Volume 35
Spring-Summer
2009 |
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Cover: Dulio Prado’s crew assembles a
wall in Bedford, New York. Photo: Tom
van Buren
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FROM THE EDITOR
From the Spring-Summer
2009 issue of Voices:
A Call to Action
Just before the new
year, along with hundreds
of arts nonprofits across
the state, the New York
Folklore Society received
alarming news. New
York State’s deficit reduction
plan instituted in December 2008 included
extensive cuts to a number of state programs—
including the grants budget of the
New York State Council on the Arts. The cuts
to NYSCA meant that pending requests for
fiscal year 2008–9 funding, including the New
York Folklore Society’s request for general operating
support, could not be considered.
While the NYFS is now scheduled to receive
2009–10 funding, the loss of this year’s
funding has had a serious impact upon our
finances. The NYFS has since applied for
federal stimulus funding to the arts, which the
NEA will make available to arts organizations
nationwide after July 1. Nevertheless, the 2009
funding loss forced the NYFS, its director,
staff members, and board members to revisit
and reduce the costs of a spectrum of the society’s
services to the folk and traditional arts
communities of New York State. As part of a
strategic plan to help our organization weather
the current economic storm, NYFS board and
staff made the decision to shorten this issue
of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. The
issue you are reading has been reduced to
two-thirds of the normal length—thirty-two
pages, rather than forty-eight—and its graphic
design has been simplified. This decision enabled
us to avoid delaying the release of this
issue or canceling Voices for this fiscal year.
More than ever before in the seven decades
since the New York Folklore Society was founded, the society and its journal need your
support to survive. The raw cost of producing
and distributing each issue of Voices amounts
to approximately $12,000. More than half of
this amount pays three staff members to work
on the publication: soliciting material for the
journal from artists and writers all over the
state, sending contributions out for review, editing
content, copyediting, proofreading, handling
photographs and other graphic elements,
and designing each issue. Printing and distributing
the journal costs the NYFS roughly
$5,000 per issue. The journal is released twice
each year, in the spring and in the fall, at a total
annual expense of nearly $25,000.
If you are already a New York Folklore Society
donor, member, and Voices subscriber,
we thank you for your loyal support thus far,
and ask that in 2009, you consider doubling
your annual contribution to the organization.
If you are not yet a member of the folklore
society, but read and refer to this journal regularly
in your work or personal pursuits, we invite
you to become a member and contributor
to the society and journal now, at any donation
level that may be comfortable for you.
There are two ways you can take direct
action to help us resolve this crisis. You can
join us by making a financial contribution
using the subscription and donation materials
included in this issue—and you can join
us for food, music, and celebration at a gala
benefit concert and Voices release party on
Friday, May 29, 2009, at 5:30 p.m. (reception)
and 7:00 p.m. (concert). The event will be
held in the GE Theatre at Proctors, 432 State
Street, Schenectady. To purchase tickets for
the event, please contact the New York Folklore
Society at (518) 346-7008. See the concert
announcement on our What’s Happening page of our new Music Section of our website
for further details.
We thank you in advance for your support.
If you care about Voices and about the future
of our collective work in the field of folk and
traditional arts, please know that you stand in
good company, as our history and recent testimonials
both confirm.
Eileen Condon |
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Spring–Summer 2009, Volume 35:1–2
Acquisitions Editor Eileen Condon
Managing Editor Sheryl A. Englund
Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer
Printer Eastwood Litho
Editorial Board: Varick Chittenden, Lydia Fish,
José Gomez-Davidson , Nancy Groce, Lee Haring,
Bruce Jackson, Libby Tucker, Kay Turner, Dan
Ward, Steve Zeitlin
Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore
is published twice a year by the
New York Folklore Society, Inc.
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Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society today.
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