In celebration of the L.A. Opera's citywide Ring Festival, spotlighting the Opera's Wagner extravaganza, a citizen group called "The Invisible Siegfrieds" recently spent four days marching down Sunset Boulevard. Organized by composer Georg Nussbaumer and sporting "tarnhelms" (watering cans) worn backwards on their heads, the group identified themselves as "a group of lonely knights, elephants made of tin." They marched daily, April 17-20. Simone Kussatz, in the L.A. Times' Culture Monster blog (4/23/10), writes that they pulled a cart on which sat alto Christina Ascher, listening to "The Ring" over headphones and emitting selected tones from the opera. The event ended Tuesday at 7:45 p.m. at Will Rogers State Beach. CNN was there along with about 30 people who participated in the last part of the project ("Horn! Drop! Drink!") and watched Ascher, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, sing into the surf. (Don't miss the Siegfrieds website: http://invisiblesiegfrieds.org/.)

CAN BlogNet has added Paul VanDeCarrr's "Inside Stories" to the collection of blogs from the field, cycling through the CAN front page. Inside Stories is a blog and podcast about the many forms of storytelling -- from journalism to genealogy to psychology to film to literature to walking tours and more. The regularly updated blog features commentary, short interviews, links to current articles on storytelling, and occasional videos. A thrice-monthly podcast of 10-15 minutes features interviews, stories and more. The most recent Inside Story is an interview with artist Jana Napoli (founder of YA/YA Inc.) about her traveling installation "Floodwall," 710 drawers from desks, dressers, kitchen cabinets and bureaus that she scavenged from the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, 2005. See the podcast on CANtv.

Some 18,000 students in New Jersey protested against school budget cuts (including the arts) by walking out of class on April 27, 2010, in response to a protest organized on Facebook. Winnie Hu, in the N.Y. Times (4/27/10), called it "one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years. The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman, and came a week after voters rejected 58 percent of school district budgets put to a vote across the state. “All I did was make a Facebook page,” said Lauto, who graduated last year from Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, N.J. “Anyone who has an opinion could do that and have their opinion heard. I would love to see kids in high school step up and start their own protests and change things in their own way.” Lauto alerted 600 Facebook friends to her message calling for a student walkout and asked them to pass it on.

A group of architects, designers, activists and community leaders recently unveiled a new standard and online tool to measure the impact of design. Somewhat analogous to the LEED standards for “green” buildings, the SEED standard and tool will provide guidance, evaluation and certification for the social, economic and environmental relevance of design projects. Bryan Bell, founder and executive director of Design Corps, is one of the main forces behind the effort, which took five years to develop. The online tool, SEED Evaluator, will help users through the process of creating an exemplar design. For example, it addresses issues such as public safety, job creation and sanitation, and it requires strong evidence of community participation and input for a project to be eligible for SEED certification. The hope is that designers and their clients will start to use the new tool and standard on projects large and small.

A group of architects, designers, activists and community leaders recently unveiled a new standard and online tool to measure the impact of design. Somewhat analogous to the LEED standards for “green” buildings, the SEED standard and tool will provide guidance, evaluation and certification for the social, economic and environmental relevance of design projects. Bryan Bell, founder and executive director of Design Corps, is one of the main forces behind the effort, which took five years to develop. The online tool, SEED Evaluator, will help users through the process of creating an exemplar design. For example, it addresses issues such as public safety, job creation and sanitation, and it requires strong evidence of community participation and input for a project to be eligible for SEED certification. The hope is that designers and their clients will start to use the new tool and standard on projects large and small.

UNESCO's Second World Conference on Arts Education will be hosted by the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Seoul, May 25-28, 2010. The conference will explore implementation of the "Road Map for Arts Education" that resulted from the First World Conference on Arts Education in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2006. Keynoters are Robert & Michele Root-Bernstein, co-authors of "Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People," which has been described as "a demanding fitness program for the creative mind." Plenary sessions and workshops will feature scholars from around the world discussing the promotion of cultural diversity and social cohesion through arts education; tensions between traditional and contemporary practices; the effects of arts-education policies; the facilitation and application of arts-ed research; intra- and intergovernmental partnerships; collaboration between schools and communities; and more.

