No ruminations today, just some opportunities & news to boost.

Opportunities

Irene Yamamoto Arts Writers Fellowship 

The Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and Critical Minded announce the 4th annual Irene Yamamoto Arts Writers Fellowship. The fellowship provides two $5,000 unrestricted awards to emerging writers of color who write critically about visual art. Applicants should identify as a member of a community with ancestry in one of the original peoples of Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, or Pacific Islands and have less than two years of publication experience. Deadline is March 16. Apply now

Curationist Call for Editorial Feature Proposals

Curationist’s Editorial Features critically investigate and contextualize the Works in its open access archives. This call is open to arts writers, artists, historians, curators, librarians, archivists, and anyone in the GLAM field at any stage of their career. Selected writers will receive:

• A $1,500 stipend for a 1,500-word feature

• Editorial guidance and support

• Research assistance from our digital archivists

• Publication of their essay as a Curationist Editorial Feature

Deadline is February 28. Learn more

Rethinking Collections Stewardship

In partnership with the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) at the School for Advanced Research and Gilcrease Museum, the Indigenous Collections Care (ICC) Speaker Series explores new frameworks for museum collections stewardship centered on Indigenous knowledge and values. Leading up to the anticipated release of the Indigenous Collections Care Guide, this webinar series will highlight key components and themes within the upcoming Guide. Next session in the series is March 3. Learn more

News

Review of Sayre Gomez’s exhibition, “Precious Moments,” for the LA Times

It’s been a minute since I reviewed art for the LA Times, and it increasingly feels like a privilege to opine and analyze art in public. More and more publications are slashing or dropping their arts & culture coverage, especially criticism. The Washington Post just eliminated its book section. Long-time LA Times art critic Christopher Knight retired last fall. We’ve been seeing for some time a rise in censorship and attacks on free speech. But arts criticism is more important than ever, as I argued in this post for the Democracy Center. I hope you’ll continue to read and engage with the arts and with criticism. It might not save the world, but learning to be critical, to know our own minds and speak up, is a civic skill we all need to nurture.