Frequently Asked Questions

This free celebration of the arts happens annually, funds permitting, along the banks of the Charles River between J.F.K. Boulevard and Western Avenue.

Write or call the Cambridge Arts Council, explain who you are and what you do and a staff person will make sure you get on the appropriate mailing list to receive information about how to become part of the Cambridge River Festival. Artists interested in being participants in the Festival are contacting by mail via a Call to Artists distributed by CAC in the early Spring. Juries judge the applications of performers, public artists, and crafts people to select the best of the applicants for presentation at the Festival. CAC jurors make a concerted effort to add new artists to the program each year rather than continually presenting the same acts, etc. The criteria for selection by jurors is excellence and CAC's ability to pay performers. Food vendors and crafts people are charged a fee to be in the Festival, and they are also selected by a coordinator and/or jury to ensure diversity. The public interested in attending the event should look for announcements about the Festival in local newspapers and on local television and radio. The Festival, as an annual event, is well- publicized.

Call or write to CAC and ask to be on the appropriate mailing list. The Arts Council also maintains ArtsCall, a 24-hour information line with listings of performances, cultural events, and exhibits in the area. Call (617) 349-4394. Current events are promoted in the local media, such as the Cambridge Chronicle, the Tab, the Phoenix, the Boston Globe, and on cable and municipal television, and commercial t.v. (CCTV, CABLE, Channels 4, 5 and 7).

The Arts Council holds public meetings in the spring to discuss with potential applicants the guidelines of the Massachusetts Arts Lottery program. Names and addresses of individuals or groups interested in applying are acquired at the public meetings and they are mailed applications in late summer.

Gallery 57 is the Arts Council's alternative, public gallery space presenting exhibitions of artists who either live or work in Cambridge. Artists are selected through a juried competition in the spring for a one-person exhibition. Artists selected for a one-person show are all featured in a September group exhibition. Individual shows happen from October through July and are augmented by artists' gallery talks and presentations. The Gallery is located on the second floor of the City Hall Annex at 57 Inman Street. If you are coming from out of town, take the Mass. Pike and get off at the Cambridge exit. Follow that road (River St.) over the bridge, and past four sets of lights. At the fifth set of lights, you will be at Mass. Ave. (first major intersection). Go across Mass. Ave. and straight down Prospect Street. Follow Prospect St. until you reach Broadway (second major intersection). Take a left onto Broadway and drive to the first set of lights. Park along Broadway or take a left onto Inman Street. (There are parking meters on Inman and Broadway.) The Arts Council is located inside the brick building on the corner.

First, you should request your name be put on the Gallery mailing list. In early spring, all interested artists living or working in Cambridge (who are on the mailing list for Gallery 57) will receive a call to artist to submit slides for review by a qualified visual arts jury made up of three art professionals. The three person jury meets and reviews all submissions, selecting nine artists usually working in differing media to have one-person exhibitions in the gallery during the year. The Gallery Director, Hafthor Yngvason, contacts all artists after the jurors make their decisions.

Call or write to the Cambridge Arts Council to be on the Gallery 57 mailing list to receive exhibition invitations. Also, you may call the ArtsCall telephone number, 349-4394 to learn the name of the artist and the type of work being exhibited at Gallery 57.

To acquire a performance permit a performer must stop in at the Arts Council's office at 57 Inman Street, fill out an application form, read the City Ordinance for Street Performance provided by the Council, and pay $25.00 cash. Arts Council staff determine whether or not a performer meets the Ordinance definition of performance and advise performers on how best to get along with the businesses, neighbors, other performers, etc. where s/he decides to perform. A performer does not have to be a Cambridge resident in order to obtain a Street Performance permit.

Contact the Arts Council at 349-4380 and request the Street Performance Monitor take a decibel-level reading at the performance site. If the performer is too loud, a $25.00 non-criminal violation ticket will be issued to the performer by the Monitor or a police officer. If the disturbance occurs after Council office hours, contact the Cambridge Police Department at 349-3300 and ask for the Dispatch Desk and report the problem.

If your department or city group is a non-profit organization in the City, the Arts Council will loan you its sound system if you can pick it up and return it. The system is old but adequate.

The Arts Council maintains a Performance Bank and a Public Art Slide Registry including hundreds of local and nationally-known artists. The Performance Bank is a resource that is often used to provide community groups and local businesses with information on more than 1,000 performing artists and groups in the area. The Public Art Slide Registry represents the work of over 1400 visual artists interested in public art commissions. This registry is an important resource for curators, educators, and those interested in commissioning works of art. The Council will provide a one-time use of the mailing list for either registry for a small label and duplication fee to other non- profit organizations. ALL ARTISTS ARE SELECTED THROUGH A PEER REVIEW PROCESS WHEREBY A JURY OF ART PROFESSIONALS RELATED TO THE ART DISCIPLINE BEING JUDGED MAKES AESTHETIC DECISIONS.

