We had the privilege of spending time with Shelton Stanfill this morning discussing cultural tourism, thanks to the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts. Shelton, a well-known arts leader from the U.S., had some great insights on how Calgary can start moving forward in this area based on his experiences building and shaping Atlanta's cultural tourism strategy. We were joined by Johann Zeitsmann who currently runs the Mesa Arts Center in Arizona and was able to offer some very interesting perspective based on his current work as well as his past experience developing the arts in South Africa. Read more »

Somehow the first month of my work term with Calgary Arts Development has flown by without a blog post. Not a single one. As a public relations student at Mount Royal College, I understand the importance of communicating with the public, so I figured it was time for me to jump on the blog train with reckless abandon. And there's no better time to start than now.

The other evening I had the good fortune of attending the dress rehearsal of Alberta Ballet's Dangerous Liaisons. I was pleasantly surprised. Take everything you thought you knew about the ballet and throw it out the window. Dangerous Liaisons pushes the boundaries by having a play and a ballet going on simultaneously. The choreography was visually stunning as dancers held poses that at times were painfully beautiful to watch. This truly is a must see, even if you don't think you like the ballet. Go. I promise you won't be disappointed. Read more »

I have been thinking a lot lately about the how the concepts of creativity, risk, and success are interrelated. Does a person or an organization have to be a risk-taker in order to be creative and thus successful? Does being risk-adverse result in creative stagnation and mediocrity at best or blatant failure at worst?

I was reminded the other day about a speech given by Sir Ken Robinson at the 2006 TED Conference, where he said, “if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything creative”. He goes on to say that “we have become frightened of being wrong and stigmatize mistakes.” So Sir Robinson might argue that taking risks and not letting fear get in the way of bold action will result in higher levels of creativity and an increased probability of success. Read more »

Calgary saw its first skiff of snow last week and it's here again today. I noticed one group of "people" looking especially cold this morning. Earlier this year artist Suzen Green dressed several pieces from the City of Calgary's Public Art collection in bright, colourful knits as part of the ArtCity festival. The long legs of Mario Armengol’s Family of Man sculptures – located on Macleod Trail and 5th Street SE outside of the Calgary Board of Education - were fitted with beautiful, extremely colourful knee-high knitted socks. The project was originally conceived as "guerilla-style graffiti using knitting," but instead Green was able to make a connection with civic officials to get the go-ahead to alter several public sculptures for 10 days during the festival. The "appropriated with permission” aspect of Green's work continues to be one of the things I appreciate most.Green's work has forever altered my view of that space in our city and really awakened a desire for more playfulness in our urban landscape. And now that it's getting cold, it really makes me feel sorry for those poor chilly sculptures!
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