DAMage Report - All that Glitters Might Be Crap

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2009/11/what-is-obamas-policy-on-the-arts.shtml

President Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities has selected some shiny, Hollywood Stars to be on the PCAH committee including top-tier actors such as Forest Whitaker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alfre Woodard, and Edward Norton. Other high profile personalities include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Teresa Heinz (wife of John Kerry), Senator Dick Cohen and of course First Lady Michelle Obama, as the committees chair.

It looks good, smells good... but really - how effective is a star-studded committee going to be. If this were simply a matter of finding some recognizable faces to endorse the arts and put a little P.R. spotlight on awareness, that would be one thing. However, the President's Committee for Arts and Humanities is SUPPOSED to be a functioning committee with goals and a definative impact on the weakening state of the arts in our country.

Right now, at this very moment - city, county and state funding to the arts is being ruthlessly slashed. The blows are coming down hard and will definitely cripple, as well as outright kill, many arts organizations. This includes the few struggling arts education programs. The Georgia Council for the Arts has eliminated all funding for arts education, I was told last week by an after-school program. Certainly this is reflected in other states. In our local government, an additional 25%-50% cut in arts budgets are occurring. This impacts not only arts organizations but local after-school arts programs. For some, the death knell has begun to toll. Because the only other avenue of funding - corporate sponsorships - have dropped as much as 50-75% this past year.

People, we don't need a pretty committee of Hollywood A-listers posing for the media. We need a committee compromised of dedicated individuals, with experience in arts education and arts support, who are willing to work their asses off to save the arts in this country. We need people who are in the trenches, who are going to follow through with the campaign promises the President made to the arts. Pretty words and pretty faces and glitzy photo-ops just aren't going to make one damn bit of difference as our country's arts, artists, and cultural richness dies away.

A quote from a speech made yesterday has Mr. Obama saying, "When I was running for President, no one knew exactly what 'Change You Can Believe In' meant. One year later, I am proud to say that that is still the case." (Reference: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/obama-says-he-has-fulfill_b_344259.html)

Is it just me, or is this all kinds of wacked? The President is PROUD that no one can define changes made? Changes that could be embraced, celebrated, and believed in? In other words, pride in remaining undefined, particularly in relationship to what the citizens assumed were positive changes to "be believed in" seems somewhat contrary. It doesn't indicate strong leadership. Rather, leadership that attempts to get away with the least amount of feather-ruffling. That is not a circumstance that lends itself to change and certainly doesn't bode well for support of the arts.

I may be doing the new PCAH committee super stars a disservice - they may be determined to really provide solutions and save arts and arts education before it is too late. But I have a sinking feeling...

DAMage Research - tomorrow's topic - PCAH

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2009/11/what-is-obamas-policy-on-the-arts.shtml

President Obama has named his appointees to his Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The names include actors such as Forest Whitaker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alfre Woodard, and Edward Norton, as well as the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue magazine, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, philanthropist (and wife of John Kerry) Teresa Heinz, and our own Senator Dick Cohen. Firlst Lady Michelle Obama serves as the committee's honorary chair.

PCAH - Coming Up Taller http://www.pcah.gov/cut.htm

Artists Corp http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2009/04/musiced.html

The President has promised America the following:

- To reinvest in arts education, by expanding public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations. He also, based on his work in Chicago, promised to create an "artist corps" consisting of of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. And he promised to be publicly champion the importance of an arts education.

- To support increased funding for the NEA. (Did that - restored NEA funding to its highest level since 1992 when he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February)

- To promote cultural diplomacy. By that he means put more money into U.S. embassy programs that send American artists on tour around the world.

- To attract foreign talent. Since 9/11 it's been difficult, if not impossible to get a visa to perform in the United States. President Obama has promised to streamline the visa process so artists and art students can make their way here more easily.

- To provide affordable health care to artists. (Because if you provide affordable health care to everybody, that includes artists. Two birds, one stone.)

- To ensure "tax fairness" for artists. Candidate Obama said he supports legislation that would allow artists to deduct the fair-market value of their work, rather than just the costs of the materials, when they make charitable contributions.

DAMage Report - Audiences Decline or Just Moving Online?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/15/AR2009061503026.html?hpid=artsliving http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/06/nea-reports-decline-in-arts-audiences-for-2008.html

According to the Washington Post and LA Times, surveys indicate that the public is attending less and less arts related performances and exhibitions. "Two separate national surveys gauging youth and adult participation in the arts reported yesterday that visits to art museums are declining....The percentage of eighth-graders who reported that they visited an art museum or gallery with their classes dropped from 22 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 2008."

