Back in December, more than 200 Madison-based artists and arts supporters signed an open letter to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. The letter specifically protested a since-canceled event called Chroma, because the museum wasn't offering to pay artists who participated, but was charging an application fee and extra fees for installing artwork. The group that organized the letter, Equity for Artists, succeeded in getting the museum to make some changes, but wanted to start a much bigger conversation about how society devalues artists.It was a surprising moment of solidarity for artists in Madison, who don't often talk openly about money matters and their grievances with big arts institutions, at least not in such a forceful and public way."We see a behavior that's exhibited in communities that are fragmented," says artist and Equity for Artists co-founder Jenie Gao. "That comes from the fact that we're underfunded, we lack proper infrastructure, that unlike most other careers, we don't have a lot of large organizations where a lot of artists are going to work together...and then you've also got the reinforcement of the stereotype of the solo artist working alone...and fragmented communities are easier to keep from organizing, and as a result institutions maintain power."Gao and two other Equity for Artists leaders, Jamie Ho and Jennifer Bastian, spoke with us on the May 28 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. (Note: Communication is Tone Madison's partner organization. Ho serves on Communication's board and Bastian is the director and arts manager.) For each episode of Conduit, people make a small donation to join us on the call, and the money goes toward either the guest or an organization of the guest's choosing. This time the proceeds went to Madison's Bayview Foundation. You can sign up to join us on future episodes by filling out this Google Form.There are risks to speaking out about how different organizations treat and compensate artists. However, no one has been blackballed for writing or signing the MMOCA letter. Plus, Bastian says, it's up to institutions to be willing to have these conversations and do better: "I don't want to be involved with an organization that doesn't respect me."Our conversation covered the often perverse role of non-profits in the arts world, Wisconsin's low level of public arts funding, and whether Equity for Artists can translate its efforts into long-term change."We still have our voices and we can still be heard, so even though it's going to get worse before it gets better because of this pandemic, we can still exercise our right to say something about what's going on," Ho says.

Tone Madison

Conduit: Building solidarity and talking about money in Madison's arts community

Nibiiwakamigkwe is a Métis, Onyota’a:ka, Anishinaabe, Cuban and waabishkiiwed Two-Spirit artist working in traditional Indigenous craftwork and contemporary Woodlands style to foster awareness of land protection, Indigenous cultural landscapes, and the complexity of identity. Their work brings them into contact with many different corners of the art world—inside and outside academia, settings that foreground Indigenous artists, and settings that don't. Across those different settings, Nibiiwakamigkwe creates art with a range of different materials and techniques, from beadwork to quillwork to jingle-dress dancing."A hard part about Indigenous art is that you are always educating, which is a real gift, however, it does mean that there's often extra work involved," Nibiiwakamigkwe says.Nibiiwakamigkwe spoke with us on the May 14 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. For each episode of Conduit, people make a small donation to join us on the call, and the money goes toward either the guest or an organization of the guest's choosing. This time the proceeds were divided between our guest and the Ho-Chunk Nation Museum and Cultural Center in Tomah. You can sign up to join us on future episodes by filling out this Google Form.The pandemic has only deepened the health and economic disparities that impact Indigenous people in the United States and around the world. The need to isolate and minimize travel makes it hard for Indigenous artists to gather natural materials in their work. Nibiiwakamigkwe, for instance, had to miss their window in March for gathering winter bark from birch trees, and can't make their usual trips up to northern Wisconsin to search for porcupine quills.COVID-19 has also created massive disruptions for Indigenous cultures that have a strong commitment to oral culture—meaning it's not so simple as writing down traditions or taking them online."If they are written down, that means they are spread out, and if people are looking at these cultural experiences without the education behind them, without the community that they need to have behind them, it can have very negative effects, and it can be negative for the practice itself as well as the person who's experiencing it," Nibiiwakamigkwe says. They shared a wealth of perspectives on identity, adjusting to the pandemic, and Indigenous artists worth supporting in Madison and beyond.The next Conduit conversation is scheduled for May 28, when we'll be talking with members of the Equity for Artists advocacy group.

Conduit: Nibiiwakamigkwe on the challenges to Indigenous artists

Flight Path is an in-depth report on grassroots opposition to the basing of F-35 fighter jets in Madison. Available as this audio documentary and a four-part written series to be published serially over the next week, Flight Path is a partnership project of Tone Madison, Communication, and Northside News. The Air Force officially chose Madison as a site for the jets in April. But the fight continues in areas that stand to bear the brunt of the F-35s' noise, environmental, and economic impacts. These efforts have already brought neighbors together to organize and advocate for their communities in a changing Madison.In this special hour-long audio report, journalist and activist Oona Mackesey-Green breaks down the politics surrounding the F-35s, but places a special emphasis on the nitty-gritty of groups including Eken Park Resistance and Safe Skies Clean Water. Largely sprouting from the very blocks where the jets will be loudest and most harmful, these organizations have not only staged protests but have also done extensive, time-consuming work to research the issue and build stronger connections within their communities.Keep up with the Flight Path project and find out more at the Flight Path landing page.

Flight Path: When resistance takes off

The Madison Public Library's Bubbler program is an unusually flexible force in the local arts and culture community, spanning activities from gallery shows to in-person arts residencies to maker resources to multimedia software training. In the absence of public events and gathering, the Bubbler staff has pulled together an extensive page of online resources and has been figuring out other ways to adapt their work. In explaining what the Bubbler does, Bubbler Program Assistant Carlee Latimer found herself thinking a lot about the literal and metaphorical role of buckets."I often think about the work that the Bubbler does and the work that the library does as existing in different buckets," Latimer says. "We're in nine different physical locations around the city, we partner with lots of local organizations, we also have national partners, and we are in schools and we are in detention centers, and we kind of exist wherever people are."Latimer spoke with us on the April 30 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. For each episode of Conduit, people make a small donation to join us on the call, and the money goes toward either the guest or an organization of the guest's choosing. This time Latimer chose the Madison Public Library Foundation. You can sign up to join us on future episodes by filling out this Google Form.While sharing a slideshow filled with photos of the various supply buckets she encounters in her day-to-day work, Latimer gave an overview of how the Bubbler program works. Latimer also answered questions about how the Bubbler is adapting during uncertain times and how it maintains its autonomy within the larger structure of the library system and city government. Latimer also shared a little about a forthcoming MPL program called Look Forward Madison. You can view all of Carlee's slides in the post that accompanies this podcast on our website.The next Conduit session is on Thursday, May 14, and we'll be talking with artist Kay LeClaire.

Conduit: All the Bubbler's buckets

Dan Shafer's newsletter The Recombobulation Area has been providing an essential voice in Wisconsin politics over the past year, putting the state's problems into a regional context and publishing informative but fiercely opinionated pieces about stories including Wisconsin's April 7 election. In between his longer weekly posts, Shafer offers frequent analysis and commentary on Twitter. His work is reader-supported and it's well worth signing up as a subscriber.Shafer's latest piece finds cause for optimism in the sacrifices people across Wisconsin are making to keep each other safe. He's still been a bit shocked by the way Wisconsin's Republicans have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a cynicism that puts people in harm’s way. "What has probably surprised me the most is that their attitude has not shifted to a crisis mentality… so many people have changed so much about the way they operate, but they really haven't in a lot of ways," Shafer says. "It's still the same kind of Wisconsin politics that we've seen from the Wisconsin Republican Party over the past decade.”Shafer spoke with us on the April 23 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. For each episode of Conduit, people make a small donation to join us on the call, and the money goes toward either the guest or an organization of the guest's choosing. This time Shafer asked us to send the money to The Tandem, a restaurant in Milwaukee that's been offering free community meals during the pandemic. You can sign up to join us on future episodes by filling out this Google Form.A longtime Milwaukee journalist, Shafer reflected on his decision to start an independent publication of his own, his recent Twitter exchange with Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, and how he'd like to see journalism change in Wisconsin and around the Midwest.The next Conduit session is on Thursday, April 30, and we'll be talking with Carlee Latimer of the Madison Public Library's Bubbler program. On May 7, our guest will be artist Kay LeClaire.

Conduit: Dan Shafer on recombobulating Midwestern media

A couple weeks ago we wrote about Madison musician Luke Bassuener's latest release under his solo moniker Asumaya, Of Water, Land, & Sky. The album is constructed mostly from field recordings of birds and Wisconsin wetlands, and grew out of a multidisciplinary arts residency of the same name. Setting aside Asumaya's usual looped array of percussion, bass, vocals, and thumb piano, Bassuener has instead created a set of rhythmic interpretations of the natural world."This album was also kind of just a challenge—to see how much would it sound like music if I only used those things?" Bassuener says.Bassuener spoke with us on the April 16 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. He'll be performing on April 17 in a livestream event on Arts + Literature Laboratory's Facebook page, which will also feature art and poetry from others involved in Of Water, Land, & Sky.Bassuener is also a public-school art teacher in Madison. One of his ongoing projects is helping his students at the west side's Crestwood Elementary create animated short films based on myths from across different cultures. One of those, The Weaver Girl And The Cowherd, was scheduled to screen in this year's canceled Wisconsin Film Festival. It's available to watch online through the festival's Big Streams, Little Folks program. You can see more work from Crestwood students on YouTube.We also talked about Bassuener's work in the band Disaster Passport, which has created something of a local sensation over the past year with its original score for Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary Koyaanisqatsi.The next Conduit session is on Thursday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m., and our guest will be Dan Shafer of the Milwaukee-based politics newsletter The Recombobulation Area. On April 30, we'll talk with Carlee Latimer of the Madison Public Library's Bubbler program, and on May 7, our guest will be artist Kay LeClaire. On. To join each week's conversation, Venmo $1 to info@communicationmadison.com and include your email address in the note. The money will be donated to a non-profit or artist of our guest's choosing, and we'll email you a Zoom link for the meeting.

Conduit: From birdsong to animation with Luke Bassuener

Madison non-profit ArtWorking plays a unique role in Madison's arts landscape, not only showcasing artists with disabilities but also helping those artists sell their work and build up small businesses. ArtWorking's 6,000-square-foot facility on South Stoughton Road encompasses studios with equipment for printmaking, ceramics, and woodworking, plus a retail storefront. All of that has been closed down since March 11, creating new challenges for the organization and the dozens of artists it supports.ArtWorking Program Director Lance Owens and Assistant Director Laura Falkenberg joined us on the April 9 edition of Conduit, a livestream collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly. They talked about the organization's underlying philosophy and how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted their efforts. All of ArtWorking's staff has been temporarily laid off or furloughed to help preserve the funds the organization brings in from private sources and Medicaid. They're still working on supporting the artists when and how they can, and hope to have an online store set up soon.The decision to close ArtWorking's physical space was particularly urgent because the organization supports so many people with underlying health conditions and compromised immune systems. By the same token, the kind of work ArtWorking does is at times impossible to do remotely. "Some people also have barriers to technology that are harder to overcome at this time," Falkenberg says. "They might not have a laptop or a phone or the ability to do this, or they may also be non-verbal... so much of what we do, we do subtly in a physical space together, and so that's really compromised by trying to ad hoc it in this way, though it's great to hear from people and great to see them when we can."The emotional impact was obvious during our conversation. "I miss these people," Owens says.Commissions and opportunities for ArtWorking's artists to sell their work have largely dried up over the past month, and some can't do their work without access to specific equipment and materials. But this also points to a strength of ArtWorking's philosophy—letting artists find their own way of doing things, and encouraging them to communicate about what they want and disagree with staff suggestions if it feels right."We do a lot of talking to each other and a lot of research on how to uphold the artist's vision first and foremost, before my vision or anyone's vision or the trend of the time," Falkenberg says.The next Conduit session is on Thursday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m., and our guest will be Madison musician Luke Bassuener, discussing his solo project Asumaya. To join, Venmo $1 to info@communicationmadison.com and include your email address in the note. The money will be donated to a non-profit or artist of our guest's choosing, and we'll email you a Zoom link for the meeting.

