Bill Ivey, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, addressed more than 1,100 of the nation’s arts leaders at the opening session of the 2009 Americans for the Arts annual convention in Seattle in June. The Office was the local host of the convention, titled Renewable Resources: Arts in Sustainable Communities.

Ivey discussed the position of the arts in a challenged economy while highlighting potential opportunities for the arts in the Obama administration. Ivey is the author of Arts, Inc. How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights.