Reviews & Testimonials

Books

On Respect for Art
An essential text for the visual arts world with exactly the right geographical focus for our new century.

Andrew Foster, Chief Operating Officer, USA Christie’s

On ArtsMoney
[A] lucid and important book…..ArtsMoney should be of considerable help to artists and arts organizations whose survival and growth depend on generating financial support…. The book focuses less on the lively art of grantsmanship than on other strategies that can insure fiscal stability. Jeffri clearly knows the cultural landscape in this country, and one of the virtues of ArtsMoney is its awareness of the many nontraditional ways that arts organizations have secured funds.

Leonard Fleischer, Senior Advisor, Arts Programs for the Exxon Corporation

On Respect for Art
The art and cultural industries in China are experiencing an ascendant moment, which demand significant arts administration talents. This book quenches the thirst of those preparing such talents. As the first publication on comparative research of Sino-American arts administration systems, it also offers a broad vision and fresh experience.

Fan Di’an, Director, National Art Museum of China

On The Emerging Arts: Management, Survival and Growth

The Emerging Arts is a thorough and thoughtful volume that combine[s] an insider’s knowledge of the gritty details of entrepreneurship and management with the scholar’s analytic purchase on the big picture. It’s still the best book on the subject.

Paul DiMaggio, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University


Bravo to Joan Jeffri for having the vision, resourcefulness, and stamina to tackle and write about those issues that are the real heart of the problems facing the arts. Her approach is gratifying acknowledgment of the philosophical, aesthetic, and organizational complexities that exist beyond the purview of those of us who were, or thought we ere, instinctively holding the tiger by the tail….Ms. Jeffri’s approach and analysis recognizes that the arts, especially the emerging arts, are confronted by another set of odds, and that each company–an each artist and artistic manager within it–is facing the possibility of being pigeon-holed by the very forces that may shape its destiny.”

Barbara Weisberger, Founder, The Pennsylvania Ballet


Finally, the arts community has a definitive work, which is not only a valuable tool for students of the theatre, dance, and visual arts, but is also an important chronicle that describes the roots of today’s arts explosion….Ms. Jeffri shoulld be commended for such a valuable contribution to our understanding of the current cultural environment. I highly recommend this work for all serious students of the modern cultural scene.

George C. White
President, Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center


This is an essential and much needed book that will benefit and help free the creative mind.

James Rosenquist, Artist

The Emerging Arts is an incisive and sensitive study of the complexities of survival among emerging arts organizations. Ms. Jeffri’s detailed and frank analyses of subjects–such as institutionalization, artist-run organizations versus formal management, economic survival, funding source pressures, consortiums–are a MUST for all funding sources and for any serious student interested in gaining an insight into the passion and the dream versus the immense frustrations and uncertainties and agonies of survival faced by many of our emerging arts institutions.

Miriam Colon Edgar, Founder, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre

From the Artists

ART CART: Saving the Legacy

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It’s an ambitious and expansive vision and the impact of it for us as aging artists is far reaching.   For me it’s a wonderful opportunity to review my journey as an artist through the sorting documenting and reflecting process and I am propelled forward by what I am finding.  That you would care enough for artist to devote your life work to this project at this time is commendable.  There is a verse in Christian scriptures that says “Greater love has no man than this than that [she] give up [her] life for her friends.”  This is in so many ways what you are doing for us as artists.

Annette Fortt, DC Artist

I just wanted to let you know that we had a gallery visit here yesterday and it could turn out to have a positive outcome. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate the archives that I can access at Columbia thanks to you and Embark.   

Sonia Gechtoff, NYC Artist

Performing Arts Legacy Project

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I am so glad you have created a community for us.

Barbara Kahn, Playwright

It is a great privilege to be a part of this Community. This program is just phenomenal. … You can call on me at anytime. This was one of the most amazing experiences of my career

Carol Maillard, Sweet Honey and the Rock

Many thanks for all this and all of your work on behalf of artists in our later years – I’m honored to be a part of it.

Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene


It’s a great legacy for you, for us and for the performing arts community.

Glenn Kubota, Actor

A third act for me with spectacular souls.

Susan Lehman, Actress and Director

My career has taken so many different directions that it never made sense to me until this project.

George Bartenieff, Performer, Director, Theatre Founder

A legacy necessarily is the compilation of images, philosophy, life lessons whose value is intangible. A legacy is inherently extraordinary.

André De Shields, Actor
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