ARC Transition Announcement

Dear ARC family,

What a season this has been. COVID has brought such a bitter harvest. We have lost people. Livelihoods have withered or altered radically. The contours of our social networks have been deeply marked. The “old normal” is gone forever. This has been as true for ARC as it has been for any of its stakeholders.

In the beginning of the year of 2021 we, the Board of Directors, announced with much enthusiasm the hiring of Tamisha A. Tyler as Executive Director of ARC. This was done in a process of transition in leadership and fiscal restructuring. In the bright light of the new year, we looked forward to continuing the mission of ARC into its next stage guided by her clear vision. But the tectonic changes that were underway were pressing in on our own foundations. Our programming was canceled, and resources were steadily depleted. We were unable to continue to keep her on staff.

It is with great sadness that we announce that Tamisha Tyler was laid off in July due to lack of finances. Tamisha Tyler has been a dedicated, capable and exceedingly competent employee. We are grateful for all the work and programming she has done these past months and wish her success in her future endeavors.

As we survey the contours of this new normal and the place of ARC in it, we will be sending out more details about what is next for us as an organization. If you have any questions, please, email us at adminarc@artsreligionculture.org

Press Release: Tamisha A. Tyler, MDiv named Executive Director of Arts | Religion | Culture (ARC)

On October 16, 2020 ARC’s Board of Directors named Tamisha A. Tyler the Executive Director of ARC. Ms. Tyler currently serves as Co-Executive Director of ARC along with Dr. Callid Keefe-Perry, who is transitioning to serve as a Lecturer at Boston University and will continue to serve as Senior Editor of the ARTS Journal. Ms. Tyler will move into the position on February 1, 2021 and will be the first woman of color to hold the Executive Director position in ARC’s 58 year history.

Ms. Tyler is currently finishing her PhD at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. In her dissertation, she is developing a theopoetic methodology by engaging science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler. She holds a B.A. in Black Studies from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Divinity in Worship, Theology, and the Arts from Fuller Theological Seminary. During her time in seminary, Ms. Tyler took on several leadership roles including Student Body President and President of the Brehm Collective—a student led group connected to the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and Arts. Ms. Tyler also received fellowships from the Brehm Center and the Louisville Institute. She is a current fellow of the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) as well as The William E. Pannell Center for Black Church Studies. Ms. Tyler began her journey with ARC as a Board Member before leaving the board to assist in leading the organization as Co-Executive Director. Dr. Patrick B. Reyes, former Vice President of the ARC Board and current Senior Director of Learning Design at FTE says, “Tamisha embodies what Octavia Butler often wrote into her heroines: creativity, empathy, intuitiveness, and a drive towards the freedom of her people. ARC and those working at the intersection of faith, social justice, and the arts will be guided by one of the great ancestors in training.” 

During her tenure at ARC, Ms. Tyler hopes to bring a fresh perspective and years of experience in administration, leadership, and event planning. In the last year Ms. Tyler helped to guide the organization’s pandemic response, took on leadership of the Emerging Scholars Program (ARCEL), collaborated on the first fundraiser since the organization’s merger, and hosted the online interview series Insights. Board President Ashley Thering says, “Tamisha has helped guide ARC through several times of transition. As ARC has grown over the last several years, her clarity of vision, passion, and intellect has helped to root our work and mission. We are privileged to have her leading ARC and excited to see how her vision and talents shape the organization into the future.”

New ARC Project Partner Announced

ARC is excited to announce a new project partnership with Deus Ex Musica!

Deus Ex Musica is an ecumenical project that promotes sacred music as a resource for learning and spiritual growth. ARC is proud to partner with the project, supporting their work to advocate for music as a way to explore the divine and helping people to connect to one another through listening and making music together. More about the project, including ways to donate, is here.

Last week ARC Co-Executive Director Tamisha Tyler interviewed Del as part of our Insights show highlighting the work of ARC members. If you’d like to learn more about Deus ex Musica and Del you can watch that interview here.

Deus Ex Musica also has three upcoming online events as part of project “In the Shadow of Your Wings,” a musical exploration of the Psalms. Events are interactive and free. All are invited to attend:

Parish of St. Martin-In-The-Fields, London. July 31, 2020, 4:30 BST
UniteBoston, Aug. 6, 2020, 7 pm EDT.
Forefront Festival, Aug. 7, 2020, 7:30 pm EDT.

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ARC periodically partners with projects that are resonant with ARC’s mission to build up collaborative communities for those who cultivate embodied and just ways of knowing and being through creative and spiritual practices. If you would like to know more about partnering with ARC with a project you have, please let us know! We are eager to do what we can to support the folks who are building up community at the places where the arts and spirituality meet.

2020 ARCEL Fellows Announced

The 2020 ARCEL Fellowship Cohort has been Selected

The Emerging ARC Leaders (ARCEL) Fellowship is a program designed to accomplish four things:

• Identify, annually, six rising young leaders whose sense of calling lives at the intersection of creative practice, spirituality, and work that builds up communities. These leaders will be drawn from gap-year young adults, undergraduates, graduate students, working artists, and early career clergy.

• Provide these leaders with exposure to tools, models, and relationships that can help them to thrive in their individual contexts and communities where they may feel disconnected and relatively unsupported in terms of their work to braid together creative and spiritual practices.

• Encourage these leaders as they wrestle with their sense of call, introducing them to each other and to networks of other leaders who are at the edge of innovation and discovery about the ways in which the arts and religion can be twinned to produce transformative opportunities for reflection and change.

• Make Space for the fellows to reflect and discern how their own unique skills can best be used to promote the flourishing of all creation.

The 2020 Fellows are Larissa Romero, Mahalia Damm, Olivia Kamil Smarr, Peregrine Morkal-Williams , Stephani Pescitelli, and Y. Joy Harris-Smith. More about each of them can be found here.