Conduit: ArtWorking reckons with the pandemic

Ordering takeout, buying gift cards, donating to a virtual tip jar—it's all well and good, but it's nowhere near close to what it'll really take to help shuttered restaurants and out-of-work service industry employees survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Madison's food scene, one of our greatest sources of local pride and a key sector of our economy, will need a lot of immediate public funding and a lot of change at a policy level to stay afloat. Francesca Hong, chef and co-owner of Morris Ramen on King Street, has emerged as a leading voice as restaurants across Wisconsin call on state and local leaders to act."I think all restaurant owners are still somewhat in shock, and we're incredibly conflicted at saving the livelihood of saving the livelihood of all our employees and our business, as well as making sure that the safety of the public and our employees is what we're prioritizing," Hong said on the April 2, 2020 edition of Conduit, a live-streamed collaboration between Tone Madison, Communication, and UnderBelly.There are a lot of parallels and connections here between the restaurant world and the arts world. Many creative people work in the service industry, and restaurants have a symbiotic relationship with live performance venues, especially downtown—when you have dinner at Morris before going across the street for a show at the Majestic, you take part in that. Morris itself has served as a space where food and art intertwine, for instance during a collaborative dinner with conceptual artist Kel Mur. In the bigger picture, both food and the arts are things our civic leaders supposedly value, but don't really understand or support. In the absence of a strong infrastructure, they're both underwritten by thankless labor and precarious business models. And that's why both sectors need to start acting like unified political constituencies.So far, Hong says the response from Madison's city government has been pretty feeble, and response from the Wisconsin legislature's accountability-proof Republican majority has been just about non-existent. Hong acknowledges that the Madison Common Council, during its meeting this week, temporarily waived some fees for restaurants, but it won't be near enough. "I think they're all really small things that won't actually help the life of the industry right now in the long run," Hong says. "I think there need to be aggressive grants, I think there needs to be aggressive tax relief, and I think there needs to be a massive push and pressure on property owners to have rent moratoriums. I don't think abatement is enough anymore."While calling for specific action—including emergency unemployment benefits for all of the service workers in the state, eliminating the sales tax and payroll tax, and rent and loan relief for workers and employers—Hong has also worked to open more people's eyes to the economic realities of the restaurant world. Even prestigious and expensive restaurants operate on slim profit margins and generally rely on a short-term revenue stream to stay open."If you were focusing on taking care of your workers and being part of your community, and providing not only a social space but a community space where you're building relationships and you're nourishing people and you care about hospitality deeply, these are the places that I feel like have the thinnest margins and now are at the biggest risk of closing," Hong says.If you're interested in helping local restaurants and their workers get through this, Hong has put together a list of links and resources.Conduit takes place Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. On April 9, we'll hear from the folks at ArtWorking, a local non-profit that supports artists with disabilities. On April 16, our guest will be Madison musician Luke Bassuener, discussing his solo project Asumaya and his recent arts residency with the Glacial Lakes Conservancy.

Conduit: "The service industry is a haven"

