What’s Happening with Art Funding?
I’m going to get on my soapbox today and talk about the state of the arts in our city, state and country. Arts organizations are suffering in this economy. Yes, I know that everything and almost everyone is suffering to some extent as a result of the economic situation the country, and particularly California, finds itself in at the moment. Nevertheless, the arts seem to be considered a “luxury” that can easily be slashed from any number of federal, state, city and school district budgets, without consideration of future ramifications. Art is not a luxury, it is a necessity, one in which we all partake of and benefit from, even though we may not be aware of it. To slash arts programs and organizational budgets only serves to hinder our communities and rob current and future generations of important business, cultural and creative opportunities.
First, let me clarify how the arts touch our lives every day. Most obviously through music, film and television, but the arts are so much more than that and have been for thousands of years. Most of what we know about early cultures comes from the art, architecture and literature created. Today, if you merely look around your home or your community with an informed eye, you will realize how ubiquitous the arts are. The furniture in our homes, the electronics that we use, the clothes, jewelry and watches that we wear have all been touched by someone that has an education in art and design. Remember that scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” when Meryl Streep’s character gives Anne Hathaway a lecture on the fashion world’s origins of hercerulean blue sweater? Artists and designers are making those decisions. For God’s sake, half of us are designer clothes whores. And let’s not forget that the word “design” is included in the term designer.
Do you think iPods and all Apple products just happen to come out looking all sleek and cool? They don’t. The company knows the value of design and spends millions of dollars on the way the products look. What about cars? There may be engineers creating the electronic components and fuel injection systems, but it is a designer deciding how new cars will look. (Yes, I did just use “The Devil Wears Prada” and fuel injection in the same article.) Engineers and architects design buildings, planned communities, roads and bridges, and usually have the aesthetic results of the projects as one of the main goals.
Let’s not forget the non-profit sector of the arts industry, including museums, arts education organizations, non-profit theater groups and community arts organizations. Here are some actual statistics from Americans for the Arts concerning just the non-profit sector of the arts industry:
http://www.artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/economic_impact/default.asp
Nationally, the non-profit arts and culture industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity every year—$63.1 billion in spending by organizations and an additional $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences. The study is the most comprehensive study of the non-profit arts and culture industry ever conducted. It documents the economic impact of the nonprofit arts and culture industry in 156 communities and regions (116 cities and counties, 35 multi-county regions and five states), and represents all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The $166.2 billion in total economic activity has a significant national impact, generating the following:
- 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs
- $104.2 billion in household income
- $7.9 billion in local government tax revenues
- $9.1 billion in state government tax revenues
- $12.6 billion in federal income tax revenues
Finally, as everything seems to come back around to Lady Gaga, her new video, “Bad Romance,” has been viewed almost 33,000,000 times since it was released on YouTube on November 23rd. Do I even have to address the jobs and taxes created by the film and music industry just in Southern California?
Have I made my point?
Now back to the problem. The arts are suffering. I’m not talking about a nebulous “Art” I’m talking about the arts in Long Beach. The City of Long Beach cut $400,000 in funding to the Long Beach Museum of Art and the budget for the Arts Council for Long Beach has been cut, forcing staff cuts, reorganization and a drop in community arts grants that can be distributed to the incredible arts organizations around our city. These are the headliners, but small yet significant arts services organizations are in jeopardy. I have a close friend who works for a non-profit educational arts agency that does important work with teachers and school-age children. This organization is in such drastic need of funding that after almost 20 years of service to this community, they may have to close their doors.
The arts in our schools have consistently faced challenges since the inception of the No Child Left Behind legislation, but with the current financial crisis, the arts are losing ground in schools faster than ever. I don’t know about you, but as a gay kid in high school, the arts were almost my only refuge. I’m just grateful Long Beach is not part of the Los Angeles Unified School district where arts and music programs are literally on the chopping block. Long Beach Unified seems to at least realize the arts are important.
This is not just a local issue. The 2009 Federal Stimulus bill included $50,000,000 dollars for the arts, just .006 % of the total package.
Unfortunately, with all of this said, I don’t have an amazing MacGyver solution to offer. I suppose my goal was to make everyone aware of the situation. If you have children, I urge you to contact your school district to make sure the arts have a secure place in the curriculum. I urge everyone to contact their city council person to make sure the arts are supported by our city. If you have money, or you know people who do, find a worthy arts organization and help them to continue offering their outstanding services to our community.
Finally, I’ll leave you with the list Ten Lessons the Arts Teach by Eliot Eisner. While Eisner is specifically addressing what the arts do for children, I think the list applies to all of us and gives us 10 more reasons why the arts are important.
Ten Lessons the Arts Teach · The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
· The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
· The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
· The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem-solving, purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
· The arts make vivid the fact that words do not, in their literal form or number, exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
· The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
· The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
· The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
· The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
· The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.
Elliott Eisner, in Beyond Creating: The Place for Art in America’s Schools. Getty Center for Education in the Arts. 1985 p. 69.
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