Photo by David A Lee/Courtesy Modernism Week

ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Attendance up 30% at Modernism Week; revenue tops $47 million (The Desert Sun)
Modernism Week attendance soared 30 percent this year, attracting almost 126,000 people and generating about $47.25 million in revenue throughout much of the Coachella Valley.

LA Times Architecture Critic Leaving For City Hall (Los Angeles Times)
After almost 14 years as architecture critic at the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne is leaving the paper. He’s moving across the street to City Hall to become LA’s first chief design officer.

 

EDUCATION

KCOD radio station takes home 17 national awards (Coachella Valley Weekly)
KCOD, College of the Desert’s student radio station, won 17 Golden Microphones at the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System awards in New York City.

Arts teach kids to learn from failure (KQED)
These student artists not only learn to take and value criticism from peers and teachers, but they are gradually learning how to evaluate their own work.

Arts-focused field trips have positive effect (Brookings)
A study suggests students who participate in arts-focused field trips and activities show increased interest and engagement in school, as well as higher scores on standardized tests.

 

FILM

Diversity takes the stage at High School Narrative Filmmaking Symposium (The Desert Sun)
Students from 10 Coachella Valley high schools converged on Palm Springs Cultural Center for the second annual Narrative Filmmaking Symposium, a collaboration between DIGICOM and the three local public school districts.

 

ISSUES & MANAGEMENT

How public art can serve as philanthropy’s calling card (Fast Company)
A collection of public art installations funded by Northwestern Mutual Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the same-named financial firm, shines a light on the organizations and causes the charity supports.

San Francisco is counting its artists to address gentrification (Hyperallergic)
In spite of rapidly rising rent prices, San Francisco is second only to New York among U.S. cities with large concentrations of artists.

Arts add billions of dollars to U.S. economy. Is that bad? (Grantmakers in the Arts)
Arts and culture activity contributed $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy in one year, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report. Some worry linking the arts to economic impact diminishes other positive values and could negatively affect initiatives without obvious monetary value.

 

MUSIC AND STAGE

Not going to Coachella? See festival acts around SoCal (The Press-Enterprise)
Between the two weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, you can find many of the bands performing at Fox Theater and the Glass House in Pomona; the Observatory in Santa Ana; Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown; and Novo, Theatre at Ace Hotel, and El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.

Has Andrew Lloyd Weber saved or killed the musical? (The New Yorker)
After reading the composer’s memoir, Unmasked, Adam Gopnik suggests we might have been unfair to Andrew Lloyd Weber, whose “genius was always more theatrical than musical.”

 

VISUAL ART

Phillip K. Smith III to create site-specific artwork at College of the Desert (The Desert Sun)
The artist known for Desert X and Coachella installations using mirrors and light will create a signature artwork at College of the Desert’s main campus in Palm Desert.

Desert X story unfolds in new ‘Artbound’ documentary (KCET)
The producers of KCET’s art documentary series Artbound turned their lens to Desert X, the exhibition of site-specific art installations that sprawled across the Coachella Valley last year. You can watch the hour-long film for free at kcet.org.

Desert conservation group offers artists guidelines to artists creating on the land (KCET)
Mojave Desert Land Trust has developed “Reading the Landscape: A Conscious Artist’s Checklist” to foster respect for the ecology and concrete steps for artists to protect the environment.

The iconic artist who changed how we see the world (The Desert Sun)
Bruce Fessier digs into the life and legacy of the world’s most famous pop artist, Andy Warhol, subject of a major print exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum, and speaks to local celebrities who knew him, including Michael Childers, whose concurrent show, Having a Ball, features his portraits of the artist.

Living with a brain tumor, painter Nicholas Kontaxis creates a visual symphony (Palm Springs Life)
The lively paintings of Nicholas Kontaxis are gaining popularity and acclaim from galleries and collectors around the world – no surprise, given their vibrant, dramatic color and hypnotic gestural rhythm. What is surprising about Kontaxis is just about everything else.