hours (by car) from Newark, NJ. Learn more.

Need advice on how to get started?  Contact ABC Director Leonardo Vazquez by email or at 848-932-2747

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ABC gets $10,000 grant from New Jersey State Council on the Arts

By Leonardo Vazquez

Arts Build Communities has been funded by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for a fourth year.  ABC, which is considered a co-sponsored project of the Council, received a $10,000 grant.

"The Council's commitment to this project is strong..." Executive Director Nicholas Paleologos wrote in his letter to ABC,  "and we greatly appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with [you] in carrying it out."

The Council notified ABC of the grant after its annual meeting in Trenton on July 31.

The grant represents an increase of nearly $2,700 over ABC's grant in 2011.  The Council was working with the same amount of money it had last year.  Being one of the few organizations to receive an increase in funding during difficult times is an honor.

The grant will be used to support ABC's programming and services to New Jersey communities and creative placemakers, including community coaching, the annual creative placemaking conference, and research on New Jersey's creative economy.

Learn more about Arts Build Communities

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With ABC's help, Long Beach Island gets NEA grant for creative placemaking

By Leonardo Vazquez

The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences got a $25,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop a creative placemaking plan for the island on coastal Ocean County.  Arts Build Communities helped the Foundation in its proposal by developing an outline for a planning strategy.  The Foundation, Long Beach Township, ABC and other partners expect to work together to put together the plan, which will be designed to impact the entire island.

Work on the plan is expected to begin in September and continue into 2013.  To develop the plan, the partners will reach out to residents and artists, explore existing conditions on the island, and identify and address opportunities and challenges for strategies that will improve the climate for creativity, enhance quality of life in the community, and promote greater prosperity on the island.

Long Beach Island is one of two communities in New Jersey to receive an Our Town grant.  The other is Rahway, in Union County.

Our Town is a federally-funded program to support creative placemaking, which works to build stronger communities and local economies through the arts.

Learn more about:

*Long Beach Island Foundation

*Long Beach Township

*National Endowment for the Arts

*Arts Build Communities

Map credits:  Wikipedia entry on Long Beach Island

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Arts New Brunswick kickoff event a success

By Jane Wolterding and Deborah Schulze

More than 150 people attended the official kickoff for Arts New Brunswick on July 11, 2012, at the Crossroads Theatre in downtown New Brunswick. The event attracted a wide variety of people from artists and creative professionals to municipal staff, elected officials, students, nonprofit professionals, educators and engaged residents. Open to the public, this community meeting served as a venue for discussing the role artists and the arts should play in economic, cultural and community development of New Brunswick.

After a half hour of networking and mingling among participants, the meeting began with a series of introductions from key figures involved in arts development in New Brunswick. 


Norma Kaplan, Executive Director of New Brunswick Cultural Center, and Jeffrey Vega, Executive Director of New Brunswick Tomorrow, made opening remarks and introductions, followed by an address from Mayor James Cahill of the City of New Brunswick.  The mayor emphasized the city’s support for the arts. 

Keynote speaker, Ben Cameron, Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, gave an inspiring speech about the importance of the arts in social change and economic development. He set the tone for the rest of the event by emphasizing the power of arts to affect the social fabric of communities, as well as their economies, and the importance of partnerships and ‘elevated conversations’ to achieving long-standing impacts. His speech was greeted with a standing ovation from the audience. 

Then Leonardo Vazquez, Director of Arts Build Communities, took the stage to introduce the Arts New Brunswick planning initiative and lead a discussion on:

*How New Brunswick could become a better place for artists and the arts, and

*How the arts can help make New Brunswick a better place.

These questions elicited a  valuable feedback from audience members. Throughout the course of the meeting, several issues were raised including: the need for affordable housing and venues for artists; a centralized and well-maintained database of artists and events; free arts and cultural programming, performances, and events; and consistent and cohesive promotion and marketing to increase awareness among city residents, as well as to reach a wider audience of visitors. A common thread emerged tying all of these issues together: the desire of the community to establish the foundations and framework necessary for meaningful and inclusive collaboration between the creative sector and local residents, businesses, neighborhoods and government.

In response to how the arts can help New Brunswick, the answers were overwhelmingly positive. The arts were described as being a vital tool in building understanding across diverse groups of people; providing an ”experience” in today’s increasingly digitally-based world; providing a way for people of all ages to express themselves; and working directly in the community to come up with exciting solutions to social and economic problems.

Photos of guests by Zeledon Photography; photographs of speakers by Deborah Schulze

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Arts Build Communities team expanded to enhance creative placemaking

By Leonardo Vazquez

Arts Build Communities has added three new team members to provide more and better service to creative placemakers and the communities they serve.