Uhhhh - well, duh. Cutbacks in arts education means there are no funds to get the kids to museums. Of course there is going to be a drop. And it will of course profoundly affect the Arts in the future as these kids grow up with little or no exposure to it. But it isn't just the kids not being encouraged to go to museums and festivals.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts fewer adults are going to art museums and visual arts festivals. The exception seems to be in major cities where they can attend museums and festivals for free. Has FREE become the operative word here? Are we becoming a society where if we can't get it for free, we don't want it at all? Because the starving arts will only live so long - you don't feed the artist/arts at least a little... it dies.

It is interesting to note that the surveys indicate arts participation online has increased... possibly because viewing art online is free. And as much as I enjoy the easy access of art online it still doesn't replace acting DOING, SEEING, FEELING. It is like looking at a print in a book of Salvidor Dali's " The Discovery of America" - it looks cool and can be appreciated for a fine painting. But see the fourteen foot high painting in person at the Dali Museum and it completely, totally blows you away.

Same goes for listening to music on you tube or itunes rather than experiencing it live. Convenience is great but it doesn't replace actual real, live experience. We need to mesh the two together and create something new that continues to encourage people to experience art in more than just a virtual environment. We need to back it the hell up and stop the slippery slide down that slope before all we have left are old vid clips and copies of paintings that were done decades ago.

****Meet me this afternoon on the DAMage Report LAtalkRadio.com at 2:30pm PST/ 5:30pm EST / 10:30pm GMT. And post a comment on my wall - what arts event have you recently attended?

DAMage Report - Arts Education: The more things change, the more they stay the same

We tend to think of the battle to create awareness of how important the arts are to the education of our youth as a fairly recent war being waged between art advocates and the unenlightened. A little bit a research uncovered an interesting revelation: this has been an ongoing struggle for well over a hundred years. Same song and dance, just a different century.

A New York Times news story "A Taste in Public Schools"  from April 1897, states "too much attention has been paid to the education of the head, to the neglect of that of the heart and hand. It is through art education that preparation for the higher enjoyment of life is made." Even then, the pleas to regard art as significant and vital filled the news.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D02E2DC1638E733A25753C1A9629C94669ED7CF

A brief travel back in time via news stories showed that the battle was never won. Arts Education appears to have enjoyed a very brief heyday during the 60s and 70s in the schools, when it was incorporated as part of the teaching curriculeum. But the advent of the 80s began the decline, with the snowball headed to hell with ever increasing speed.

In 2006 the Federal Fiscal Year Education Budget Summary proposed to make a cut of 35.6 million dollars in art education. This was tied to the desperate attempt of schools to find funding to support the No Child Left Behind mandates that focused on "core" subjects. Cut arts, it's not important. People want their kids to have a focus on maths and sciences.

We assume that the general public doesn't understand the need for the Arts but according to Americans for the Arts:

• 69 percent of American voters believe that, when compared to other nations, America devotes less attention to developing the imagination and innovation.
• 86 percent of voters believe that encouraging children to be creative and develop their imagination is necessary to maintain our competitive edge and ensure we do not fall behind other countries.
• 83 percent of voters believe that a greater focus on the arts—alongside science, technology, and math—would better prepare students to address the demands of the 21st century.

So who are we fighting to educate about the importance of art? The statistics to support the importance of Arts to education are solid and readily available.

A recent Huffington Post story provided these relevent stats:

The research has shown that youth 'at risk' benefit the most from arts-integrated programming. Young people living in challenging circumstances tend to be creatives because they need so much flexibility, creativity and improvisation to survive challenging circumstances. Their assets are typically enormous and under-recognized. The arts can be life-saving and life-affirming for young people who have been discarded by the culture. 

Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full year are:

• 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement

• 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools

• 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair

• 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance

• 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem

Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to:

• Attend music, art, and dance classes nearly three times as frequently

• Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently

• Read for pleasure nearly twice as often

• Perform community service more than four times as often

Believe it or not, these are strikingly similar to the arguments made throughout the last two centuries. We seem to be yelling the same message over and over, yet the arts continue to be "trimmed" further and further back.

Soon, there will be nothing left to trim, because we will have no artists, no arts and a country filled with an uninspired, hopeless workforce of drudges.

Huffington Post Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-brawley/part-ii---mordecais-metam_b_186365.html