For the March 26 edition of Conduit, our new livestream series with Communication and UnderBelly, we asked City of Madison Arts Administrator Karin Wolf to discuss how the pandemic is impacting public arts funding. Wolf's job involves working with the Madison Arts Commission, administrating city-funded arts grants programs, and advocating for funding and arts initiatives in city government. She's the one full-time staffer at the City of Madison who works on these issues.Because she talks with so many artists who are looking for funding and trying to figure out how to survive in Madison, Wolf is getting an up-close view of artists' struggles in the face of COVID-19. "These are creative entrepreneurs. They don't just rely on one source of income," Wolf says. "But unfortunately, they're in the gig economy, for better or worse, and they're not getting any income right now from any of their sources. They need their landlords to not be wanting rent. They need three months' [financial relief] at least."The Coronavirus relief bill working its way through the House of Representatives right now does include some additional funding for federal arts agencies, but there's no telling how long it will take for that money to make its way to individual artists in the form of grants. At both the local and federal level, the pandemic has underscored that our mechanisms of public arts funding tend to work slowly, and aren't set up to deal with a rapidly escalating crisis. Wolf doubts that any form of emergency relief will come close to making up for the financial losses and instability the pandemic has inflicted upon creative people. "This is going to be a long-term quagmire," Wolf says.Wolf also talked about the longer-term damage the crisis will do to major sources of arts and culture funding. The City of Madison gets a lot of its public arts funding (including its $2 million subsidiary to the Overture Center for the Arts) from taxes on hotel-room stays, and a lot of that revenue just isn't going to come in this year. Many big-wig philanthropists who give to arts organizations rely on investments, so unfortunately the arts aren't insulated from the ongoing tumult of the stock market.When and if we come out of the quagmire, it will be time to question some of the basic assumptions that shape the world of public arts funding."Whatever comes after this is going to be a completely new slate, and we're going to have to reevaluate how we've been prioritizing and how we do everything," Wolf says.Conduit takes place every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Our next guest, on April 2, will be Morris Ramen co-owner Francesca Hong, who will be discussing her advocacy for the local restaurant industry amid the pandemic. To join in, Venmo $1 to info@communicationmadison.com and put your email address in the notes. We'll send you a link to the Zoom call, and the money will all be given to local artists and arts non-profits.

Conduit: Karin Wolf braces for a quagmire in the arts world

Despite the challenges we’re all facing, Four Star Operations Manager Lewis Peterson joined Film Editor Grant Phipps at Tone Madison’s Communication studio last week to discuss the aforementioned changes to the store’s daily functions, all-too-familiar pandemic viewing themes (and spirited films to distract from the current crisis), bonus material that’s available online as substitute for traditional festival Q&As or panels, and relevant recommendations for audiences who are still itching to create an itinerary that resembles the astute curation of a traditional film festival. Special thanks to Hanna Kohn for her discussion prompts and remote contributions to this conversation. You can also support Four Star during the shutdown by making a donation via the store’s website.Four Star Video Cooperative has remained with limited hours as staff and volunteers take extra-precautionary measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other businesses around the state, it will close down Tuesday under a new emergency order from Governor Tony Evers.Despite the challenges we’re all facing, Four Star Operations Manager Lewis Peterson joined Film Editor Grant Phipps at Tone Madison’s Communication studio last week to discuss the aforementioned changes to the store’s daily functions, all-too-familiar pandemic viewing themes (and spirited films to distract from the current crisis), bonus material that’s available online as substitute for traditional festival Q&As or panels, and relevant recommendations for audiences who are still itching to create an itinerary that resembles the astute curation of a traditional film festival. Special thanks to Hanna Kohn for her discussion prompts and remote contributions to this conversation.Give the conversation a listen here, or subscribe to the Tone Madison podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider supporting us financially with a one-time or recurring donation. And please check out our sister podcasts, Record Store Dropouts and Digital Warmth.

A Four Star Video Heaven podcast for darker times

In just the first 10 weeks of 2020, Madison musicians have put out a wealth of new music worth hearing. Tone Madison’s Steven Spoerl and Scott Gordon sat down recently to talk about some of the standouts, including: Disq’s Collector, Supa Friends’ “Heart Made Of Gold,” LINE’s Choosing Sides, Tubal Cain’s Summon The Mist, Louise Bock’s Sketch For Winter VII—Abyss: For Cello, No Question’s Internal Bleeding, TS Foss’ forthcoming self-titled album, and Woke Up Crying’s 3:27 A.M.This episode’s getting out a few days late, as we were scrambling last week to cover the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on local arts and culture. And thanks to the pandemic, it’s anyone’s guess when you’ll get to see any of these artists live again, so consider supporting them by buying their music online.Give the conversation a listen here, or subscribe to the Tone Madison podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider supporting us financially with a one-time or recurring donation. And please check out our sister podcasts, Record Store Dropouts and Digital Warmth.