As a visual artist interested in public art commissions, you should call or write the Arts Council and request an application form for the Public Art Slide Registry. The form must be completed by the artist and submitted along with up to 20 current slides of the artist's work to the Arts Council for inclusion in the Slide Registry. Often a special Call to Artists is sent to every artist in the Slide Registry and on the mailing list to apprise artists of unique and qualified commissions. Also, outside curators and educators often review work in the Slide Registry to identify work of unknown artists. There is not a charge to join the Registry. Artists should periodically update their slides and credentials in the Registry.

Performers should contact CAC by mail or phone and request an application form to join the Performance Bank. The application form should be completed and submitted along with tapes and/or other representations of the performer's work (CD, audio tape, photographs, etc.) There is not a fee to join the Performance Bank nor a deadline. The Registry is used by the Arts Council as well as other non-profit organizations to select performers for various events.

The Cambridge Arts Council, working in collaboration with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, designed and initiated this Country's first comprehensive art-in-transit program for the U.S. Department of Transportation, known as "Arts On The Line." Over an eight year period, beginning in 1977, CAC implemented a community-based artists selection process to commission many artists to collaborate with the architects designing transit facilities in Boston and Cambridge (the Kendall, Central, Harvard, Porter and Alewife transit stations.) The award-winning Arts On The Line program catapulted the Cambridge Arts Council into the forefront of the national public art movement. The program is documented on a 16mm film available from Northern Lights Productions in Boston. A handbook produced by the program's director, Pallas Lombardi, is available from the Arts Council along with other materials on this well-known public art program. An audio-tape also can be acquired from the Arts Council for any visit or resident wishing to have a guided tour of the subway art program.

As artists' advocates, the Arts Council always pays professional artists to perform. The Arts Council staff spends a great deal of their time fundraising and grantwriting to subsidize their arts programming to ensure artists are paid for their work. The board and staff encourage others hiring performers to pay them fair compensation for their work.

Business people interested in commissioning or hiring an artist may contact the Arts Council staff to discuss commissioning or hiring an artist. If the person has a simple request, often staff will recommend artists who have been previously hired or commissioned through the jury processes used by the Arts Council. If a business requires a consultant, staff will discuss whether CAC can provide the service for a fee. In the past staff have designed and implemented artists selection processes for local businesses for award programs, functions, and commissioning public artworks. CAC is interested in covering its costs and ensuring artists are paid equitable sums for their work.

The Arts Council has an arts educated staff capable of answering many questions. However, the staff is small and the mission of the Council large. Often staff will direct a caller to a source specifically set up to answer the caller's question. For example. Many artists want to know where they can apply for individual artist's subsidy. Staff suggested artists contact the Massachusetts Cultural Council at 617-727-3668 and request State Arts Lottery information and information about MCC individual artist's grant awards. Artists are encouraged to contact the National Endowment for the Arts and request guidelines for individual artist's grants in specific media categories. (Telephone: 202-682-5448). Performers want to know if they can join a subsidized roster to perform outside the local area. Staff suggest they contact the New England Foundation for the Arts for an application form. (Telephone: 617-492-2914) Other non-profit organizations often inquire where they can find out about foundations that provide funds for arts activities or capital improvements, etc. Staff directs the caller to Associated Grantmakers, Inc. (Telephone: 617-426-2606) Artists seeking free legal advice are encouraged to contact the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. (Telephone: 617-523-1764) Individuals seeking discounted performing arts tickets contact Arts Bostons. (Telephone: 617-423-4454) Artists seeking performance space at low rates are encouraged to contact the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. (Telephone: 617- 577-1400) Residents looking for free art classes for their children, year- round, contact the Cambridge Art Association. Their artist members teach free classes in various art media to children. Member artists exhibit in their gallery space. (Telephone: 617-876-0246) CAC staff cannot spend time doing research for individual artists or groups due to their workload, but they do provide information based on their long administrative arts experience.

Although staff often have access to almost any type of information related to the arts, staff must be judicious about their use of time. A small staff like the one currently serving the City has a great deal of work to do raising funds for Cambridge programs and subsidizing projects to benefit Cambridge.

The Arts Council staff participates in national and state-wide organizations such as:

• The National Endowment for the Arts
• Massachusetts Cultural Council
• The National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies
• The National Association of State Arts Agencies
• American Council on the Arts
• The Consortium of Local Arts Agencies of Massachusetts

Staff administrators serve on art juries, conference and symposium panels, and on occasion provide consultancy services to other arts agencies outside the area. Through working with their counterparts nationally, the Arts Council staff bring greater information and resources to Cambridge. Staff also work with and know arts professionals and artists from around the country and outside the U.S. The Arts Council has raised funds for local, national, and international conferences and symposiums on art to further provide education and resource information to artists and the public.

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