Deborah Schulze has joined as Program Manager and Jane Wolterding as Program Associate.  Thanks to a partnership with Rutgers' Collaborative, A Center for Community-Based Learning, Service and Public Scholarship, its Principal Secretary, Stella Baldev, is providing some time to help with administrative matters.

Stella Baldevcame to Rutgers in 1988 after working more than ten years in the private sector. She was an Assistant Recorder at University College, before joining Rutgers College in 1992. In 2007, when the four undergraduate divisions merged, Stella joined Civic Engagement and Service Education Partnerships Program where she currently serves as Principal Secretary.  Both Arts Build Communities and The Collaborative are part of the office of Isabel Nazario, Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humanities.

Deborah Schulze has returned to Arts Build Communities, where she worked from 2009 to 2011.  She has worked in the fields of urban planning, public policy and adult education.  She has a master's degree in City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and is pursuing a Master of Education degree at Montclair State University.

Jane Wolterding is a recent graduate Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School, where she received a Master in City and Regional Planning. Originally from Albany, New York, she studied Geography and Art at Colgate University. Jane is passionate about the intersection of arts and planning, especially the role that the arts can play in the strengthening communities. Most recently, as Planning Intern at Looney Ricks Kiss, Inc., she aided in the creation of design guidelines and a redevelopment plan for a portion of Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey. She also managed the implementation of a pilot Vacant Lot Project initiative during her time at Grand Street Community Arts, which resulted in the reuse and transformation of two vacant lots into community arts and education spaces.  Jane is working with Arts Build Communities as a Program Associate for the summer.

Arts Build Communities provides expertise in connecting arts to economic and community development.  Learn more about Arts Build Communities

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Artists come to New Brunswick event to build community; community invited to help build Arts New Brunswick

By Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

New Brunswick has three regional theaters, a renowned museum, and a nationally-ranked art school.  But until May 30, as far as we know, it never had an event that brought together more than 100 artists, creative professionals and their supporters.  On July 11, there will be another arts-related event in New Brunswick, and this time, it is open to the public.

First, about the May 30 event.   Artists and professionals who work in the arts were all at Crossroads Theater as part of a prequel to the launching of Arts New Brunswick.  The initiative, which officially kicks off in July, is designed to build a community-led set of strategies for creative placemaking throughout the city.  Arts New Brunswick is produced through a partnership between the New Brunswick Cultural Center and Rutgers University’s Arts Build Communities.  Arts Build Communities is a Rutgers University-wide initiative under the auspices of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humanities.  Arts New Brunswick is done as an extended and expanded version of ABC’s community coaching program.  The arts reception is the first of what organizers hope will be an annual event.

Before engaging the general public, NBCC and ABC wanted to begin building a community of artists and creative sector professionals in the city.  Artists who live or work in New Brunswick, and those who work for arts organizations in the city, were invited to an informal reception. 

The New Brunswick Jazz Project brought in The Lee Hogan Quartet to provide music, and Elijah’s Promise provided catering.  New Brunswick Cultural Center Board Chair William Hagaman welcomed the audience,  then Cultural Center Executive Director Norma Kaplan and ABC Director Leonardo Vazquez explained the initiative.

Then it was back to eating, drinking, networking, and listening to jazz for the guests.   Organizers hope it is the start of a long and fruitful relationship among New Brunswick arts organizations and creative sector professionals.

Now, about July 11.  This is the official kickoff to Arts New Brunswick.  The special guest speaker will be Ben Cameron, Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  Other speakers will talk about the initiative, and there will be time at the end of the event for you to share your thoughts.

The kickoff event is at 6:30 pm, July 11 at the Crossroads Theater, 7 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick. (get directions) Please RSVP by July 6 at newbrunswickarts@gmail.com

Photo credit: Allison Brown, AV Brown Photography

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ABC Director to provide advice on arts-based economic development in suburbs and small towns

By Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Please join Arts Build Communities at "Creative Place-Making: Realizing the Potential of Arts and Culture in Community and Economic Development," a public event organized and hosted by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission  Friday, June 29, from 9 am to 2 pm in its offices in Philadelphia.

You can learn from a number of experts in creative placemaking in the morning and share ideas with your colleagues in the afternoon. Invited speakers include: Jane Golden, Executive Director of the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia; Brian O'Leary, Section Chief of County Planning, Montgomery County (PA) Planning Commission; Nancy DeLucia, Director of Policy & Community Engagement, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; and me (Leonardo Vazquez), the Director of Arts Build Communities of Rutgers University.

My presentation is "Arts-Based Economic Development Strategies in Non-Traditional Areas: What We Can Do Now."  I'm going to focus on what small towns and suburbs can do to get the benefits of the creative economy.  In the afternoon, I will help facilitate in the peer exchange.

To get updates, information on how to register, and directions, please visit the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission site.  The commission is located at 190 N. Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA  19106.

Please also plan to stay in Philly after the event.  It's a great city to visit, especially if you enjoy the arts.

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