From Supa Friends to stratosphere blues

On this episode we're going to be revisiting a conversation we had about a year ago with Nick Moran. He's a bass player who does a ton of work in the Madison music community, playing in a whole slew of jazz bands and other projects. Moran is also an active participant in a cultural exchange program between Madison and one of its sister cities, Camaguey, Cuba.Give the conversation a listen here, or subscribe to the Tone Madison podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider supporting us financially with a one-time or recurring donation. And please check out our sister podcasts, Record Store Dropouts and Digital Warmth.

Travels in jazz with Nick Moran (revisited)

On this episode, we share with you an evening over at the home studio of Madison musician Kenneth Tarek Sabbar, who records and performs his solo music under the name Tarek Sabbar. He has been creating a lot of music lately on modular synthesizers, including an EP he released last year called Water Creatures, which ended up on our top 20 Madison records of 2019 list. I wanted to learn more about his creative process, so I spent a couple hours just being a fly on the wall, asking the occasional question. You're going to hear Ken improvising and experimenting through a bunch of different sounds and occasionally you'll hear us both talking a bit about what's going on. The audio has been edited down and condensed quite a bit.Sabbar is also one half of a local duo called Telechrome, which will be opening up a show that Tone Madison is presenting on March 5 at Communication, with two very good touring acts, Kayo Dot and Psalm Zero. Telechrome's debut album, Figure And Ground, is slated to come out in April. Sabbar's next solo performance is on Thursday, February 20 at Communication.Give the conversation a listen here, or subscribe to the Tone Madison podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider supporting us financially with a one-time or recurring donation. And please check out our sister podcasts, Record Store Dropouts and Digital Warmth.

A visit to Tarek Sabbar's patch playground

We start this week’s podcast episode with "Long Runways,” from saxophone player, composer, and Madison resident Anders Svanoe’s 2019 album Solo Flight. The record is the fourth in an ongoing series of albums called State Of The Baritone. Svanoe want to show the baritone sax in a whole range of styles, from free jazz to modern classical music, and he's trying to show that it can serve as a lead instrument, not just holding down the lower end of a bigger horn section. Obviously this latest release focuses on solo sax performances, with some interesting overdubs. The series has also showcased a trio with bassist John Christensen and Rodrigo Villanueva-Conroy, a double trio with two drummers and two bass players, and a couple of duet performances with his wife, pianist Wendy Ward.Svanoe has been a very active jazz musician in Madison for more than 20 years. His work has included collaborations with Roscoe Mitchell and both playing and composing with the Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Band. Recently he's also been organizing a Sunday new music series at Arts + Literature Laboratory. That is on hold right now because the venue is getting ready to move into a brand new space this spring, but once it reopens he plans to continue it, and he's planning to start a regular jam session there focused on experimental music. Svanoe sat down in February for a an in-depth conversation about his work. He also spoke with us in 2016, back at the beginning of the State of The Baritone series.Give the conversation a listen here, or subscribe to the Tone Madison podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider supporting us financially with a one-time or recurring donation. And please check out our sister podcasts, Record Store Dropouts and Digital Warmth.

Anders Svanoe builds a world around the baritone sax

For our first podcast episode of 2020, film editor Grant Phipps, sits down with contributors Edwanike Harbour and Jason Fuhrman to reflect on the experiences they've had going to the movies in Madison over the past year, and what they're hoping 2020 will bring.We'll be publishing more film coverage this winter and spring as various local screening series and events get underway, including the lineup at UW Cinematheque and the 2020 Wisconsin Film Festival.

A fruitful year for cinema in Madison

Deeper conversations about arts and culture in Madison.

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Tone Madison

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