Today CAN is happy to bring you "Poems in the Public Interest," a selection of poems from a U.K. public humanities project titled "Poemsfor..." Poetry is collected by a U.K. charity called Hyphen-21 and made into posters that are distributed for free and displayed in public places. The project is the brainchild of Rogan Wolf, a British poet and former mental-health social worker who wanted to find a wider audience for poetry. Since 1997, the poems have appeared in health centers, social-care centers, hospitals and hospices. They’ve also been seen in a small café in the Hebrides, the lift of the U.K. embassy in Macedonia and in various other U.K. embassies around the world, a staff canteen at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a prayer room in a London hospital, the staff toilets in another, schools and libraries all over the country and the Mayor of London’s 2007 Equalities Report. The poems in this CAN selection are in languages ranging from Albanian to Vietnamese and including Arabic, Hindi, Hungarian, Kurdish, Mandarin and Punjabi. Each one is accompanied by an English translation.

CAN has added artist Ben Volta to CAN's BlogNet, a collection of blogs across the Internet that are of interest to the field of community-based art, appearing automatically on CAN's front page. Ben Volta works with groups to create collaborative works of art. Says Volta: "A studio or classroom becomes a stage where collaborating artists create unique multiples, which are then merged together into a collective vision. ... Collective forms are arranged, stacked and drawn together, then architecturally combined to mutually reinforce each artist's contribution, which is both expressed by and combined into the completed work. My teams often consist of young artists, academics and community members. I work closely with a variety of professionals who support the arts in education (including but not limited to) school administrators, artists, designers, architects, structural engineers, librarians, museum curators and arts advocates."

Three New Village Press authors will be biking down Broadway and across Manhattan on May 1, 2010, to spread the word about NVP's new book honoring urban activist Jane Jacobs. "What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs" puts Jacobs' legendary model of collaborative city building and community engagement into a present-day context. Three of the book's 30 contributors -- architect Michael Sorkin, urban critic Roberta Brandes Gratz and New York Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik Khan -- will lead a "Jane's Walk" of people on bikes, exploring the recently established bike route down Broadway and stopping to observe and discuss sites along the way, especially where new plazas have been created. Since 2007, cities across the world have been hosting Jane's Walks and Rolls, free neighborhood walking and biking tours on May 1 & 2 that help connect people with their environment and with each other.

The Earth Day newsletter from the team at California's Meaningful Media spotlights ten of their favorite green projects in various media, a taste of their upcoming Meaningful Mediapedia. They note DisneyNature's new film "Oceans" and its national college tour; Planet Green's week of green-themed television; "Our Thirsty World," a photo show at L.A’s Annenberg Space for Photography partnering with National Geographic's April water issue; Project H Design Group's Design Revolution Road Show, a traveling exhibition/lecture series for schools, highlighting humanitarian design innovations; Eco-Design, an eco-friendly product handbook; Music for Action, top bands promoting eco-action; GreenMap.org, interactive maps locating green resources in your city; L.A.'s 3rd Annual Wilshire Center Earth Day/Car Free Day Celebration; Global Conflicts, a game series about global and environmental issues; and "Our Ocean World," a radio show on preserving the oceans.

The Kresge Foundation has announced a new national strategy for its arts and culture grantmaking, including an Arts and Community Building focus, by invitation only. The foundation has two pilot initiatives within that focus: The College/Arts initiative is designed to explore the Arts and Culture Program’s interest in the role institutions of higher learning play in the arts and community-building ecosystem. In 2010, Kresge will select and support seven of the most outstanding U.S. programs, granting each $200,000 over two years. The Community Arts initiative is a two-year pilot program designed to use arts and culture as a tool to address pressing community issues in five cities –- Baltimore, Md.; Birmingham, Ala.; Detroit, Mich.; St. Louis, Mo.; and Tucson, Ariz. The foundation will work with local partners in each city. The other new foci for Kresge: Institutional Capitalization and Artists’ Support Services.

June 1, 2010, is the deadline for grant proposals to a new program of the National Endowment of the Humanities, “Bridging Cultures,” which explores the “ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the myriad subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society.” Funding will be provided to plan and implement a program consisting of a forum and a workshop on one of two humanities themes: Civility and Democracy, to examine “our responsibilities to each other as citizens and as members of civil society," and The Muslim World and the Humanities, to “shed new light on the impact of Islam on the world and to broaden understanding across cultures.” Proposals are invited from colleges or universities, libraries, museums, historical societies or other historical or cultural institutions, and collaboration is encouraged.

