Happy Birthday to Oregon (February 14, 1859)!
Thanks to your generous support of the arts, heritage and humanities in 2012, the Oregon Cultural Trust received gifts totaling $3,959,462.43 last calendar year, an increase of $119,126.60, or 3.1% over 2011.
These numbers attest to the value that Oregonians place on our creative economy, historic spaces and power of culture to transform us.
From Pendleton to Medford, from Sisters to McMinnville, 15 business, arts and community leaders across Oregon wrote opinion pieces in support of the Cultural Trust for their local papers this spring.
What if we treated culture - arts, heritage and humanities – as if it really mattered to our lives? That was the question I posed to over 1,000 humanist last Saturday in the Kridel Ballroom at the Portland Art Museum. In eight minutes I shared value propositions, encouraged action, and asked the audience to consider that culture will happen whether we pay for it or not. But you get, as they say, what you pay for. 
Oregon’s cultural tax credit, in use since it was approved by the Legislature in 2002, will sunset at the end of 2013.
The archives world can be a dirty place – especially when you’re collecting something that comes from the earth.
Danielle Allen, former Dean of Humanities at the University of Chicago and author of Talking to Strangers, suggests: “Engage a stranger in conversation across a racial, ethnic, or class divide and one gets not only an extra pair of eyes but also an ability to see and understand parts of the world that are to oneself invisible.” 
According to a study by Mandala Research LLC in October 2012 commissioned by the Oregon Heritage Commission with help from Travel Oregon and funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust, cultural and heritage experiences are major factors in attracting travelers to visit Oregon. 
As the New Year approaches, what were your Oregon cultural highlights
of 2012?