Stock is a monthly public dinner event and presentation series, which funds small to medium-sized artist projects. Hosted at Gallery Homeland in Portland, Oregon, diners pay a modest $10 for a dinner of homemade soup and other local delicacies and the chance to take part in deciding which artist proposal will receive the evening's proceeds. In other words, the dinner's profits immediately become an artists grant, which is awarded according to the choice of the diners. Winning artists will present their completed work at the following Stock dinner.

I like their approach and wording... sounds like they may choose good shows. I also like the term "artist/curator". It seems like a burgeoning term.

When Google representatives recently invited dozens of prominent artists to contribute work to be featured on its new Web browser, the company enthusiastically sold the idea as an opportunity to have artwork shown to millions.

But some, like Gary Taxali, were not impressed. Mr. Taxali, an illustrator based in Toronto whose work has appeared in publications like Time, Newsweek and Fortune, received a call in April from a member of Google’s marketing department. According to Mr. Taxali, the Google representative explained that the project will let users customize Google Chrome pages with artist-designed “skins” in their borders.....

More than in any other field, misperceptions about contemporary art keep audiences from effectively engaging it. Even within the art world itself, I see people buying into myths that cloud the viewing experience. In an effort to give the gallery-goer a few more tools to make sense of what they see, this week’s column compiles many common and useless contemporary art misnomers.

I don’t know enough about art to talk about it.

Anyone can discuss art well, few of us however look at it long enough to be able to do so. Trust your instincts, talk about what you see — don’t be afraid to be wrong. The beauty of an opinion is that you can change it as your response evolves.

Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development

Arts and culture are important to state economies. Arts and culture-related industries, also known as “creative industries,” provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases. These industries also provide an array of other benefits, such as infusing other industries with creative insight for their products and services and preparing workers to participate in the contemporary workforce. In addition, because they enhance quality of life, the arts and culture are an important complement to community development, enriching local amenities and attracting young professionals to an area.

Become a resident artist at Eyebeam! The New York art and technology center announced an open call this week for the Summer/Fall 2009 term of their artist residency program. Each resident receives a $5,000 stipend and 24/7 access to Eyebeam's digital design and fabrication studios. For more information, check out their FAQ. To start an application, go here. For those living in New York City, Eyebeam will host a "How To Apply" Forum on April 16th at 7pm with past Eyebeam Resident and recent Residency curatorial panelist Robert Ransick (Bennington College, Vermont) and current senior fellow Steve Lambert (Parsons/The New School and Hunter College). Deadline for applications is May 15, 2009.

The most extraordinary aspect of the programme was not its scale but that it employed artists at all, that art was considered as important to a nation as infrastructure. The government saw art as labour, and artists as workers worthy of employment and, therefore, public funds. In 1936, Holger Cahill, the curator who ran the FAP, claimed that, ‘The organization of the Project has proceeded on the principle that it is not the solitary genius but a sound general movement which maintains art as a vital, functioning part of any cultural scheme. Art is not a matter of rare, occasional masterpieces.’

I wonder if we'll ever get to this point in the near future, where rather than fighting to be recognized as beneficial and useful to society, that acknowledgement comes down from the top.

It's always fun to check out the homes of creative people. Here's a mother lode from all over the world.

Attention writers! Our newest Flash Points topic, Contemporary Art + Economics, launches next week. This time, we’re opening up the editorial process and inviting you to participate. Have an idea for a post? Interested in what’s going down on Capitol Hill or how the current economic climate has affected the arts closer to home, in your own community? Propose a Flash Points blog post and have a chance to be featured on this site.

Arts advocates, from Robert Redford to the president of New York's Lincoln Center, are celebrating now. But I wonder, in a still, small voice, if this is really such a victory.

For one thing, in the larger scope of things, it's not much money. Fifty million dollars, in a hastily assembled $800 billion stimulus, is just a bubble on a wave. It's a rounding error, a random fluctuation. It doesn't mean that arts support runs deep and strong. The battle for the arts has been going on for decades, and in my view -- as a person in the arts myself -- the arguments we make aren't nearly strong enough