Arts Advocacy Update XIV

The content below has been appropriated from Americans for the Arts' Cultural Policy Listserv, a product of its Arts Policy Information Center.

I have worked as a journalist and editor with Americans for the Arts in the past, and endorse and support their work. I am therefore pleased to appropriate this content with their permission. I do, however, urge everyone to check out their entire website and to visit it regularly as a great source of news and information for the arts community.

I also urge everyone to join the listserv so you can receive the same email blasts I do, from which the content below is being taken.


I'm still drowning in the book, but I wanted to post this week's Arts Advocacy Update anyway.

Dance Dilemma: Schlock Triumphs Over Ballet
Washington Post, 9/16/2007
"The sharp rise in reality-show dance on TV is matched by a dizzying drop in public television broadcasts of the pros. In other words, the washed-up celebrities and adventurous athletes of "Dancing With the Stars" are all that the viewing public knows of dance these days, since ballet and modern dance companies have been virtually voted off the air."
Great piece, but is there really a shock about schlock?

Giving Artists Space to Create
Washington Post, 9/15/2007
Washington, DC, has a growing number of projects "aimed at making homeownership a reality for low-income artists." In nearby Maryland, the nation's first state-wide Arts and Entertainment District program requires districts with the designation to "either already have affordable housing units or a plan to develop affordable housing. So far, the state has established 15 such districts, in such places as Hyattsville, Bethesda, Frederick, Hagerstown, Silver Spring and Wheaton." Virginia, too, is "turning its attention to affordable housing for artists."
As New York City, of course, builds more condos that no one can afford and gives a big F.U. to anyone who questions the moral superiority of rampant development, especially if comes at the expense of American artists.

New York is for Artists
New York Press, 9/4/2007
"Last week, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed into effect a new bill that will help artists actually live in the neighborhoods they helped change from gritty to glamorous. The bill makes artists eligible for grants of a few thousand to $20,000. A single artist can apply for a grant of up to $12,000 to subsidy his or her work over a two-year period, and groups of artists can apply for up to $20,000 in grant money for live-work space in neighborhoods where they previously could not have afforded."
Then again...

Proposal Would Give Cultural Groups Dedicated Funding
WNED (Buffalo, NY), 9/17/2007
"Calling them a 'vibrant and growing sector' of the local economy, a group of Erie County legislators is proposing an annual dedicated funding source for Western New York's arts and cultural organizations. The resolution calls for three percent of the county's property tax revenue to be dedicated to 40 area cultural agencies. That translates to roughly $5.3 million."
Read this. This is the trend, and I support it completely. It is just good governance.

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