Instructor, Practicum Coordinator, Undergraduate Student Advisor, Arts and Administration Program (AAD) School of Architecture and Allied Arts (AAA) University of Oregon (UO) btanen@uoregon.edu

While I personally participate in a variety of artistic practices, including performance and textile work, it is the ability to allow others to discover their own endeavors through arts management that I find my true creative spark. I hold a Master’s Degree in Arts Administration from the University of Oregon and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in Musical Theater and Arts Management. These degrees have provided a basis for work within a variety of contexts in the Arts Management field, including public art, arts in healthcare, advocacy, gallery and collection management and community arts.

My focus and interest is the societal impact of the arts – specifically the connection of art and environmental sustainability, art and healing, art and gender and the role of the arts in community development. My master’s research, “Going Green with Public Art: Considering Environmental Sustainability in Public Art Practices” received national attention and I have had two subsequent articles on the topic published in CultureWork: A Periodic Broadside for Arts and Culture Workers and in the online Community Arts Forum.

I served as Public Art Manager for the Clackamas County Arts Alliance from 2008 – 2010 where I worked with communities throughout the county to site permanent and temporary artworks created by artists from around the United States.

From 2010-2015, I served as Director of New Visions Gallery, a nonprofit art gallery located in Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, WI, where I piloted the Marshfield Flash Galleries program in partnership with Main Street Marshfield, created a mandala program for patients experiencing cancer, implemented a mini-concert series in the Gallery over the lunch hour for Clinic patients and employees, and also oversaw the installation of a large lobby sculpture commemorating Marshfield Clinic’s 100 year history.

Things have come full circle as I now find myself sharing these experiences with students in Arts Management (AAD 312), Art & Human Values (AAD 250) and Art & Gender (AAD 252). I found my passion for arts management as a student at UW-Green Bay, through working with Americans for the Arts Public Art Network and again as a graduate student at the University of Oregon. It is my goal that, through dialogue of student and faculty, students discover their own creative centers.

Courses Taught
AAD 250 Ar and Human Values
AAD Art and Gender
AAD 312 Arts Management