Category Archives: The Arts

Multicultural Art and Poetry

Advisors, Authors A-H, Books

Renewing Diversity  Part 16: Revisting The Children Are Watching – by Carlos Cortés

It’s hard for me to get my head around the fact that it’s been more than a quarter century since the year 2000 publication of my book, The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity.  In that book I proposed a framework for looking at the mass media as a sprawling, multifaceted informal educational curriculum that competes with schools in the teaching process.  Whether or not media makers think of themselves as teachers is irrelevant.  Once they create media, their products become sources from which people learn.  

As the title suggests, the book focused on the theme of diversity.  I argued that the mass media provide a form of informal public multicultural education through the ways they depict groups, portray intergroup interactions, and publicly examine how  institutions and organizations interact with diversity.   Continue reading Renewing Diversity  Part 16: Revisting The Children Are Watching – by Carlos Cortés →

Authors I-Q, The Arts

How Small Arts and Culture Organizations Expand Their Reach – by Julie Morris

Finding Your Voice – Share Your Story

Your organization is doing vital cultural work. The problem is, not enough people know about it. America’s nonprofit arts and culture sector generated $151.7 billion in economic activity in 2022 — sustaining 2.6 million jobs and anchoring communities across the country. Yet many of the organizations at the heart of that impact, especially those rooted in communities of color, lack the communications capacity to make their work visible. The story is being made; it’s just not being told.

This guide is for the small but mighty: a two-person staff, a handful of dedicated volunteers, a shoestring budget, and a mission worth sharing. Here’s how to build a communications practice that amplifies your voice without burning out your team.

Continue reading How Small Arts and Culture Organizations Expand Their Reach – by Julie Morris →

Academic Articles, Authors I-Q, Music, theater, TV, dance

Peace Child: A Creative Response in a Divided World – by C. Melissa Neu

ABSTRACT

In an era marked by increasing social, political, and cultural polarization, intercultural communication practitioners are challenged to move beyond awareness-based approaches toward methods that actively foster dialogue and connection across differences. This article explores the Peace Child model, a youth-centered, theatre-based approach to peace building, as a powerful framework for facilitating dialogic engagement in both global and local contexts. Drawing on its origins during the Cold War and its application in conflict regions around the world, the article examines how Peace Child integrates principles of dialogic theory, experiential learning, and co-creative storytelling to transform encounters with difference into opportunities for mutual understanding. Particular attention is given to the role of embodied, arts-based practices in disrupting entrenched narratives and cultivating generative dialogue. The article also addresses the relevance of this model in responding to contemporary polarization and offers practical strategies for intercultural practitioners seeking to design similar programs. By positioning creative collaboration as a catalyst for transformation, this work highlights the potential for theatre and dialogue to reimagine how individuals and communities engage across divides.

Continue reading Peace Child: A Creative Response in a Divided World – by C. Melissa Neu →

Academic Articles, Authors R-Z, Disability, Writing

Artists with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities – by Diane Storman

Seeing Differently in San Diego and Beyond

Author’s Note: This article intentionally intersperses person-first language with identity-first terms such as “autistic” and “neurodivergent” to reflect and respect the wide range of individual preferences regarding descriptive language.

For many artists with autism, art is not just a creative outlet; it is a forum for conveying experiences and perspectives that are often not expressed in words. Autistic artists use visual expression to communicate their experiences and challenge ideas about disability and creativity. 

Continue reading Artists with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities – by Diane Storman →

Authors A-H, Books, Writing

Moral Fault Lines as Muse – by Linda Drattell

Drattell
by Shawn Drattell

Moral fault lines are everywhere we look and serve as a muse for my writing. They are the underlying fissures that can fracture societal cohesion, fragment our understanding of what is right versus wrong, and threaten to break us under severe stress. In my novel, The Peccadilloes of Filamena Phipps, Filamena Phipps, née Ferayinskela, doesn’t ‘fit’ in North Chelsea, an affluent community which prizes homogeneity. A clique consisting of  Filamena’s neighbors drive informal, but ultimately rigid, community decisions such as where they shop, what they wear, with whom they socialize. Filamena tries to accommodate her neighbors but to them, she’s different; she’s a threat. They want her to conform, forget her own customs, dress and cook and raise her children like they do. Confronted by her neighbors’ bullying, she must decide how much bullying she should tolerate. What happens when she dissents? How can she dissent effectively and still remain a part of her community? 

Continue reading Moral Fault Lines as Muse – by Linda Drattell →

DL Opinion columns, The Arts

4 Bridges Arts Festival a wonderful gift – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Thousands of folks join me in thinking that the 4 Bridges Arts Festival is, as a Bishop friend in Bermuda used to say, “wonderful, marvelous, glorious.” The Festival is presented annually by the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) and has been with us for 26 years.  AVA’s tag line is “ Connecting Art with Community’ and it’s supported by the TN Arts Commission, Lyndhurst Foundation, and ArtsBuild as well as dozens of sponsoring organizations and individual patrons.  While 4 Bridges grows bigger as the city expands, its home continues to be the First Horizon Pavilion near the Southside district of downtown Chattanooga. That’s where I went.

Continue reading 4 Bridges Arts Festival a wonderful gift – by Deborah Levine →

DL Opinion columns, Music, theater, TV, dance

‘Gimme a Break’ and get along with Music –  by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Can we bring diverse folks together in these crazy times? It seems like an impossible dream, one that requires an incredible amount of research, work, time and energy. Yes, I did create a neuroscience-based process years ago called the Matrix Model Management System. And it’s a been a great success for team building. But something simpler and faster is needed these days. What might that be?

I discovered an amazing answer to that question when grocery shopping. I was standing by the candy section, not far from two salesmen whom I’d seen there often. They were discussing sales issues when I realized that I was in front of the KitKat section. I turned to them and asked if they knew the song to the Kit Kat commercial. They grinned like twins although one was African American, the other was country-style White. Together they started to sing and dance to the “Gimme a Break” music from the 1986 KitKat ad. And I joined in. 

Continue reading ‘Gimme a Break’ and get along with Music –  by Deborah Levine →

Authors A-H, Books

The genius of Oscar and Frank – by Terry Howard

Sorry to disappoint readers – well, maybe some readers anyway – but today’s narrative is not about Tiger Wood’s “driving” (ahem, Land Rovers, not golf balls) skills, Pam Bondi’s firing, the war in Iran, or the Epstein files. It is about my lifelong infatuation with language and how it manifests itself in common types of prose used to educate, criticize, hyperbolize, or just annoy. 

Continue reading The genius of Oscar and Frank – by Terry Howard →

Authors R-Z, Writing

Creative Writing as a Tool for Mental Health – by Diane Storman

Writing Through It

Creative writing can be an effective tool for processing and regulating emotional responses. It can help writers enhance self-awareness, manage their mental well-being through daily writing practices, and foster connections within communities facing shared mental health challenges. (Author’s note: For the purposes of this article, creative writing refers to the practice of deliberately using narrative forms such as storytelling, journaling, and poetry to express thoughts and emotions.  Mental health is defined here as a state of emotional, psychological, and social well-being that influences how individuals think, feel, and act.)

Continue reading Creative Writing as a Tool for Mental Health – by Diane Storman →

Advisors, Authors A-H, Books, Trends 2026

26 Tiny Paintbrushes 2.0? Well not so fast! – by Terry Howard

What began eight years ago at a local coffee shop with casual conversations between frequent customers evolved into a realization by several of us that we had a shared interest in books and in writing. And before we knew it others who eavesdropped into our conversations from nearby tables asked to join us in our talk about books and writing. Thus, the birth of the “26 Tiny Paintbrushes” writers guild launched by then resident Naomi Tapia and yours truly. 

Continue reading 26 Tiny Paintbrushes 2.0? Well not so fast! – by Terry Howard →