Agency Details:

Art-Speak, City of Portsmouth's Cultural Commission

As the City of Portsmouth's Cultural Commission, Art-Speak promotes appreciation, awareness, participation, and dialogue in support of arts and culture.

Description:
Art-Speak is a Portsmouth City government commission as well as an independent nonprofit organization. The agency began in 2002. The City of Portsmouth allocates space and some services to Art-Speak which also must raise monies to fund its activities including Overnight Art, a bi-annual outdoor sculpture exhibit, and the 2006 Arts & Economic Prosperity Study with Americans for the Arts, which will be revised in 2011. Art-Speak regularly collaborates with the City on the Islington Street Corridor Study and the creation of City guidelines for public performances, the acquisition of public art, and the State's only community-based Percent for Art program.

History:
The Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Arts and Culture developed Portsmouth's Cultural Plan entitled Community Life and the Arts, published in 2001. The City Council accepted the report and approved its recommendations which became part of the City's Master Plan. Art-Speak was created to implement those recommendations and provide a voice for the arts in the City government process. Portsmouth, often an arts trend-setter, was the first community in the state to have an arts commission,

Contact people:

Jane James, Board President, (phone), (email) Ellen Fineberg, (phone), (email)

Main office number: (603) 610-7222
Office fax number: (603) 427-1593

Address:

One Junkins Avenue Portsmouth, NH 03801 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.Art-Speak.org

Miscellaneous Information

Name of Executive Director (or equivalent) if not listed above:
	Sue Cobler, Coordinator
Type of organization
	Nonprofit 501(c)3
Is your organization a Health and Human Service agency?
	No

Last updated on October 9, 2009