Today CAN brings you a new essay, "Something Different Is Stirring: DIY Culture in Silicon Valley," by creative community specialist Tom Borrup. His statistics-filled report that offers a glimpse into our cultural future in "one of the first truly global metropolitan regions," the sprawling area around San Jose, Calif. In late 2008, Borrup was asked by 1st ACT Silicon Valley to conduct an in-depth inventory and analysis of the formal cultural infrastructure of the region and its core city, "the most diverse large city in California, the most diverse state in the U.S." The region is technologically advanced and its citizens -- of all cultures -- are wealthy. Traditional U.S. cultural infrastructural isn't doing very well, but cultural organization across the region is rich and varied as new, immigrants populations create forms of social exchange that best fit their needs. Borrup and his team interpret the region's rapid change as a signal that Industrial Age models of cultural organization are either evolving or being left behind, replaced by new forms of organization, production and distribution.

At present there are many individuals with online websites which are trying to sell a certain servic...

Arts-education supporters in Burbank, Calif., are going all out to improve access to the arts in Burbank's schools with an entire city block of arts participation projects. The Burbank Arts Education Foundation, founded in 2006, will soak up a block of the Downtown Burbank ARTS Festival with more than 20 booths including the Burbank Music Academy, where attendees can play musical instruments; Instrument Amnesty, where the public can donate old band or string instruments; a Chalk Yard and Art Wall; a Fresh Films booth where aspiring filmmakers can collaborate on mini-movies; and more. "The arts are one of the first disciplines to be cut from the school curriculum," says BAEF. "Even in Burbank, a hub of the entertainment industry and a center of creative expression worldwide, funding for music, dance, theater and visual arts classes have been systematically slashed over the past 20 years."

May 10, 2010, is the deadline for submissions to the 1st Annual Youth Powered Video Film Festival, being initiated by New York's Educational Video Center. The Youth Powered Video Film Festival showcases outstanding work created by young people and provides a platform to extend the reach of their films, says EVC. "Our goal is to amplify youth voices by providing an audience for their creativity, perspectives and community solutions." Selected films will be screened at the Paley Center for Media on May 26, 2010, and featured on EVC's website, and may be considered for a "2010 Best of Youth-Powered Video" compilation DVD. EVC's Youth Powered Video curriculum was first implemented in 2005 to support teachers and youth workers, nationally and internationally, in the facilitation of student-centered video projects that explore issues relevant to their lives in and out of school.

The Georgia Capitol steps erupted with activity Monday, April 19, 2010, when musicians, actors and puppeteers gathered to protest arts funding cuts and the elimination of the Georgia Council for the Arts. Jamie Gumbrecht, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (4/20/10), says hundreds of arts supporters chanted "art equals jobs" and carried signs that read "Look up, an artist created the gold dome," and "How could you be so art-less?" A $17.8 billion state budget passed by the Georgia House last week would wipe out the arts council, which supports the arts statewide, administers grants and maintains the State Art Collection. Before the House voted to eliminate the arts agency, Gov. Sonny Perdue's fiscal 2011 budget cut arts funding to $890,735, down from $2.52 million this year. Georgia could be the only state without an arts council recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, unless the Senate restores funding cut by the House.

mervin Jarman -- community art activist, interactive multimedia designer, human computer interface expert -- will be in Darwin, 19th - 23nd April 2010, as part of an Australian tour organised by d/Lux/MediaArts, and funded by Australia Council for the Arts.

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Students from Conwell Egan Catholic High School in Fairless Hills, Pa., have a collaborative artwork on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They worked with artist Ben Volta and art teacher JoAnne Garito to create "Defiance," a 20-foot by 11-foot presentation promoting conflict resolution. They worked from a selection of artworks in the museum collection that depicted images of violence and attempted to dissect the conflict in each work. The resulting construction features black silhouettes, white flags and quotes calling for peace. CEC is one of ten Philadelphia area schools participating in the museum's Art Futures project, which has a working artist doing a 30-hour residency guiding students as they create a work of art. The program includes a field trip to the museum and $500 for art supplies for the students to use.